W. D. FOX. I/I 



matics ; and if you arc, God help you, tor so am I, only with 

 this difference, I stick fast in the mud at the bottom, and 

 there I shall remain." Mr. Herbert says : " He had, I imagine, 

 no natural turn for mathematics, and he gave up his mathe- 

 matical reading before he had mastered the first part of 

 algebra, having had a special quarrel with Surds and the 

 Binomial Theorem." 



We get some evidence from my father's letters to Fox of his 

 intention of going into the Church. " I am glad," he writes,* 

 " to hear that you are reading divinity. I should like to know 

 what books you are reading, and your opinions about them ; 

 you need not be afraid of preaching to me prematurely." 

 Mr. Herbert's sketch shows how doubts arose in my father's 

 mind as to the possibility of his taking Orders. He writes, 

 "We had an earnest conversation about going into Holy 

 Orders ; and I remember his asking me, with reference to 

 the question put by the Bishop in the ordination service, 

 ' Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy 

 Spirit, &c.,' whether I could answer in the affirmative, and on 

 my saying I could not, he said, ' Neither can I, and therefore 

 I cannot take orders.' " This conversation appears to have 

 taken place in 1829, and if so, the doubts here expressed 

 must have been quieted, for in May 1830, he speaks of having 

 some thoughts of reading divinity with Henslow. 



The greater number of the following letters are addressed 

 by my father to his cousin, William Darwin Fox. Mr. Fox's 

 relationship to my father is shown in the pedigree given in 

 Chapter I. The degree of kinship appears to have remained 

 a problem to my father, as he signs himself in one letter 



cousin 

 3 V Their friendship was, in fact, due to their being 



undergraduates together. My father's letters show clearly 

 enough how genuine the friendship was. In after years, dis- 

 tance, large families, and ill-health on both sides, checked the 



* March 18, 1829. 



