The Derwentwater Hotel,
Portinscale, Keswick.
Tuesday
My dear Father,
I unluckily overlooked the postscript in your letter & therefore did not write to the Athenæum <1> & now I am afraid it may be too late for you to get the letter. By there being no letters – for me yesterday. I conclude that Mr Mansel Talbot <2> is not in town therefore I do not want to go there. If you have written to say you are going to Lacock perhaps I might wish to go there.
I have shifted here from the Royal Oak. & have seen a good deal of the Speddings <3> &c.
Your affect son
Charles
Notes:
1. Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, London: WHFT’s club; a gentleman’s club composed primarily of artists and scientists
2. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin
3. Probably Thomas Storey Spedding (1800–1870), of Mirehouse, man of letters, and his wife, Frances Elizabeth, née Headlam (b. 1811).