WCP65

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne.

Nov^r. 2^nd. 1902

My dear Will¹

Another week has past[sic] and we move on slowly but surely. The "Study" is now really finished, & we have tea in it the last 3 days, and boiled a kettle in front of the "Jennings-Well" fire which is quite successful & very cheerful. The front door is also finished & hung, and some teak fittings, shelves &c. put in the bath-rooms which look very cosy. At last the vestibule has been paved, the shelves in larder, kitchen, store-room and linen closet have been put up, most of the locks put on the doors, & the bill for the bran[?] window stays[?] arrived so I suppose the articles themselves are on their way. It being dry now the bricklayer is completing the shed back of greenhouse, & there are tiles enough left to roof it, — & then the side verandah will be done, & afterwards [2] the front one. We have an answer to our adv[ert]. for a servant, from a girl we had heard of from Miss Armstrong with very favourable recommendations, & I hope we shall arrange with her, and if so we can move in in about a fortnight.

We have pulled down the shed, and the men are working now in the Dining room & drawing-room, but they shall move out of the latter to the cellar beneath, where most of the teak boards and other wood is placed, and then the Drawing room shall be finished with a match-board dado, with a teak top. rail & the furniture can then be put in it & everything got straight. This will render it safe to have enough teak for the dining room & a good lot over for shelves bookcases &c. & save time. [3] The furniture-hmover has sent in a bill with a charge of 10/-² for "taking down pictures", and I cannot find that there were any pictures but a few small wall-bookcases in Violet’s³ room & best bedroom which could have been taken down in five minutes each, being merely nailed to the wall. Also the supports or brackets of about a dozen blinds were taken down ^{by some one}, but I believe you took down some, and some were left in the house & the painters took them down ^{as they told me.} As I want to settle this ^matter please send me a post-card by return ^{to say} if you know anything about this.

I find in the Chamber’s Encyclopedia they give the sheltering theory to explain gravitation as having been proposed by Le Sage⁴ in 1813. He supposed that [4] space was filled with minute solid particles moving in all directions with almost infinite velocity,- anticipating in fact the molecular theory of gases, on an infinitesimal scale. They seem to admit that it would explain all the laws of gravitation, but that the number & velocity of the particles must be so great, that the pressure produced if converted into heat would melt up the planets &c.! I think Oliver Lodge⁵ tried to find if there was any such medium as this by rotating discs very rapidly, as it would almost necessarily exert pressure & produce friction. However it certainly seems the most feasible explanation so far, and I should think it might be modified so as to obviate objections.

Just now when there is so much to do Pennington is in bed with rheumatism in his legs; the painter is also ill with painter’s colic.

In haste | Your Affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]