Hotel du Forum Arles S. Rhone 6.11.01
My dearest Sis
Your last letters made me very happy it is indeed good news to hear Bert has taken a little cottage and I long to be with you to help settle in – what luxuries – hot water & electric light and oh! How good to have a little crib on the other side of the world that one can call home – I believe I am homesick! The approach of Christmas gives me a dreary little pang and a great longing to see you all again and it is no good reminding myself I am over 30 and should know better. I should like a nice sticky kiss from Baba at this present moment better than anything else in the world – not that I am not very happy, for I am – quite terribly so – but I should like to be a little nearer & drop in upon you sometime. It is very sweet and generous of you all to want me to stay longer at Home, but I shall be very hungry for a sight of you all by this time next year – so if there is a nice cheap studio going begging none of your £10 a week garrets but a large airy room with top lights & a southern aspect prithee let me know and I shall come out straight away. Thank Will for his kind letter and his generous offer of help. I hope he will not be called on yet awhile to pay my debts, but it is comforting to know there is a brother-in-law somewhere in the world who will come to one’s assistance when wanted. By the way, it would be as well to send me Home a draft if there is anything for me after the Exhibition. I shall be in need of fresh supplies about March or April – but as I got to friends when I return to England and shall also be earning money at the same time there need be no anxiety about it – but it will be as well to have the money for my return ticket by me in case of need. I am hoping to send some smaller and more attractive things out for sale soon, but I naturally do not want to send away anything that may be useful for my show (if it ever comes off). I am longing for your next letter with news of your pictures and the results of sales etc. I do sympathise with you dear so much in your painting I know that old familiar pain – growing stale and losing one’s freshness of ideas – but wait awhile old girl and don’t try & force your brush – the children are growing older every day now and will soon cease to want your attention so much – and in the meantime what better work can you do then bring up four beautiful children? My work is as nothing compared to it – we poor spinsters must embrace something, if it is only a profession - I snapped at Mr Garstin when he said that but in my heart I know it is true – my art is everything to me – at least at present – but I know it is not the higher life or the right life for a woman. The older I grow the more convinced I am that after all love is everything and one’s own people become more precious & needful to one that all else in the world. To be without ties seems to be awful beyond words. When I think of Miss Richmond I feel sad – everyone wanting her – no one needing her – no niche, no reason why she should go home. Some good man has missed a great happiness. It is the tradition of her family to bring happiness when they give love and I do not wonder at it knowing her. It was sweet of Mrs Atkinson to read you her letters. What has she been saying about me? She has far too exalted an opinion of my work & too little of her own – she will never be a great painter, she has nice taste & judgement but lacks fire & originality. So Will thinks my letters are not long enough greedy cormorant, I know Miss R’s would spoil you, her letters are poems compared to my uninteresting scribbles. She writes as she speaks, wittily and to the point. She is the dearest piece of perfection I have ever met and unlike most perfection not in the least tiring to live up to. With all her poetical nature she has a solid backbone of fact which is good for us both and keeps us from any inclination to drift. There has been a sudden snap of cold weather this last week, the mistral roaring like a thousand lions burst down upon us from the mountains in the most offensive manner – stripped the trees bare and sent the barometer down almost to freezing point and has quite banished any regrets we may have felt at leaving Arles, and our one idea now is to quite it as quickly and as warmly as we can. We are both fighting colds – Miss Richmond in her room with a cold water compress (made out of her spong bag and a woolen vest) me in my room with an Elliman plaster on my lower chest. We were to have started for San Remo today but I felt too seedy to travel so we have postponed it till next week. We had made all our arrangements said our farewells, labelled and sat on each other’s boxes appointed the hour to be called in the morning – then decided not to go – in cases like this we congratulate ourselves we have no husbands to consider – they would never let you change your mind at the 11th hour. Think of Will or Willy, how cross they would have been, they would have insisted on your going and very probably you wold have died on the way! Two days ago we made our farewells to our beautiful Arlesian friends – in the market where we paint nearly every day. We had a touching and imposing scene. To the poulterer who was our best & most intimate friends we presented with a photo of ourselves with a suitable inscription. She was a nice woman and we were grateful for little attentions in the way of chaufrettes to keep our feet warm, cups of black coffee on cold days & various little kindnesses. Her profession was the one thing against her. She was always killing a bird or an animal of such description but with such a light heart and deft fingers we forgave tho’ we did not approve. I must tell you, this market is a huge white washed building lighted from about round which the different trades women have their stalls, imagine the color with the sun overhead – the butcher’s stall, made to look as red as possible with crimson colored tables & awnings to help out the illusion of a plentiful supply of meat – this stall is flanked by the poulterer on the left who is always in a cloud of feathers and distressed cackling & gurgling from the strangling victims. Then comes the green grocer with her two pretty daughters always beaming from behind a barricade of pumpkins, melons, pomegranates, figs and green stuff. This is my favourite stall and I have made many studies of it. Then there is a corner given up to pottery & earthernware of many colors & shapes. These are a great temptation to my purse, but I have learned to deny myself, partly because of the expense, partly because they are so brittle & wont travel. I remember my first day in Caudebec, I bought as many as I could carry away – delighted to get so much for so little but alas when it came to packing them it was quite another pair of shoes. I had to get a box especially for them and by the time I had got them to Paris after endless bother with the customs who insisted on smelling, tapping & finally opening them, I found if I dragged them round Europe with me they would eventually cost me more than the most priceless Sevres – so I stowed away as many as I could in my trunk & gave the rest away – and now I buy nothing – except what I can put in my box. No more at present the dinner gong is ringing and the supply of potatoes is limited. You see I am not too ill to enjoy my meals.
