_[Menton], February 22nd, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am glad to hear you are better again: nobody can
expect to be _quite_ well in February, that is the only consolation I
can offer you.
Madame Garschine is ill, I am sorry to say, and was confined to bed all
yesterday, which made a great difference to our little society. A propos
of which, what keeps me here is just precisely the said society. These
people are so nice and kind and intelligent, and then as I shall never
see them any more I have a disagreeable feeling about making the move.
With ordinary people in England, you have more or less chance of
re-encountering one another; at least you may see their death in the
papers; but with these people, they die for me and I die for them when
we separate.
Andrew Lang, O you of little comprehension, called on Colvin.
You had not told me before about the fatuous person who thought _Roads_
like Ruskin--surely the vaguest of contemporaneous humanity. Again my
letter writing is of an enfeebled sort.--Ever your affectionate son,