to
Summary
Is trying to find a tutor for WED.
Transcriptionf1
Thursday Evening
My dear William
I wrote a few days since to Mr Wilson, the Tutor, near Norwich & got an answer this morning saying that his house was full & he could not receive you.f2 I am extremely much provoked that I did not write sooner.— I have written this morning to Mr Mayor to ask if he could advise any one else.f3 I have been a “muff” about the affair.—
Your last note was a very nice one, & written very well, thanks to my jobation to you.— The Grey mare is all right & we have taken her up to get her ready for you.— She has been very seldom in the tax-cart, for she makes such a fuss in starting, that she is hardly safe; & I do not think Parslow much likes riding her,f4 so I am inclined to think we had better sell her after the holidays.— I am glad to hear you are going on with your painting, it so nice & useful an amusement. Aunt Catherine has got a small house in Regents’ Park, in York Terrace, on the opposite side to Cumberland Terrace,f5 & she proposes having you for a visitor for a fortnight & giving you some good lessons from some good master.f6
Footnotes
- f1
- Dated from the reference to Emily Catherine Darwin taking a house in London (see letter to W. D. Fox, 30 October [1857], and n. 5, below).
- f2
- See letter to W. E. Darwin, 29 [October 1857]. William Greive Wilson was the rector of Forncett, Norfolk. Apparently Wilson was eventually engaged, for there is an entry in CD’s Account book (Down House MS) on 6 February 1858 for a payment to him.
- f3
- Robert Bickersteth Mayor was William Darwin’s housemaster at Rugby.
- f4
- See letters to W. E. Darwin, 25 [November 1856] and 10 [December 1856].
- f5
- Emily Catherine Darwin, CD’s younger sister, took a house near the home of Hensleigh and Fanny Mackintosh Wedgwood, who lived at 17 Cumberland Terrace, Regent’s Park, London (Post Office London directory 1857).
- f6
- There is an entry in CD’s Account book (Down House MS) on 17 July 1857 for ‘Willy Clothes Drawing Utensils & present’.