Markeaton <1>
Monday 5 –
Dear Mr Talbot, <2>
It was a great disappointment to me not to be able to write to you yesterday on account of its being Sunday as I could not ask my usual kind messenger Papa <3> to go to Derby on purpose with my letter as he has done before & promises to do today. But as it will not always be convenient to him to do this, Mamma <4> will sometimes write the direction for me & send it by the servant who usually takes our letters & in that case the date will probably be a day older before it reaches you as they generally go so early in the morning as to make it necessary for us to prepare our letters the day before. This arrangement though not the most agreeable in all respects, enables us to answer by return of post should anything particular occur. – After all this long but somewhat necessary explanation of what might otherwise have rather surprised you, I must once more repeat what a great great deal of pleasure your letters give me, it is so very good of you to write so often to me. You would be quite sorry for me if you knew how much I want you back again, & how very long it appears since you went away. I have found some very hard Scotch words & other things in the Abbot <5> which you would have explained to me in a moment, you would have told me all about the Legend of the Witch of Berkley & many other things of the same kind that I never heard of before. – Independently of these difficulties I like the Abbot extremely. –
I am not acquainted with Nourjahad <6> & should like to read it or any thing else you may fix upon, though we must not forget to give precedence to the Old English Baron. <7> I think Paolo & Virginia sounds prettier than Paul & Virginia <8> I am rather fond of Italian though it is some time since I have read anything in that language. – I hope you will not forget when you are choosing German Stories that they must be excessively easy, otherwise you I fear your patience will be tried to the uttermost – German poetry puzzles me excessively, so that I think it would be scarcely prudent to attempt reading any at present – The lines you sent me from <Matthison?> I thought extremely pretty, but it took me some time before I understood some of them thoroughly. – You see I do not scruple to confess my ignorance now, that you may not be disappointed when you come to try the extent of my skills. – I have been looking through the Continental Views beginning with my favorite Switzerland, & as I passed from one scene to another, thought nothing could be prettier; but this opinion began to be a little shaken when I came to Italy, & then some of the Views in Sicily & on the Rhine struck me as being also very beautiful. – I concluded by giving up the attempt of settling which I liked best, & determined that you should decide the difficult point for me. – I hope that when you become acquainted by experience with the duties of a member of Parliament, you will not find them quite so arduous as you now anticipate, particularly as I am sure you will find, that in this as in every thing else, what some people will find difficult will be comparatively easy to you. I fear you will find the worst part of the dreadful expenditure of strength which seems to <be> <9> the unavoidable portion of those who sit up whole nights watching over the safety of the nation – really the members of the present day ought to possess at least three times as much strength as their predecessors. Then the hours we shall pass together will be doubly delightful whenever they do come. –
I shall trust to your telling me if I scribble to <sic> much for you; it is very odd that though I never could bear letter writing before it is grown wonderfully pleasant to me now. – but I shall like much better when I can speak to you again –
ever yr affectionate
Constance –
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts. –
Notes:
1. Markeaton Hall, Derbyshire, NW of Derby: home of the Mundy family.
2. They were not yet married.
3. Francis Mundy (1771–1837), politician and father of Constance Talbot.
4. Sarah Leaper Mundy, née Newton (d. 1836), WHFT’s mother in law.
5. Sir Walter Scott, The Abbot (1820).
6. Frances Sheridan, The History of Nourjahad (1767).
7. Clara Reeve, The Old English Baron, first published by the author as The Champion of Virtue (London: 1777).
8. Probably Jacques Henri Bernardin de St Pierre, Paul et Virginie (1787).
9. Text torn away under seal.