2 12 Travelling Sketches. [SEPT. 



My anti-leave-taking foible is certainly not so much affected when I 

 quit the residence of an hotel that public home that wearisome resting- 

 place that epitome of the world that compound of gregarious incompa- 

 tibilities that bazaar of character that proper resort of semi-social egotism 

 and unamalgable individualities that troublous haven, where the vessel 

 may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no anchorage. Yet even the 

 Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn imperceptibly twine round my 

 lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver like, a passive fixture. Once, in 

 particular, I remember to'4mve stuck at the Hotel des Bons Enfants, in 

 Paris a place with nothing to recommend it to one of ordinary locomotive 

 energies. But there I stuck. Business of importance called me to Bor- 

 deaux. I lingered for two months. At length, by one of those nervous 

 efforts peculiar to weak resolutions, I made my arrangements, secured my 

 emancipation, and found myself on the way to the starting-place of the 

 Diligence. I well remember the day : 'twas a rainy afternoon in spring. 

 The aspect of the gayest city in the world was dreary and comfortless. The 

 rain dripped perpendicularly from the eves of the houses, exemplifying the 

 axiom that lines are composed of a succession of points. At the corners of 

 the streets it shot a curved torrent from the projecting spouts, flooding the 

 channels, and drenching, with a sudden drum like sound, the passing 

 umbrellas, whose varied tints of pink, blue, and orange, like the draggled 

 finery of feathers and flounces beneath them, only made the scene more 

 glaringly desolate. Then came the rush and splatter of cabriolets, scatter- 

 ing terror and defilement. The well -mounted English dandy shews his 

 sense by hoisting his parapluie ; the French dragoon curls his mustachio at 

 such effeminacy, and braves the liquid bullets in the genuine spirit of 

 Marengo ; the old French count picks his elastic steps with the placid 

 and dignified philosophy of the ancien regime ; while the Parisian dames, 

 of all ranks, ages, and degrees, trip along, with one leg undraped, exactly 

 in proportion to the shapeliness of its configuration. 



The huge clock of the Messageries Roy ales told three as I entered the 

 gateway. The wide court had an air of humid dreariness. On one side 

 stood a dozen of those moving caravansaras, the national vehicles, with 

 their leathern caps like those of Danish sailors in a north-wester hanging 

 half off, soaked with wet. Opposite was the range of offices, busy with 

 all the peculiar importance of French bureaucratic. Their clerks, deco- 

 rated with ribbons and crosses, wield their pens with all the conscious dig- 

 nity of secretaries of state ; and " book" a bale or a parcel as though they 

 were signing a treaty, or granting an amnesty. The meanest employe 

 seems to think himself invested with certain occult powers. His civility 

 savours of government patronage ; and his frown is inquisitorial. To his 

 fellows, his address is abrupt and diplomatic. He seems to speak in cypher, 

 and to gesticulate by some rule of freemasonry. But to the uninitiated he 

 is explanatory to a scruple, as though mischief might ensue from his being 

 misapprehended. He makes sure of your understanding by an emphasis, 

 which reminds one of the loudness of tone used towards a person supposed 

 to be hard of hearing a proceeding not very flattering where there happens 

 to be neither dulness nor deafness in the case. In a word, the measured 

 pedantry of his whole deportment betrays the happy conviction in which he 

 rejoices of being conversant with matters little dreamt of in your philosophy. 

 Among the bystanders, too, there are some who might, probably with more 

 reason, boast their proficiency in mysterious lore fellows of smooth aspect 



