Abbotsbury <1>
3 Aug 42
My dear Henry
It will give me great pleasure to be Godfather to your little boy, <2> & I am very much gratified by your having thought of me upon the occasion – I doubt however the possibility of my being personally present at the Christening, if as you say, it is not to take place untill the Autumn, as I shall then probably be returned to Frankfort –
Horatia <3> wrote to me about coming to meet Dr Lepsius, <4> & she will tell you why I cannot absent myself just now – Ly I <5> has some little business on her hands & I do not like to leave her when John <6> may possibly be required to go to Town – This warm weather is very favorable to her as it allows her to take the air in the garden or terrace or to sit with the windows open which she likes.
Harriet Mundy <7> & Noel <8> are at Moreton <9> – I shall be glad to see them again.
Autumn is approaching here, for we have Cyclamens, Colchicums, & Sternbergia already, – of other things the memorabilia are Dianthus barbatus, marsius, Di Superbus in profusion – Solanum campanulatum, Monardas, Houttuynia cordifolia, Anomathica cruenta Bravoa geminiflora, Sedum lividum maximum & altaicum, Bosea gervamora[?], a handsome purple headed Allium unknown, Allium flavum, which I have almost lost – Campanula Hostii, pyramidalis, fragilis – Hyoscyamus aureus.
At Minterne <10> I saw a very pretty creeper Canevallia – some beautiful Fuchsia fulgens, Achemene longiflora Allamanda & Stephanotis &c
You once gave me an Iris Nepalensis which I cannot make flower & scarcely even grow – was it from Dr Herbert <11> who has one under that name? You cannot think what a pretty greenhouse plant Adenocarpus intermedius makes.
We have been out on the terrace looking at falling stars <12> which seem to be in a great state of cadneity[?]<13> tonight Jupiter shines visibly on the sea –
If you are curious in Rhubarbs I can give you some odd sorts.
Yr aff
W F S
Notes:
1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.
3. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Dr Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884), German Egyptologist.
5. Juliana Maria Strangways, née Digby (d. 1842).
6. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
7. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
8. Francis Noel Mundy (1833–1903), WHFT’s nephew.
9. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family.
10. Minterne House, the seat of Lord Digby, and thus the married home of WHFT’s cousin Theresa Digby, daughter of the 3rd earl of Ilchester. [See Doc. No: 04673].
11. William Herbert, Dean of Manchester (1778–1847), MP; clergy; botanist; linguist.
12. The Perseids occur in August.
13. Falling, from Latin ‘cado, cadere,’ to fall; but ‘cadneity’ seems to be a neologism of WFS.