Árbók Landsbókasafns Íslands - Nýr flokkur - 01.01.1991, Page 79

GEORGE WEBBE DASENT
79
May 15th [18]59. I have forwarded to Messrs Hambro12 of 70
Old Broad St a check for £15 and begged them to send the value of
it to you by Bill of Exchange. Please advise me if you receive the
amount safely & hand it over to Mr Vigfússon for me. Mrs Dasent
about a week ago presented me with a 3rd son. Both mother &
child are doing well, but paternity has its agonies as well as
maternity and one of these is having a world of work to do & little
time to do it in.
May 19th [1859]. The transcript of the MS has come to hand
quite safely. I have only time to acknowledge it now, but I will write
more fully in a day or two. It seems very nicely done. Mrs Dasent
and the baby go on very well.
July 15th 1859. Dear Thomsen, Your note, together with the
Extracts from Njála etc came safe to hand yesterday. It crossed my
last on the road. There has been some delay in the Queen’s
Printing Office here in beginning to print the Icelandic text [Ed. of
Orkneyinga saga\ because they have had to cut & cast the þ’s & ð’s &
the type founders here as I believe elsewhere are a slow race of
mortals. If by the 15th you mean the 15th ofjuly I conclude Mr
Vigfússon is already gone to Germany - if „a month or so“ means
„four or five or six weeks“ I think the best thing will be that he
should go & return before I send him the proofs. I shall then be
able to send him several sheets at a time. The only diíTiculty about
sending the copy too would be the expence ... I am very much
obliged to Mr Vigfússon for the Njál extracts but I don’t think he
ought to work for nothing.
Oct 11 [? 1859]. I have duly received your last & am somewhat
mollified by the assurance that there were no coloured letters on
the pages [Ed. see below, note 18] done in facsimile. I had thought
from some dulled letters that these letters had been in red or
colour in the MS. And I am not going to be put in the wrong even
by you when I think I am in the right. I may say that Mr Barentzen
has no excuse on the score of expence. I have before me his
original estimate which from your letter ofjune llth which I have
also before me accounts to £6.5.0. for each facsimile. When the
question of the facsimiles arose with the authorities here I was
forced to fix a sum, & having fixed it I was forced to abide by it. It
12. A major London Merchant bank.