532 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



still* but the whole is a valuable memorial. Ethel Marshall Smith* dined here the other day. 

 She is quite an altered person, so radiant, healthy looking, and (how shall I phrase it?) 

 expanded. You heard of Edward Wheler's retriever getting a second prize? Her breed is too 

 gentle a one for your purposes. What a relief this morning the news is re Russia! 



Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



42, Rutland Gatb, S.W. November 12, 1904. 



Dearest Milly, Sidcf\, You must be anxious about Prank J still. It was an awkward 

 business. Guy ' will soon be with you. All is well here. Eva has been three nights in the New 

 Forest, with her brother at Emery Down, and bicycled gloriously with him. Sensible girl — 

 she made him take a short rope and tug her thereby, up hill and against the wind, like a trailer. 

 I have been busy in relation to the new Fellowship. We four who form the Committee met 

 yesterday to consider applications, and selected the three most promising to see next Friday, and 

 probably then to elect. They are all good in somewhat different ways, and I am happy in the 

 prospect of getting the best. A newspaper cutting came this morning, fuller than usual. You 

 may like to see it, but do not trouble to return it. The photograph of the tablet for dear Emma, 

 which has been engraved some days past, ought to arrive to-day. I trust the whole thing will 

 be completed and set in place very soon, perhaps by the end of next week. I am grieved at the 

 death of Emma Phillips^, for I saw so much of her between 45 and 55 years ago. There was 

 something very nice and cheerful and sympathetic about her when at her best, and then a sudden 

 wave of shyness, indifference, and dominant sense of self would come over her, and she was an 

 altered person. It was very odd. I wonder what sort of a person the heir to all the strictly en- 

 tailed property of Edstone is. Beyond knowing his name, which I have forgotten, I have heard 

 practically nothing of him. He is Irish, and was hardly ever in Warwickshire. Somehow or 

 other I missed seeing the graves of Aunt Sophia and Mr Brewin. There is much that is radically 

 wrong in our British aesthetic sense, or peaceful burial grounds like that of the Friends in 

 Birmingham would not be so rare||. I often marvel at the way in which an artistically minded 

 person succeeds in turning a mere plot, with no particular natural advantages, into a beautiful 

 garden. The Japs do this. This horrid, horrid war! Did you see some weeks ago of a Russian 

 and a Jap locked in death. The Russian had gouged out the Jap's eyes and the Jap had bitten 

 through the Russian's throat. However, dogs delight to bark and fight, and the same delight 

 lies at the bottom of much human nature. Many loves. 



Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



P.S. I overlooked your P.S. T U has turned rather silly, posing as a lady and calling her 



niece and Mary " the maids." She sits doing nothing in a grandly furnished drawing room, and 

 in a house furnished far beyond her station, and I understand gets laughed at. Her head is 

 turned. She told me that after what she had been used to, she could not have endured going 

 to a smaller house. 



Blessed be Higgins for his paste. [The P.S. was pasted to the sheet.] 



42, Rutland Gate, S.W. November 28, 1904. 



Dearest Milly, I had to omit my weekly letter, being in bed (mostly) all Saturday and 

 Sunday with cough and cold, no asthma I am rejoiced to say, such as I always had when my 

 bedroom was carpeted. Your rats sound almost alarming. There used to be a professional rat- 

 catcher, who gave himself a high name, and who walked about London in a brown velveteen 

 coat with silver rats sewn on to it as ornaments. He was a picturesque figure, and knew it, 

 but he has long since disappeared — gone to the "rats," I suppose. I am so glad to be at home 

 and not away in a comfortless place, this cold weather. 



* Ethel, daughter of Cameron Galton, married Mr Marshall Smith. 



f Si da is Galton's abbreviation for " sister's daughter." His niece Milly, Mrs Lethbridge, 

 was his sister Adele's daughter. See above, p. 446. 

 | Sons of Mrs Lethbridge, Galton's great-nephews. 



§ Sister of Darwin Galton's wife, Mary Phillips, and coheiress of Edstone. 

 || See our Vol. I, p. 52 and Plate XXXII. 

 51 A pensioned servant of Galton's sister Emma. 



