Pau

Sunday, July 22, 1883.

DEAR WILLIAM, — The curtain has fallen and risen again ; the whole scene has changed. London, with all its fun, is far away, and here we are close to the Pyrenees. It is delightfully cool and pleasant, and the view out of my window is wonderfully beautiful. I have time enough to look at it, for I am laid up with a lame leg. On the way from Chartres to Bordeaux I struck my leg in leaving the railway coach, and this morning I sent for a French doctor, who bade me lie still today. So here I am, writing, like M., on a book instead of a table. The queer little doctor assures me that it will be all right tomorrow morning, and then we shall push on up to Eaux Bonnes. It is only a bruise, I believe. Paine is as kind as kind can be, and does everything for me, and we are having a delightful time. Just now he has gone out to see the town, and I am trying to write in this miserable way upon my back.

I am busy getting my volume of sermons ready for Macmillan. Seven of them are finished, and there will be seven more. The volume will be called " Sermons Preached in English Churches," and will be dedicated " To many friends in England, in remembrance of their cordial welcome." I never can forget how hospitable English people were. I counted up, before I left London, sixty separate occasions on which I had been entertained, and at almost all I had seen interesting people. We left London last Thursday morning.

We came through that night to Chartres, which Paine had never seen, and the next night to Bordeaux, and yesterday here. I have been buying a lot of books in London, and just before I left, Macmillan kindly undertook to have them packed and sent to your care. There will be one or two big boxes of them. Will you see to them when they arrive, and have them sent to my house ? They are all for my own use, mostly theological books, and ought to pass as tools of trade. Of course, if they must pay duty, you will pay it for me. They have been bought so miscellaneously in many places, one here and another there, that I cannot say just what they have cost, but it is about $800 or $900. You must do what you think best about it, and I hope it will not give you a great deal of trouble.

Yours affectionately, P.