1880-1882] Daughter s-in-Law 



it is under a glass and very high up, so nobody can see it. 

 Our chief dissipation was going to King's, for which the 

 tram was very handy. 



F. and I often reflect how well off we are in daughters-in- 

 law and how easily our sons might have married very nice 

 wives that would not have suited us old folks, and above 

 all that would not really have adopted us so affectionately 

 as you have done. I never think without a pang of the 

 third that is gone. 



Emma Darwin to her daughter Henrietta Litch field. 



Wednesday, Nov. 23, 1881. 



F. is at last getting some reward for these months at 

 the microscope, in finding out something quite new about 

 the structure of roots. However, it makes him work all 

 the harder now. Among his idiotic letters, a good lady 

 writes to ask him whether she may still kill snails, which 

 do her so much damage, or are they as useful as worms. 

 Also a gentleman from Australia to enquire why the black- 

 ened and white stumps of trees all about do not affect the 

 colour of the lambs as they did in Jacob's time. I thought 

 he must be joking, but F. said he was quite serious. 



We are very much charmed with Lord G. Paget's account 

 of the Crimean War, a subject I dislike so much that I 

 am surprised to like it so much; but he only tells what 

 he saw himself, and he was in England at the worst of 

 the horrors. F. is very much in love with Lady G. too, 

 who was there part of the time. His passion for her has to 

 feed upon very little; but he is convinced she is beautiful 

 by the way she was coaxed and feted, and Marmora's 

 Italian Band to play to her everywhere. All about Car- 

 digan is amusing. Lord G. thinks it such surprizing good 

 luck if he behaves decently, and you escape coming to a 

 quarrel with him. He speaks constantly of the extreme 

 beauty of the Crimea. We have also begun Lyell ['s Life]. 

 The scrap of autobiography is pleasant. He hated all his 



