Parkstone, Dorset
January 18th. 1897
My dear Violet1
I send you £1. to go on with till March. If not enough let me know.
I send you the three last "Centurys"[sic] — Afterwards you will have them from Macmillans I expect. In Nov? then is a beautiful article on "Jeanne D’Arc" — by a French painter.
Fuzzy is flourishing.
Our only excitement here is a "great Whale" at Boscombe! It was towed on shore by [2] the Coast Guard, & then sold by the Government. It was 62 feet long, supposed to have been killed by a steamer. A doctor bought it & intends to leave the skeleton hung up in Boscome[sic] Arcade. He gave £25 for it, and there have been a dozen men the last few days cutting it up & getting out the bones. It was got 10 days ago, but the weather was so bad that we did not go till this morning when we found a big heap of [3] vertebrae & ribs, and the head fins &c. paddles, &c almost buried in sand as the tide washed over it at High water. Will2 went with us at 9 am & then went on to Southampton by the 11.10. I have been reading Lloyd Morgan’s book on "Instinct"3 — a grand book — & have written a review4 of it for "Natural Science." They give me the book for the review! A letter on Saturday from grandpa5 informs us that he has, at last, got the bit of field at back of their garden. He pays £100, but they build a [4] wall 8 feet high the whole length of the end, and he has both sides of the wall to plant trees or creepers on, & a roadway next the wall for his private use so that no graves can be made close to the wall! I think this is very good, and will double the value of his garden.
Mr. Flürscheim’s Christmas present to Ma6 was a beautiful rug which we have in the study & which is very comfortable!
Will7 thinks now they will sail to Boston from Liverpool to save the expense of going from N[ew]. York to Boston.
Kind regards to Eleanor | Your affectionate Father | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]
Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP281.281)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Please cite as “WCP281,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP281