Lacock

31^st Dec^r 1844

My Dear Mother

Constance ^<1> wrote you a line the same evening I came home, & I hope you received it.

I had not an unpleasant journey, but on the contrary very comfortable, & got home in less than seven hours, notwithstanding a delay caused by running against a cart somewhere near Trowbridge for it was a pitch dark night and no moon,

If Emily Murray ^<2> reads my Genesis, ^<3> I am afraid she will think me as speculative as her brother Edward ^<4> –

Your aff^te

Henry

The tulips Horatia ^<5> brought from London are making a grand show in the library window; the heath by their side is eclipsed.

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Notes:

1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.

2. Amelia ‘Emily’ Matilda Murray (1795–1884), author.

3. WHFT, The Antiquity of the Book of Genesis, Illustrated by Some New Arguments (London: Longman, Orme, Green, Brown and Longman, 1839). [See Doc. No: 05130].

4. Rev Edward Murray (1798–1852), author & inventor.

5. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.