602   Life and Letters of Francis Calton,

THE RECTORY, HASLEMERE. December 26, 1909.

MY DEAR MILLY, So another Xmas has come and gone, and your peppermints have helped us to enjoy it. I am so glad that news had reached you from South Africa before the 25th, otherwise you must all have been worried. What you tell me of Fraulein Ronath's report of German opinion about my precious self simply amazes me. J feel sure there must have been imaginative exaggeration of merely civil answers to her leading questions. I doubted if twenty people in 'Germany knew of my existence. Anyhow, it is very kind of Fraulein R., though I cannot accept the over-flattering sentiments she conveys. Violet Galton is with us now. She was to have Xmas'ed with her sister Amy at Keston, but the domestic establishment got suddenly all wrong, I forget precisely what. Anyhow, another servant was wanted and could not be had. Eva is distinctly better and .has lost her thinness; fat is a great. help towards keeping truant kidneys at home. We look forward ever so much to January 3. With all loves.

Ever affectionately, FRANCIS GALTON.

THE .RECTORY, HASLEMERE. January 6, 1910.

MY DEAR MILLY, Your welcome letter arrived this morning. I am glad that your long journey home ended without mishap. Thank you again, sincerely, for having come. My "one snipe" that has given me occupation every day for months past, namely the "Numeralised Profiles," is-to continue the metaphor-being stuffed. In plain words, it is printed and I send back the proofs to-day. You shall have a copy of it as soon as published, not improbably at the end of this week. In the meantime there is a placid interval, because I cannot write for material to work on until it, the article, is out.

Hesketh Pearson is here for the week-end. Pan (Josephine) Butler was to have come also, but is in bed with a cold. Last night we had jugged hare for dinner. I had insisted on its being jugged before otherwise cooked. It was excellent; twice, three-times, ten-times better than a jugged rechaufe. I believe this is the only event worth mentioning.

Ever affectionately, with loves to you all, FRANCIS GALTON. THE RECTORY, HASLEMERE. January 6, 1910.

MY DEAR LEONARD DARWIN, I am very comfortably lodged here, and am pulling through the winter fairly well. It gave me much pleasure to read your proposal about honorary members to the Geographical Club. The rule is adopted, as you may know, at the Royal Society Club, but I think their limit of paying membership exceeds what you propose (1 20 years),

Oh dear! how people die. Life seems to me as occurring on an endless belt. Babies are

dropped on it through a hopper at A, they grow, frisk, and age, and drop off in senile imbecility at B. I don't yet feel my faculties to wane distinctly, but I tire very soon.

An article of mine, of which I return the proofs this day to Nature, may perhaps interest you. It is a literal fact that you can convey a very respectable profile likeness in four telegraphic "words"; that is, in four groups of figures, five figures in each group. I give illustrations. With kindest remembrances to your wife. Ever sincerely yours, FRANCIS GALTON.

THE RECTORY, HASLEMERE. January 9, 1910..

MY DEAR LEONARD DARWIN, It was a pleasure to hear some talk of you. I am settled here for the winter, very comfortably but increasingly feeble in body. The air of Haslemere suits me well.

I am very glad you continue well disposed towards Eugenics. The problems connected with it are difficult and statistically most laborious. I notice that in your lecture you do not take account of differential fertility, which to my mind is the most important of all factors in Eugenics. H. Spencer's law about the diminished fertility of the most differentiated animals seems to be an excellent guess founded on cl priori data.

A

QID

B