[Venice][added in pencil and in brackets] Ubi Bohemia Fuit

June 18 [1875]

Dear Charlie: --

I’m a little too tired tonight to write you more than a line or two. But it is a long time since I have had a chat, you know, and notwithstanding the lateness of the hour I am bound to let you know that I still live and move and have my being.

[Space added to facilitate reading.]

There was to be a picnic at St. Helena today and we went over, which the others didn’t do it and we ate our grub under the trees with the Adamses who didn’t eat any, which [because] they weren’t hungry and after dinner Ben lay on his back with his head on a stone, of which he has two of whom, and we gaumed [hung out] until nine thirty and came home.[1]

Damn picnics especially when the people don’t come. It is to be repeated tomorrow “Deo volente” [God willing].

But Mrs. Warner came down here occasionally – I like ‘em very much. Also Mr. & Mrs. Benson have called and liked my picture very much. Miss [Julia Constance] Fletcher and Donny [Charlotte Adams] gaum [hang out] which she will tell you all about [page 2] with dressings of enthusiastic gush. I dare say – not meaning to be hard on any girl – in the letter enclosed in this.

I see no reason to change my plans about meeting you in Antwerp on the morning of Saturday, July 10 at the dock of the Harwich company. Two weeks from today I shall be on my winding way I think. The Adamses [Charles Francis Adams, Jr., his wife, and children] say they are coming too, but I don’t believe it as they are not certain of anything.

We have the Overland [The Overland Monthly, a magazine] with the [article by Stoddard titled] “Chambers in Charlotte St.” Like it, but not so well as “Bloomsbury.”[2]

Arthur is going to Milan tomorrow I hope. Ben is here now and serves as an antidote. One is needed. A. & I shall go to Ancona [a city and seaport in central Italy] a week from today. I shall try and go to Loreto. If I do I shall certainly call on Father John.[3]

[Space added to facilitate reading.]

You can’t imagine what pleasure I take in anticipating our trip in Belgium and Holland. Don’t fail to come, old chummeke, and we’ll have a busting time. Bohemia is now no more. You wouldn’t know the place. I’m glad I am going to leave, the Italians are getting familiar, one committed suicide off our river the other day but we yanked him [out] and just in time to bring him to. That’s what I call cheek. But ‘nuf ced. Write me soon else I shall be gone.

Yours with all my old affection

Frank.

Notes

1. Is the reference to a "stone" and the phrase "of which he has two" a joke about Ben's two testicles? St. Helena (Saint Elena) is one of the islands making up the city of Venice.
2. Charles Warren Stoddard, "Chambers in Charlotte Street," 241-250, Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine (San Francisco), Mar. 1875. In the Overland Monthly of January 1875, Stoddard had published an essay titled "Bloomsbury Lodgings," Part 1 of two parts. In the same isse of Overland Joaquin Miller published "In Venice" and Dudu [Julia Constance] Fletcher published "Playing with Fire. In Two Parts. Part 1, In Which Various People Fall in Love," 31-??. All of these works might provide clues to the relationships portrayed in Millet's letters.
3. In an essay titled "In Memory of Loreto", Charles Warren Stoddard talks of meeting an American priest who acted as his confessor and showed him the sights. Ave Maria, March 7, 1885.