Worthing
5^th January

My Dear Henry

We came down much quicker than we went up, the roads being in better order. When the weather is fine we have at least two hours more daylight here than in London, one in the morning & one in the evening, but to day it is cold & gloomy to a degree, the sea & sky so intermixed you cannot distinguish one from the other. Mr F. ^<1> will be in town Saturday to stay till Monday, he is in a great hurry to Burley. ^<2> Whenever you make up your mind to encounter this bore pray bring with you the brass thing which hooks on to the fender with which we used to keep our muffins hot, & the little stumpy bougeoir ^<3> that lives on the Chimney piece, for sealing Letters – for here there is nothing so refined. Gwynne ^<4> begs you will bring a certain book on Cookery, an interesting volume which Sarah the Housemaid can find in a drawer in the Kitchen. The weather is so dismal to day I cannot help fancying we are on the Coast of Norway. I wonder you have not given signe de vie ^<5> since we left you –

affettuosamente ^<6> yours
E T F

Caroline has been in bed all day with a rhume de poitrine ^<7> – Horatia is better. The Walls of this house are so thin we are obliged to sit all day in our Pelisses – It makes one long for the South.

W. H. Fox Talbot Esq^r
31. Sackville Street
London

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Notes:

1. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.

2. Burley, Stamford.

3. Candlestick.

4. Mrs Gwynne (d. winter 1841/1842), lady’s maid, cook and housekeeper to Elisabeth Feilding.

5. Sign of life.

6. Affectionately.

7. Chest-cold.