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580   Life and Letters of Francis Galton


published a brief account of it) at Boulogne. What a noise it made! People thought a magazine had exploded somewhere, and the trail of white that it left behind lasted for a long while. With many loves. Ever affectionately, FRANCIS GALTON.

7, WINDSOR TERRACE, THE HOE, PLYMOUTH. December 20, 1906.

MY DEAR EDWARD, Best wishes of the season. It will be the shortest day when you get this, and then the yearr willl turn-Hurrah ! I am particularly glad you will be on the Advisory Council re Agricultural Biology. It will be just the thing you could help so well in, especially when the stage is reached of the Agricultural Farm.

Very amusing and, pleasant your Gloucester host's account of Erasmus at the Regent. I heard of his luncheon party there a few days since, from Lucy, and how happy he seemed to be. She too seems at last to be getting strong and happy, and her husband as well.

. A friend of mine, Pryor by name, has a collection of old silhouettes, mainly of certain; Quaker relatives and their friends including my Grandmother of Duddeston (whose pastelportrait you have) and one of dear Mrs Schim.*, made at Bath in 1809, according tomy Father's note in pencil upon, it. She was then an uncommonly handsome womanof 30 odd years with a profile greatly like that of her very promising brother, Uncle Theodore*, who died young of plague at Malta. You naturally do not share, my (reserved) admiration for Mrs Sclzir., for your Mother certainly did not, but she interests me on family grounds, so when I return home I think I shall frame her.

So James Keir Moilliet is buried to-day. Poor Lewis with his twin brother gone and himself blind. Amy Lethbridge is quite well again,, after a bad sore throat to begin with. Then she was taken; to Weston and got quite well. Eva saw her at Edymead House two days ago, just returned.

Plymouth atmosphere is not enlivening, but I get on well enough by leading._ an invalid life. Driving is no good, for the, ground is very hilly and the, ugly suburbs stretch far.

You mentioned that you read Nature.' Look in to-day's issue at a paragraph, with small diagrams, on how to cut a cake scientgfically, signed by a certain F. C. We have used the plan regularly; for at least a fortnight. It suits our modest wants. So you have two bulls! Claverdon Leys'will become "Bashan" (I have however no conception what the Biblical "Bulls of Bashan" refer to). I am delighted that you are so fit, so busy and so happy. Loves to you both.

Ever affectionately, FRANCIS GALTON.


7, WINDSOR TERRACE, THE HOE, PLYMOUTH. January 17, 1907.

MY DEAR EDWARD, So glad to hear of your doings,; of the house " bursting full of boys and girls "-and of the six calves.-Also of the forthcoming wild; geese in Wales.-The poor old bank in Steelhouse Lane!! t Nothing endures. One of Bewick's vignettes is of a churchyard on the edge of a cliff that is crumbling into the sea. The havoc has reached so far as to cut a monument in two. The part that remains is inscribed "To the immortal memory of..."; all the- rest' is gone. I was more sentimental about the little Slaney Street, where there . - was an Office connected with the bank, which my Father kept up till his death, I think. It had an old copying machine, given him I believe by James Watt its inventor, and which looked not unlike a mangle. A huge thing worked by cross' arms. I went with him there on not a few- occasions, but never into the big bank house. I wish I could get rid on fair terms of the small remainder of my

Duddeston property, for the reason you mention. But after all there is not enough of it left to be risky overmuch. The cistern must now be a pleasure, also the pond.

I am not yet by any means fit, having had a week ago another shiver with bed and doctor, but I feel now well cleared out and particularly comfortable in myself, leading at present an invalid life, which I hope will not last for many days longer. I am to take regularly every morning a purgative fizz, and strychnine after meals as a nerve tonic. The prescription seems reasonable. I should greatly like to accept your kind invitation later on, but dare not make any plans yet. I suppose I must stick here till spring sets in. The doctors strongly urge it.

* See our Vol. I, Plate XXX V. t See our Vol. i, Plate XXXII.

Picture

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