[1]

6 Q. A. Monday [date added later:] 1868

Dear Geo.

I am delighted to hear you mean to keep poor Wm company at Malvern. If you have decent weather & he is not too seedy I think you may find it v. pleasant. I am sorry it is to be only for a week. I'm sorry of course we shan't have any of you in London- but if it can't be, it can't be.

[1v]

You sound like a hospital nurse. […]

[2]

u. Papa has been to the Sir J. Lubbock, Huxley Hooker monthly chat & had a very pleasant evening. Also yesterday to the Royal Soc half yearly party where he seems to have had a pretty fine time, tho' the crowd was so tremendous that he cd not move about easily & find whom he wanted to talk to. Bowman is out of town till April which is a grief. The Rouse affair is settled & Wrigley has behaved

[2v]

in a very ungentlemanlike manner.

Rouse wrote to him for Horace's character – (you know that Papa only agreed to keep on Horace till Easter cos no tutor was to be found at Xmas) & Wrigley wrote back a curt letter saying he had received no intimation that H. was to quite & must decline to give him any character.

The natural conclusion was so hard that Wrigley did not like to give it without express orders - but

[3]

Rouse seems to have concluded it was ill temper & says in effect he doesn't care about any character. […]

[3v]

makes me feel nervous. […]

[4]

not to be statues. […]

[4v]

By the bye […]

Wallace has written a guise upon sterility with a new element introduced – wh. adds to the complication 10 fold.