Pièce 65 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Caroline Trevelyan

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Il Frullino, Via Camerata, Florence:- Is 'settled here very comfortably' and will certainly stay 'well into January', when he may 'perhaps go on to Ravello'. Mrs Costelloe is still here, though will go to England soon; nobody else is here but [Bernard] Berenson at present. Sees few people but the Rosses; Mrs Ross was pleased Robert's parents found her book 'interesting'. She is 'very amusing and gives wonderful lunches, having a genius for [a] cook'; Robert likes 'the old boy [Henry Ross' too]'. There is also Janet Ross's niece, Miss [Lina] Duff Gordon, whom he thinks he told his mother about last year. She is 'a great beauty, and very charming though a trifle dull', and Robert 'should have been bound to fall in love long ago' if he had been 'given that way'; but his mother 'need not be afraid'.

Has done some work recently, mainly on his 'book of translations'; gives his translation of Catullus 34. Acknowledges that this does not have 'the charming simplicity of the original', but doesn't 'think it half bad' metrically; must 'try and do something... like it' of his own. Is 'beginning at the play [his Cecilia Gonzaga?] again'. Hopes his mother is having a good winter, and that 'Papa will have some fun among the pheasants'. The weather here is 'quite cold... but fine'. Berenson says they should send [the picture of Sir George Trevelyan by Holl, see 46/64] to Dyers of Mount Street, as Agnews 'would only send it to somewhere of the kind and charge more' and 'Dyers are quite safe'.

The 'danger of the mutilation of Florence has been postponed but not averted'; fears 'they want to pull down a lot in order to make a grand modern street up to the Ponte Vecchio, and then put a grand new iron bridge in its stead, which may the Gods, or rather the Saints avert'.