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Ventnor My dear Martineau, Your welcome letter finds me still here. I certainly did not contemplate that I was speaking for the public ear on such a subject. I have a pain from it (chiefly from a sense, perhaps, that I should not like my brother to know or suspect that the information came from me), yet I cannot blame your proceeding, or question your right, so carefully and tenderly as you guard against objection. . . . The Rev. Mr. Hill, Vice-Principal of St. Edmund's Hall, was the old secretary of the (local) Bible Society. The Rev. Benjamin Parson Symons (now warden of Wadham College) is he who proposed and carried that my brother should be a third secretary. I think I told you that Symons was the second secretary; but I now doubt whether the second was not Rev. — Bulteel, of Exeter College, then an evangelical preacher of St. Ebb's Church in Oxford, much attended by Edmund Hall men. The after vote rescinding my brother's secretaryship was proposed by Benjamin Newton, a young Fellow of Exeter College, if this is of any importance. . . . The affair of the three tutors against Dr. Hawkins was told me exactly as I had it from my brother's lips; but the whole must have been strictly public. The other tutors were Robert Isaac Wilberforce (since Archdeacon and Roman Catholic), Richard Hurrell Froude, known by his Remains; and a much older man, Dornford, now a rector in Devonshire, who adhered to Hawkins. This took place in 1830, when my brother was only twenty-nine, Wilberforce his junior, and Hurrell Froude my junior in the University; probably my equal in age, i.e. then twenty-five; so it was young Oxford versus old. When the three tutors resigned (whose youth was a result of the Oriel Fellows going off so quick), Hawkins brought into the tutorship young Coplestone, as he was called—a nephew of the Bishop; . . . I almost think that for a time he resumed lecturing himself: but it will not do to say so. . . . I have here found out (after more than ten years' cessation) that I can swim as well as ever, and without discomfort to my heart. I am becoming quite zealous for my daily swim, even when (as to-day) the south-west gives us rather too much sea, to the chagrin of the bathing men. Perhaps you have seen various letters in The Times, etc., on the indecency of promiscuous bathing, etc. I cannot understand why they all direct their attack to the wrong point, and insist on driving people into solitudes and separations very inconvenient, instead of demanding that, as on the Continent, both sexes be clad in the water. Last year I saw an article that expressed disgust at ladies bathing within reach of telescopes! There is here such a colony of foreigners, that I hope they may teach this lesson. Besides the Pulszkys, who are a family of twelve persons, there are seven of Kossuth's household, a large family of Marras (Italian), three of Janza (Viennese), two or more Piatti's (Italian), who keep company together, and very many of whom bathe statedly. Mrs. Pulszky is not well this year for swimming; but last year she swam daily, with her husband and an intimate male friend at her side. He will not let her swim in the sea without him, and is amazed at English husbands consenting to abandon their wives as they do. Mrs. Walter, her mother, is a devoted bather, and whenever the breakers are formidable has the aid of one or other male friend. It is a new fact to me, that the Viennese ladies, as a thing of course, are taught to swim in the Danube. There are regular teachers of swimming for both sexes, and a sort of diploma is granted to those who swim well enough to be at home in the water. Of course, our climate does not allow the facilities of tropical waters (where alligators and sharks, however, are not facilities!); but the sea is fit for bathing with us as many months as the Danube, though I suppose never so warm as the Danube at its warmest. . . . If I could be with you at Derwentwater again, I think I should be less indisposed to try an oar. Indigestion or sleeplessness, not exertion, seems to be the chief enemy of my heart, which yet cannot bear exertion when so suffering. I am giving myself abundant ease, and never enjoyed myself with so much "abandon." We both like this place extremely. With kindest regards to all around you,
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