Pièce 43 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Caroline Trevelyan

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Palermo:- Has come here for a few days to ‘draw on [his] bankers’ and see some more of the place; will return to Taormina tomorrow or the next day. Is well; the weather ‘has become Italian again, after nearly a week of continual wind and rain’. The rain was ‘sadly wanted’: the Cacciolas say that there has not been a ‘proper downpour’ for three years, so that citrus and other fruit trees are ‘quite backwards, and the blossoms unhealthy’. The Cacciolas have been ‘very kind’, allowing him to borrow books, but still he does not thinkTaormina can ‘hold a candle to Corpo di Cava as a place to stay’, and he would definitely have gone there had it not been for the cold. Has not yet received her second letter, but thought he would write since he may not return to Taormina till Tuesday. Is just going for a drive with the Hodgkins, whom he found in Palermo to his ‘surprise’. When the ‘old boy is at Syracuse’, Robert will go there for a day: Hodgkin has ‘an exaggerated idea’ of Robert’s knowledge of Thucydides, and wants him to ‘demonstrate the military topography’; Robert is however confident that he knows the ‘“siege” pretty well’. Will write again from Taormina.