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Document number: 4458
Date: 20 Mar 1842
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: GAISFORD Henrietta Horatia Maria, née Feilding
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA42-16
Last updated: 8th March 2012

Florence
March 20. 1842

My dear Henry

I am rather concerned to find by Mama’s <1> letter received yesterday that you are not absolutely averse to come for me, when I was fondly imagining you were on the brink of setting out! I hope however that by this time you have received various exhortations thro’ Mama which may have tended to make up your mind to undertake the journey I feel quite sure it would do you an immensity of good, as you own yourself that you require a journey, & were even very near setting out last autumn for the sake of your health – & the air of Italy would clear your ideas & refresh you for farther undertakings. I am certain that continual stretch is enough to wear out mind & body. Amici <2> is anxiously expecting your arrival ( by the bye you have never written to him as you promised) & hopes to try some experiments with you – & even the G. Duke <3> asked Caroline <4> yesterday evg if you were not coming, and spoke with admiration of your invention. We have got a very nice airy apartment au second, looking out upon the hills & down into a nice garden with quantities of violets & hyacinths coming into blow the Willows have been quite in leaf these ten days, & al amandiers & apricots in flower. We have a spare room in which you shall be located when you arrive, & we are close to the gate if you like a long walk in the country. I think you need not be absent more than 6 weeks if we manage well – & if you did not mind the sea [illegible deletion] it wd be the shortest plan to come by steam from Marseilles to Leghorn & return with me the pretty land road where all the spring flowers will be just coming up I was very sorry for poor little Ela’s <5> bilious fever but hope by this time she has quite recovered her strength & good looks. I have never wished you joy of your son, whose birth delighted me extremely – I long to see him as well as his sisters who will be grown into reasonable beings I fear by the time I get back. I am sure poor dear Mama is pining to have me back again, & hope you will really be the kind instrument of effecting our reunion – mind when you come to bring some several new & beautiful specimens for the G. Duke & Amici, & Cav. Antinori <6> (who presented us with that book for you, as C. told you) – & some of the descriptions of the process, which they are all so anxious for. Ld Mt E. <7> is better, but not yet out of his room – it has been a very Tedious illness – otherwise we are all flourishing more or less. Addio carissimo fratello non abbandonarmi <8> in my utmost need – I know when once you have made the effort you will be glad even for your own sake

yr aff sister
Horatia

Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Angleterre
Inghilterra


Notes:

1. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.

2. Prof Giovanni Battista Amici (1786–1868), Italian optician & man of science.

3. Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1824 to 1859.

4. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.

5. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.

6. Vincenzio Antinori (1792–1865), Director of the Museum of Physics and Natural History, Florence (1829–1859).

7. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.

8. Goodbye dearest brother do not abandon me.

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