| Description | "With thanks for the copying machine." (Dated at Hare Street, near Romford.)
My dear Sir,
You must have thought me very remiss in not long ago having acknowledged your very polite and friendly letter which follow’d me into Devonshire, and also the receipt of your present; but the truth is that it is not yet arrived, for, by my not having been at home or in London since I had the pleasure of seeing you, I have only just found a letter from Mr. Woodward which he had directed to my brother in Norfolk, who concluded the letter was designed for me, and I have this very day answer’d Mr. Woodward’s enquiry how the machine is to be sent to me. If it were here at this minute I should save Mrs. Repton, in the absence of my clerk (being Sunday), the trouble of copying several letters; and I think when I am become used to its management I may, as you prophesy, make it my companion in travelling, altho’ I confess at present I find so much difficulty in my present baggage that I shall be afraid of increasing its quantity.
I observed, when we walk’d together, that you wore a pair of black small latchets, and fully intended to have ask’d if you would give me a pair, because I have not been able to meet with any such in the shops. I conceive they would be particularly useful for high shoes such as I wear instead of boots, and if they would bear the weather they would be infinitely more commodious for short highloes than the laceing, which to a man of my rotundity are almost inaccessible; but I think they would do admirably for my waterproof shoes, which I generally wear with fustian or cloth gaiters that would preserve them from wet. The latchets are admirable for every purpose of buckles, but I have never yet worn them for common purposes in all weather, because they are too smart and too good.
I long to know whether you have persevered in the line of approach, and how you have succeeded in opening the water from the library. Present my best wishes and thanks to Mr. Bolton for the hospitality I have enjoyed, and mean to enjoy hereafter; but I am now for some time (I trust) become stationary, and after five months’ absence I feel reluctance at even going to the numerous concerns within thirty miles of my own home. Should you come to town in the course of the winter I wish you would see how easily I can compass my happiness within my own grounds and my own cottage, after contributing to extend that of others over parks and palaces.
My direction in the country is Harestreet, near Romford, Essex; and, in London, the Salopian Coffee House, Charing Cross.
Beleive me, my dear sir, very sincerely yours,
H. Repton
[Punctuation, &c., as in original.] |