Dear Jem. Your letter has influenced me to delay for just a week my trip to Greece. Constantinople is said to be one of the healthiest places on the Mediterranean. Its September isothermal passes through Milan & there is always a good breeze from the Black Sea. I think myself that to go into Greece is not entirely safe but I shall reduce my stay there to a minimum. I cannot well avoid going there & if as is not after all probable I get the fever why I shall not for my own sake care at all & I should be no great loss socially. You will have done what you could to keep me away, but it is quite absurd to be made unhappy by the regular & normal course of human events. If I should never come back I trust my friends will remember that the less they care for it the more they conform to my ideas. I don’t believe that by the time I get to Rome there will seriously be danger if I have a room at the top of my hotel & avoid

Pest is a rather pleasant place to stay though I think I am not probably at the best hotel. However the one I am at is very delightful & I shall much regret in leaving here to have the last vestige of Germany behind me. And what I shall do when I have to depend on French I really don’t know. I shall be a dummy then, a dumb beast. There is a very nice gallery of pictures here. But it is slow, very slow; that is what I enjoy. But the wines are villainous. Yes the Ofener Adelsberger at Vienna is infinitely better than I can find it here. I regret to be so very brief but I must now pack & I will write again from Constantinople. Thanks for your letters.

C. S. P.