Mansfield wrote to a friend that motor picnicking was a pleasure that momentarily took her mind from her rampaging tuberculosis. The episode has the dreamy quality of an advertisement, such as one used by Jowett Motors (discussed elsewhere).
“The weather here [Mentone, France] is simply supreme,” she explained, “It’s summer, hot enough for cold chicken, un peu de salade, champagne, and ice-cream, all of which are very much here. The flowers are marvelous, Anne. We go for picnics up among the mountains and long day excursions by motor.”
See Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1919-1920, ed. M.S. Vincent O’Sullivan. Vol. 3. 1984, London: Clarendon Press. “Letter to Anne Estelle Rice [Drey], March 1920.”