"I went to bed on Saty. night at dark and on Sunday night at dark. Last night I was late from London, and sat up till nearly 9! Bobby himself can hardly beat that, can he? On the other hand, he does not get a swim in the Thames at 5 a.m., or breakfast at 6, as I do.
"It is very good of you—and like old times—for you to press me to come down, and, believe me, I should like my company. But when, as now, I am splendidly well, and only want to make up arrears of sleep, the river is the best place for me. I shall go to Walmer next week, but then that is sea, and sea is sleepy too; and I have all my work there with the telegraph in the House, and messengers four times a day as if I was in the F.O., so I can be away—and yet be on duty—as I promised to be till 19th or 20th Septr….
"… This is the longest letter that I was ever known to write in all my life, except perhaps once or twice to you in the old days."
It had now been decided that Wentworth Dilke, being eight years old, should go to school and leave Mr. Chamberlain's house, of which he had been an inmate for some eighteen months.
'On the day of Tel-el-Kebir I received a very pleasing letter from Chamberlain, thanking me for what I had said to him about his reception for so long a period at Highbury of my son. It was a touching letter, which showed both delicacy and warmth of affection.'
On September 21st Sir Charles Dilke went to Birmingham to take his boy to Mrs. Maclaren's school at Summerfields, near Oxford. 'Then crossing to Waterford, spent five days in the South of Ireland—and afterwards went straight to St. Tropez to stay with M. Émile Ollivier.' "Il faut fermer la boutique et alors on se trouve tout de suite bien," is his comment as he started on one such journey.
'During my visit to Ollivier I explored the south coast of the mountains of the Moors, along which there was no road, and bought some land at Cavalaire, against the possible chance of a boulevard being made through my land at Toulon in such a way as to cut me off from the sea. I walked from Bormes to the Lavandou upon the coast, and fancied I found the path by which St. Francis journeyed when he landed to save Provence from the plague. It is hollowed out by feet, in some places to three feet deep through the hard quartz and schist, and everywhere at least six inches, so its age is evidently great, and it must have been a path in the days of Saracen domination, if not even in or before the Roman times, for the two villages were ever small.
'At Ste. Claire, the first bay eastward from the Lavandou, I had seen a funeral in which all the crucifixes were borne before the corpse by women, and the coffin carried by women. Ollivier's father was still living—Démosthène, born under the First Republic, and a deputy under the Second: an old Jacobin of an almost extinct type. Ollivier's house is as pretty as the whole coast. It stands on a peninsula with perfect sands, one or other of which is sheltered for bathing in any wind, and instead of the usual parched sterility of Provence, springs rise all round the house, which is lost in a dense forest of young palms. The views are not from the house, but from the various shores of the peninsula, all these, however, being close at hand. I had for escort in my trips about the coast the famous Félix Martin, founder and Mayor of St. Raphael and of Valescure, a railway engineer who was known as the American of Provence, and who, in fact, is the most desperate and the most interesting and pleasant speculator of France. Speaking to me of Fréjus, my favourite town, and its surroundings, Martin called it "the Roman Campagna on the Bay of Naples," a very pretty phrase, absolutely true of it, for the scenery is that of the plain between Naples and Capua, but the ruins and the solemnity of the foreground were those of the outskirts of Rome till Martin spoilt it. At the spot where I bought my land eighty boats of Spanish and Italian coral fishers were at anchor. I picked up Roman tiles upon my ground, and found a Roman tomb in the centre of my plot.'
'I was struck with some of the old châteaux in the woods as I returned along the coast to Toulon. Near Bormettes there are two which were nationalized at the Revolution, and the families of the buyers, having turned Legitimist and put stained glass into the chapel windows, are now becoming nobles in their turn, at all events in their own estimation, and thriving upon cork and American vines.[Footnote: The piece of land at Cavalaire was never built on by Sir Charles, but he remained owner of it till 1905, when it was sold by him. His friendship with the Ollivier household continued till the end of his life.]
'It was during this visit that Ollivier made use of a phrase which I have repeated: "When one looks at the Republic one says: 'It can't last a week—it is dead.' But when one looks at what is opposed to it, one says: 'It is eternal.'"'