From Emma Darwin to Ida Farrer [22 August 1879]

My dear Ida

It seems a pleasant time to write to you, when things are more prosperous, & when I can feel that dear old Horace is able to look forward most days (I hope) to a great happiness; & that he can have the nearly equal happiness of talking to you on paper— He tells us how it has altered his life.

He has also sent us your father’s most kind & gracious note about the Cam. visit & liking his friends so much. We leave this place on Tuesday so that he will not be able to join us here; but I hope he will come straight to Down after B. assoc. is over. We had Leo. for 4 days w. he enjoyed much in spite of nearly sunless weather & they all took immense walks in almost all of which Bessy joined.

He is gone to his Sergeant & sappers at Chepstowe for photog. & hopes Cap. Abney may join him; but he Cap. A is very fickle in his movements. We have the Ogles in this hotel, & we had Mark Twain. Mr Sly (the landlord) told your uncle (so to speak) that “that was Mark Twain” & I suppose had done the same thing with respect to him to M.T. so they had 10^m pleasant talk. His manner is oddly like that of Carlyle—

I hope to hear something of yr G-mamma soon & she continues as well as before. I have nothing v. partic. to say to you my dear, but I like to feel that I am writing to you—so Goodbye w. my best love to G. m. & Effie

yours E. D—