I hope you are in the same comfortable frame of mind.

I had no notion that Mentone had suffered so seriously in the
earthquake of 1887. Moral for architects: read your Bible and build
your house upon the rock.

The sky and sea here may be fairly matched against Mentone or any other
of your Mediterranean places. Also the east wind, which has been
blowing steadily for ten days, and is nearly as keen as the Tramontana.
Only in consequence of the long cold and drought not a leaf is out.

[Shanklin, indeed, suited him so well that he had half a mind to settle
there.] "There are plenty of sites for building," [he writes home in
February,] "but I have not thought of commencing a house yet."
[However, he gave up the idea; Shanklin was too far from town.

But though he was well enough as long as he kept out of London, a
return to his life there was not possible for any considerable time. On
May 19, just before a visit to Mr. F. Darwin at Cambridge, I find that
he went down to St. Albans for a couple of days, to walk; and on the
27th he betook himself, terribly ill and broken down, to the Savernake
Forest Hotel, in hopes of getting] "screwed up." [This] "turned out a
capital speculation, a charming spick-and-span little country hostelry
with great trees in front." [But the weather was persistently bad,]
"the screws got looser rather than tighter," [and again he was
compelled to stay away from the x.

A week later, however, he writes:--]

The weather has been detestable, and I got no good till yesterday,