Item 23 - Letter from W. K. Clifford to Sir (William) Frederick Pollock

1 folded sheet

26 Colville Road, Bayswater, W.—Sketches the seating arrangement for a proposed dinner-party, and sends greetings from his wife.

(Dated Monday(?). The bride and bridegroom depicted in the sketch are probably Emma Pipon and Walter Pollock, who were married on Tuesday, 11 January 1876.)

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Transcript

26 Colville Road | Bayswater. W.
Monday {1} Evening

Dear Sir Frederic†

[There follows a sketch-plan showing a seating arrangement round a dining-table, with various articles on the table. The sitters are labelled, clockwise, as ‘The fair young bride’, ‘The dear girl’, ‘Sir F. P.’, ‘Mrs W.K.C.’, ‘The dark young bridegroom’, ‘Miladi’, ‘W.K.C.’ Next to the last-named is ‘Smut’, the dog.]

There you are! Space has more dimensions than men quwhot of, but I have contrived to get on the free list. The thing in the middle is not, as you would of course suppose, the book of Genesis open at the account of the 6 days of creation, but a cruet-stand containing 6 varieties of condiment. I am instructed to send my wife’s love and to say that she would have written herself if I had not taken it in hand through observing that she is tired from going to Woolwich to say that she has got another finger-glass from her Aunt and everything is now quite as she (not her Aunt) could desire except Smut who has got the pip, poor beggar, and is getting bald—the Balder the Beautifuller, as the Eddas say. However, you must not now disappoint us, or what will the Dear Girl do? We can’t dine with two ghosts, and now that I have drawn the picture I perceive an a priori necessity for dining in the number of perfection. The Ding an Sich is a mere mistake for dine seven at seven.

Yours always
W. K. Clifford.

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{1} Reading uncertain.

† Sic.