Honey dear :-We do find it difficult to write letters! The days are full and the late dinners and necessary planning leave little in the evening. We leave London day after tomorrow, with so much undone! The mixture of later connections and sightseeing is complex. I try to have Charlotte do more of the latter, and to run off for old books, &c by myself.
Monday I chased some of these latter places and have a few pictures, including some of Newton for you. I suppose you may have some, but these prints looked like the portraits and statues we've seen, so I took some. There's one nice one of his birthplace. I'm going to have some lantern-slides made from some of my Truck, I think. The National Portrait Gallery is as interesting to me as the other pictures - and so varied!
Also on Monday I got another moment and ran into the British Museum for postcards - which I'm using for Xmas cards this year instead of other kinds. They seem to me more interesting! Also I picked up a few tiny books by Osler, which will be useful as little gifts, I'm sure. I wish there were time to find more such things.
Yesterday, Tuesday, I went to a lab-apparatus place - great big one - and could not get what I wanted, but it was interesting. Then I met Charlotte at the British Museum and presently telephoned, as invited, to Sir Walter Fletcher, chairman of the Medical Research Council, for an appointment. This he gave me for 3 o'clock. So I stayed on at the British Museum where the things drove me quite crazy. My taste is very catholic - I enjoy in one unintelligent way everything from Greek marbles to Assyrian reliefs and Egyptian inscriptions and mummies, from the Portland vase to Persian and Indian paintings, the same being like illuminated ms. Oh yes, I like those last, too!
We met D. Foster in the museum, and were to have gone to the theatre with her tonight only there were no cheap seats left! She was so nice - and her bobbed hair is irresistible (sp??)[.] Sir Walter was quite fine - a great man, perhaps - anyhow not over-hard to talk with. I tried to find out how the magnificent research done over here in physiology gets to the hygiene! He tells me to see two women's colleges, and makes the path clear. I hope to do this tomorrow. But why do so many Englishmen stutter? They do. He was leaving for Scotland that night - they're all gone or going!
Then I met Charlotte again and we went otu to Kew - most delightful! I never saw such a lovely place of the kind. The trees were great - great big ones of so many foreign sorts. The sequioas [sic] have a good start! They must be two feet through and forty feet high, for a guess. And there are big cedars of Lebanon, not to mention Chinese things. We were quite excited - also over the perennials. I must get seed catalogues! I took down such a charming list! Most of which probably wouldn't grow. But some we have seen many times. We nearly had no supper, for we stayed until closing time at 8 and then all the restaurants had closed - except one, with a side door oepn and friendly folks, thanks be.
Today we went to Westminster and hit service time by a slip in our plans - so we saw nothing. But Charlotte had been before. Next we went to St. Thomas' hospital where Profs. Plummer and Melanby showed us about a mixture of antiques and modern places. The place is where Sherrington did his best work - their new lab. is named for him, nicely. 'Tis one of the big London hospital-medical school foundations, which have had such a long and honorable history. Plummer wasn't so easy to talk to, but Melanby was rich - a lot of fun. There is less of the academic flavor than in Oxford! And we got some light on the varieties in academic life - very interesting.
After - no, before that - I got my umbrella from New Scotland Yard. Wonderful system! I wrote when I missed it. I had a letter in Paris asking certain other items. I had a note saying it was found. I presented this note at the department relating to Lost Articles, sub-division Public Conveyances, further sub-division Umbrellas & Sticks, where a pleasant official pulled my neatly sealed umbrella part way out of some 500+ and then asked me to pick it out! A fee of 2/6 for each pound of value went to the driver who returned this. And all the facts relative to my letters, the finding, return, claim, reward were on one piece of paper! I'm glad to have it. I shall put it in my suitcase! And use the really much more suitable umbrella I bought in Paris.
Well - we went ot the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, where there was a most extraordinary collection, some of it quite wonderful, some of it plain junk! They have all sorts of "magic medicine" primitive stuff, early portraits, prints, ms, and early books; they have exhibits of whole model rooms - an alchemist's laboratory, Liebig's laboratory, several pharmacies of different ages, oh, many things. Whole series of pictures of Harvey, Hunter, Jenner, Lister, Florence Nightingale & belongongs of some of them, such as Jenner's vaccinating instruments &c. And innumerable dopies of old ms. &c. oh yes, the 70 ingredients, including vipers, going into one of the famous "treacles" of the early medicine. There was too much to see!
Then we shopped. I bought some gloves - not many - including a pair for my cousin and one for you, if I've hit your sizes. They are good for the money, I think. Also I have one pair of Morley stockings, some cheaper and distinctly more elegant than my others have been. I can't find a tramping hat! And I threw my very dirty white one overboard! Something must be done, and that tomorrow. Liberty things cost too much altogether. And I think I can do better at linen things in Liverpool, for the hdkfs are not cheap. They're cheaper than ours, but only a little cheaper. And there aren't big stocks as formerly. Ireland has been otherwie engaged. I'm not going to waste time buying things, there's too little saving. I do want a neck-tie - I forgot to bring enough - meant to look at them again!
We tried to call on Donna Thompson - run into buy a plain bicycle last Dec. and now only able to cross the room on 2 crutches, still has a nurse. Very sad indeed. She was being put to bed at 6 p.m. so we couldn't see her!
But I must go to bed. Tomorrow is our last day here and there is much to be done!
Good night, honey, and my love to you. I wish there were time to write better letters - I could!
Oh - I met Grace Welles at an A-B-C place - very cordial. She has been over a year. Also Marie & the boy - husband too, for a little. Mostly at Oxford. Today is the first day since we came last Fri. when I haven't seen someone I knew and we really should have seen Miss Thompson. Folks are thick over here.
Good night - Do tell me whether they've begun to dig for the lab. I've not heard at all from South Hadley.
Abby -