15 Aug 1921

15 August 1921

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

We have settled down here as we never did in the South of France. I don't know why it seems so easy to live here - to fit into this life. Squirrels, rainbows, troups of white goats, flowers, these are our real neighbours. And even real live people come & go. May [Elizabeth] is here of course for all the summer. We see a great deal of each other. We have had Hugh Walpole here too, & a party of Wells arrives next month. That is our Socierty gossip . . . ‘
  It has been tremendously cold lately. Even now I am writing with the radiator on & a fur rug. Snow fell and one tasted winter. I expect winter will be very fierce . . . Do you really think you will come, my dears? I quite know what you mean about staying with us; I expect you'd be happier on your own, too. Ida will of course find you a pension or an hotel. But I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be too cold to spring up to - - suddenly. It is 5000 feet, you know & it hasn't a really gay winter season like some of the other places. But you will decide.
  I have been having a beastly time with my gland. (Like your dear Aunt Agnes.) But it won't go. And it is attacked with needles at least once a week as I can't have an operation. However, I hope to live this final thorn in the flesh down, sooner or later. I wish the Lord loved me less. I've also had the most horrible nightmares about Mrs B. She haunts my slumbers. I feel she must be on my path. What a bother!

[To Charlotte Beauchamp Perkins and Jeanne Beauchamp Renshaw, Collected Letters, 21 August 1921.]