After dinner I am glad we did not go away today. I am glad also I went down to dinner, a most interesting meal, with an entirely fresh experience in the gastronomic line. We are feeling somewhat depressed and in need of a fillip to our faded appetites so we consulted our garcon who strongly recommended ”escargots” “tres bon et tres deliceux”. We ordered accordingly & waited expectingly – it come in the guise of a delicious brown gravy over something we know not what. We were handed wiry two forked prongs which might have warned us and we fell to expecting a treat. Imagine our feelings when we exposed to view a large dish of snails. I ordered them away peremtorily and Miss R. ordered them back equally peremtorily and I sat still, quite petrified with horror while she tickled it out of its shell with the prong thing – and eat it – and her face was white & set with a sickly look while I told her if she spat it out in front of the table d’hote I should leave the room. So she swallowed and she has been feeling rather sad this afternoon and these are considered rare delicacies in this benighted land. French cooking is villainous and I am long for a decently cooked dinner and for a day beginning with curly bacon and ending with a pudding fit for a Christian to eat. They eat all sorts of small birds, larks, wrens, sparrows and sometimes I have actually seen goldfinches for sale in the market, to say nothing of thrushes & blackbirds. The consequence is there are not nearly so many singing birds in the woods. We have decided to go on Monday to San Remo and I shall finish this letter from there. I hope it will reach you before you eat your Christmas turkey. I shall drink to you across the water & think of you all. I wonder if you will go out of town.
Villa Solaro San Remo Italy 19.11.01
We have been here a week today and these are quite the most comfortable quarters we have struck yet. Just recovering from a bad cold and am not feeling quite fit, not sick you know, but out of sorts and not able for any work and it is so jolly having a nice comfortable “homey” house where one is not paying 5 frcs daily and where they make me stay in bed for breakfast. Miss Astley and Miss Shaen have the villa together & where they winter for Miss A’s health, they are so nice and kindness itself. They have two Italian servants Angelina & Tommasina and a sedate old English maid, and I am afraid we will be horribly spoilt by the time we leave here. We had a thrilling journey from Arles, left there early one morning before daybreak to catch the 7. Train from Marseilles. As luck would have it our train broke down just before we reached there at a most inconvenient place on the top of a rise and with the tail of our train scarcely out of a long tunnel. After a long & weary wait we crawled into Marseilles with the help of another engine, to find we had missed our connecting train so much to our joy we were sent on in the “Rapido” the through quick express from Paris which has only 1st class carriages & is most luxuriant & therefore costly, so we travelled all day along the Riviera skirting the sea the whole time in this most luxurious carriage. It was beautyful , not an inch that was not interesting. Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, Mentone, Villa Franca all in quick succession, close to each other, and finally Ventimilgia on the frontier where we had to go thro’ the customs, then on to a branch line, past Bordighera then here at 9 o’clock in the evening, very weary wheezy and glad of the hot baths & delicious supper waiting for us. This is the most beautiful spot, tho’ I have seen very little of it except from my windows. Like most Riviera towns there is a large English population which quite spoils it in my eyes. The villa itself is delightful it belongs to an American artist & has a lovely studio & is most artistically furnished. Miss Astley wants us to take rooms in San Remo & paint for a month or two but it wld be much to distracting, and not at all conducive to hard work. We are going next week to Rapallo a few miles South of Genon and this I hope will be our last move for the winter. By the bye, I have just received a paper from Willie with a perfectly idiotic account of my prowess in the art line – it is really just a little too strong and if Miss Richmond told her sister all that rubbish I can only say it is not true. The paint is laid on a little too thick & wants lifting a trifle. To read in cold print that “I have nothing to learn” & “that Mr Garstin says so” is too much. Why make a fool of me. I shall write again before I leave here & tell you of further plans. The post closes in half an hour so I must say goodbye – I enclose a letter from Mr Garstin, the sketch he refers to is the old man’s head you sent after me, he took a fancy to it & carried it off to show in Penzance, only a loan for I regard it as yours. Keep the letter & don’t let it go out of your possession.
This letter is for Mother as well. I wish I could pop in and see her cosily settled in her little cottage. Dear old Bert what a brick he is to make a home for her. With heaps of love to you all & a kiss for the children and abundance of good wishes for a very happy Xmas. How I wish I was to be with you. Your loving Fanny. Tell Will I shall certainly go and see Aunt Sophia when I return to London. I liked her too well to deprive myself of that pleasure. Send this on to Will in case I don’t find time to write.