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OCR Rendition - approximate
328 Life and Letters of Francis Galton Even in the vacation time he would take his sports in the same way ; 6 a.m. was the right time to be out on the river and the day went on till dusk, because the fish bit best after sunset ! Long days for a fiddetty boy, who was only allowed to use his rod when there were no fish to be frightened ! Even these last 15 years when he has been working on Domesday Book, accumulating immense piles of MS., my Father on my entry would sometimes point to a chair and forget me if I stayed. An iron man with boundless working power, who never asked a favour in his life, and never really got on because he forgot to respect any man's prejudices, and never knew when he was beaten. I learnt many things from him, and know that I owe much to him physically and mentally. But we were too alike to be wholly sympathetic. He thought my science folly and I thought his law narrowing,-the view of both of us being due to an inherited want of perspective in the stock ! Still he was a man of character and strength. I never saw him give in charity, yet I know now from his papers that more than one of his relatives owe to him their success in life-" Loan barred by the Statute of Limitations" is the quaint way in which he docketed the documents relating to the expenses of a college education for a nephew, or the starting in life of a brother ! I am rambling on when I ought to be thinking of other things, but just now all other matters seem small, when one is taking stock of a completed life, which no other has seen or can now see so closely, nay, who seeing would judge to be at all significant. Affectionately, KARL PEARSON. [HAMPSTEAD.] November 23, 1907. MY DEAR FRANCIS GALTON, I have been wishing much to write a line to you, but I have been very pressed, and troubled also with a severe cold on my chest. However I must send you one little line now. First, Schuster was with me on Wednesday. He is arranging for an Anthropometric Laboratory for the Oxford students and came up to ask about instruments and other points. I had a sort of half idea that your old instruments went to Oxford from South Kensington. If this were so, can you tell me who has charge of them? It might save purchasing certain things. Schuster seemed to think that there were possibilities in Oxford, which wanted pressing now that we had sown the seed of Eugenics there. Miss Elderton has been away with a bad cold. The radiators in the rooms have proved incapable of doing their work and we have had great difficulties. So bad indeed that Dr Alice Lee has resigned, which will be a great loss to me, although she had recently been a little difficult to work with. I know only one person her equal in rapid and correct calculation and that is Miss Elderton ; we must keep the latter at the Eugenics Laboratory, if we can. I passed her memoir for press finally to-day. She has worked out about 60 correlation coefficients for Uncles and Aunts and this mass of material shows that the intensity of resemblance is much the same as for Cousins. I have advised her to write a second paper on Uncles and Aunts, and discuss the whole point as to this paradox. She has put in a reference to this in the Cousin paper. I hope Haslemere is proving a good winter resort, and that you are not so low down as to get the valley frosts. I think I told you, did I not, that I paid £1000 into the Oxford Uni= versity Chest for the Weldon Memorial recently? I have asked for copies of the final scheme to send to the donors. Affectionately, K. P. QUEDLEY, HASLEMERE. November 26, 1907. MY DEAR KARL PEARSON, I was becoming anxious through not hearing from you, knowing that you were not well and are overworked. This is bad weather for your cold and for that of Miss Elderton. I grieve that you are losing Dr Alice Lee. It is most desirable that the paradox of almost identical intensity of kinship to an uncle and to an uncle's son should be faced, as you propose, by Miss Elderton, and I am very glad that the intention is referred to in her Cousin paper. As regards the S. Kensington instruments I gave them all to Professor Thomson for use at Oxford, in the Cavendish [? Anatomical] Laboratory. Schuster would do good work if he could show the exact importance of each measurement proposed and could arrange a system that is of real and proved value and at the same time simple. Correlation would play a large part in devising this, for if A is closely correlated with B and C, it may be sufficient (under limitations of time, trouble and expense) to observe A and to neglect B and C. I look forward to receiving a copy of the final scheme for the Weldon Memorial and am very glad that so substantial a sum as £1000 is available. I wish I had "radiators," even poor ones, in this house, which is becoming cold notwithstanding many fires. A sharp winter would be felt severely in it.
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