Autograph letter signed : [London], to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett, 1870 July 1.

Reprising, in greater detail, the previous letter (MA 2148.76); reporting what Pen's tutor said about him: "[H]e found no sort of disqualification for study in Pen, admitted none of the foolish excuses for idleness & inattention under the pretence of want of memory &c, but said from the beginning that the only difficulty was in a mistrust of the boy in his own power of learning"; explaining why a diplomatic career is no longer an option: "[N]obody in it but wishes he were out of it, as a profitable career: and all Pen's notion of the proper behaviour in any career or position whatever is--simply to live as expensively as the richest of his companions, and do no sort of work that is not forced upon him"; writing that Pen has indicated that he would like to be a cavalry officer, but he is against the idea: "I will not hear of a life,--first of all, hateful to his Mother; next, as hateful to me,--finally, involving all the worst temptations to every sort of weakness"; describing Pen's character: "The poor boy is simply weak--not bad in any way,--clever, quite capable of doing all I ever had the hope he would do, singularly engaging to his friends with whom he is as popular as possible, and quite docile and amenable to reason with a comparative stranger: I believe were he with you, he would conduct himself with the utmost propriety, even self-restraint: but I am merely the manger at which he feeds"; asking for George's advice: "I know your kindness, to me, to him, to his mother: help us all if you can...".