WCP6214

[1]¹

WYKEHAM HOUSE.

OXFORD POST & TELEGR[APH].

1 Nov[ember]. 1931

Dear Mr. Wallace²,

Thank you very much for letting me see these most interesting letters. I want to keep them for a few days longer & to copy parts of them & just now I am terribly pressed with work caused mainly by the accumulation of things during the preparation of my address to the Zool[ogy]. Sect[ion]. of the Brit[ish]. Assoc[iation]. last Sept[ember]³. [2] I enclose a copy. It is of course very sketchy as was inevitable from the vastness of the subject & the ^short time allotted. I hope, if only I can get the time, to bring out in a smallish book this address with the material I was compelled to omit.

I do not quite understand the references to Mrs Sims⁴. As both the letters speak of the death of "Your son" were not both written to Mrs Wallace⁵? — The second after Bates⁶ had heard [3]⁷ from Mrs Sims that Mrs Wallace she would value further details. The letter is however addressed distinctly to "Mr" Sims & yet at the end evidently concludes as if written to Mrs Sims.

I expect Bates made a slip in ^at the sentence beginning in writing as if to Mrs Wallace and then concluded as if to Mrs Sims.

It is of course only a small incident but even small incidents have their value in letters of such interest as these.

We are all⁸ well, thank you. I have reached a landmark in life when 2 grand children — cousins — boy & girl [4] have come up to Balliol⁹ & Somerville¹⁰ respectively for their first term. We have 13 altogether — 8 boys & 5 girls — & a remarkably varied & vigorous lot. Six of them swam from the shore to a fort at S[ain]t. Helens, I[sle]. [of] W[ight]¹¹., — ¾ mile away, this last summer when the water was very cold, the youngest being a boy under 13. It took him just 58 min[utes]. Of course we had boats with them on the 2 days — (3 on each) ^{2 days}, [sic] for we did not want more than 3 to attempt it together.

I am very interested to hear of your sons¹². I am sure that they will be happier together by being different ^{in temperament.} It is so with my grand children & was so with my children.

Please give my kind remembrances to your sister¹³ when you are writing. I do hope that she will continue to improve. With kind regards

Yours sincerely, | E. B. Poulton¹⁴ [signature]