EAKLIEST VISITS TO DOWN 459 



pondence. On these visits your Mother did everything to 

 make me feel at home. Often I worked in the dining room, 

 (latterly in the billiard room) through which your mother 

 often passed on her way to the store closet in the end, when 

 she would take a pear, or some good thing, and lay it by my 

 side with a charming smile as she passed out. Then in the 

 evening she always played to me, and sometimes asked me 

 to whistle to her accompaniment of some simple air ! Those 

 were happy days to me. Your father and I never discussed 

 scientific questions except for the half hour after breakfast 

 and even that always fatigued him. At other times we had 

 long chats by which I profited enormously, especially during 

 the forenoon and afternoon sand walks, 1 for which he invari- 

 ably summoned me. 



I cannot express the pleasure that your sister's work has 

 given me. 



To Mrs. Paisley 



August 8, 1905. 



I have kept very well indeed throughout the spring and 

 summer — always at home — I have only occasional attacks 

 of my trouble and these are always bearable. I read a great 

 deal, especially the Lives of eminent men. I have just 

 finished the Letters of Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Matheson 2 [?] 

 with deep interest. They would, if anything could, raise 

 my admiration for Scott. I wonder whether your father 

 knew him. I remember his son when with his regiment in 

 Glasgow. I cannot comprehend the positive distaste that 

 the present generation of young folk show for the Waverley 

 Novels, and stranger still for the Minstrelsy, which latter 

 especially, as having been in a measure learnt by heart, are 

 as fresh and charming to me as they were when in my youth. 



To A. B. Wallace 



The Camp, Sunningdale : November 12, 1905. 



My dear Wallace, — My return from a short holiday 

 at Sidmouth last Thursday was greeted by your kind and 



1 A dry sand-walk had been made round a certain coppice in the grounds 

 at Down, and on this Darwin used to take his appointed measure of daily exer- 

 cise — so many times round. 



a Query : — Mrs. Hughes' Letters and Recollections of Sir Walter Scott, edited 

 by Horace Hutchinson, 1904. 



