Bordighera,
April 1909.
“My dear Dolly,
We are very comfortable in our little hotel here, with two nice Italian brothers to cater for us. The Italian village children please me mightily, and I hobble about in their language with just enough understanding to enable me to amuse myself.
We are an odd society: nearly all women, American and English. They are mostly nice people in their way, but not exciting, and of the place generally it may be said that whatever other attractions it may possess it does not seem to be a health resort for beauty. The air apparently is not recommended for pretty people. In the streets and on the hills the German is more or less in evidence, and sometimes as I pass them by I am inclined to side with Balfour and to demand that four more Dreadnoughts should be laid down at once. Their admiration of nature somehow always makes me feel shy, and I can almost see the landscape making an ugly face after their loudly proclaimed Wunderschön. However, they really don’t trouble us much—the neighbourhood is so genuinely beautiful.
Yours,
J. Comyns Carr.”
He often touched on the beauties of nature as related to art when writing to his artist daughter, and I find this keen little bit of criticism in a letter to her from Bellagio.