Dear Sir,
I am delighted to hear of your discovery <1> which I consider a very great one. The only difficulty now will be, & I am sure your genius will overcome this also, to get a Paper having such a surface as to preserve those sharp lines and minute markings which are so beautiful in the Daguerreotype.
I have just written to Profr Napier <2> to ask him to allow me to delay, for another Quarter, my article <3> on the Daguerreotype & Photogenic Drawing, and I have no doubt he will do it.
I would have thanked you sooner for your letter; <4> but it was sent after me to Lord Grays <5> where I had been for some days and unfortunately missed me.
I shall be be very anxious to hear of your success with Portraits. <6> Do send me one of yourself.
I am Dear Sir Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster
St Andrews
Octr 18th 1840
Notes:
1. That of developing a latent image on his paper through the use of gallic acid. This was the basis for the calotype negative process which Talbot had discovered in September 1840. [See Larry J. Schaaf, The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 21].
2. MacVey Napier (1776–1847), Editor of the Edinburgh Review and professor of conveyancing at the University of Edinburgh.
3. For the Edinburgh Review. [See Doc. No: 04141]. The delay was requested by WHFT [see Doc. No: 04247].
4. Letter not located.
5. Francis Gray, 14th Lord Gray of Kinfauns, near Perth (1765–1842), took an avid and early interest in photography from its invention.
6. The discovery of the latent image allowed exposure time to be greatly reduced, and thus for portraiture to be practicable.