August 28 1844
My dear Talbot –
on sitting down yesterday evening to copy out the Melodies for you, I came at once to a full stop owing to the shape of the paper, which taken in its oblong form will not take contain such lines as
“Dear Harp of my country in darkness I found thee”<1>
and turned the other way, will not suit the shape of of [sic] your book. So, I must wait till you enlighten – or, I should say photogenize – me on the subject.<2>
I am sighing to see Lady Elisabeth.<3>
Ever yours
T. Moore
[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Thomas Moore’s major poetic work Irish Melodies (1807–1834). "Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee, The cold chain of Silence had hung o'er thee..." In this example, Ireland’s harp or music is brought from darkness into light, an imagery of enlightening that will be carried over in his photographic efforts.
2. Enlighten: to cast light on in making a photogenic image and to cast light on/clarify. ‘Photogenic drawing’ was rapidly discarded in favour of ‘photography’, part of the reason being the difficulty of the verb from this noun being photogenize. Moore had been interested in WHFT's photogenic drawings from the beginning: on 15 May 1839, he wrote to Lady Elisabeth Feilding, "I sat down to write you the other day, while we were at Lacock ... [we] ... enjoyed ourselves very much, for both Talbot and his collaboratuer, the Sun, were in high force & splendour, and only I promised to write something about their joint doings, if I could get paper sensitive enough for the purpose." (Fox Talbot Collection, The British Library, LA39-37). WHFT must have advised him, for on 4 September 1844 Moore began his attempts - there is an ink manuscript document in his hand dated that day in the Fox Talbot Collection, The British Library, that was used by WHFT to make several contact negatives; it is horizontal in format and Moore also made at least one vertical attempt (now missing). Four of these negatives are in the Talbot Collection of the National Media Museum, Bradford: 1937-2448, Schaaf 625; 1937-2450, Schaaf 626; 1937-2451, Schaaf 627; and a variation in a vertical format, 1937-2452, Schaaf 628. Another is in the British Library Fox Talbot Collection, no. 228, Schaaf 755. Several prints from these are in various collections.
3. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.