Ɛpsilon

WCP260

Letter (WCP260.260)

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Jan. 31st. 1895

My dear Violet1

It is quite a cold, frosty, and thick snow here as with you, but we manage to keep warm. Ma2 is sending you your vest. Is there any thing more to pay on the bag, & is it the 26 inch one, or 24 in. the same as yours. In his last letter Will3 says that when this job is finished he is to go on to Glasgow on another job, so he will see a lot of Scotland.

My Evolution article4 is half out this month — my "Language" article5 [2] will not be out this 3 months at least. Mrs. Evans says business is so bad they are obliged to sell their pictures & probably their house too!

The other day Ma felt a strong impression, all day, that she was going to the Cape! So perhaps something is going to turn up for you there, as that is the only thing I can imagine would take us. You had better try hard & pass the final Exam, as with that, & 2 1/2 years exclusive charge of a K.G. at Liverpool, you would have a good changce [3] of getting a good K.G. all to yourself.

We arg are going to have a chess match — Poole & Parkstone against Bournemouth — 6 gentlemen & 2 ladies on each side — probably in 3 week's or a month’s time. A new good player has come from London— lives beyond Constitution Hill — & that enables us to make up six. No doubt we shall be beaten, but it will be interesting. I send you the R. of R. there is a fine article in it on "Merry England"6 & Mr. [4] Blatchford.7

We see Mrs. Maclachlan 2 .. 3 or 4 or 5, times a week. Hamish is very flourishing now; but I think they are going soon to the seaside somewhere before returning to Hindhead.

Did I tell you that Mr. Mott8 was so pleased with my versical answer to his Enigma that he has sent it to lots of his friends — Only one person besides us answered right, & he sent it to 150! How clever we are!!

Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Take-great-care-of-your-cold-that-is-lose-it-at-once.

A.R.W.

P.S.9 I have just looked at the paper & see the death of Dr. Fisher — last Monday — age 75. Write to Mrs. Fisher10 soon & condole.

A.R.W.

1
Wallace, Violet Isabel (1869-1945). Daughter of ARW; teacher.
2
Wallace (née Mitten), Annie (1846-1914). British. Wife of ARW; daughter of William Mitten.
3
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951). Son of ARW.
4
Wallace, A. R. 1895. The method of organic evolution, I. Fortnightly Review 57:338 (Feb.), pp. 211-224; The method of organic evolution, II. Fortnightly Review 57:339 (Mar.), pp. 435-445.
5
Wallace, A. R. 1895. The expressiveness of speech or, mouth-gesture as a factor in the origin of language. Fortnightly Review 58:346 (Oct.), pp. 528-543.
6
Blatchford, R. 1894. Merrie England. London: Clarion office. This book was an influential collection of essays on socialism published under the pseudonym of Nunquam.
7
Blatchford, Robert Peel Glanville (1851-1943). British author and journalist.
8
Mott, Frederick Thompson (1825-1908). Naturalist, botanist and writer. ARW acknowledged Mott in the book on p. 31, “The above translation of the Pope's Latin verse on Photography is by my friend, Mr. F. T. Mott, of Leicester.”
9
This sentence was written vertically up the left hand side of page 1.
10
Fisher (née Buckley), Arabella Burton (1840-1929). British writer, science educator and spiritualist.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP260.260)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Kirwan, Luke [2012-02-24] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Siewert, Betsy [2020-12-17] Transcription checked by Chua, Christine [2024-11-11]

Please cite as “WCP260,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP260