WCP167

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

March 2nd. 1901¹—

My dear Will

This week’s progress has been fairly good although the wet after the post has caused two falls in the cellar excavations, & we have had to put drainpipes to carry water out, though not much accumulated. The concrete footings are now nearly finished of all the outer walls while the cellar walls 14" thick have been carried up about 3 feet, there being three bricklayers & 6 labourers now at work. I am having drainpipes laid along the footings of the outer walls to carry off my water that may soak in, and three outer walls are all having a coating of cement outside as far ^up as the ground line, so that I think they must become and remain quite dry. Owing to there being so much clay the ground to east of the house just where much of the heavy [2] materials has to be carted up is fearfully muddy, and I am afraid will remain so till the brickwork is finished, and we are able to grade it properly and make it up to the front door. But I have little doubt that ultimately we shall make it all dry & comfortable. At last, Mr. Donkin has send the working drawings for windows, and has put in them a good deal of fanciful ornament which I shall leave out altogether, as it is unsuited to the simplicity of the house, & adds unnecessarily to the cost. Instead I shall try and get some simple & pretty stained glass like that at Corfe View, for the tops of the windows.

During the week some horses in the field have not only eaten off the tops of the privet hedge but have torn up some dozens of the plants by the roots! by putting their heads over the [3] 4 foot wire fence— I am therefore obliged in self-defence to raise the post 1 foot higher & put a barbed wire along the top of it. Some cows also got in our ground one day & eat off the tops of the newly planted laurels which I am told they are very fond of, so I have got a chain & padlock for our gate.

Yesterday for the first time we had a fine sunny day quite like spring & the first day of the kind since ‘Xmas. The air was so fine, the views so pleasant, & the look of the incipient shrubs & trees so nice that I quite long to spend my days there. I have now just turned again to try & finish my new Edⁿ. of Wond[erful]. Cent[ury]. and have just completed my most difficult bit, the last two chapters of Astronomy. Now I have only to correct the [4] other chapters of Science & Sociology which do not want much doing to. Then the correcting proofs will be done without interfering with my spending every fine day at "Old Orchard."²

Please do not forget to get me the information about the "Darque" system of Acetylene, & any book or paper that gives an account of it, as I should like to have the pipes for it, & the water pipes laid on at the same time & by the same man. We have at last got Mr. Donkin’s detail drawings for windows, but I have to cut out a lot of unnecessary, & I think, ugly attempts at ornament quite restricted to style of house. Repeated!³

I begin to think that, though good at planning he has not much taste!

Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]