Geoffrey Watkins Smith - 13th Rifle Brigade, kia 10/7/16

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

May 1904.

Dear Father,

Your letter arrived safely and pleased me considerably; I have also had a letter from Weldon at Oxford, who says that he is sure I will not regret taking Dohrn's offer. Your suggestion of £200 is rather more than necessary: one can live here comfortably on £130, and with a little extra for taking occasional trips and coming home once a year the whole thing could be done really handsomely on £150 or £160. I am certain I will not have to spend more than that by July, not counting the money I spent when I first came out in staying in Florence and then my extra trip home at Christmas. Dohrn says he can let me have £60 a year, besides of course paying all my laboratory expenses; so if you could add £90 I am really quite certain I shall be comfortable and even luxurious on it. Living is so much cheaper here than in England. Of course it is not a large monetary offer on the part of Professor Dohrn, but it is actually more than he offers to Germans whom he employs, and of course no other such opportunity for doing research work is offered anywhere else.

I intend coming home at the end of July and then returning here at the end of September. Of course I shall not begin to work for the Station technically until my Oxford Scol. expires, but I am already beginning to get some material ready for the monograph. I hope it will be a success, but it is rather a tremendous undertaking for a more or less Guileless youth. Naples has been turned upside down lately by Loubet's visit; there was a naval review, illuminations, and all the rest. Rather dull, I thought......Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

May 25, 1904.

Dear Mother,

Did Dad get my letter telling him what Professor Dohrn's suggestion was? I have begun the work and it is going on quite satisfactorily. The heat has begun; we have clear cloudless days with broiling sun, but a jolly sea-breeze; the nights are a little oppressive, and the flies, but otherwise I enjoy it awfully. I went out in the boat the other day and we did some dredging off Iscia; my face was quite burnt with the sun, but I did not notice it at the time. Last night I went and dined at Canon Barff's and after dinner we played dummy whist, a certain Mr. Eddy being there who is the manager of Armstrong's gun works out at Pozzuoli. I am going out to his house this evening to play tennis and stay for dinner. He has a beautiful little house out in the country, all surrounded with flowers, vines, and fruit trees, and with a tennis court and billiard table. Canon Barff says he remembers father at Trinity Hall, but he could not at first because he was trying to remember some-one who looked like me, and he says Horace Smith, whom he remembers, was not at all like me!

He is leaving Naples in June for good, to live in England, after being out here for thirty years. He will be a great loss to the place.

The unfortunate Shearer has gone and got typhoid, only a slight attack, however, the doctor says. There is rather a lot of it about.........

I am in excellent health, and as I don't dring water or any uncooked food I don't suppose I shall get it.

I am writing this letter in a summer-house which Dyer has built on the terrace looking over the bay towards Vesuvius. We have all our meals out here al fresco, as they say here.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

June 18, 1904.

Dear Mother,

There is no particular news; the weather is very hot, but I do not find it at all oppressive, as there is always a nice sea-breeze in the hottest time of the day. We still play tennis in the evening; Professor Wilson is a keen but not a very skilful player. He is very like Professor Miers in general character, but even brighter, if possible. We generally lunch together and have a competition who can eat most figs. I try to get him to talk shop as much as possible, because I find that a few casual words of his often clear up something which has puzzled me for months or which some one, generally a German, undertakes to explain in five volumes.

Dr. Shearer got up for the first time yesterday; he is frightfully thin as he has eaten nothing but milk for a month. I am going down into the mountains at Cava with him for a few days at the end of this week, and then he is going to Switzerland to recruit.

I wonder if you would like visiting Naples; one has to abandon oneself to utter unreasonableness and childishness of the people, the senseless noise they make, and the dirt in which they live. In fact, unless one represses altogether one's Anglo-Saxon instinct for wanting to see people clean and reasonable, one is perfectly miserable here. I can't think what a London Missionary would make of these folk: they are sinply steeped in dirt, disease, and what he would call crime, and with it all they are supremely happy and would not change their lot if you paid them.

