1 HILLSIDE CRESCENT
EDINBURGH
Jany 5 1867
My dear Sir,
I was very sorry to miss seeing you yesterday when you called; though delighted by the fact of your calling, to find that you were safe returned again to Edinburgh; for since you left in the spring I have often talked with my Wife, in fear about your intended sojourn at German Baths, in a summer which proved so warlike. And again I have speculated of late, as to when you should return, whether I should be able to perform my promise instantly, of showing you the Pyramid photographs: for they have been frequently lent out of late to public meetings.
And now that you are actually returned, they are but for a period to Mr Nicol of the Ed. Phot. Socy, – who is to show them by oxyhydrogen light this evening at Montrose, (to assist the funds of a working-men’s reading room); & again in Glasgow on the 11th, and again there on the 18th, on both occasions to help the subscriptions for founding a Scottish Church in Alexandria.
But I shall hope to have the pleasure of calling on you before they come back, and arranging the most convenient time to yourself, of your seeing them privately, and criticising, – I hope audibly for my advantage – how your art fared in my hands at the Pyramids.
Meanwhile I am going nowhere; being wholly taken up with the printer, who is now about half through with the new work about the Great Pyramid, & which is to be in three volumes.
Hoping that you are well & strong enough to enjoy this frosty weather, I remain
My dear Sir Yours very truly
C. Piazzi Smyth
J.[sic] Fox Talbot Esqre
[envelope:]
J.[sic] Fox Talbot Esqr F.R.S.
13 Great Stuart Street