66 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



" My 

 dear 

 Uncle 

 we have 



got Ducks. I know 



a Nest. I mean 



to make a 



Feast." 



It is written between pencil lines in a round hand, and there is 

 an endorsement by his mother Violetta, saying that Francis wrote and 

 spelt it entirely himself. 



The day before his fifth birthday he wrote a letter to his sister 

 Adele. The handwriting is now much more formed and the ruled lines 

 have disappeared. He writes : 



MY DEAR AD^LE, 



I am four years old and I can read any English book. I can say all the 

 Latin Substantives and Adjectives and active verbs besides 52 lines of Latin poetry. 

 I can cast up any sum ill addition and can multiply by 



2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, [9], 10, [11]. 



I can also say the pence table. I read French a little and I know the Clock. 



FRANCIS GALTON. 



Feb^uary-15-1827. 



The only misspelling is in the date, which is corrected as indicated. 

 The number 9 has been carefully erased with a penknife and the 

 number 11 has a small square of paper pasted over it ! Little Francis 

 was evidently conscious that he had claimed too much, but as ex- 

 perience showed that penknife erasure tore the thin paper, the paste- 

 pot was used to obliterate the second unjustly claimed multiplier ! 



In a letter written by a visitor to the Larches on December 28, 

 1828, we read: 



" We are both delighted with the girls particularly the two eldest they are so 

 pleasing and unaffected, and so very amiable. The youngest child Francis is a prodigy. 

 He is 7 next February, and reads and enjoys Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, Cowper's, 

 Pope's and Shakespeare's works for pleasure, and by reading a page twice over, repeats 

 it by heart. He writes a beautiful hand, is in long division, has been twice through the 

 Latin grammar, all taught by Adele. Bessy and Lucy are very modest girls with 

 a constant habit of being employed." 



It is pleasant to catch this impression of an onlooker as to Francis 

 Galton and his relatives written 85 years ago ! 



When he was in his fifth year his sister Adele thought it 



