To J. B. Innes   18 October 1869

My dear Innes

I was wishing to hear some news of you, & had thought of writing, but I get so many foolish letters from foolish people, that I seldom have the heart to write to my friends.¹ There is hardly any news to tell you of your old Parish.— M^r Powell has taken M^r Engleheart’s House & this I am very glad of, as he will now be able to look after the Parish & school, & I daresay he will be active & kind;² but I rather doubt whether he is above the average in sense.— We suspect on very slight grounds that he is going to be married; for he has given notice to Amy Duberry that a Lady will soon teach in the Sunday School.— Possibly it may be M^rs Lovegrove.—³ I hear of no chance of a parsonage being built; M^r Powell wished to get up a subscription, but I doubt whether he will succeed.— I offered 20 £ which he seemed to think very small, but I shall not increase the amount; for I see no reason that the Parsonage sh^d cost 16 or 1700 £, as he proposes.⁴

M^r Engleheart’s lungs (& I fear purse also) failed him; & he is to us a fearful loss as a doctor.

I have neither seen nor heard anything of the Lubbocks for an age—but this is not true for I often hear their Harriers in the morning. M^rs. H. Lubbock finds Gorringes so dull that they intend taking a London House, & coming occasionally to the Farm for the hunting in the winter; & I suspect poor Henry Lubbock is ready to hang himself at the thought of his London life.—⁵

I have not seen or heard of M^r Huttons remarks on me at the Liverpool congress; & this I regret, for I suppose it is M^r Hutton, editor of the Spectator, who is a very clever man, who feels a deep interest in religion, though he w^d be considered by all Churchmen as highly Latitudinarian.—⁶ The newspapers have lately been abusing, praising & chaffing me at a great rate.—