Frankfort
23 Oct
Dear Henry
Caroline <1> was fortunately not gone or I should not have known where to find her. I gave her your letter – she has taken my advice & will pause to make enquiries <2> at Constance <3> – & take the road then to be recommended by the best authorities – Having seen the Via Mala <4> she does not mind going around.
She staid two days & if she had said so at once I could have done something to amuse her.
I gave her commissions for Sicily where she will have time to do a great deal & I hope will draw. She saw a few of the photographies you would not see & found them very good.
Is Abies Menzierii become common in England – there is a great deal of it here.
We were lucky enough to get into the studio of Veit <5> – & saw his picture & sketches for the K. of Prussia <6> – fancy the King’s own desire, to be painted on his throne talking to the Queen & surrounded by aid de camps & the court & Jews in the distance awaiting the day of judgment the Angels & celestial glories for which are seen descending in the sky –
I hope to be at home this winter & the sooner the better but I cannot extract an answer from the F.O. <7>
Yr affe
W F S
Have you seen Nineveh? <8>
Notes:
1. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
2. As to a safe route. There was unrest in Switzerland leading, in November 1847, to a brief civil war. See also Doc. No: 06137.
3. Sc. Konstanz.
4. A celebrated gorge, part of the spectacular Splügen Pass between Switzerland and Italy.
5. Philipp Veit (1793–1877), a leader of the German romantic school of painting, member of the Nazarenes [German equivalent of the Pre-Raphaelites].
6. Friedrich Wilhelm IV (1795–1861), King of Prussia ‹by Divine Right’.
7. The Foreign Office.
8. See also Doc. No: 06137. Presumably the antiquities and inscriptions sent back to the British Museum by Sir A H Layard during his first excavations (1845–1848). [See Encycl. Brit.].