Dover
27th July
My Dearest Henry
As I recollect you wrote to me from this place I return the compliment. I trust you have received the very well chosen Watch ribband I sent by yesterdays post, it was as caerulean <1> (much more so) as the Waves I now see out of the windows. I left Caroline & Horatia <2> very well this Morning at Barming. <3> What a beautiful drive it is, through Ashford, Hythe & Sandgate to this place it is quite a Garden the whole way, I never saw anything so green & so luxuriant. We embark tomorrow morning, but whether we land at Calais, or Boulogne depends on Signor Vent
God Bless You
preziosissimo <4>
W. H. Fox Talbot Esq
Revd Mr Bonney’s <5>
Normanton
Stamford
DOVER <6>
Notes:
1. Sky-blue/dark-blue.
2. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Barming, Kent.
4. She means ‘most precious’.
5. Thomas Kaye Bonney (1782–1863), Archdeacon of Leicester.
6. Printed text.