Banque de Roumanie
Bucharest
23 July 1871
My dear Biche,
I was glad to get a letter from you and hear all the news you had to tell. Since I heard from you in England, I have had a letter from Tom & as I was answering him I put in a few lines to you all.
I hope Mrs. Allen will get over but I don’t quite see how she will manage about a school at Trouville. I hope you will make Joe keep to his music now he has got on so well it will be a pity if he left off again & it will be a great pleasure to him some day when he has to live alone. I am always so glad when I can get a little music & I don’t often here. I know one young man who plays very nicely and sometimes I go to him of an evening.
I am glad you saw André in London & also Mr [?]. It is very hot now & today being Sunday I indulge in the luxury of white clothes which I can’t wear every day as I should spoil them in the office. I have so much to do. Our bank is a frightful place for sick clerks, two are away now for their health and one is laid up here with the jaundice. Most of them are lazy with the heat, so you can well fancy I have to hurry a good deal during the day. I have just made the acquaintance of an American by name “Wells” who spent his life in going up in balloons. He is trying to organise something of the sort here & take people up with a balloon fastened to the ground which will rise a thousand feet. I should like to go up, but it will cost too much, I fear. I hope you don’t find Paris too dull now, but a good many of yr friends seem to have left. I suppose you have left school now, but I hope you still work at home. Are you enough advanced to work yourself up to be able to pass any of the Hotel de Ville examinations? In any case don’t let your music get away & read a good deal of English and French. The best books for the language you can lay yr hands on & you will find it useful in giving you a finishing style both of speaking and writing. We have some good books at home of that sort, one Macaulay’s History of England is as good English as you can possibly find. Also, his critical & historical essays which are too very interesting. In French it is difficult, there are so few things fit to read get Ned’s Moliere or read Thiers’ Consulate & Empire which is first rate French, but I suppose too long for you. It would be a pity for you to lose all you have learned & you will soon get out of the way if you did not keep it up.
Dis à Lucille que quand je reviendrai elle me faire l’effet d’être une grande dame. Ici j’ai une sauvage que vient chez moi tous les matins, pieds nus & assez légèrement […] pour prendre nos bottes & habits. Au surplus cette femme est très propre et faire bien mon affaire si Lucille me prépare aussi bien mes chambres. & la tient aussi propre je serais content d’elle, comme des restes, j’ai toujours été. Dites-lui que jusqu’à nouvel son aller peut-on attendre au mois d’Avril prochaine, si […] arrivée était retardée jamais […] de la prévenir.
Goodbye, give my love to all,
Yr afft brother
Fred Mourilyan
