230 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvi 



Emma Darwin to Sara Sedgwick. 



[Oct. 2nd, 1877.] 



... I will not disclaim your opinion of me, but take it 

 as a proof of your affection, and in returning your affection 

 I do not think you will ever find me wanting. . . . 



You say you are so American, and so I think you are in 

 the quality that I have always observed in the few Americans 

 I have known (and most strongly in that happy Keston 

 family), viz. a readiness to trust and confide in the liking 

 and good feeling of those they are with. 



They were married hi November of this year. 



Emma Darwin to her son William. 



CAMBRIDGE, Sunday mg., Nov. llth, 1877. 



MY DEAR WILLIAM, 



It was a great disappointment your not coming 

 yesterday to witness the honours to F., 1 and so I will tell 

 you all about it. 



Bessy and I and the two youngest brothers went first 

 to the Senate House and got in by a side door, and a most 

 striking sight it was. The gallery crammed to overflowing 

 with undergraduates, and the floor crammed too with 

 undergraduates climbing on the statues and standing up 

 in the windows. There seemed to be periodical cheering in 

 answer to jokes which sounded deafening; but when F. 

 came in, in his red cloak, ushered in by some authorities, it 

 was perfectly deafening for some minutes. I thought he 

 would be overcome, but he was quite stout and smiling and 

 sat for a considerable time waiting for the Vice-Chancellor. 

 The time was filled up with shouts and jokes, and groans 



for an unpopular Proctor, Mr , which were quite 



awful, and he looked up at them with a stern angry face, 

 which was very bad policy. We had been watching some 

 cords stretched across from one gallery to another won- 



1 He was given the honora ry degree of LL.D. atCambridge. 



