From G. H. Darwin to H. E. Darwin [November 1864]

Dear Henrietta

I fancy it is some time since I wrote to you. Things go on even more as usual than they did last time. I go down to the boats every day; to day & yesterday we towed down about a couple of miles & then got out & ran down the banks watching the fours practising for the races, which come on in about a fortnight. I like rowing very much, it isn't very hard work, when its not a race, but it's very hard to obey all the innumerable command to keep one's back straight &c. It was a feast day in hall the other day & the dons go in with the 2^nd & 3^rd men at 4.30 & keep on till 6. We have our hall at 6.30 & on feast days we have geese & turkeys & QQQQ–beer passed round; at 6 the (quire) choir come in & one of the Scholars gabbles a Latin grace & then follows an anthem, after which the dons disappear to the combination room where they liquor until seven, they must be tolerably capacious I think. I've purchased a little clock for my chimney, (by the bye I got the table clothes all right). If it wasn't for going out to breakfast & having men to breakfast one day would be so like another here that I think I sh^d never write a letter again.

Our Mathematical lecturer has asked me to breakfast on Saturday, I suppose there will be a lot of freshmen there besides myself. The unfortunate Harry St. has plucked for his matriculⁿ. exam. up here but only in classics & he has another try in a day or two in some Greek play wh: has been done in lecture so that he can't help passing this time. I'll never believe in his being clever, it was the easiest exam. in the world. One Nobleman the Marquess of Queensbury, I hear was so bad that they told him he'd better go somewhere else, so he's at Magdalene. I sh^d. have thought they'd have been particularly lenient with a Nobleman. A good many men have called on me some freshmen & some not. I find a cold bath an awful trial now.—

Your affec brother | G. H. Darwin