Its as quiet as one's own home here & as german as german. Boots, coachman, waiters every body a german speaking perfect English. It rather destroys local colour.
The streets are full of handsome carriages with English faces in them.
Nobody sat in the salon last night & we had a lovely coke fire & 8 or 9 armchairs all to ourselves—
I shall hope to take a little drive this morning & so shall begin to think about getting up soon.
Susan has [already] sworn eternal friendship with 3 or 4 maids, but not in our hotel.
Goodbye dear Mother. Our 1000 miles between us makes me feel it an age since I got your farewell p.c.
I had a dream abt you very much out of character. You said to me I might give my beggary £2 to Miss W. but you certainly shouldn't help—
could be traced. I'm afraid the second going back is generally the worst.
Our Mentone address is
Hotel Bellevue
Mentone
& you'll have to write there after getting this. I don't know what it will feel like seeing R. go back home & I thk I shall appreciate Dubba's feelings. Should you like R. next Sunday the 29th.? My love to Bessy—
Your H.E.L.
Ally grazed his shin & done himself no real harm. In the afternoon we watched some tennis. the great Renshaw & afterwards Claudie. He looks very very hollow figured but not ill I think. His most disagreeable looking friend Stephen Winkworth is here who has, I think, a coarse had foxy face. Claudie seems to think Ida had no miss in seeing no more of the Canaries wh. I'm glad of. Poor fellow! its an unsatisfactory life hanging about in hotels half his life & eno' to sap his energy if he ever had any to sap. I thght it was just like a selfish man. Mr Winkw. knew Claudie didn't play singles & yet got him to do it with him. It entertained me as well as R seeing first rate play—but I was surprised at the number of strokes they missed. It wasn't near so warm yesterday, but I sat out in the sun with lots of things on for nearly two hours.
Thurs. I think I'm better today, but I shall be very quiet. I want R. to go over to Nice & see a ""Battle of Flowers""— I shd like to know what its like.
Poor little Dubbins— You must tell me how he stood going back this time & whether any result of your sermon
Status: Draft transcription
This transcript was produced as a side-product of the work of the Darwin Correspondence Project and may not have been proofread to the DCP’s usual standards.
Please cite as “FL-1142,” in Ɛpsilon: The Darwin Family Letters Collection accessed on