Love to all.

I am coming home some time at the beginning of August.

[marina]

He'a good on other nationals, isn't he?

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

June 27, 1904.

Dear Mother,

I am sitting out in the loggia of the Acquarium enjoying a little sea-breeze after lunch. It is the hottest part of the day, and if one tries to do any work immediately after lunch one feels sleepy for the rest of the afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon I went out to Capodimonte and played a little tennis. I stayed to dinner, and after dinner we walked about in a beautiful wood which was quite full of fire-flies. Then quite late we walked back to Naples, and I had to escort an English lady all through quite dark slums, but as I had a tennis racquet with me I feared no foe in shining armour. I don't believe Naples slums are any worse than London.........

I see quite a lot of Professor Wilson, who is a most splendid man, good all round at everything, especially at being always in a good temper; he has also the regualr American sang-froid, which is very amusing.

I don't find the heat at all too oppressive; it is really worst at night and in the early morning because the breeze drops then. I went out fishing for my animals the other day at 5 o'clock in the morning and there was not a breath of air. I tried to talk Neapolitan with the fisherman, who was particularly interested to know all about King Edward VII. The fisherman here are very jolly fellows and wonderfully intelligent.

Love to everybody.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Naples.

July 2004.

Dear J.,

Excuse this very crumpled bit of paper, but I think it must be suffering from the heat, like the rest of us. Now I have a most impoertant message for you, which is to ask Father the next time he goes to the tobacconist, Lawrence, to tell him to choose me out one or perhaps two nice briar pipes and to begin to smoke them, so that they may be ready for me when I come home at the beginning of August. Mind, Lawrence is to smoke them, not Dad. And after Father has done this he must forget all about it, otherwise when the pipes are in good condition he will claim them for himself. At present I have only got one old pipe and that is broken and will not last much longer. I am going up Vesuvius at the end of this week; Cook's office has just started a little hotel half way up, and I am told it is very cool. Rather paradoxical to go and sit on a volcano in order to get cool ! We still play tennis in the evening, and once or twice i have taken a little boat for a sail and bathed; the water being deliciously warm.

Do you think we can manage to rig up a sail for the boat on the Arun? It would be rather a rag if we could.

Dr. Shearer came out and stayed at Posillipo for a few days before going to Switzerland........The Typhoid is a little less rampageous now, probably gone into the country for a holiday, so I hope I have escaped.

When I come home I think I shall go by boat to Marseilles; I have discovered a very cheap one which goes on Saturdays. Professor Wilson wants me to go to Switzerland with him and climb up impossible glaciers, but I doubt if I am quite up to his form.

Love to all.

Your affectionate brother,

Geoff.

Will Dad send me £10 to take me home. I don't think I shall want it, but in case of emergencies.

I shall come, probably, the first week in August.

[marina]

I've never heard of breaking in pipes like new shoes.

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Chalet des Melezes,

St. Gervais les bains,

Haute Savoie.

July 26, 1904.

Dear Father,

I got your letter and the cheque, for which much thanks. I arrived here quite safely after a fearfully hot journey, but at the end there was a very pleasant drive in diligence through beautiful country, and than a climb up here.

We are a large party here; some I knew before, and all quite first-rate chaps; it is a pleasant change to get among English people, because Germans, Americans, and Italians, though they have undoubted merits, do not fit in with one quite so well.

We went a walk to a lake half-way up a mountain, a kind of tarn, in fact, on Sunday, and after getting very hot we had a bathe in it..

I am coming back on Saturday, probably arriving in time for dinner.

It is a very jolly getting a freshening up in the mountains here after boiling in Naples. I am in the fittest of health.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

The Union Society, Cambridge.

Aug. 17, 1904.

