after that!

R. L. S.



Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL



[MENTONE, JANUARY 1874.]

. . . LAST night I had a quarrel with the American on politics. It
is odd how it irritates you to hear certain political statements
made. He was excited, and he began suddenly to abuse our conduct
to America. I, of course, admitted right and left that we had
behaved disgracefully (as we had); until somehow I got tired of
turning alternate cheeks and getting duly buffeted; and when he
said that the Alabama money had not wiped out the injury, I
suggested, in language (I remember) of admirable directness and
force, that it was a pity they had taken the money in that case.
He lost his temper at once, and cried out that his dearest wish was
a war with England; whereupon I also lost my temper, and,
thundering at the pitch of my voice, I left him and went away by
myself to another part of the garden. A very tender reconciliation
took place, and I think there will come no more harm out of it. We
are both of us nervous people, and he had had a very long walk and
a good deal of beer at dinner: that explains the scene a little.
But I regret having employed so much of the voice with which I have
been endowed, as I fear every person in the hotel was taken into