| Description | Letter from Amelia Nyasa Laws, 7 Via Venti Settembre, Rome, to her relatives, regarding bad scirocco; plans to leave Rome; Aunt's hand and other medical complaints are particularly bad in the conditions; this has led to nightmares; Mrs. Polkinghorne's foot has also been set back by the weather; death of Mrs. Cardinali; her nerves had probably been inflamed for years; Aunt went to the service in the house but not to the funeral as it was damp; Aunt is now also visiting Mrs. Poitet, who is exacting and almost blind; she troubles Uncle because she is paranoid about her financial affairs and keeps wanting to change things; they are looking after her desk for her, which is a trial; people should shrug off responsibility when they are past dealing with it; Mrs. Ashby is a pleasant contrast, but is suffering very much from unskilled Italian massage, which made her thigh worse; visit of Mr. Irving, then departure of both Mr. Irving and Uncle for Florence, armed with extra bread so as to avoid the cholera and typhoid from bad bread, which has affected 60,000 in Florence; scarcity of sugar even though Mr. Smith, grocer at Naples, says the government has plenty in store; newspaper coverage of America's entry into the war and conditions of her loans; Italy does not want America's army, just her money; the Presbytery went well, and the Millers were there from Bordighera; Blake had no power to institute his schemes with regard to Leghorn; he has been turned down three times as military chaplain because he is too old; Blake had been unwilling to present the address to Uncle on his jubilee, saying that he would get it when he retired, but Irving, who realises that Blake wants Rome, told him that Uncle had years to go yet; Irving reckons that he himself has prior claim to Rome anyway; Gibson proposes some successor every time he meets Uncle; campaign to clean the dining room; exhibition of different types of guns with a 1 franc entry fee; Maria misreads this, thinks guns can be bought for a franc and plans to buy one to kill her husband; fooling around after the cleaning, with Maria pretending to be Uncle; clearing out old correspondence hoarded by Uncle, including Aunt Amy's letters, and 'an innumerable set of notes from a perfect hive of cracked women explaining absences on Sunday'; Ernesta burned them all as they wanted to prevent Fulvio selling them as old paper; Uncle's failure to clear out a load of old books last year has resulted in them being infected with worms; bad earthquake killed many in the Perugia-Arezzo district last week; Mrs. J. Moir's nephew W. Tod has died of wounds; Lieutenant Pender who visited Rome last year has been killed. |