Dear Mother,

I have arrived quite safely and find myself in very comfortable quarters in Trinity Hall, which is, I think, worthy of having fostered my revered parent, and may possibly be able to support the dignity of entertaining me. I have already met lots of people I know, from Oxford; and one took me to tea with his brother, who is an undergraduate at Pembroke, and he very kindly piloted me here, after having regaled me with a beautiful cake all covered with pink icing, of which I stood in immediate need, having just been to a meeting where I voted wildly on numerous propositions, none of which I understood in the least.

I have secured a ticket for Balfour's address, which seems to have been rather clever, as I meet a lot of hungry-looking people who can't get any more.

I can't say yet how long I shall stay, but will write again when I know.

With love to every one.

Your loving son.

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Hotel de la Ville,

Milan.

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 1904.

Dear Mother,

I have arrived here safely, and came to the hotel you stayed at, which seems to be a pretty magnificent place; however, as I am only staying a night I hope I shan't be ruined. It was rather a pity that Ned Grigg could not turn up on Monday evening; however, I spent a very pleasant evening with Balfour Gardiner in his chambers, and he played me some of his music.

This evening I roamed all over the Cathedral; the interior is very beautiful, but I think the best part of all is the way one can wander all over the roof and look abroad over Milan to the Alps. I wonder if you did that. A funny old man took me up and insisted on trying to speak English, which he appeared to think was done by talking German backwards, with most of the syllables of the words left out. The result was a little difficult to understand.

Who is Archbishop Seton ? I suppose him to be a Roman Catholic; he is staying in this hotel, and I sat near him at dinner and was much entertained in observing him, as he has a very interesting face and was talking and laughing to himself all dinner and occasionally writing in a little book with a beautiful gold pencil studded with gems. I thought he would make a rather good study for a Browningesque poem.

I had rather a rough crossing, and whilst I was on deck part of a wave broke clean over me, but as I had hired a mackintosh coat from a sailor, it did not wet my clothes much. I was not ill at all, though a great many people were. The railway journey rather bores me, but I am going to break it again at Siena for a short time. I will write to you from there.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

Sept. 26, 1904.

Dear Dad,

.......I am in some ways rather relieved to have got to the end of my journey and settled down here, becuase although it is very interesting seeing new towns and paoples, it is a little fatiguing, especially if one has a violent cold in the head and has to travel most of the way in a train quite destitute of springs or oil, which stops at every station. I sent cards to various members of the family from different places, but in case none of them reached, I will tell you where I went. I travelled straight to Milan without stopping. In milan I spent an evening going over the Carhedral, especially over the roof (an elevation which I doubt if you ever reached or even aspired to, but it is quite worth doing!). The next morning I went to the Poldi Pezzoli and the Brera, both of which were most interesting, but it would take at least a week to see all the pictures in the Brera. I also saw Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper', or rather what is left of it.

In the evening I went on to Parma, where there is a wonderful cathedral with frescoes by Correggio and various palaces built by the Farnese family: the same night I went on to Florence, and from there the next morning to Siena, arriving nearly dead with fatigue, as you may imagine. I stayed two days in Siena, and enjoyed it very much, as the town itself is very beautiful and full of works of art quite peculiar to itself, and which one does not see elsewhere hardly at all. It is all very early art, flourishing mostly in the thirteenth cenntury, so that of course it is very primitive and stiff, but the colours are wonderful. The only late painter who lived at Siena is Sodoma, and there are a lot of his pictures there, but I think they are rather inferior compared to the best Florentines.

I arrived here yesterday afternoon to find Vesuvius in eruption, worse than it has been for twenty-five years, so all the inhabitants say. Last night it was glorious, sending up huge sheets of flame and liquid lava flowing down the sides. It is subsiding a bit now. There are very few people at the Acquarium at present; Dohrn has not come back yet; but there is an American professor with whom I have made friends, and who is working in the same room as me. He seems a very good sort, like all American scientific men I have come across at present.

Will you send me £20, so that I can have a sort of bank to draw upon ? I have spent nearly all my money in getting here; travelling costs such a lot.

