
Your welcome p'card of July 23rd reminds me how the time
has slipped away since my last letter to you. I have now been here in North Wales
for nearly six weeks, having retreated to these mountains very soon after returning
from Paris. I am lodged very comfortably in the cottage of a
quarry-man,—William Davies, who works at Festiniog Ffestiniog
,
5 or 6 miles from here. He is a very good type,—healthy,
well-built, good-natured, impulsive, with the over-carefulness of the average
Welshman tempered by his experiences of American life, for "he went to the states,"
as they say here, some years back, & travelled far & wide, working in mines &
quarries. Even now he does not talk English very fluently, & prefers his native
Welsh, in which he gives me lessons every night on his return from work. Many people
in the district speak no English at all. The Welsh are a peculiarly adhesive race, &
stick to their language & old customs, &, it must be added, to their money, with a
somewhat dubious devotion. An infusion of American generosity & freedom would do them great good. As it
is, Methodism &
money-making is the formula of the lives of most of them,—their
redeeming quality being their love of music & oratory!
I found the change here from Paris very striking. The French are exactly opposite in every way,—those who live in Paris at any rate. There the sunshine & the gaiety & general friendliness are very pleasantly in contrast with the grey skies & the somewhat montonous monotonous routine of London. Paris is a sort of ideal New York,—a New York touched with Romance & the finer graces of the Past, but without the youthful ardency that pulses in Mannahatta. Paris would delight you greatly, I know, though you might have misgivings at last about a life so frivolously secular, so wanting (as it seemed to me) in humane & religious aims of the higher kind. But this notwithstanding, the charm of those sunny streets, & good-natured irresponsible faces, is something to remember.
The Exhibition, I daresay, you have heard enough of. What struck me most of all—much more than the Eiffel Tower & other nine-days wonders, was the endless cosmopolitan ebb & flow of the peoples of the world,—American, Arabian, Japanese, Indian, Egyptian, English, Norse:—a wonderful, indescribable Concourse de Monde!
I must stop here to-day—Post-time!—hoping to take up the story at greater length shortly. Luck has been dead against me of late. I suppose I shall have to turn Quarry-man presently,—Scottish Art Review & other papers not paying up!
With love & remembrances to Camden friends, yrs. Ernest Rhys
