From H. E. Litchfield nee Darwin to I. Darwin nee Farrer 4 February 1878

Dearest I.

I suppose you are now safe at Rome & will have got up an appetite for letters—so I'll begin one. tho' it is always rather frightening to wr. a letter abroad & makes one feel it ought to be savoury to go so far. We accomplished our move on Wed quite successfully. it was a lovely day with bright sun & a slight touch of frost & poor old R. quite enjoyed the beauties of the old Kent R^d.. I'm sorry to say he is not getting on so quickly as I could wish. He has so little appetite & keeps languid & weak. but I suppose he will make a start soon. I wish we could have a burst of regular spring weather as one sometimes has in Feb. Any way, however, it isn't a frost—& that is always a thing to be thankful for. I haven't heard a word abt you—how you've got thro' yr journey—whether your tyrant turned out a merciful one & how you find the Clarke & old B. I hope they are satisfied w. yr [wraps] I do envy you horribly seeing Rome— I don't suppose we shall get further than Paris till we are 100 years old, & then it won't be to Rome—wherever it is. However all such thoughts are very far away from me now & that R. shall like his dinner & be up for his little turn are the only important things in the day— D^r Moore says when we go back to London he's sure hed better begin work to keep him from scrimmage. By the way we shall never come back to 2 Bry again. It is going to be turned into 4 Bry— That is a more possible change than many, but I hate our losing our identity. Laura is there at this moment & as she & [Enf.] are the only 2 women in London, I hope they are seeing something of each other. I've been so bold I've been [belling] a cat. Laura was going to stop a week w. Uncle Ras & we all thought so strongly that 4 or 5 days of anybody suited him better I've written to tell her so. but I've not had an answer yet so I don't kno how she'll feel. but she won't qui. like it I fear. It is not human nature to like to be shown you've blundered—especially abt the length of yr visits. Laura's visit to me is put off sine die. We shall want to have a little visit from Theo before she sails—possibly in April— I feel rather to dread her going. It will make Sara realise how she has cast her lot in w. us. or rather what a tremendous thing it is to have to so completely give up yr old home I suppose I shd have done it as cooly as anybody else but it feels almost impossible. Certainly whatever troubles I may have, that trouble is a v. long way off & here we are nearly as fixtures. Bessy is paying her first vis. to Basset & Frank in London so I have Babsy with no rivals. He quite remembers me now from one month to another & accepts me as part of the common stock of people to see to him. Picture books are all the fashion now—& [""wrbling] wurbling"" quite gone out— But whatever comes in & goes out talking never makes a step.

He says Appen & Ba & has no word for food or [Marianne] or anything most interesting— I think it is very odd understanding all we say & so imitative in most things he has no wish whatever to imitate us in speech. Lady Hooker & her 6 weeks old baby are here for a fortnights rest & change of air. It was funny to see Bernard's face of horror at first—but he has got more reconciled now & the 2 nurses go out walking together. I thk Babsy was very wise—it is such a terribly ugly & peevish little thing—very thin & wrinkled & yellow & they don't keep it flat like a decent baby sh^d be, but hold it upright & its head shakes abt as if it w^d break off & its large watery blue eyes look more out of than in its head. All the household is very scornful of it.

We can't exactly make out how much we like Lady H. R. thks her a shallow woman. I don't thk she is very deep but rather attaching however I think we shall have had eno' of her at the end of the fortnight. From little things we gather, I think it must have been a great relief when Harriet married. She must be a cold hearted [trot]. She never once had her little brother home from school for the holidays to break bread in her house— Imagine yr not asking Claudine to come once & you living $\frac{1}{4}$ of a mile off! Her great delight is drawing for some botanical paper & getting paid for it. Down had the last of its winter entertainment on Friday. D^r Moore's lecture on the Parish he lived in. He hadn't a word written down but he made it extremely interesting & it all came out so [pat] & precise— Jane said she c^d. have listened another hour & Stolida's expression changed twice—which he evidently thought the crowning glory— He is a wonderfully able man—& most amusing— He suits Father admirably—wh. I shdn't have a priori expected. All the same, clearly as I love him, I don't know that I sh^d like to marry him. I'm sure he has a will of iron—& if you didn't sympathise w. his pursuits it w^d be all up with you— They were asking him about the Home Rulers & I was astonished how moderately he spoke of them—saying that only 2 or 3 were honest—of wh. me I thk was [Bigjar]. We've been in a continued state of excitement abt our politics—but I hope things are smoothed down finally now.

Our greatest family excitement is that Horace has got a job & will be able to [illeg] his own sovereigns earned by his very own self. H is at Brighton Water works a Pound a day. one reason he is chosen is, it is believed, becos Baker—his working man friend—won't work with every body—& worships Jemmy— Also he has a grand Thermometer which is to tell you every mortal thing is a neat tabular form every hour & sounds like [Blycho] & Zoe rolled into one— Well Goodbye dear little I— I've prosed on abt all our small affairs in a most tedious fashion—but we both are yr most affec. H.E.L & husband