Mt Edgcumbe <1>
Friday May 15th 1840
My dear Henry
I should be very much pleased to have the loan of your own Arabian nights <2> for Valletors <3> There is a handsome edition here with points, but quite altered in many respects from the original stories I remember in my youth. We have not yet begun to think of sending him anywhere, but I should like at any rate to hear a little more abt yr friend & where he lives & particularly if he is married & has a nice wife, wh is essential for little Boys I had thought of Mr Fosters <4> near Abbotsbury <5> but I find he only has a very few much older Boys Mr Condy <6> was much gratified by your offer of some Photographs, & will accept with many thanks any you may please to send him He has made attempts himself If you send any it had better be thro me he lives close by, at Plymouth, & is continually coming over here. We took Uncles Wm & John <7> to Cotehele, <8> for one day & night They were charmed We are just now in great beauty The woods are looking lovely narcissus poetiens, lilies of the valley, pink & white may, lilacs, laburnams, boules de neige, rhododendrons & azaleas in fine bloom & splendid cactus of various sorts in the greenhouse on the 2nd May the Eceremocarpus on my Pergola was in blow. I hope Mamma <9> is careful of herself pray try & instil a little prudence into her, if possible
Yrs affly
Caroline
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. The Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights. A collection of Arabian, Indian and Persian folk tales, first appearing in Arabic form around the 9th Century.
3. William Henry Edgcumbe, Val, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (18321917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFTs nephew Bimbo.
4. Probably Peter Le Neve Foster (18091879), photographer & microscopist.
5. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
6. Nicholas Condy (17931857), artist. [See Doc. No: 04094].
7. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (17951865), botanist, art collector & diplomat, and John George Charles Fox Strangways (18031859), MP.
8. Cotehele, Cornwall: ancient house, seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe, now a National Trust Property.
9. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, nιe Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (17731846), WHFTs mother.