My Dear Talbot
I had some Thoughts of going to Dresden with Blakesley <1> of Trinity this summer to read German & cultivate the arts, but I have been floored for the last month by a cuff on the leg from a cricket ball which has taken away my free will for the time being to deposit it in the hands of Johnny Okes & He, in the mildness of his disposition, contents himself with medicating the Sea side for the present & I shall obey by going to Yarmouth this Yarmouth as the nearest feasible point – So you see I am not to be depended upon although I do begin to feel an accumulation of the travelling principle almost sufficient to project me across the channel – If in a month or Six weeks time your Amiable Youths are not gone & you write to me “Bath houses near Jetty Yarmouth” I will say in rejoinder what may be done – I hope your wife & little one <2> are well, & I give you joy of the honours of paternity, & by the way also of Lacock Abbey being no longer oppressed by [Iolina?] & wanting no longer a Sacred bard My only wonder in that North W L [illegible] has not applied to me for graphic illustrations Which you may tell him from me I certainly think he ought to have done – But I am afraid the budding promise of our intimacy has been certainly blighted by this frost of absence
I am in the midst of packing & departure so good Bye & believe me Yours Ever
T Worsley
&c
June 10 – 35–
W. H. Fox Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
London
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Joseph Williams Blakesley (1808–1885). [See Doc. No: 04161].
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife, and Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.