TALBOT7053

Mount Edgcumbe ¹
Nov^r 3^rd 1854.

My dear Henry

After your total silence for so long, I was much pleased to get your letter yesterday. I suppose you are all both glad & sorry to get back – but I can quite imagine the feeling occasioned by the loss of bracing air & mountain views. It is what the Queen ² complains of, when she returns to Osborne ³ from Scotland – & what I have always felt on coming from abroad. I hope the change will not have any bad influence on the general health of the family. Lord M^t E. ⁴ has had a very severe attack of rheumatism lately – He is recovering from it now – but his hands are much disabled from the little they could do before. We are going to remove immediately into a house we have taken at Stonehouse ⁵ for the winter months. Our new house is not nearly ready yet – & this one, en attendant, ⁶ will not be very comfortable; but L^d M^t E. is very anxious to escape the fall of the leaf. The children are flourishing. I am sorry to say that Val ⁷ is not going up for a class in Modern History – He has long given up all thoughts of the possibility of getting a 1^st, & the others are no honour – but he has read a great deal – in the first instance with the intention of going in, & in the second, to please me & not to give up till the last moment – So he has not wasted his time – He knows Hume & Gibbon ⁸ well – but he says he w^d still have to read over again all Hallam ⁹ – & for the first time 3 vols. of Guizot, & Justinian ¹⁰ – which hitherto he has not found time for – He always however reads regularly the whole morning –

The weather is charmingly mild still – & quantities of flowers enliven the garden. – The Plumbago ornaments the outside of the Orangerie with it’s [sic] lovely blue clusters – & the Petosporum [sic] is in flower – Did you ever get the fern I sent Rosamond ¹¹ to shew you? It is a very rare one – There are only one or two specimens here; but at Cotehele ¹² it grows 5 or 6 f^t high, & is exceedingly handsome. –

Y^r aff^te Sister
Caroline

Love to all –
How long e the siege ¹³ lasts, & how seldom L^d Raglan ¹⁴ sends despatches!

[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esq^re
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham