Autograph letter signed : Torquay, to Dr. Baldwin, 1895 Oct. 8.

Apologizing for his tardy reply; saying "Most hideously, most disgustingly have I treated you - I won't tell you how long I have a letter of yours - your last - unacknowledged; in the hope that if I don't you may magnanimously forget it. However, I know you know that when I don't write it's only because the world's too many for me, & you have already shown me that you have treasures of indulgence. I try & console myself with thinking I really rendered you a service in not breaking in upon your holiday peace by giving you some of my illegibility to store up against me. You see I am taking for granted that you have had what I have so cordially wished you; & that you dare climb up to La Traversa & even manage to stick there. More than I can say do I rejoice in your having kicked behind you that satan of transatlantic bribes. It was just more precious than gold to you not to go - & I applaud the lucidity with which you saw it. Gold has not been brighter, I trust, than your summer among the Appenines. Alas that my long & brutal silence gives me no warrant for asking you to give me news of it. I attack you just when you're getting in harness again, I fear, for your autumn's work - & yet I repeat, I'm glad I didn't blight your summer's leisure. I hope you are all in health & heart - & even that Mrs. Baldwin & the infantry are still in the high place. You told me of the Dunham marriage - the fruits whereof (to the extent only, I decently mean, of the 2 sposi themselves) are even now sending up rockets in London - rockets of invitations which I don't, you may believe, hurry back to town to accept. I have been in this soft & soothing place ever since the mid-July - though with a fortnight's interval in town, in August, populated by Mrs. Benedict & her daughters. Be easy - the great American continent has swallowed them up and will keep them I suppose - till it heaves them forth again! This little corner of England is almost a little corner of Italy - & our truly Tuscan summer has contributed to the illusion. I have had blessed quiet & leisure & work - on the edge of the bluest sea & the greenest garden - & all September, the irrepressible Paul Bourgets - who are very prosperous & rather spoiled - but in good personal ease(?). They spent August in Scotland, & then came here. I am feeling that ineffable homesickness that descends upon me, invariably whenever I've been more than a year without crossing Alps & Appenines; but I'm sorry to say there's no prospect of my crossing them for the present. My rooms, in London, are in the hands of paperers, painters & electric lighters; & when they send me in their bill I shall be paralyzed for further actions. But what wouldn't I give for a glimpse of your violet hills! I wish I could have a talk with you & hear all your stories - from the mysteries of the earthquake down to those of the 'flabby' fraternity! You spoke, in last writing, of a possible visit to Ireland (?) but I judge it has never come off; for you wouldn't, I take it, have been in London during my absence without some trace of your passage being espied(?) down to us. I shouldn't have let you pass without grabbing at you from this distance. I hope, caro dottore, that all things are right well with you."