Lacock
Friday 12 Dec^r

My Dear Constance

I hear that there was an accident on the Great Western in the early part of today. Jones did not bring the post till five oclock. No doubt the fog caused the accident. At the Smithfield Cattle show many of the finest prize animals died of the fog.

I hope R. ^<1> found my letter inside her parcel, which contained Sismond. ^<2> The frost continues very severe I am in hopes however that tomorrow will show an improvement. The greenhouses are gay with various flowers. *The Dahlia imperialis at length shows flower, so that we need not treat it as the Lady in Ayrshire does, whose letter I think you have put away safely. *It failed

I have sowed the seed of the Cotonaster frigida which I gathered in the Park, or rather Monie picked up the seeds fallen from that fine tree. You see the witness Luie is sent to prison to be tried for perjury and M^r Kenealy ^<3> given him up. M^r Whalley ^<4> did his friend the Claimant much injury by producing Luie. I suppose however he meant well, as he took the trouble to go to New York about it.

Were you surprised at the result of Marshal Bazaine’s ^<5> trial? It seems that the Marshal was always a schemer. He schemed in Mexico and it is said, caused the emperor Maximilians ^<6> ruin.

Your aff^te
Henry

Ask Monie to order for me, from Simms or Pickering, Colenso’s lectures ^<7> on the Pentateuch and Moabite stone, 2^d edition 1873.

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Notes:

1. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2^nd daughter.

2. He possibly means ‘Sismondaea’.

3. See Doc. No: 03912.

4. See Doc. No: 03242.

5. General Achille Bazaine (1811–1888), French Marshal who was sentenced to death on 10 December 1873; he surrendered Metz on 27 October 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871).

6. Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico (1832–1867). He was executed in 1867 by the troops of Benito Juarez.

7. John William Colenso (1814–1883), Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite stone (London: Longmans, Green, 1873).