June 22d
My dear Henry
We shall be too happy to wait dinner for you on Monday & all of us I think will be very glad to see you. And next week I hope the weather will be more settled & enable us to do something beyond the powers of the poney-carriage – Hitherto we have ventured only on very small expeditions – Yesterday Marian & Emily <1> drove to Melksham Spa, <2> which they were curious to see thinking it might (some time or other) suit them for a residence – but I don’t think they were much pleased with its looks – Nicholl <3> who drove them, observed that he thought there was not much to see in it! – Of course if Monday should prove wet towards the conclusion of the day when you are expected, there will be no use in sending the Poney carriage for you – A large Mat & a rug have arrived within the last few days – from Sackville Street <4> I suppose when I saw the former standing erect in a corner of the Hall; I could not help reproaching myself for never having answered Lady Elisabeth’s <5> question of, ‘Should I like it to be sent down for the Stone Gallery? <6>’ but she knows how I was then occupied & would make allowances for me. – We have been reading aloud the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, <7> which has had the effect of astonishing our minds – we are anxious to know what you think of the ‘permanent impressions made by our words & actions on the Globe wh we inhabit? – We have finished Waverly <8> & also the 1st series of Whatelys Essays <9> – & we are now engaged with ‘Don Quichotte’ <10>, which some of us have never read & from wh we expect great entertainment
Your affte
Constance
Lacock Abbey
June 22d
Notes:
1. Emily Mundy (1807– 5 November 1839); Marian Gilder, née Mundy (1806 – 14 October 1860); m. 6 August 1844 William Troward Gilder (d. 1871), Army Surgeon (ret); WHFT’s sisters-in-law.
2. Melksham, Wiltshire: market town near Lacock, 2 miles S.
3. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer.
4. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
5. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
6. See Doc. No: 04303, and Doc. No: 04304.
7. Prof Charles Babbage (1792–1871), mathematician & inventor, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (London: John Murray, 1837).
8. By Sir Walter Scott.
9. Probably Richard Whately, Essays on Some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion (London: 1825).
10. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes.