402 LIFE OF PKOFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XVI 



our galleries and churches, but I have got BO far as a 



commencing dislike for the fine arts generally. Perhaps 



after a week or two I shall take to science out of sheer 

 weariness. 



HOTEL DB MILANO, FLORENCE, 

 March 12, 1885. 



MY DEAR FOSTER My wife and I send you our 

 hearty good wishes (antedated by four days). I am not 

 sure we ought not to offer our best thanks to your mother 

 for providing us with as staunch a friend as people ever 

 were blessed with. It is possible that she did not con- 

 sider that point nine and forty years ago ; but we are 

 just as grateful as if she had gone through it all on our 

 own account. 



We start on our way homeward to-morrow or next 

 day, by Bologna to Venice, and then to England by the 

 way we came taking it easy. The Brenner is a long 

 way round and I hear very cold. I think we may stay 

 a few days at Lugano, which I liked very much when 

 there before. Florence is very charming, but there is 

 not much to be said for the climate. My wife has been 

 bothered with sore throat, to which she is especially 

 liable, ever since we have been here. Old residents 

 console her with the remark that Florentine sore throat 

 is a regular thing in the spring. The alternations of 

 heat and cold are detestable. So we stand thus Naples, 

 bad for both Rome, good for her, bad for me Florence, 

 bad for her, baddish for me. Venice has to be tried, but 

 stinks and mosquitoes are sure to render it impossible as 

 soon as the weather is warm. Siena is the only place 

 that suited both of us, and I don't think that would 

 exactly answer to live in. Nothing like foreign travel 

 for making one content with home. 



I shall have to find a country lot suited to my fortunes 

 when I am paid off. Couldn't you let us have your 

 gardener's cottage ? My wife understands poultry and 



