From H. E. Litchfield to Horace Darwin [2 December 1873]

My dear Jemmy

We've been very sorry not to have you here & make our Xmas complete. All the boys have been here besides you & we've had a tolerably good bill of health. George much better—William not very well. Father gave him some some accounts to do—& he quite broke down over it— at least after working away for $\frac{3}{4}$ of an hour he thought that he had left it right but it was wrong. I am afraid his bank work must be very hard often. However he says he is better & he has been strumming on the piano which used to set his head off.

I'm walking away like a trojan. George waits for me & we stomp off in a most laudable way—all about the big woods & Hanggrove & all sorts of places.

I'm very glad to hear you are better. I do hope you will keep well.

We feel our mind very free now the Furn^ll business is over. It turned out after all that it was impossible to expel him. It would have been very hard to do & he would have been a martyr. But they carried by a large majority that he was to be courteous to the V. Principal & that the Council viewed with disapproval his fast conduct. I hope he will find his vanity so much wounded at being forced to be civil that he will keep out of the way.

We have been very full of the Fiend. Sir John went to the Committ^ee. meeting & father sent his letter to be read—& the result was that the infant school room is granted— Ffinden has written a letter begging Madam—saying that he strongly disapproves of it on public grounds & that there were several misstatements in the letter read. The question is whether to notice this letter & if so how. He means it to be a cut I suppose but I daresay he won't keep it up.

I'm very glad they haven't had to proceed to greater extremities. It would have bothered Father to have a fight. Goodbye dear Jemmy | your affect | H.E.L.