This describes another member of the Russian party, recently arrived
at Mentone, who did his best, very nearly with success, to persuade
Stevenson to join him in the study of law for some terms under the
celebrated Professor Jhering at Goettingen.
_[Menton], March 28, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--Beautiful weather, perfect weather; sun, pleasant
cooling winds; health very good; only incapacity to write.
The only new cloud on my horizon (I mean this in no menacing sense) is
the Prince, I have philosophical and artistic discussions with the
Prince. He is capable of talking for two hours upon end, developing his
theory of everything under Heaven from his first position, which is that
there is no straight line. Doesn't that sound like a game of my
father's--I beg your pardon, you haven't read it--I don't mean _my_
father, I mean Tristram Shandy's. He is very clever, and it is an
immense joke to hear him unrolling all the problems of life--philosophy,
science, what you will--in this charmingly cut-and-dry,
here-we-are-again kind of manner. He is better to listen to than to
argue withal. When you differ from him, he lifts up his voice and
thunders; and you know that the thunder of an excited foreigner often
miscarries. One stands aghast, marvelling how such a colossus of a man,
in such a great commotion of spirit, can open his mouth so much and
emit such a still small voice at the hinder end of it all. All this
while he walks about the room, smokes cigarettes, occupies divers chairs
for divers brief spaces, and casts his huge arms to the four winds like
the sails of a mill. He is a most sportive Prince.