To Leslie Stephen.
5, Leon y Castillo,
Telde,
Las Palmas,
Gran Canaria.
20 Jan. 1902.
I was glad of your letter. I had been in a poor way and it cheered me. Now I am doing well and ride a bit on my cycle along one of the three roads of the island. I thought that you would like Joh. Althusius if you could penetrate the shell[28]. I like all that man's books, and his history of things in general as seen from the point of view of a student of corporations is full of good stuff, besides being to all appearance appallingly learned. I rather fancy that Hobbes's political feat consisted in giving a new twist to some well worn theories of the juristic order and then inventing a psychology which would justify that twist. I shall be very much interested to hear what you have to say about the old gentleman. A many years ago I saw in the Museum a copy of the Leviathan with a note telling how the wretched old atheist was buried head downwards or face downwards or something of the sort in a garden—a nice little legend in the making!
Have you read De Mirabilibus Pecci? Stevenson the Anglo-Saxon scholar, who travelled outwards with me, told me that the first recorded appearance of the name of the Peak (something like Pecesus) shows that the great cavern was called after the Devil's hinder parts. Did Hobbes know that? What a thing it is to be a philologer!
To Leslie Stephen.
5, Leon y Castillo,
Telde,
Gran Canaria.
30 Jan. 1902.
Let me wish you a happy new year and then ask for a line in return. It doesn't follow in law or in fact that because I have nothing to say that you care to hear therefore you have nothing to say that I care to hear. Q.E.D.
Why did you make my life miserable by suggesting that grammar does not allow me to wish you a happy new year and does not allow you to send me a letter? I consulted a professed grammarian who told me that "me" and "you" are good datives and "to" in such cases an unnecessary and historically unjustifiable preposition. Go on like this and you will end where the Spaniard is, and he loves "to" his parents, etc. When we still have to contend with relics of a subjunctive you need not be making more difficulties. I am led into these exceedingly uninteresting remarks by the nature of my only pursuit. I had a bad time on the voyage. Something went wrong with my works and since I have been here I have not had much choice between lying almost flat and suffering a good deal of pain. So I have been copying Year Books from the manuscripts that I brought from Cambridge and since the scribes did not finish their words and I have to supply the endings I have been compelled to take a serious interest in old French Grammar. However, things are improving. I had ten minutes on the cycle yesterday and hope soon to see a little of the country. We are in a village this year. It is the centre of the trade in tomatos. Boxes of tomatos with the Telde mark have been seen even in the Cambridge market place. As I lie here I am surrounded by oranges, coffee, bananas, etc., and we have even a true dragon tree. It is wonderfully beautiful. Florence and the children are exceedingly happy and I am beginning to doubt whether I shall get them back to Cambridge when the Spring comes. You would think that Florence had never talked anything but Spanish. Not that I would warrant its Castilian quality, but at any rate it is rapid and highly effectual.
To Henry Jackson.
5, Leon y Castillo,
Telde,
Gran Canaria.
1st February, 1902.