CANNES, _January 22, 1859_, _at night_.
Marvellous moonlight, not a cloud, the sea as smooth as a mirror, and no
breath of wind. From ten o’clock until five it was as warm as a June
day. The longer I stay the more I am convinced that it is the light that
does me good, more than the warmth and exercise. We had one rainy day,
followed by one of gloom and threatening skies. I had horrible spasms of
coughing, but as soon as the sun reappeared, Richard was himself again.
How are you, dear friend? Have the dinners of the _Kings_ and of the
_Carnival_ fattened you much? As for me, I eat nothing at all. At the
same time, a friend who came down from Paris expressly to see me
considers my food excellent. We have nothing but some queer-looking
fish, mutton, and woodcock. You may believe that Cannes is becoming too
civilised, entirely too much so. They are now engaged in destroying one
of my favourite walks, the rocks near Napoule, to build the railroad in
that direction. When it is completed we can take advantage of it, as we
did that of Bellevue; but Cannes will then become infested with the
Marseillais, and all its picturesqueness will be lost.
Do you know a creature called the hermit-crab? It is a small lobster,
the size of a locust, and has a tail without any scales. He finds a
shell which fits his tail, crawls into it, and thus moves himself along
the sea-shore. Yesterday I found one, and very carefully broke the shell
without injuring the crab, which I then placed in a dish of sea-water.
He made there the most piteous appearance. I then put an empty shell on
the dish. The little creature approached it, moved around it, then
raised one claw in the air, evidently to measure the height of the
shell. After meditating a half minute, he thrust one of his claws into
the shell to assure himself that it was really empty. Then, seizing it
with his foreclaws, he took a somersault in such a way that his tail
entered the shell. At once he began to walk about the dish, with the
satisfied air of a man coming out of a furnishing shop with a new coat.
I have seldom seen such evidences of reasoning in animals as this.
You will observe that I have given myself up entirely to the study of
nature. Besides my researches on animals (I have also the story of a
goat to tell you), I have painted some landscapes, of which the last one
is always more beautiful than the others. Unfortunately, a friend of
mine here has filched my two best works. My friend, who is far more of
an artist than I, is in a perpetual state of admiration of this country.
We spend our days sketching, returning at night utterly exhausted, when
I have no courage for writing. Nevertheless, I have written an article
on the _Dictionary of Personal Property_, by Viollet-le-Duc, which I
shall send with this letter. I should like you to read it. While it is
short, it contains, I fancy, an idea or two.
Did I tell you that my friend Augier wishes to have a melodrama on _The
False Demetrius_, and that I must work also on this? Finally, I have
promised the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ an article on Prescott’s _Philip
II_. Good-bye.