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OCR Rendition - approximate
532 Life and Letters of Francis Galton stiff, but the whole' is a valuable memorial. Ethel Marshall Smith* dined here the other day. She is quite an altered person, so radiant, healthy looking, and (how shall I phrase it?) expanded. You heard of Edward Wheler's retriever getting a second prize? Her breed is too gentle a one for your purposes. What a relief this morning the news is re Russia! Ever affectionately, FRANCIS GALTON. 42, RUTLAND GATE,S.W. November 12, 1904. DEAREST HILLY, Si dat, You must be anxious about Frank + still. It was an awkward business. Guy + will soon be with you. All is well here. Eva has been three nights in the New Forest, with, her brother at Emery Down, and bicycled gloriously with him. Sensible girl she made him take a short rope and tug her thereby, up bill and against the wind, like a trailer. I have been busy in relation to the new Fellowship. We four who form the Committee met yesterday to consider applications, and selected the three most promising to see next Friday, and probably then to elect. They are all good in somewhat different ways, and I am happy in the prospect of getting the best. A newspaper cutting came, this morning, fuller than usual._ You> may like to see it, but do not trouble to return it. The photograph of the tablet for dear Emma, which has been engraved some days past, ought to arrive to-day. I trust the whole thing will be completed and set in place very soon, perhaps by the end of next week. I am grieved at the death of Emma Phillips§, for I saw so much of her between 45 and 55 years ago. There was something very nice and cheerful and sympathetic about her when at her best, and then a sudden wave of shyness, indifference, and dominant sense of self would come over her, and she was an altered person. It was very odd. I wonder what sort of a person the heir to all the strictly entailed property of Edstone is. Beyond knowing his name, which I have forgotten, I have heard practically nothing, of him. He is Irish, and was hardly ever in Warwickshire. Somehow or other -I missed seeing the graves of Aunt Sophia and Mr lBrewin. There is much that is radically wrong in our British aesthetic sense, orr peaceful burial grounds like that of the Friends in Birmingham would not be so rare'. I often marvel at the way in which an artistically minded person succeeds in turning a mere plot, with no particular natural advantages, into a beautiful garden. The Japs do this. This horrid, horrid war! Did you see some weeks ago of a Russian and a Jap locked in death. The Russian had gouged out the Jap's eyes and the Jap had bitten through the Russian's throat. However, dogs delight to bark and fight, and the same delight lies at the bottoin of much human nature. Many loves. Ever affectionately, FRANCIS GALTON. P.S. I overlooked your- -P.S. T-¶ has turned rather silly, posing as a lady' and calling her niece and Mary "the maids." She sits doing nothing in a grandly furnished drawing room, and in a house furnished far beyond her station, and I understand gets laughed at. Her head is turned. She told me that after what she had been used to, she could not have endured going to a smaller house. Blessed be Higgins for his paste. [The P.S. was pasted to the sheet.] 42, RUTLAND GATE, S. W. November 28, 1904. DEAREST MILLY, I hadd to omit my weekly letter, being in bed (mostly) all. Saturday and Sunday with cough and cold, no asthma I am rejoiced to say, such as I always had when my bedroom was carpeted. Your rats' sound almost alarming. There used to be a professional ratcatcher, who gave himself a high name, and who walkedabout London in a brown velveteen coat with silver rats sewn on to it as ornaments. He was a picturesque figure, and knew it, but he has long since disappeared-gone to the "rats," I suppose. I am so glad to be at home and not away in a comfortless place,, this cold weather. * Ethel, daughter of Cameron Galton, married Mr Marshall Smith. t Si da is Galton's abbreviation for "sister's daughter." His niece Hilly, Mrs' Lethbridge, was his sister Adele's daughter. See above, p. 446. Sons of Mrs Lethbridge, Galton's great-nephews. § Sister of Darwin Galton's wife, Mary Phillips, and coheiress of <Edstone. 11 See our Vol. I, p. 52 and Plate XXXII. ¶ A pensioned servant of Galton's sister Emma.
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