Wednesday Night

My Dear Henry

I received another Letter from Constance ^<1> by this Evening’s Post, she seems very intent upon staying at Weymouth & so I suppose it will end so and if she is to be confined here she will have a shorter journey home than if she moves to any other Sea place which seems hardly worth while at this advanced state of the winter. She will not like a house taken for her at Brighton or anywhere, & she is not at this moment I should think very well able to rout about looking for houses. Perhaps it is best to keep to the evil you know of than rush into others you wot not of. However pray let me know on what you decide. She seems to have taken an unaccountable passion for Weymouth, & it is a quiet place & certainly healthy. I have a letter from William ^<2> to day, which I will send you if I know how long I am to direct to you in London, & one from Caroline ^<3> from Padua, where they will stay some time, so do write. They are beginning to be dreadfully afraid of not going to Rome, for my part I should be very contented to find myself at Padua more particularly since the Weather is so odious in England. If we had gone down the Rhone as we projected we should have had a famous season for it – plenty of Water & no sand banks, & been at Avignon in a trice. I am off early tomorrow, to avoid being in the dark in those Lanes between Sherborne and Melbury, ^<4> which I have an ancient horror of

Aff^ly y^rs

No trees have been blown down here which is wonderful considering the wetness of the ground

---

Notes:

1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife. Her letter is not located.

2. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat. His letter is not located.

3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister. Her letter is not located.

4. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.