Love to all.

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Villa Guariglia, San Pietro, Posillipo.

Oct. 2, 1904.

Dear D.,

I thought I would put off answering your letter until I had accomplished a little expedition which Dyer and I had planned, to go up Monte Somma, which is the old extinct cone of Vesuvius, in order to see something of the results of the recent explosion. We did it to-day, and had a splendid time, as the weather was beautiful and the view one of the finest I have ever seen. When we got to the top we looked across to the active cone of Vesuvius, which of course was smoking away actively, but the most wonderful sight was the huge basin of lava lying between ourselves and Vesuvius, a great deal of which was still smoking and had evidently been thrown out in the eruption. It gave one quite a cold shiver to see such a desolate looking place, not a blade of grass anywhere, and the effect was heightened by the fact that over the rim of this huge basin of smoking rock one could see vine clad hills, little villages, and the sea. We had a great job to get to the top of Monte Somma, as we took an old fellow from the village below to show us the way, and he very rapidly lost the path, so that in the end we had to scrable straight up. Also he promised us that we should get water all the way up, but as a matter of fact there was not a drop anywhere, and if we had not had some grapes and figs with us I don't know what we should have done. As it was, Dyer nearly gave up through thirst, and I was not much better. The old guide was really a fearful imposter, because when we got down again to the village he told everybody we met that we had actually been to the top of the mountain, as if it were a great feat, which certainly he and probably nobody else had ever done before. All the sides of the mountain were covered with eating chesnut trees, and we filled our pockets with splendid chestnuts, some of which we had for dinner this evening. It was very curious that although the side of the mountain we went up was some way away from the cone which has been erupting, the ground was thickly strewn with ashes, and the undergrowth was so thick with fine ash that our shirts and faces and hands got quite black.

The Acquarium is beginning to fill up again, and Professors Mayer and Elsig have returned. I have played a little tennis and my work is going on swimmingly, so I am quite contented with everything, as you may imagine. I am going to bed now, as I am very sleepy after our walk.

Love to all.

Your affectionate brother,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

Oct. 4, 1904.

Dear Father,

I got your letter and the cheque for £10, for which many thanks. Please send the other £10 when convenient, and then I shall not have to bother you for a long time. I got another horrid cold in the head as the result of my expedition up Vesuvius; I think it was caused by having to wait about an hour at a railway station after sunset, when it becomes suddenly very cold here. I am sure you would really like to see Vesuvius very much; it is awfully grand, and though rather destructive and alarming when one sees it at close quarters, it is not so oppressive as the accounts of the Russian war by some commonplace war corrspondent. In fact, in comparison, it is quite exhilirating, like all primitive forces of nature. The more I live the less interested I become in mankind, isolated from nature as such, and the more in nature. That's a fact, very sad and deplorable, no doubt, and certainly not to be defended by any arguments, human or divine.

To talk of mundane affairs, I intended sending you some very curious grapes that grow here, which taste like strawberries and have the texture of oysters. Of course you won't beilieve in them till you see them, so I really must try to send you some; the only difficulty is to get them at a right stage of maturity for packing: all those I have seen have been to ripe, so I have to eat them all myself. The grapes are very jolly altogether here, as one can buy as many bunches as one likes for a few sous.

The weather is nice and cool, though rather rainy. I am very busy this week, as some most important events are happening among my animals, and I have to preserve a lot of material. At the end of the week I shall take a day's mountaineering in Ischia.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

Oct. 10, 1904.

Dear Mother,

My expedition ti Ischia failed, owing to rough weather. Professor Johnston and I took the train in the early morning at about 6 o'clock to the place where the boat ought to have started, but the waves were dashing over the pier, so the boat could not get out of the harbour. We took a long walk instead, and I introduced him to the country round Baiae, and we finished up by climbing a mountain, an extinct volcano. The weather was very stormy, but with occasional gleams, and the country was looking most beautiful, as the vines are all turning colour.

