328 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



Even in the vacation time he would take his sports in the same way ; 6 a.m. was the right time 

 to be out on the river and the day went on till dusk, because the fish bit best after sunset ! 

 Long days for a fidgetty boy, who was only allowed to use his rod when there were no fish to be 

 frightened ! Even these last 15 years when he has been working on Domesday Book, accumu- 

 lating immense piles of MS., my Father on my entry would sometimes point to a chair and forget 

 me if I stayed. An iron man with boundless working power, who never asked a favour in his 

 life, and never really got on because he forgot to respect any man's prejudices, and never knew 

 when he was beaten. I learnt many things from him, and know that I owe much to him 

 physically and mentally. But we were too alike to be wholly sympathetic. He thought my science 

 folly and T thought his law narrowing, — the view of both of us being due to an inherited want of 

 perspective in the stock ! Still he was a man of character and strength. I never saw him give in 

 charity, yet I know now from his papers that more than one of his relatives owe to him their 

 success in life — "Loan barred by the Statute of Limitations" is the quaint way in which he 

 docketed the documents relating to the expenses of a college education for a nephew, or the 

 starting in life of a brother ! I am rambling on when I ought to be thinking of other things, 

 but just now all other matters seem small, when one is taking stock of a completed life, which 

 no other has seen or can now see so closely, nay, who seeing would judge to be at all significant. 



Affectionately, Karl Pearson. 



[Hampstead.] November 23, 1907. 



My dear Francis Galton, I have been wishing much to write a line to you, but I have 

 been very pressed, and troubled also with a severe cold on my chest. However I must send you 

 one little line now. First, Schuster was with me on Wednesday. He is arranging for an 

 Anthropometric Laboratory for the Oxford students and came up to ask about instruments and 

 other points. I had a sort of half idea that your old instruments went to Oxford from South 

 Kensington. If this were so, can you tell me who has charge of them ? It might save pur- 

 chasing certain things. Schuster seemed to think that there were possibilities in Oxford, which 

 wanted pressing now that we had sown the seed of Eugenics there. 



Miss Elderton has been away with a bad cold. The radiators in the rooms have proved 

 incapable of doing their work and we have had great difficulties. So bad indeed that Dr Alice 

 Lee has resigned, which will be a great loss to me, although she had recently been a little 

 difficult to work with. I know only one person her equal in rapid and correct calculation and that 

 is Miss Elderton ; we must keep the latter at the Eugenics Laboratory, if we can. I passed her 

 memoir for press finally to-day. She has worked out about 60 correlation coefficients for Uncles 

 and Aunts and this mass of material shows that the intensity of resemblance is much the same 

 as for Cousins. I have advised her to write a second paper on Uncles and Aunts, and discuss 

 the whole point as to this paradox. She has put in a reference to this in the Cousin paper. 



I hope Haslemere is proving a good winter resort, and that you are not so low down as to 

 get the valley frosts. I think I told you, did I not, that I paid £1000 into the Oxford Uni- 

 versity Chest for the Weldon Memorial recently 1 I have asked for copies of the final scheme 

 to send to the donors. Affectionately, K. P. 



Quedley, Haslemere. November 20, 1907. 



My dear Karl Pearson, I was becoming anxious through not hearing from you, knowing 

 that you were not well and are overworked. This is bad weather for your cold and for that of 

 Miss Elderton. I grieve that you are losing Dr Alice Lee. It is most desirable that the paradox 

 of almost identical intensity of kinship to an uncle and to an uncle's son should be faced, as you 

 propose, by Miss Elderton, and I am very glad that the intention is referred to in her Cousin paper. 



As regards the S. Kensington instruments I gave them all to Professor Thomson for use at 

 Oxford, in the Cavendish [? Anatomical] Laboratory. Schuster would do good work if he could 

 show the exact importance of each measurement proposed and could arrange a system that is 

 of real and proved value and at the same time simple. Correlation would play a large part in 

 devising this, for if A is closely correlated with B and C, it may be sufficient (under limitations 

 of time, trouble and expense) to observe A and to neglect B and C. I look forward to receiving a 

 copy of the final scheme for the Weldon Memorial and am very glad that so substantial a sum as 

 £1000 is available. I wish I had "radiators," even poor ones, in this house, which is becoming 

 cold notwithstanding many fires. A sharp winter would be felt severely in it. 



