TALBOT1178

March 17^th
Penrice ¹

My dear Henry

I wish you could have been by at the opening of your parcel to have seen the pleasure caused by its contents in which you so exactly suited our different tastes – the views of Edinburgh are beautiful and Miss Stephens’ ² is so very pretty a face that I have hung it up in my room to contemplate at leisure – the little Hebrew book I have not yet studied but I think it will be very useful to me – We were all very much entertained with Peter Schlemihl ³ which we read out as all were impatient to hear it – I think some of the sentences as as [sic] obscure in the english [sic] as I suppose they are in the original – Mind you send us any pretty little “Gedichte” ⁴ you can pick up – Harriet Frampton ⁵ sent to us for the two you translated for us which we copied for her, as well as [Caton?], – it is odd she should be reading Undine ⁶ exactly at the same time that we are – I find I had forgotten most of the story so that it interests me again. Mary ⁷ heard from Kit ⁸ a few days ago – he was hunting in the neighbourhood of Oxford and said that he could not help smiling at the difference between that & the welsh hunting – Mary went to the cave the other day with the Miss Lucas’s who proved to be very dextrous bone-finders they brought home principally small teeth, of what animals must be left to M^r Buckland ⁹ to decide when he next comes this way – I hope you will take a great many sketches in your camera obscura ¹⁰ particularly if you go to Corsica as I have never seen any views of that island though I believe it is very pretty We are making a rock work up at our gardens – most of it is only the natural rock cleared away a little but we are putting all sorts of pretty plants in the chinks Mama ¹¹ talks of making a new place for the green house plants to stand in the summer just above her garden stretching into the wood it will be a nice sunny place and very pretty too I think, if we can manage the fence well – Jane is coming home soon to see her flourishing seeds – her orchis is in blow and very much like a spider – there are no more of your seeds come up since you heard before of them –

We have just been unpacking a case of curiosities from the north-pole expedition which was given to Sir Christopher by the carpenter of one of the ships who had been at sea with him – they are a very nice collection – there is a head, a sea unicorn’s horn which is beautiful – it had served for a summer tent-pole – a white fox and several ducks & gulls that are very pretty, a white grouse too & a snow-bunting a collection of plants and specimens of rocks very neatly arranged without scientific names of course – and a sort of little trough made of iron pyrites which the Esquimaux used as a kettle or saucepan – they strike a light too with two pieces of pyrites & let the spark drop on dry moss – there is a little bag most neatly sewed together made of duck’s feet and one of their needles made of Ivory – a nail of the same material which I suppose they get from the sea unicorn’s horns – bird spears too & bow and arrows one of which is tipped with stone nicely sharpened – a complete dress of fur and a jacket made of bladder to wear in the canoe [of]¹² which there is a very neat little model – & many other things above all a doll! dressed exactly like the women with funny little hands & feet but no face has been attempted – & some spectacles to keep off the reflection of the snow – which one can very well see through but they do not fit the shape of our head so that I suppose the foreheads of the esquimaux must be very square & flat and their noses very low –

Aunt Susan ¹³ is still very poorly she is gone back to Stinsford ¹⁴ after staying three weeks at Melbury ¹⁵ – Aunt Harriet ¹⁶ & her daughters are gone to Torquay to see Aunt C. ¹⁷ I don’t know how long they mean to stay. They are all very well here except me and I am better than I have been for the last three weeks –

Your affectionate cousin
Charlotte Talbot

W.H.F. Talbot Esq^r
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Italie

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