From G. H. Darwin to H. E. Darwin [April or May 1865]

Dear Henrietta,

I hope Papa has got over this attack again; it doesn't sound so bad as the old ones. Cambridge, at least the backs, is looking most beautiful; particularly the avenue, I am just at the end of it & I went the other day up into the don's rooms that look down it & I never saw any thing more charming.

There are cricket matches going on all day & every day, but they don't affect me at all. I stick to the tennis & like it very much, besides it is Capital Exercise; but the worst of it is that all my friends either boat or cricket. We have hall at two now & I like it much better, altho' as you know I'm not an advocate for early dinner. It's very pleasant now to be in the bottom of a boat at the backs & do literally nothing; & the aggravation is that one has to work particularly hard this term, because of the exam. which happens at the end of the term. I bought a picture, i.e a coloured photog., yesterday of Beatrice Cenci, (was she the young woman who was built up in a wall) it was in the Exhibition & is by Paul de La Roche, whose name one ought to know. Who or what is 'Any Sheffer; is it all one German Surname or is it French? He or she painted two pictures of Faust, wh: (I mean photogr^s) I was nearly buying but luckily didn't as they are dear. I know you will scorn me for not knowing all about him; but I shall expect a short sketch of his life & character on Wednesday. When do you go to [illeg] I haven't a notion?

I casually saw today on the back of that letter of L's wh: was sent to me about a week ago "Please send this on to Lizzy" It is so stale now that I don't think it is worth the sending. I have got Carlyle's French Revolution, but he is so hard to understand & expects one to know French history so pat & is so full of inuendo's, that I can't read him comfortably without a French history as a dictionary & so he is rather stiff light reading; in fact Promessi Spose is lighter. My only other facts are that I hear the nightingales when I'm going to sleep & that I've been going to morning chapels & find them very hard work.

Your affec brother | G. H. Darwin \As per Compact I must say I feel a trifle proud of the [illeg] I make