Professor Johnstone is a great walker, having explored the Rockies, &c., in America, and he is a very good companion. We share a private room in the Acquarium, one of the best, with a view over the bay.

I am racking my brains to try and discover the distinction between Balfour's policy and Chamberlain's policy of protection which the Standard makes so much of. I have never come across anything so elusive or subtle in Biology or Metaphysics, bue the Standard leader of to-day says that only people of very inferior intelligence or honesty can fail to see it, so I give the matter up as a bad job, and return to Biology. The latter is treating me very well just now; to-day I hit upon the thing which has been causing me some anxiety, as it appeared to me very difficult but quite essential to find out, namely the way my parasite gets into its host to start with. I have now found the parasites at a very early stage of development just in the act of penetrating the skin of their host. The thing has been the subject of endless controversy; indeed it has almost caused international complications between the French and Germans! A Frenchman deprecated the bitterness of a German who criticized him in 1872, and said that it was evident that the Franco-German war was the cause of his extreme rancour. I think I shall chaff him by saying that my admiration of his work is sincere and not influenced by the Entente Cordiale of 1904. So we go on and introduce a little harmless frivolity even into the austere scientific world.

Everybody seems in good health now the cool weather has come, and the typhoid has quite disappeared. I hope every one is well at home.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica.

Oct. 1904.

Dear Father,

I got your letter at the same time as one from Professor Weldon saying that I was practically certain to be re-elected to the Oxford Scholarship here. That will be a very nice little addition to my income; I shall now have as much as I had last year.

The Station is beginning to fill up now, and the day before yesterday we all went in the launch to Baiae. It was a perfect day, with a splendid sunset behind Ischia on the way back; also it was quite smooth, which was a blessing. A little German, Hans Driesch, is here, who is the inventor of a brand new philosophy which is supposed to take the place of Darwin. He is a very pleasant and unassuming little man, which one would not have expected from his writings which are very tall and bombastic. I think he is probably very able, but I don't believe in his pilosophy very much. He tries to account for natural facts of experience by ultimate metaphysical principles, a thing of course we should all like to do, but I expect even the twen. cent. is not twen. cent. enough to do it.

I am afraid the grapes have turned out rather a fraud. The fact is that they are grown out in the country, and are not sent into Naples till they are ready to eat and of course too ripe to pack. I tried to explain what I wanted to a fruiterer, but these people will not do anything they are unaccustomed to.

So I am afraid the grapes are no good, and I won't make any more engagements, but perhaps at Christmas I will send some mandarins with their leaves on, which look very pretty and are also very fine and juicy. Now I am a millionaire in my own right I feel very generous.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

Oct. 1904.

Dear Father,

........The Italians here all sympathize with England very much about the Hull incicdent(1), but the attitude of the Germans is more characteristic. They cannot understand why a government should make a fuss about a few fisherman being injured. I don't think they in the least see that the raison d'etre of a government is to protect all its citizens; they admire it from a reverential distance as a kind of embodied Idea or Ismus to be scrupulously obeyed and talked about with bated breath, but they do not think it conceivable that a government's policy should be influenced by grievances of any private citizens. The fact is, they are not all democratyic or even liberal in their ideas; if they were, the Kaiser would not be at liberty to much such a fool of himself on occasions........

Best love.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

(1) October 22, 1904.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica.

Nov. 19, 1904.

Dear Father,

I admire your poem on Ischia immensely, but 'this year' does not rhyme with 'Ischia', pronounced Iskia; however, that is a detail.

I also wrote a poem about Ischia which I sent to Nowell; it was meant to be a sort of ballad in imitation of Heine, but it was rather a failure I think.

We are having the most gorgeous weather, very cold and very bright; it makes one feel quite energetic after the warm damp weather we had been having before.

