Llandaff
Tuesday evening Novr 29th
My dear Father.
I have just set up a copying apparatus, and intend henceforth to keep a copy of all my letters. At present however I have no press and so am obliged to sit upon my book or to press it with my hand. It however promises I think to answer pretty well & this letter is intended as a probation to it to see how it will answer. blotting paper is however I am afraid out of the question for if one blots it it ceases to take a good impression. Another bother is that when you copy the letter. The [sic] 1st 4th page comes first then the 1st page then the 3rd 2nd then 4th 3rd. This however one may perhaps get used to in reading. Not being able to blot the paper seems however to be perhaps the greatest bother. I may perhaps find some plan that will do but it delays one to be waving ones paper about in stead of blotting it. In all these contrivances if there is a gain in one point one is always sure to find some inconvenience in another point.
Tonight is a glorious starlight night as was also yesterday. Champneys and I today bought a patent mouse-trap. It is double & warranted to catch as many mice as will hold in the space on either side. It is really a very ingenious invention. The mouse enters upon an inclined plane which immediately tilts up and shuts up the ingress by which he entered. he then smells some cheese in an inner compartment and gets into it through an a wire door – which will not allow him to pass out again but keeps him a prisoner. The inclined plane immediately he leaves it tilts back again to receive another mouse. We have set this patent mouse-trap and so I hope that by tomorrow morning we shall have caught some mice. I really think the patentee ought to have made his fortune. Mr Prichard <1> has today received a lot of back numbers of the Building News, which seems a good architectural Paper. It is noticable [sic] that Gothic architecture seems to be looking up amongst the dissenters. There is a view of the Fettes college <2> at Edinburgh which is a new building on the “Hospital” system. I have before seen drawings of it at Edinburgh. The first stone has I believe been only recently laid. The building is in a style which the [blot] paper terms French but which I should rather have thought Scotch, with a chapel which is not shown in the view and which in is as far as I can recollect Flamboyant. It seems that Gilbert Scott <3> is going to restore the fine church of Grantham in Lincolnshire Grantham has a splendid spire which you may have seen any day from the great Northern Railway.
Your affect son
Charles.
[envelope]
H Fox Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. John Prichard, Welsh architect; Charles Henry Talbot apprenticed to.
2. Designed by David Bryce (1803–1876), architect. Fettes College was opened in 1870.
3. Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811–1878), gothic revival architect.