Dr Mr Talbot
We were all very sorry to give up the hopes of seeing you here which I in particular had built upon for saving my [illegible] fingers ye writing of manifold details I want Charles <1> to know without my writing them, & which I meant to have communicated thro’ your Ears. – this hope being over I shall trouble you with a thicker packet than I can send by the foreign Post & which I shall take care you shall have on Saty next. it will only be a thick Letter tho’. –
I wished very much to have sent some little keepsake to Caroline & Horatia <2> by you & should like to do so still if it wd not plague you to select it, but what I shd best like, & could I think best suit at least Horatia’s Literary genius, Books would I fear be particularly troublesome to you to carry. & I fear I can only recommend to you to watch for the first thing costing from 20 to 40 Shillings you hear either long for when you rejoin them & give with my most affcte Love.
I cannot bear to think how little I know those dear Creatures! however you did all you could to enlighten my ignorance & delight my Heart about them in the kind long Visit you did once make me in Nov.; for which once more accept my [text missing] <3> thanks & believe me to be [text missing]
Yr affcte Aunt
M Feilding
Wedy Febr 25th
Augta <4> sends you her kind remembrancesHenry Talbot Esqr
No 27 Duke Street
St James’s
London
Notes:
1. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
2. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Text torn away under seal.
4. Augusta Sophia Hicks, née Feilding, sister of WHFT’s step-father.