Chapter 17: The Transition to Davos Platz, and Life There

Abstract

In the winter of 1875–76 my health, as usual, began to fail. Dr Beddoe recommended me to go to the Riviera. My wife and I accordingly settled at San Remo in February. There I wrote a large part of the second volume of my Renaissance in Italy. It has also to be mentioned that I took a fancy there for a curly-headed quarryman from the hills beyond Savona. This amour did not advance far beyond Platonic relations. The summer was spent in hard work upon the third volume of the Renaissance; and at the end of it I went with H.F. Brown and James Pearson to the Valais. Here I found that my physical vigour was considerably abated. I took severe colds which left me exhausted; and I remember suffering considerable fatigue after a walk with Brown from Saas over the flanks of the Fletschhorn to the Simplon Hospice. Work meanwhile advanced with a regularity and rapidity which told of feverish and diminishing nervous energy.