Item 6 - Letter from W. K. Clifford to Mary F. Clifford

1 folded sheet

C/o Fräulein Kretschmer, 8 Räcknitz Strasse, Dresden.—Is sorry to hear of her ill health. His party are suffering from the heat. Gives an account of his friends' visit to Prague and the battlefield of Sadowa.—(Some days later.) Describes his various activities and excursions, and refers to other English visitors at Dresden. When he returns to England he will have to go straight to Cambridge for his fellowship examination.

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Transcript

Fraülein† Kretschmer, 8 Räcknitz Strasse[,] Dresden.

Dearest Mama

I was very glad indeed to get your letter this morning, and to hear that you have so much enjoyed the visit of Susan & Aunt Smythe. But I don’t like to hear of your weakness and headaches. I hope it is only the effect of the hot weather. We have all been suffering from it more or less—chiefly in the form of indigestion and incapability to do anything whatever except sit on the Terrasse in the evening and sip iced coffee followed by Kemel {1} or Vermuth. Iced coffee is the most magnificent institution conceivable; you merely let your coffee get cold and then put an ordinary vanilla ice into it. Kemel is a liqueur made of carraway seeds; much the cleanest-tasted of any liqueur I have ever known. It comes from Russia. Vermuth is a bitter, supposed to have some of the invigorating effects of quinines: but I suspect it plays the deuce with the coats of your stomach if you take it too often. Pryor and Forrest made an excursion to Prague and Sadowa. They liked Prague exceedingly, and say it is a most interesting town—especially the old bridge from which S. John Nepomucen was thrown for refusing to disclose the Queen’s confession. They saw at Prague a hospital-convent, where the nuns are very able physicians and surgeons, but do all their work for nothing. Forrest says it is a better plan than the blanket societies for tea and flirtation that one finds at home. Then they went to see the battlefield of Sadowa {2}. It is made of very ordinary cornfields and pine wood, perhaps rather more fertile since the fight. After studying the ground and several histories of the war they have come to the conclusion that the needle-gun had very little to do with the business. It appears that people bayonetted each other for three hours in a pine-wood, and one Prussian regiment which went into the wood consisting of 3000 men and 90 officers, came out with just 100 men and 2 officers. The Saxon soldiers were exposed by the Austrians to cover their reserve, and were much exasperated in consequence: which paved the way for the Prussian operations here very considerably.

So far I got on the day I received your letter—I dare not think how long ago. I have been trying daily to finish this, but something always prevented me—either Walter rushed in with some Statics to be explained, or Mrs Watt’s† started her piano in the next room, or Dr Schier came to give a German lesson. I don’t know why, but the time seems to pass very quickly and to leave no results. I have not known the day of the week for a long time till Pryor took me to Church on Sunday. I like Kitto the English Chaplain very much. There was a great fair here called the Vogelwiese (bird-meadow). It is chiefly to celebrate the contest of shooting at popinjays with crossbows, a very ancient institution now degenerated. I had the happiness of riding in a merry-go-round with great glee, holding a wand-teufel {3}, a drum with one end open tied to the end of a stick, which makes a ghastly row when you swing it round. Then we went again to Saxon Switzerland and slept at Schandau. We arrived at Schandau in the middle of the night, having decided quite late in the day to try to reach it. Moss the master of Shrewsbury has been here, and now there are two Oxford men, one a fellow of Baliol†. At length I have found the Spottiswoodes, having met them at Church on Sunday—must go and call. The hot weather has given me a bad habit of working all day and only going out in the evening, when one is too tired to get much good; and now that the cold weather has come it is difficult to get right again. Here your second letter arrives: no wonder you don’t know what’s the matter. But I will be more good in future. Gordon Wigan has come; he will stay on with Forrest when the rest of us are away. We went to Freiberg the day before yesterday, and investigated a lead-mine. It was necessary to go up and down by ladders, which was very fatiguing, though I think climbing about at the bottom was even worse. People were casually blasting to a small extent all about. After doing the mine we saw the smelting works which are also interesting. Altogether one came home very tired. Wigan has bought a small snake in the marketplace for 9d. It is a kind of coronella, quite harmless, and very amusing. He wouldn’t be quiet on the bell rope, so I have had him here on the table—about two feet long. I took him down today to frighten everybody.

I shall get back to England I hope in ten days or a fortnight from now. I am afraid it will be necessary to go on to Cambridge at once, because my fellowship examination comes on the end of September. Still one will get away all the earlier at Christmas. Very best love to all: believe me to be

your most affectionate son
+W. K. Clifford.

Glad to see that Exeter is to have the Brit. Assoc. next year.

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{1} Kümmel.

{2} A village in Bohemia (now Sadová in the Czech Republic), near which the battle of Königgratz, or Sadowa, the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, took place on 3 July 1866.

{3} A mistake for Waldteufel, a kind of friction drum.

† Sic.