CASA PEÑATE, MONTE.
_21 Jan. 1901._
Also I wonder what has gone wrong with the mails--we might be at the
other end of the earth, so slow is news to reach us. A rumour came
up yesterday from the ciudad which makes me reflect that I don't
know for certain whether you have a queen in England or a king. And
I can't go and see how all this is, for if I leave my bed, I am soon
sent back there again by this blameworthy neuralgia which threatens to
become what Glanvill calls morbus reseantisae. Et sic iaceo discinctus
discalciatus et sine braccis ut patuit militibus comitatus qui missi
fuerunt ad me videndum et qui michi dederunt diem apud Turrim Lundoniae
in quindena Pasche.
So I make some progress through Spanish novels--or rather novels that
have been translated into Spanish. At present I am in _Resurreccion_ by
the Conde Leon Tolstoy--which is easy. I find Perez Galdos a little too
hard for my recumbent position, and dictionaries are bad bed-fellows.
I have been indolently making for subsequent use a sort of Year Book
grammar. I have got a pretty complete être and avoir--and really I
think that the lawyers had a fair command of all the tenses--I have
seen some well sustained subjunctives.
You spoke of Maine. Well, I always talk of him with reluctance, for on
the few occasions on which I sought to verify his statements of fact I
came to the conclusion that he trusted much to a memory that played
him tricks and rarely looked back at a book that he had once read: e.g.
his story about the position of the half-blood in the Law of Normandy
seems to me a mere dream that is contradicted by every version of the
custumal.
By the way, when you discoursed of the term "comparative
Jurisprudence," had you noticed that Austin used it? I was surprised by
seeing it in his book the other day. Burgenses de Cantebrige dederunt
michi libertatem burgi sui honoris causa quia edidi cartas suas.
Gratificatus Sum.