Autograph letter signed : "Bath Hotel, Bournemouth", to Dr. Baldwin, [1897] July 2.

Explaining his change of travel plans; saying "After telling my various friends in Italy, in perfect good faith, but with a fatal optimism, that I cd. come & see them between April & July, I was forced completely to collapse on the question - for reasons, alas that I can't thresh over now; only very real - so that my present days are taken up (woe is me!) with writing letters of attenuation & apology proportionate to the vows originally made. And I have sown a crop! I had absolutely to put off & put off my departure; & then it was too late - too late, I mean, for me to plunge over the Alps before the force of the Italian summer. I bear that phenomenon but ill...& to descend into it from the cool north is to give myself away altogether. 'But' I hear you say, 'why the deuce didn't you come before May, as you so falsely promised?' Why indeed? I couldn't. It was materially impossible...and now - humiliated & abashed - I shall never make any preliminary statement on any such subject again. As I never give myself dates, it is the weakest good-nature to pretend to give them to others. So it goes. I am abundantly delighted that you are coming to England - yet I fear only to be in the accursed London, after all: which at this season I utterly forswear. If conditions, after May 1st, become impossible to me; & I have taken refuge here by the Southern sea (the British south - empty now & comfortable; thanks to a winter season which created good appointments.) I send this to B.S. & Co. - & am very vague about your time. Won't you come down here for a day? - I am here all July - probably. I'm afraid you are 1/2 dead but you are a Hero - and death doesn't count - much less the half of it. Heroic your having the old People over. Well you will grow in glory - & when I see you I will try to present my conduct in a light less heinous - 34 D.V.G. always reaches yours, my dear Baldwin, more constantly than I show."