[CHAPTER XIII.]
WE LEAVE ENGLAND.
1887.
1887 opened with fearful weather, fog and snow. On the 5th of January we left London for good, and went to the Pavilion Hotel, Folkestone, where Richard could see his own relations, who had several large receptions for us, and were glad to leave the fog behind us about twelve miles away from London.
On the 12th we were very shocked and sad at getting a telegram announcing Lord Iddesleigh's death. The last thing this kind and noble-hearted man did, was to send down a basket of game, because Richard was not well. The following day, on a foggy, rainy, raw, and breezy day, we crossed for Paris, where we generally lodged at Meurice's. Here Richard enjoyed the society of our friend Professor Zotenberg, and was delighted with the library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he found the Arabic original of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp;" and we saw a great deal of Mr. Zotenberg. He is a friend I hope I shall keep all my life. Here I found dear Anna Kingsford exceedingly ill; she had been in bed ten weeks with inflammation of the lungs. She cheered up a little at seeing Richard and me, but we never saw her after, for she shortly died.
On the 20th of January Richard was not very well, and Dr. George Bird appeared opportunely. He was not at all pleased with the health of either of us, and especially of Richard, and he prescribed. We left the next day for Cannes, which we reached in eighteen and a half hours, greeting each other on the morning of our twenty-sixth wedding-day in the train. Here we had to drive about and look for rooms, and were at last glad to get into the Hôtel Windsor, as we were rather done up.
We thought Cannes very pretty, and so is most of the Riviera, and we could understand English people, who leave their truly abominable climate with never a bit of sun, rejoicing in it; but to people like us, who lived in every kind of climate, its faults were more apparent than its virtues. You have sun and blue sea and sky, cactus, small palms, oranges and figs, magnolias and olives, spring flowers and balmy air, but this is on the agreeable days. English people, we remarked, go and sit with beaming faces on benches fronting the sea, with the warm sun right in their faces, and a bitter biting wind driving against their backs and injuring their lungs, just as much as if the sun was not there, while the smells of drains, especially in the principal street, were something atrocious.
His journal goes as follows:—