58(3 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



Address now : 42, 1 Jutland Gate, S.W. August 29, 1908. 



Dearest Milly, This will reach you in, or via, your new home. I look forward to your 

 next letter, anxious to hear that you are all at length settled at Shirrell House, hut we go home 

 to-morrow for a bit. Hubert Galton had asked us and we had accepted to go to Hadzor, but 

 his wife is unhappily ill again, so that is off. We shall have some house-hunting to do from 

 London on fair days. Otherwise I think I shall be chiefly in London all September. The recent 

 storms and chilly wave of air make me less adventurous-minded, and a study of Bradshaw 

 reminds me what a long journey it is from London to Minehead, so I fear that running down 

 there is and will remain a dream till winter is overpast. How well and cheaply the Germans 

 illustrate books and newspapers ! I post you one — don't return it please — in which I come in on 

 page 178. I don't know why on earth they include me, for 1 take no part in the Geographical 

 Congress, but the shape of the little photo was convenient to them. Proof revising and index 

 making is tedious, but I am nearing the end of my book at last. It cannot, I should think, be 

 brought out before mid-October, but that is wholly in the hands of my publisher, who has first 

 to bring out a new book by Marie Corelli ! Eva went yesterda)' to the Isle of Wight, and came 

 back disillusioned as to Ventnor and the like being suitable for us next winter, as I felt sure 

 she would. I enclose one of the new programmes of the Eugenics Education Society, which may 

 possibly interest you. If you can sow it (like a seed) in any likely place to meet with 

 a favourable response, please do so. T am busy on a paper wherewith to open its proceedings 

 next October, and find it very hard to steer between the Scylla of mere platitudes and the 

 Charybdis of disputable details. If there proves to be time enough, I will venture to send you 

 a typed copy for suggestions, if I may? We have had squally weather with fine intervals. To- 

 day it is as calm as a cat sleeping in a comfortable arm-chair after a night of fighting and 

 caterwaulings. Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



September 14, 1908. 42, Rutland Gate, S.W., but please address next letter to me at 

 Claverdon Leys, Warwick, where we go on Wednesday ; I for a week. 



Dearest Milly, Your painful attack is grievous. One of my very few quasi-superstitions 

 is that change into a new house spells illness for someone. In this case, you are the sufferer 

 and Amy has escaped. What pleasant news you give of Guy's appointment. How many years 

 does it last? and what pay does he get? I am so extremely ignorant about army matters. 

 I suppose the " Brigade " is one of the new territorial army ? 



Adele Bree is going on rightly but though the operation was not a serious one, the healing, 

 as I understand, is a little delayed. Eva saw her for a few minutes one day last week, going 

 down for the purpose, and returned quite happy about her. The Archdeacon too is quite well. 

 So the house proves quite a success. I am so glad — also, that you do not feel at all cramped in 

 it. The desideratum in life is to have all that you really want and as few superfluities as may 

 be, and your house appears to fulfil that desideratum. The Roman Catholic Congress seems to 

 have been uncommonly well managed by its officials. Eva has been to two or three services, 

 and we both went together to see the school-children's long procession. I don't care much for 

 great length in one. A sample is to nie quite as good. Did you ever go to an oil-cloth shop, 

 where they drop a box with reflectors on to a pattern, say one foot square, and at once the pattern 

 is reflected and re-reflected into a great surface. One or two of these children, or of Eton boys, 

 who outwardly are as much alike as peas, might be put under one of these boxes and, hey jyresto, 

 they would grow into a multitude. But what a blunder the Home Secretary made in first 

 permitting the procession for yesterday and then retracting it. The Premier shares the blame. 

 I should have thought the question quite deserving of having been made a Cabinet one. The 

 papers will shortly come in and we shall see what they say. They have just come, and say what 

 I thought they would say. My personal news of this week is largely connected with dentists, 

 tailors and hosiers, of no interest to others. Eva and I went to Methuen's and arranged about 

 the cover for the book. Smooth green cloth with a flat gold band. ^^^ I have been very 

 busy over a small matter which requires care, viz. a brief opening f"»-— -nl address to the 

 Eugenics Education Society. It has been typed and then much cut \'~-~\ up by the skilled 

 hand of Crackanthorpe, and is now being re-typed in a shrunken ' and disembowell- 



ed form, but made much more suitable thereby. It is a delight to me to put myself 



again to school, as it were, under a competent critic. Generally my friends are diffident and 

 won't slash, but I have two excellent friends who happily feel no compunction in performing 

 that operation, and I learn much thereby. Best loves. Ever affectionately, Francis Galton. 



