60 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, m 



All through my father's middle age, his large frame, 

 clear grey-blue eyes, and brown out-of-door looking com- 

 plexion, so deceived many of his friends that they were 

 apt to believe his ill-health to be more imaginary than real. 

 The following letter proves that even a keen doctor's eye 

 might have been at fault. 



Charles Darwin to Emma Darwin, at Maer Hall. 



[SHREWSBURY, July 3, 1841.] 



... It seems natural to write you a scrap, though I 

 have not to thank you for one. Rather severe I guess. 

 I was very well yesterday, and to-day am looking so well 

 that my father owned he should not have known, if I had 

 been a new face, there was anything the matter with me. 



To-day at breakfast there was much scrattle talk, as the 

 annual account was wound up, which amounted to 1380, 

 10 less than last year. Is not this marvellous, considering 

 my father's personal expenses and presents, and everything 

 except his children's allowances, are included in this ? A 

 thunderstorm is preparing to break on your head, which has 

 already deluged me, about Bessy not having a cap, " looks 

 dirty " " like grocer's maid-servant," and my father with 

 much wrath added, " the men will take liberties with her, 

 if she is dressed differently from every other lady's maid." 

 I generously took half the blame, and never betrayed that 

 I had beseeched you several times on that score. If they 

 open on you, pray do not defend yourself, for they are very 

 hot on the subject. . . . My father seems to like having me 

 here: and he and the girls are very merry all day long. 

 I have partly talked over the Doctor about my buying a 

 house without living in the neighbourhood half-a-dozen 

 years first. You never saw how the girls dote on Doddy, 

 they say he is the most charming of all the children. A frog 

 jumped near him and he danced and screamed with horror 

 at the dangerous monster, and I had a [bout] of kissing 

 at his open, bellowing mouth to comfort him. He threw my 

 stick over Terrace wall, looked at it as it went, and cried 

 Tatta with the greatest sang froid and walked away. . . . 



