My dear Backy

I have nothing in the world to do, so I write to you.— I have done a good deal of packing up already, but no degree of ingenuity can thus occupy 3 whole days.² The horrid pain of idleness makes me look forward with dread to the future & God knows what I shall do, for I have hardly strength to begin any new subject requiring much work.—³

I have been thinking that I w^d. have another look at absorption by roots & root-hairs, when I come home.— I saw the other day somewhere an account (& like an ass did not mark passage) of colouring matter which from being crystalline, w^d. pass through living membrane, & colour the protoplasm.

Fuchsin was one & some name like Eosin was a second & what third was I do not know.— Will you try & find out what colouring substances there are which will by endosmos pass through living membrane & is not poisonous. (If you can, get some) I sh^d like thus to try Drosera after feeding it, & roots.⁴

Bernard is all right: he is going to tea this evening to the Tomkins, which he pronounces to be “a hideous bother.”.⁵ He has picked up somehow another expression, which he utters in a satirical voice. “Where shall we go now, if you please?”

The poor dear little man is growing very sensitive, for having found out that there are griefs in this poor world: at luncheon yesterday Bessy said that she could not keep him with her after luncheon, meaning not for a long time, as she was going out.— He looked at her for a long time with extreme gravity & then burst out into the most piteous wailing.— He cut out your Uhlan going to Church & carried it about with him the whole life-long day.⁶

Bessy is starting for London & Woodhouse, but coming back tomorrow evening—& on Thursday morning, the Lord have mercy on us, we all start.⁷

N.B. If I had shown Wortmann the clinostats I sh^d. have said that I could not possibly have allowed him to have the device but that he must order one from Cambridge!⁸

Your affectionate Father | C. Darwin