Journal, 1879.
April 8.—Mrs. Stuart came.
Mrs. Stuart was a devoted friend whose acquaintance had been formed some years before through the presentation of some beautiful wood-carving which she had executed as an offering to George Eliot.
Letter to Frederic Harrison, 8th April, 1879.
Dear Friends,—Will you come to see me some day? I am always in from my drive and at liberty by half-past four. Please do not say to any one that I am receiving visitors generally. Though I have been so long without making any sign, my heart has been continually moved with gratitude towards you.
Letter to Madame Bodichon, 8th April, 1879.
Your letter was very welcome this morning, for I do not like to be very long without having some picture of you, and your words of affection are always sweet.
The studentship I mention is to supply an income to a young man who is qualified and eager to carry on physiological research, and would not otherwise have the means of doing so. Mr. H. Sidgwick, Michael Foster, and other men of kindred mind are helping me in settling the scheme. I have been determined in my choice of the studentship by the idea of what would be a sort of prolongation of his life. That there should always, in consequence of his having lived, be a young man working in the way he would have liked to work, is a memorial of him that comes nearest my feeling. It is to be at Cambridge to begin with, and we thought at first of affiliating it to the university; but now the notion is that it will be well to keep it free, so that the trustees may move it where and when they will. But the scheme is not yet drafted.
I am going to bring out one of "The Problems" in a separate volume at the beginning of May, and am now correcting the proofs.
My going to Witley is an experiment. I don't know how I shall bear being there, but I hope there will be nothing to hinder my having you there if you will undertake the troublous journey for my sake.