204 LOSS AND GAIN 



And remembering the kind words about re-marriage tha 

 had come to him from his friend's mother, he adds with i 

 look from his own history towards his friend's future : ' 

 can but hold the prospect for him deep down in a far off come 

 of my heart.' 



The new era at home was rendered yet more happy b 

 the engagement of his elder daughter in the following sprin 

 to Professor Dyer, now for two years established as Assistan 

 Director at Kew. As he confided to Darwin, the only objectio 

 (a crumpled roseleaf) was 



that it is ridiculously apropos, i.e. commonplace, and remind 

 me of Hogarth's industrious apprentice. I never had an 

 ambitious desires for my sons and daughters, and a goo 

 scientific man though poor (if otherwise honest, as Sydne 

 Smith ? said of a poor man) is the best of all matches i 

 my eyes. . . . What especially pleases me is that he is jttf 

 the brother-in-law I should like my sons to have. 



The birth of a son (Joseph Symonds) in 1877 opened anotb 

 happy phase in his varied life. That the infant son of t\ 

 President of the Koyal Society should visit Burlington Hou 

 was an unusual episode. 



To Mrs. Hodgson 



March 10, 1878. 



Hyacinth and I went to the Old Masters the other da 

 the first dissipation ! either of us have had since my retur 

 She took the baby and left it at the Eoyal Society's roor 

 with the Porter's wife, who has a baby of her own, and ' t] j 

 President's baby ' created quite a sensation in the Hous< 

 What a * rum world ' it is — the more I think of my own li 

 and career, the more unintelligible it appears to me. I fe 

 as if I had been divested of my individuality every ten yea 

 or so of my life, and then given quite another body ai 

 mind. 



And though at times in these years memory could not b 

 cast lingering looks behind and catch the shadows of p£ 

 sorrows, still he could say * nothing can be brighter than r 

 visible future, little as I now dare to trust to it.' (1878.) 



