Laycock Abbey
6th November
My Dear Henry
Your Aunt Mary <1> has given me a Draft for her Sun Pictures <2> & Mr Traherne’s <3> but I do not enclose it, not knowing whether you like to run the risk by the post, or whether you might not haply cross it on its transit, so uncertain & rapid are your movements only to be equalled by the Autocrats of all the Russias. I cannot think why you tell Horatia <4> I would not go to Brighton, I remember saying I should be willing to go on or after the 20th November. That is only a fortnight from this writing & I should not like to leave Mr Kendrick <5> for another week, at any rate. The famous Dr Currie made a calculation founded on long experience & observation, upon the succession of Months according to their unhealthiness, He says October is one of the most so in all Northern climates, therefore I should probably have had this illness in any part of this damp & foggy island & after all it was only a slight bilious attack which confined me to my room, & I am now by degrees getting about again tho’ not well enough to accompany Horatia to Bowood, <6> where she goes tomorrow. Whenever you have generated any schemes in your fertile brain, let me have the benefit of them
affly yrs
E F
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Eqr
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.
2. WHFT, Sun Pictures in Scotland (London: Published by subscription in 1845)
3. Rev John Montgomerie Traherne (1788–1860), JP & author.
4. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
5. Dr Kendrick.
6. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.