They are looking forward with great glee to Dunskaith; but you must take care that they do not make it _too_ lively. I never saw such nice children myself, but James may find them over-noisy when they are particularly high-spirited. His godson is the most comical chap that ever was born. He has a passion for what he calls 'loaded matches,' _i.e._ matches unused, and so ready to 'go off.' Yesterday his fingers were found to be burnt. Asked as to the cause, he said he had lighted some loaded matches and held his fingers in the flames so as to see if he could 'keep back crying.' This he seems to have done to his own satisfaction, and now wants to prove his prowess in public. Little Ethel was found bathed in tears a few days ago in a room by herself, and the grief turned out to have been on account of the death of the Emperor.[53] You ask how the lectures are 'going on.' They are 'going on' rather too well. Owing to Schäfer having been taken ill with bronchitis, I agreed to relieve him of some engagements he had entered into for giving lectures to a Highgate Institution. Consequently I had to give two lectures on Tuesday (in the afternoon at the Institution, and in the evening at Highgate), and another yesterday, besides attending Council meetings, &c. The Institution lectures give much more satisfaction than I anticipated, as I thought the historical character of this year's course would appeal but to a small number of people. But the audience keeps up to between one hundred and two hundred very steadily (usually one hundred and fifty), and is in part made up of outsiders. But I shall not be sorry when they are over, as it will leave me more time for better work. I am sorry that there still continue to be so many ups and downs in your daily reports.[54] The case is, indeed, dreadfully tedious. How would you like me to run down to see you after my lectures are over? I enclose a photo which has just come from a man who is photographing the Royal Society. We are all well and flying about in all directions. Such a time for dinners and concerts and all manner of things; it is a wonder that we are living at all, as old Jean[55] used to say. _To J. Romanes, Esq._ March 15, 1889. I am glad you think so well of what I write, for it often seems to me that, amid so many distractions and in so many directions, I work to very little purpose. The 'Guardian' reviewer[56] has written to me a private letter, from which it appears that he is a man I know very well. He is Aubrey Moore, of Oxford, and is considered one of the ablest men there. I enclose his letter, which I failed to send before. It is indeed a change for you to like being nursed, and perhaps not altogether a bad one from the character point of view. The only 'explanation' I can give is that of the 'adaptation of the organism to _changed conditions_ of life.'