Tuesday
My dear Henry
I should have thanked you before now for your very interesting Letter had we not been daily expecting to see you arrive. I am very sorry the delay should be occasioned by your being unwell – I have been very much plagued with gout since my arrival, & have put myself into the hands of a new Doctor, who gives me great hopes of a thorough reform in my constitution – he speaks so sensibly & encouragingly that I have begun to act on his opinion & follow his advice, it consists principally in a strict attention to diet, – he says that something in my daily habits is evidently wrong & his object is to find out what it is which disagrees with me, he thinks it is vegetable acid, & I at present therefore touch nothing which can by possibility contain any – leaving me not much choice in the selection of my dinner – more of all this however when we meet – You cannot doubt what pleasure your Letter must have given me when you recollect my constant lamentation, at our having nothing ex<tant?> like a plan, & my wish that your posterity at least should not be in the same predicament – I propose great pleasure to my self in studying it quietly sur les lieux <1> it has often been a question with me whether a door out of the Library where you state one to be, would yet be an advantage, giving us as it would an additional bed room – but there would be as in all things a corresponding disadvantage – I do not understand how the larger room you mention where Car: Hor: & Mlle <2>, now are could be managed seeing that they are not on the same level – I remember though that in Bucks view <3> the roof over Mlles room is much higher than it now is – the floor therefore might have been correspondingly raised to the level of the Library – I long very much to see you my dear Henry & your Constance <4> & your child <5>! – & when the Gout is quite gone, I shall hardly be restrained from running down to you
GOD bless you
yr affe
C F
Notes:
1. On the spot; on the premises.
2. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister and Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal ].
3. See Doc. No: 08831 of 1864, referring to Bucks view of Lacock taken in 1732 by Samuel Buck (1696–1779), engraver and topographical draughtsman.
4. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
5. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.