WCP325

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Nov^r. 18th. 1899

My dear Violet¹

I am glad you like your new house & that you live well. Is it at 10/- "tout comprís"? Send us a plan of the rooms with the big windows. The pedigree Mrs. Wallace is back in London, at 14, Portman Mansions, which I think is somewhere near the Marble Arch, and she will be pleased to see you & show you the photo. of her mother which is "like me". So call soon & let me know what she is like.

I am now more busy than I have been for years hunting up [2] illustrations for my new book. I have had all the "Challenger" Photos. and some from the Anthropological Institute, & from the Geographical Society & have bought some, & am going to have new birds of Paradise photographed, & a map made, and my Yosemite Valley Photos, — reduced, & some from Admiral Maclear, & some from America, & some from somewhere else, — and lots of woodcuts out of books — and &c. &c. &c. which require lots of letter writing, & considering and planning, & will I hope make the book sell well although it is only an "omnium gatherum" of [3] miscellaneous articles. Buy the last "Clarion" & you will see a long letter² from me about the Clarion’s mistakes as to the Boers, and in to-days "Chronicle" there is an inimitable bit from the Daily Mail put as a heading to their 1st. leading article, about the millionaires of Johannesburgh in the Hotels at Cape Town, weeping into their plates at dinner, and into their gin and water at bedtime, over the delay of the Brit. Gov^t. in not hurrying up & saving their mines from destruction! It is fine! No more news, & very tired.

Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]