Alfred Russel Wallace 



and regular inns or lodging-houses all over the interior, and 

 I shall no more be obliged to carry about with me that mis- 

 cellaneous lot of household furniture — bed, blankets, pots, 

 kettles and frying pan, plates, dishes and wash-basin, coffee- 

 pots and coffee, tea, sugar and butter, salt, pickles, rice, 

 bread and wine, pepper and curry powder, and half a hun- 

 dred more odds and ends, the constant looking after which, 

 packing and repacking, calculating and contriving, have been 

 the standing plague of my life for the last seven years. You 

 will better understand this when I tell you that I have made 

 in that time about eighty movements, averaging one a month, 

 at every one of which all of these articles have had to be re- 

 arranged and repacked by myself according to the length of 

 the trip, besides a constant personal supervision to prevent 

 waste or destruction of stores in places where it is impossible 

 to supply them. 



Fanny wrote me last month to know about how I should 

 like to live on my return. Of course, my dear mother, I 

 should not think of living anywhere but with you, after 

 such a long absence, if you feel yourself equal to house- 

 keeping for us both; and I have always understood that 

 your cottage would be large enough. The accommodation 

 I should require is, besides a small bedroom, one large 

 room, or a small one if there is, besides, a kind of lumber 

 room where I could keep my cases and do rough and dirty 

 work. I expect soon from Thomas a sketch-plan of your 

 cottage, by which I can at once tell if it will do. If not, 

 I must leave you and Fanny to arrange as you like about 

 a new residence. I should prefer being a little way out 

 of town in a quiet neighbourhood and with a garden, but 

 near an omnibus route, and if necessary I could lodge at 

 any time for a week in London. This, I think, will be 

 better and much cheaper than living close to town, and 

 rents anywhere in the West End are sure now to rise 



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