Shearer has at last returned from his wanderings in North Italy, and has brought back with him a beautiful violin which he plays quite nicely, and a huge bundle of old prints and engravings. He has been all over the place, to Ravenna and Rimini, Venice and the Chianti Hills, where, he says, the wine is beautiful. He goes in a week or so to his home in Canada. I think he has quite given up zoology and become a devotee to the fine arts.

I am reading just now a rather interesting novel about Loenardo da Vinci called The Forerunner, by a Russian, Merejkowski. It is sometimes horrible, often morbid, but the parts about Leonardo are really awfully good and interesting. Also I have just finished Motley's John of Barneveld, the last of his trilogy about the Netherlands: it is gorgeous, especially the end part; on the whole I like it better than his two others: it is more biographical and full of anecdotes. The story of Grotius escaping out of prison in a box in which he used to have Latin and Greek manuscripts sent him is charmingly told.

I have heard no more yet about the Oxford shol., but I think it is a hopeful sign, as Weldon is probably agitating for me. I expect the University has a fearful lot of fish to fry and not much money to do it with, and that is the whole difficulty.

I am going for a walk to-day with Shearer.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Xoologica, Napoli.

Dec., 1904.

Dear Father,

........I have been rather poorly the last four days with a kind of Suppressed cold which started with an earache and finished with a headache; but its all over now, which is very lucky, as we have fine weather again. I believe I cured myself by drinking some very strong whisky two nights running, but of course no doctor or teetotaller would believe me.

Professor Dohrn has behaved really beautifully to me about this affair of the scholarship. You see the result of his employing me was that he lost a clear £100 from Oxford, and as he depends on these subscriptions to keep up the place, it was really very unpleasant for him, especially as he thought he had done something to please them in employing an Oxford man, which he had never done before. However, after a first little outburst of indignation, he has been as friendly as ever to me, and he philosophically remarked to me that Oxford was not the only place which treated him in this way, but the majority of Universities behaved to him like jews, or rather worse, being not only mean but incompetent. Of course Oxford probably thinks that Dohrn and his Institution are of no consequence at all, but as a matter of fact everywhere except in England Dohrn is well known and respected as a leader of science, while nobody has ever heard of Oxford in that respect at all. Charmong old place, I hope that it will never change. I am reading all about it in Macauley at the time of James II.

What an amazing thing the history of England is ! I had no idea our ancestors were so exceedingly rough in manner, and the fact that Doctor Johnson was whipped from Newgate to Tyburn at the cart-tail was new to me. However, those kind of habits are probably more easily unlearned than the polished Italian manner of being most polite to the person you are just going to poison. I think I am going to Rome for a few day's holiday at Christmas.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

Dec. 23, 1904.

Dear Mother,

.........Dr. Shearer and I are going to Rome to-morrow to spend Christmas and take a little holiday. I am very anxious to see some of the sights of Rome, and I could not have a better guide that Shearer, as he really knows the history of Rome and its remains very well. I hope the fine weather will last for us. There has been rather an interesting sale of old Italian books in Naples - it occurs every Christmas; the booksellers are kind of costers with barrows who go about the streets hawkin their wares, and sometimes one can pick up quite valuable things very cheaply. I got a nice life of Cellini, the sculptor, and an old history of Naples; while Professor Johnston got an old book on Natural History printed in the early seventeenth century, which is full of wonderful pictures of mermaids and sea-serpents, all scientically described with long Latin names.

I have just seen an article by my friend Mr. Grosvenor, in the Century Magazine, describing a new method for purifying drinking-water, which if true, as I expect it is, looks like a very important discovery for the prevention of typhoid epidemics. I thought Cat might like to see it, as it might be useful to him if he comes across bad water, but great care is needed in the application of the remedy. It consists in putting a small quantity of copper sulphate in the water; copper sulphate in large doses is no doubt a poison, but in very small doses it apparently kills the bacteria without harming the water for drinking purposes. I will send you the magazine when I have done with it.

