Dear Sir,
We are all very sorry that we shall not have the pleasure of seeing you here tomorrow at Dinner,<1> & the Dean of Ely <2> joins us in this regret.
I shall distribute several of your Calotypes among those who will really value them, but there are some which I have a peculiar affection for and have not liberality enough to part with.<3>
It would give me the greatest pleasure to spend a few days with you at Lacock Abbey; but I require to return to Leamington <4> before I can finally decide, & I shall regret it bitterly if any thing [should] <5> occur to prevent m[y] accepting of your kind invitation.
My Address is 13 Lower Parade Leamington. <6> I shall be at Queens College Cambridge (I expect) from Saturday next till the following Friday.
Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster
Polygon
June 26th 1842.
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
Manchester
Notes:
1. Brewster and WHFT were in Manchester for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science which opened there on 28 June 1842. [See Doc. No: 00341].
2. Prof George Peacock (1791–1858), mathematician.
3. Brewster later confessed, "I do not believe that a Child ever received a Toy with more pleasure than I do a Sun-Picture. It is a sort of monomania which my dealings with light have inflicted upon me." [See Doc. No: 06048]..
4. Royal Leamington Spa, near Warwick, southwest of Birmingham, where the Brewsters were staying during the Summer of 1842, for Lady Brewster’s health.
5. Text torn away under seal.
6. But all Brewster’s extant letters to WHFT from Leamington were written from number 18. [See Doc. No: 04541].