Letter from Zina Fay Peirce to Sarah Mills Peirce
(Richmond, 25.06.1876)




Spanish translation & annotations




Richmond, Sunday 25 June 1876

My dear mother,

We came out from London to Richmond on Friday and are now most comfortably established in some pleasant lodgings overlooking a green about as large as the Cambridge common but with the encircling trees well grown & very luxuriant as are


all the trees in the neeighbourhood.

It is not far from the famous Hampton Court & the Kew Observatory where Charley is to swing, and the Kew Botanical Gardens are also near.

Richmond is a charming suburban place like Cambridge, all villas & trees and with a park and also a hill with a beautiful view of the Thames & of the valley & with the famous tavern or hotel, the Star & Garter, where so many people dine, etc. The air is fresh & cool & soft as only English summer air can be, & altogether we could not be better off.

 

 

We have a parlour, two bedrooms & a dressing room & our meals are served privately, lodging-house fashion. It is pretty expensive, as the rooms alone are 2 ½ guineas a week, and everything is extra. But Charley has such a multitude of boxes that he needs the room, and with his temperament he never could economize on the comfort question. It would only make him unfit for work.

I have got over the voyage & feel splendidly. Charley seems to me well, though he suffers much from nervousness, and when he is in that state he feels very blue, & if he happens


to write a letter he expresses himself accordingly. But you know he has great natural elasticity, and from his conversation I infer that he has enjoyed much both in Paris and Berlin in spite of his work and his loneliness. He is devoted to Paris, of course, like a good American.

His experiments seem to have been entirely satisfactory. "They are as good as in the present state of the science could have been expected, and will be creditable to him & to the Survey. More than that", he says, "I do not claim". But he says that "Science is in a bad way because there are no instrument makers who want to make instruments suited for research.

 

 

 



 

They only want to make things that will pay, like school apparatus".

Charley thought my spring suit very pretty, & with quite a Parisian effect!

In case I left any loose M. S. on the table in the corner in my room, please put the leaves in the bureau drawer against my return. Charley expects to get through in August. He has begun on his accounts & I hope will be through them in a week.

With best love to all from him & myself.

As ever your loving,

Zina

 



Transcription by Sara Barrena (2014)
Una de las ventajas de los textos en formato electrónico respecto de los textos impresos es que pueden corregirse con gran facilidad mediante la colaboración activa de los lectores que adviertan erratas, errores o simplemente mejores transcripciones. En este sentido agradeceríamos que se enviaran todas las sugerencias y correcciones a sbarrena@unav.es
Proyecto de investigación "Charles S. Peirce en Europa (1875-76): comunidad científica y correspondencia" (MCI: FFI2011-24340)

Fecha del documento: 4 de agosto 2014
Última actualización: 22 de agosto 2014

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