He is deep in Aristotle's _Natural Science_ as the first step
in a history of science, which he has for a long while been hoping
that he should be able to write. So you will understand his demand for
brown folios. Indeed, he is beginning to have a slight contempt
for authors sufficiently known to the vulgar to be inserted in
biographical dictionaries. Hermolaus Barbaras is one of those
distinguished by omission in some chief works of that kind; and we
learned to our surprise from a don at Cambridge that _he_ had never
heard the name. Let us hope there is an Olympus for forgotten authors.
"Our trial of the water cure at Malvern made us think with all the
more emphasis of the possible effect on a too delicate and fragile
friend at Florence." [My wife.] "It really helped to mend George. And
as I hope the Florentine hydropathist may not be a quack as Dr.----
at Malvern certainly is, I shall be disappointed if there is no good
effect to be traced to 'judicious packing and sitz baths' that you can
tell us of. Did Beatrice enjoy her month's dissipation at Leghorn? And
is the voice prospering? Don't let her quite forget us. We make rather
a feeble attempt at musical Saturday evenings, having a new grand
piano, which stimulates musical desires. But we want a good violin and
violoncello--difficult to be found among amateurs. Having no sunshine
one needs music all the more. It would be difficult for you to imagine
very truthfully what sort of atmosphere we have been living in here in
London for the last month--warm, heavy, dingy grey.
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