À propos de Nice

Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, Thaïs (1890). Alexander the Great's lover Thaïs leads the burning of Persepolis

On reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

“To be on a daïs with Thaïs, how naïs.”—attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reading Henry James, I fancy be-

Ing owner of a palazzo in Florence

and wintering there, by way of Paris,

Nice, and the Promenade des Anglais,

after a dip in the Baie des Anges,

—an Anglo-American swell in late

Victoria's reign, with a hundred

thousand a year Home Counties domain.

Who wouldn’t trade for that in a trice!?

But in fact all mightn't be nice.

They died of gout, sepsis, and TB,

and suffered atrocious dentistry.

Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo,

Muggs my cat would mock the mice.

And worst of all, if Mary-Rose

metamorphosed into Madame Merle

or some presumptuous foreign girl . . .

What to do, Heaven only knows!

Friday, December 12, 2025