"I have only been at Palma four days. My journey has been very satisfactory, but rather long and difficult until we were out of France. I took up my pen (as people say) twenty times over to write the last five or six pages for which _Spiridion_ has been waiting for six months. It is not the easiest thing in the world, I can assure you, to give the conclusion of one's own religious belief, and when travelling it is impossible. At twenty different places I have resolved to think it solemnly over and to write down my conclusion. But these stoppages were the most tiring part of our journey. There were visits, dinners, walks, curiosities, ruins, the Vaucluse fountain, Reboul and the Nimes arena, the Barcelona cathedrals, dinners on board the war-ships, the Italian theatres of Spain (and what theatres and what Italians!), guitars and Heaven knows what beside. There was the moonlight on the sea and above all Valma and Mallorca, the most delightful place in the world, and all this kept me terribly far away from philosophy and theology. Fortunately I have found some superb convents here all in ruins, with palm-trees, aloes and the cactus in the midst of broken mosaics and crumbling cloisters, and this takes me back to _Spiridion_. For the last three days I have had a rage for work, which I cannot satisfy yet, as we have neither fire nor lodging. There is not an inn in Palma, no house to let and no furniture to be bought. On arriving here people first have to buy some ground, then build, and afterwards send for furniture. After this, permission to live somewhere has to be obtained from Government, and after five or six years one can think about opening one's trunk and changing one's chemise, whilst waiting for permission from the Customs to have some shoes and handkerchiefs passed. For the last four days then we have spent our time going from door to door, as we do not want to sleep in the open air. We hope now to be settled in about three days, as a miracle has taken place. For the first time in the memory of man, there is a furnished house to let in Mallorca, a charming country-house in a delightful desert. . . ."