Then I am again Chairman of the Lister, owing to B⸺ declining to have anything to do with a proposal to join the National Medical Research Committee—which the Governing Body suggest, and the question is to be settled in October by the vote of the members of the Lister Institute. So I am still awake, though lame and gouty. Give my love to your wife, and let me hear from you.… What is the name of the lame organic chemist who went from Heidelberg to the Badische? * * * * * WOODCOTE LODGE, _February 19, 1915_. … The Government have been bamboozled by a want of scientific acumen at the head—a not unusual occurrence _chez nous_. Thanks for sending me the report.… I am at last downstairs, and more or less in my right mind as well. So I feel better, but I do not suppose I shall be able to go up to town and mix with the gay world, as was my wont, until the March winds are over. A chill with me means six weeks indoors, if not something more serious. What I need is to have some scientific gossip let loose at me, but you in your southern retirement are no use at all in that direction. Has your boat yet been requisitioned by the Admiralty, and if so, do you go out in charge, having, of course, previously joined the Navy? We have here received notice to be prepared to drive off somewhere or other all our living animals, horses, cows, calves, pigs, and fowls! I scarcely know where I come in. Also I believe we are to destroy all our crops, gathered or not gathered—hay, potatoes, corn, and garden vegetables—so that the Hun may be an hungred! Also I propose to empty my large cellar of wine either down the drain or into the duck-pond, like Sir Wilfrid Lawson. I await with anxiety the result of the R[oyal] S[ociety] election. If I were a betting man I should back G⸺ and M⸺, and perhaps my R⸺ ought to come in 15th. What about the 104 necessarily rejected candidates! Is it not absurd! * * * * * WOODCOTE LODGE, _September 21, 1915_. … My old friend Pattisson, our Treasurer at the Lister, is dead, and most of our men have joined the war in one or other capacity. So much lies on my shoulders, and though pretty broad, they are old, and I feel the responsibility of chairmanship.