Thursday Octr 23rd
My dear Father.
I just send you a line, as there is a post out in about a quarter of an hour – to tell you that the list of the Little-go <1> has come out, & that I have got through my Additional subjects. it is almost a week since I had was in for the papers & I had no doubt I was through for I did a good deal more than half of each of the papers, but I didnt know for certain till tonight. You have not told me the name of the wild-flower I sent you. I am sorry to say a friend of mine w has been plucked again for his honour subjects – the man who got the Chancellors medal for English verse also. Lee Warner who was head of Rugby <2> & is a Scholar of St Johns <3> – has got plucked again for every thing. It is a new regulation letting the second year men go in for their Little-go now. & they must, if they go in now, pass in honour subjects also, or not attall [sic] & so a lot of them are plucked.
My coach has laid his injunctions upon me to give up Classics as I cannot manage both Tripos’s <4> – & I am reading optics & attending lectures on the same I can send you the papers, I had if you like.
Your affect son
Charles –
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esq
Millburn Tower
nr. Edinburgh
Notes:
1. A preliminary examination (held until 1961).
2. Rugby School, Rugby, England.
3. St Johns College, Cambridge.
4. Cambridge honours examination.