A happy Christmas everybody.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[marina]

How like a scientist to recommend a poison and advise care!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica.

Jan 1905.

Dear Mother,

I have come back to work now after a splendid week's holiday, and found all your letters waiting for me.....

I am at present quite buried in historical works on the Middle Ages in Italy, to which I have been insoired by seeing all the wonders of Rome and the Campagna. Shearer and I stayed in a very comfortable Hotel Pension which was well heated; an important point, as the weather, though gloriously bright, was very cold indeed.

I think the thing I enjoyed most was a visit we paid to Subiaco, the place from which I sent some picture postcards to the girls. This is a little town right in the very heart of the Apennines. It was in a cave near here that Saint Benedict lived, and round the cave he built the first monastry ever built in Western Europe. Afterwards he built, with the help of the people he gathered round him, twelve other monasteries on various projecting points of the mountains round, but only one of these now remains besides the original one built round and above the cave. This original monastry is the most wonderful little place; the church, which is all built in the Gothic style, literally wanders up and down stairs and through crooked passages, as it has been built right on the face of a cliff so as to enclose the actual cave where St. Benedict lived. All the walls are covered with the quaintest frescoes, dating from very early times.

The head of this monastry now is curiously an Irishman, who was introduced to us, and he took us all over and showed us everything. He was an old man, over seventy, and had been all over the world as a missionary. He combined a very astute knowledge of the world with the most childish belief in miracles, and also an unbounded enthusiasm for the Pope's getting back to temporal power. He spoke to us about the recent Saints which had been canonized by the Roman Church, and especially about a Neopolitan friar who when he was preaching suddenly floated up into the air. He told us that this was quite certain, as certain as that we were standing there at the moment; but I could not make out why it was particularly saintly to float about when preaching instead of standing still. However, it was impossible to laugh at the dear old man, because he was evidently a very saintly man himself, though without any aberrant propensities to float, and he told us most feelingly about the peasants who make long pligrimages from all the countries round to pay their devotions to St. Benedict's shrine. They tramp for days on end without tasting food, and often arrive in a very exhausted state, but apparently always quite cheeful. In his garden are the famous roses which St. Francis of Assisi grafted on the thorn bushes which St. Benedict used as a penance. From this garden is a splendid view looking right up into the gorge where the Anio rises.

I saw such a lot in Rome itself that I do not know which sights impressed me the most, but I especially enjoyed the sculpture galleries which contain a few splendid Greek originals.

I am reading Gregorovius, the German historian, and think of translating his volume on Apulia if I can get a publisher to take it.

Love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

Feb. 12, 1905.

Dear Nowell,

Thanks for your letter: please don't trouble any more about the Gregorovius; the fact is I am very busy with my ordinary work, and I am also projecting some general essays on Biology which will keep my time fully occupied. What you suggest about a school inspectorship sounds rather attractive; or perhaps I might get a colonial post of some sort. In any case I am not going to worry just yet, as I must spend fully another year at my present job.......... The latest news is that the British Ass. is going to stop their grant here for the future(1). It is rather amazing to me the way in which these worthy folk, who are really nobodies, are going slap in the face of everything which Darwin, Huxley and Frank Balfour planned out, without the faintest show of reason. But this is probably rather boring to you. Scientific gentry are very prone, as you say, to generating heat; it is because they are most quite stupid; this is a conviction that has been steadily growing on me and which I shall have to study studiously conceal during the rest of what I hope will be my long and successful career.

