Nothing could be more beautiful than the country about here at this season. Flowers abound everywhere in such profusion, and of such beauty, that verdure in the landscape is exceptional. Good-bye.
CCCXXVIII
Paris, June 26, 1870.
Dear Friend: I have been ill for a month. It is impossible for me to do anything, even read. I am a great sufferer, and have little hope. This may endure, perhaps, a long time.
I have put one of the shelves of my library in order, and am keeping for you the Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, in twelve volumes, and a small Shakespeare. When you return to Paris I will send them to you. I thank you for thinking of me.
CCCXXIX
Paris, July 18, 1870.
Dear Friend: I have been, and am still, very ill. For six weeks I have been unable to leave my room, and almost my bed. This is the third or fourth attack of bronchitis I have had since the beginning of the year. This promises nothing good for the approaching winter. When the heat of summer offers me no protection against colds, how will it be when winter comes?
I think that one must needs be admirably well, and have nerves of singular vigour, not to be too deeply affected by the events of to-day. I need not tell you how I feel. I am among those who believe that the thing could not be avoided.[48] The explosion might have been retarded, perhaps, but it was impossible to avert it altogether. Here, war is more popular than it has ever been, even among the bourgeois. There is a great deal of mouthing, which is assuredly unfortunate; but men are volunteering, and money is being subscribed, which is the essential point. Military men are full of confidence, but when one considers that the whole future hangs on the chance of a bullet or a ball, it is difficult to share that confidence.
Good-bye for the present, dear friend. I am already fatigued from writing you these two little pages. I am ailing to the last degree; still my physicians say that I am better, but I can not perceive it. I have not sent the books to your house, fearing there might be no one there to receive them.