New London Inn
Exeter
Monday 13th March 1876
My dear Henry
I was very sorry to miss seeing you at Bath yesterday – but I should have been very sorry to have lured you from your comfortable retreat, even if you could have come, in such weather. It was really too doleful & too miserably cold – & I was in great ammirazione <1> at Rosamond’s <2> energy, in starting off to Lacock at 7 this morning!!!
I spent a very pleasant afternoon & evening at No 4. Constance <3> seemed very well, & Amandier <4> better – than I expected.
(Please excuse all these pâtés <5> – but the ink will run.) I left Bath at 2 – & arrived here so early I had half a mind to go & see Price & Lucombe’s garden – but I found it was a mile off – & it was dismal & cold – so I gave it up. – There are floods all over the country again – & I never saw the Avon look like the Tiber before – but from the window at the Station at Bath, it resembled it exactly. The same colour, & excessively rapid – & higher than the thresholds of sundry doors that open on to it, from the houses on the opposite bank.
What do you think of the Queen’s <6> new title? Don’t you think d’Izzy <7> was very mysterious & tiresome, & disagreeable abt it?
When you write, please send me the Greek sentence (in Greek letters), spoken by the Spartan mothers, when they gave their Sons their shields.
2
It is certainly less cold here. I always find a perceptible change of climate at Exeter.
I intend to go on to Mt E. <8> by a train which starts at about 2 tomorrow. –
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
Notes:
1. Admiration.
2. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
4. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal ].
5. Blots.
6. Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom (1837–1901), Empress of India (1876–1901). Her new title was Empress of India. The Royal Titles Bill went through Parliament February–May 1876.
7. Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1804–1881), Conservative Prime Minister (1868 and 1874–1880).
8. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.