302 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY REORGANISED CHAP, ix 



Howell told me a story of Disraeli. Vernon 

 Harcourt asked a Conservative friend, * How can you 

 and your party follow such a man ? ' * We look on 

 him as a professional bowler,' was the reply. 



The men wait. Your most affectionate, 



ANDW. C. RAMSAY. 



DENT, KENDAL, \th October 1868. 



MY DEAREST WIFE I begin another letter to you 

 to-night to tell you something about this place ; it is 

 so beautiful. The valley is five or six miles long, 

 'well watered.' While below it is full of lovely green 

 meadows, bordered with trees and dotted with old 

 white - washed houses of the dalesmen, all around 

 great bare hills rise to heights of 2000 and 2300 feet. 

 And the little town is so quaint, irregular, and clean, 

 with its village church and absence of shops, that all 

 combined fill the mind with a sense of repose and 

 old-fashionedness, but rarely met with now in toil- 

 worn England. And the people are so nice. Last 

 night we spent with the Sedgwicks in the house where 

 old Adam was born. Mrs. Sedgwick is very pretty, 

 and only about your age. She has at home six girls 

 and a little boy. They all crowd round Hughes, and 

 climb on his knees all at once. 



I have written to old Adam Sedgwick telling him 

 how pleased I am to be in his old home, and how kind 

 Mrs. Sedgwick is, and I hope he will be pleased with 

 my letter. 



This vale of Dent filled Ramsay with delight, 

 which breaks out again and again in his letters. 

 Thus to Miss Johnes, on the nth October 1868, he 

 writes : * Dent is not on the outskirts, but in the core 