I have made the acquaintance of a lot of very nice Swiss people here, and yesterday we all got up at six o'clock and climbed a mountain at the back of Capua. It rained all morning, but I brought a huge green umbrella for two francs at a little village, which kept some of us dry. It stopped raining when we got to the top, so we all had lunch and I gave my umbrella to a shepherd who was looking after some goats. Then we went down to Capua and inspected the antiquities there which are quite pretty, but the best thing is the situation of the town in green fields through which the Volturno wind blows, and the Apennines in the background. The Swiss people here are the Mensicoffres, the great bankers out here. They have, I believe, and infinite quantity of gold in their pockets, but their daughter has an infinity of golden hair which to me is always more interesting. She is quite nice as well. The Station is going to be quite full of Germans in a few weeks, as they get their Easter holidays then from the Universities. Also we have two Russians to whom I sometimes speak in German, but we avoid all controversial topics, such as geographical distribution of Japanese torpedoes and the fauna of the Dogger Bank. They seem fairly civilized individuals, but with a curious propensity for eating dinner at four o'clock in the afternoon, which is at any rate gastronomically revolutionary, I should think.

I really must stop drivelling.

Love to all.

Your loving brother,

Geoff

P.S. - Have just received your second letter........ I feel rather guilty now, because instead of writing a formal application to Weldon I wrote an informal letter with jokes about macaroni in it, as I had always understood that no formal application was necessary. At the first meeting I suppose Weldon had my letter in his pocket, but did not like to show it as being too frivolous, and then forgot to ask me to write formally.

No, I get nothing personally out of the British Ass., but Dohrn wanted me to have the table, to show that I was not completely under his wing and that of the Prussian Government. I think I must come to Oxford before next year to see Weldon and Gotch about the table.

(1) the grant was not stopped.

[marina]

I'm thinking of the goatherd holding a large green umbrella over his goats while Geoffrey eyes up the local Heidis!

Marina

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

March 20, 1905.

Dear Mother,

I did not know whether to write to you at Rouen because I was afraid you might have left and gone somewhere else where a letter might not find you.......Rouen is a beautiful town, I remember, but I only spent a few hours in it once, so that I expect you will have explored it much more thoroughly than I could do. Indeed I only saw Saint Ouen and the Cathedral and the wonderful old street where the tower with the Grande Horloge is. I remember being more impressed with Saint Ouen than with anything I have ever seen, except perhaps Cologne Cathedral. I do not think that any of the Italian buildings can compare with the splendour of the Northern Gothic.

Last week my friend, Doctor Henze, and myself made a most interesting expedition to the top of Vesuvius. We walked all the way, and when we got to the top we found great doings going on, the cone throwing out huge red-hot blocks of lava at intervals. We discovered afterwards that it was supposed to be quite dangerous, as a guide had been killed two days before by one of the blocks hitting him. However, we escaped quite scatheless. We have also had an earthquake on a small scale, so the vulcanic powers are quite active just now.

The Station is quite full now, and we are very busy at our various discoveries which we think are going to revolutionize the poor old world. All is going well.

Best love to Dad and the girls.

Your loving son,

Geoff.

[stiletto_33853]

Stazione Zoologica, Napoli.

March 29, 1905.

Dear Dad, I expect you will have returned by now from your tour in France; I hope you all enjoyed yourselves up to the end. I, too, have tken a little holiday for three days in Ischia, a little island just outside the bay. I went with a friend who had had influenza, and we did not do anything energetic, but chiefly walked about on the sands. It did us both, however, a lot of good, and I actually began to get fat, a thing I cannot do in Naples for some reason, as life here is rather noisy and wearing, despite the fact that one is so out of the world.

A fellow who used to be at Magdalen in my time, called Hotham, has turned up here, and we had some very good sets of tennis as he is quite a good player and a very decent chap, though very rich and utterly idle except at tennis.

I am reading Carlyle's French Revolution for the second time; it is good reading, but I get a little tired of the style, and in history one likes to have a fairly siple narrative of what happened, and not a lot of mad ideas as to their meaning; those one can make up for oneself.

According to my usual habit of reading several books at the same time I am going on with Macauley's England, and like it a good deal better than Carlyle.

I am rather in need of money, as I have had to buy some shoes and clothes. Can you let me have £20, and that will keep me quiet for a long time.

Best love to all.

Your loving son,

Geoff.