September 3, 1895, page 2–3

Beatrix Potter
1866–1943

Autograph letter signed, Windermere, to Noel Moore, September 3, 1895

September 3, 1895

Gift of Colonel David McC. McKell, 1959

MA 2009.6
Description: 

This letter contains two self-caricatures. One shows Potter contemplating the awful prospect of a ladder she would have to climb to view a roost of pigeons. In the other she is walking a rambunctious Peter Rabbit on a leash. An earlier letter to Noel contains a sketch of Peter's predecessor, Benjamin Bouncer, on a similar outing with a collar and a lead. She often sketched herself in her letters for humorous effect and included two notional self-portraits in her books, one in The Roly-Poly Pudding and another in The Tale of Pigling Bland.

Transcription: 

flood. I think they are stupid things, there have been 3 in a field near Ambleside, very much annoyed with an old sow and two young pigs. We have a very good dry house but I think we shall come home in three weeks unless the rain stops.

This is the ferry boat across Windermere, the horses are very good but one day there were 2 Italians with a donk[e]y with an organ, they tied an apron over its head but I never saw a donk[e]y so frightened. We went across to see Cousin Edith who lives at the other side of the lake, her little boy has 2 old pigeons & 3 young ones, they live over the stable, he wanted me to go up the ladder. He has 2 tortoises & he had a jackdaw but it happed away.