To A. W. Verrall.
Quiney's Hotel,
Las Palmas.
14 Feb. 1903.
Until just this week I have been doing wonderfully well. Now the messenger of Satan has returned to buffet me and abate my pride. So the cycle has to rest; but I am hopeful that the visitation may be short—it ought to be if the climate has anything to do with the matter, for after some rainy weeks we are on the sun again. El Señor Cura "clapped in the prayer for rain" so very effectually that he had to protest before all saints that he had not meant quite so much as all that. Rainmaking is still one of the chief duties of the priesthood in such a country as this.
The proposal made by "the minister" and mentioned by you was rejected by return of post[30]. There were seven or eight good causes for the refusal—all of which will at once occur to your l'dship except perhaps one which I will tell you. My present place has been made extremely easy to me by the very great kindness of such colleagues as it has happened to few to have. Even if I had been a historian and an able-bodied man I should have thought many times before I changed my estate.—And what you say of the crowd at Bury's first lecture—I thought the appointment very good—confirms my view. The Regius Professor of Modern History is expected to speak to the world at large and even if I had anything to say to the W. at L. I don't think that I should like full houses and the limelight. So I go back to the Year Books. Really they are astonishing. I copy and translate for some hours every day and shall only have scratched the surface if I live to the age of Methusalem—but if I last a year or two longer I shall be a "dab" at real actions. It was a wonderful game as intricate as chess and not like chess cosmopolitan. Unravelling it is an amusement not unlike that of turning the insides out of ancient comedies I guess.