... Yesterday, a wonderful day at Eleusis. Towards sundown drove through the lovely hill-valley of Daphne, with its beautifully situated isolated ruin of the Temple of Aphrodîtê, a little to the north of the Sacred Way of the Dionysiac and other Processions from Aonai (Athenai) to the Great Fane of Eleusis. I have never anywhere seen such a marvellous splendour of living light as the sundown light, especially at the Temple of Aphrodîtê and later as we approached Athens and saw it lying between Lycabettos and the Acropolis, with Hymettos to the left and the sea to the far right and snowy Pentelicos behind. The most radiant wonder of light I have ever seen.
On his return to Taormina he received the following letter from Mr. Hichens:
St. Stephens,
Canterbury.
My dear Sharp,
... Lately I recommended a very clever man, half Spanish and half German, to read the work of Fiona Macleod. I wondered how it would strike one who had never been in our Northern regions, and he has just written to me, and says: “I am reading with intense delight Fiona Macleod’s books and thank you very much for telling me to get them. I ordered them all from London and cannot tell you how I admire the thoughts, the style, “toute la couleur locale.” They are books I shall keep by me and take about with me wherever I go.” I suppose he feels they are fine, as I feel Tourgeney’s studies of Russian character are fine, although I have never lived among Russians. I shall take Anna Karénina to Italy with me and read it once more. At Marseilles I saw the “Resurrection” acted. It was very interesting and touching, though not really a very good play. It was too episodical. In London it is an immense success.
Well, I hope you will really come to winter in Africa. You can stay at either the Oasis or the Royal and I think we should be very happy. We must often go out on donkey-back into the dunes and spend our day there far out in the desert. I know no physical pleasure,—apart from all the accompanying mental pleasure,—to be compared with that which comes from the sun and air of the Sahara and the enormous spaces. This year I was more enchanted than ever before. Even exquisite Taormina is hum-drum in comparison. I expect to go to Italy very early in May, and back to Africa quite at the beginning of November. Do try to come then as November is a magnificent month. Don’t reply. You are too busy. I often miss the walks, and your company, which wakes up my mind and puts the bellows to my spark of imagination.
Ever yours,
Robert Hichens.
I can’t help being rather sorry that you won’t go to Sicily again for a long while. I always feel as if we all had a sort of home there.