TALBOT3008

Nice
19^th November

My dearest Henry

I have this moment received your letter ¹ from Coblentz! the one you wrote as Constance ² says at Baden, has not yet arrived, but not nil disperandum ³ with these fringe parts there is always hope & better late than never.

yours from Calais was very amusing with everybody’s adventures but your own, however hers supplied the lacunæ & told me all I particularly wanted to know about your going & comment vous vous êtes tire d’affaire, ⁴ between Steam boats & charabancs,⁵ & Lake & river voyages. We have heard nothing of you since but hope that now you are at home in Ease & clover you will not forget us, tho’ you will find a brouillamini ⁶ at home that may obliterate our distant shores. Besides the smouldering ruins of the Parliament, you will have landed just in time to find the admininistriti at a non plus from L^d Spencer’s ⁷ death. The papers say Lord Auckland ⁸ has won golden opinions from all Men during his short sojoun [sic] at the Admiralty – if so, what a pity he should go to India. Horatia ⁹ is wonderfully improved, We went to a soireé last night & what was my astonishment to see her get up & dance! and she seems all the better for it to day – I begin to think that is the true cure for rhumatism, at least at her age. I wish I could give as good an account of M^r Feilding ¹⁰ – the dyspepsic encreases so that he can hardly digest any thing, & there is nothing that affects the spirits so much as any derangement of the organ of the stomach, much more than violent pain even in any other part. He is sometimes been desponding about himself & regrets that came [sic] here, as it is so impossible to think of facing that tremendous journey through France before the Spring – and he longs to be at home & indeed when one is ill home sweet home is the best place. England too abounds in comforts for the sick which no other country even dreams of. He was much interested by your account of the Roman antiquities at Mayenee [sic]. There are Hardly any English but they may come perhaps as they did last year later. This place is reckoned very good for strengthing [sic] the interior, in point of climate & dryness M^r. F. could not be better off but then there is no advice but D^r Harrington who we don’t know much about, & who has only lived here a few months himself. We had a narrow escape of becoming the Palazzo Puirlas[?], Gwynne ¹¹ set fire to her muslin Consiniere & had not the bedstead been iron & the floor tiles c’etait fait de nous. ¹² Luckily it happened while we were at Dinner & therefore all the servants were at home, & brought buckets of water for Engines there are none everything in the room was burnt & in 5 minutes it would have reached the ceiling. M^r F excited & fatigued himself very much Wright was excessively active but all the water had to come from the well you remember at the bottom of the stair case

Henry Fox Talbot Esq^r
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham Wiltshire
Angleterre