T.,--We did not meet in Germany because our plans were
altogether changed. We passed all the time in the Black Forest, and
came home through the Oberland. I did write to Salzburg however, and
perhaps the letter is still there; but there was nothing in it.
"You know how fond we are of you, and the pleasure it always gives
us to get a glimpse of you. (Not that we have not also very pleasant
associations with your wife,[1] but she is as yet stranger to us of
course.) But we went away in search of complete repose. And in the
Black Forest there was not a soul to speak to, and we liked it so much
as to stay on there.
[Footnote 1: I had married my second wife on the 29th of October,
1866.]
"We contemplate moving southwards in the spring, and if we go to Italy
and come _near_ Florence, we shall assuredly make a _detour_ and come
and see you. Polly wants to see Arezzo and Perugia. And I suppose we
can still get a _vetturino_ to take us that way to Rome? Don't want
railways, if to be avoided. I don't think we can get away before
March, for my researches are so absorbing, that, if health holds out,
I must go on, if not, we shall pack up earlier. The worst of Lent is
that one gets no theatres, and precisely because we never go to the
theatre in London, we hugely enjoy it abroad. Yesterday we took the
child of a friend of ours to a morning performance of the pantomime,
and are utterly knocked up in consequence.
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