Deepdene, Frimley Green, Surrey
Oct 23
My dear Dr Wallace: —
We have finally got our new place in something like settled condition and look forward to planting our hedge in a few days. I have always remembered your recommendation of hedge plants but not the plants themselves — will you do me the great service of writing me those you recommend for a mixed hedge?
I wish you could see the place as it now is in its autumn glory — it[2] is a very pretty[?] place and we hope to improve it in the course of the year. I enclose a photograph of the house & two of views in the grounds.
It is as wild here as I could expect to find it in England, the lime woods extend of hundreds of acres around us & the squirrels come into my ground. I have rescued three families of little ones from the home[?] market & most of them are at this moment tearing round my room — four eating their nuts on my writing table at this moment and all happy & fat. I only lost one in the bringing up though four more wee babies unable[?] to eat. I shall let them run in the front when they have got independent, except one or two who are as fond of me as a dog is, & are[3] quite domesticated so that I doubt if they would go away if I put them in the wood. A few minutes minutes ago I had four chasing each other round me as if I were a tree only they found pockets which trees have not.
Kindest regards to Mrs Wallace.1
yours truly
W J Stilman [signature]
Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3349.3317)]
For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
Three photographic sepia prints originally enclosed with letter. All photograph are annotated in pencil on the back in ARW's hand; the first annotated 'Deepdene, Frimley Green Surrey W. J. Stilman [sic]', showing a house through trees; the second annotated 'W. J. Stillman's grounds', showing woods with bracken around the base of trees; the third annotated 'W J Stillman's grounds 'showing trees surrounded by almost bare ground, with a post and wire fence and iron barred gate in the background from which leads a walking path partly edged with a rustic wooden fence. [Enclosure (WCP3349.8381)]
Please cite as “WCP3349,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3349