My dear Mother,

I hope you have had a successful lark at Hackhurst,¹ I don’t suppose one can prophecy English weather from this but it has now begun to be baking hot; the hot-houses are kept so dark that they say when it is too hot to exist in the laboratory they go & cool in the hot-house. Last night was the most tremendous thunderstorm I ever saw   one continuous growl & flash & such rain that the windows looked as if one was inside a waterfall, my street had a torrent running down it in a few minutes, it only lasted about 10 minutes I think. It was worse than the rain in Norway which G & I saw & of which the American said “They’re not stopping to put it up in drops”.² I must disburthen myself of some axles, & then I will return to my senses. I have asked several people about proshelismus (a proshelite would be a nice word too) & aphelismus & they say they would be all right, but I will ask Goebel (who has been away) he is the “philolog” to the Institut.³

I did some beans extended horizontally in damp earth some causticed above others below & the difference was very striking 2 of those causticed above being more geotropic than the control beans, while the under caustic were only faintly geotropic (tho’ they were somewhat bent).⁴ I have today started gold beaters skin & black grease on Monstera which are growing well & turn from light.⁵ I will see after Porliera, it is very late in growing well but now it looks healthy—I think the pot plants are no use for as I said I dried one till it withered.⁶ Lastly I will try the point touching a hair here⁷   I am microscoping nearly every afternoon & could do it quite well. I did the caustic beans to show Sachs & he appeared rather staggered; also I explained to him how the root might grow down a sloping surface & he seemed to have glimmers of sense & said it was quite possible. There was once a ridiculous personal row between D^e Vries & a german named Meyer:⁸ Meyer wanted a post in Amsterdam & D^e Vries wrote a furious attack on him saying he was a perfect duffer in everything. Meyer & everybody else thought D^e Vries wanted the place himself though I hope he didn’t. Any how Meyer wrote a very severe reply which rather squashed D^e Vries & made Sachs furious: Meyer got the place   it said that he lived on the crumbs that fall from his rich masters (Sachs) table; it said that he saw what he was told to see & refuted (or contradicted) what he was told to & so on. I am very sorry D^e Vries is such a wonner for personalities, he pitches into Frank in the same way.⁹ Please tell me Bessy’s address so calculated that I can write to her when I hear from you again. S. Mary seems to have missed her letters which were sent to Villars.¹⁰

I have got to know a nice Englishman called Purdy at least rather a nice Englishman with a very nice wife & I go in to their lodgings & hear her play sometimes: he was assistant to Frankland & knew Leo when he was working there; he is now working Chemistry here.¹¹ I have quite given up bicycling & go & bathe nearly every night with the Finlander.¹² What tremendous discoveries of G’s about the cavalier ancestors¹³   I am snob enough to like it. Please tell Ubbadubba that I should like very much to see some of Dor’s soldiers & I will promise to send them back.¹⁴

Goodbye dear Mother | Yr affec | F. D.