224 THE LIFE OF JAMES D.'FORBES. [CHAP. 



series of those sumptuous entertainments in all the 

 various parts of poor Collinton are presented to my 

 imagination. Pleasing reveries, which I feel it a privi- 

 lege to be able to recall, and which people the solitary 

 hills and valleys of a distant land (to the eye of one who 

 would be still solitary though all the villages below were 

 to turn out their throngs) with the images of count rv, 

 home, and kindred and of some faces which could 

 never be seen again but for the aid of that same happy 

 spirit of association ; for 



" She can give us back the dead, 

 E'en in the loveliest looks they wore." 



I did not think to have been led from the hot waters of 

 Ax to writing sentiment, but writing as I do to you, my 

 dear E. to endeavour to impart a feeling, not to afl 

 an unfelt emotion I would wish to convey some notion 

 of the trains of thought with which travelling after my 

 fashion (which the Frenchmen whom I meet in parties of 

 from six to twenty or thirty pronounce "bien triste!") 

 inspires me. But this I think one of its greatest advan- 



. . 



'The inns in these regions are not in general very bad, 

 but the attendance is execrable, and affords a lesson of 

 patience which one might go through the worst parts of 

 Britain without learning. To get hot water to make tea 

 has cost me more running up and down stairs, more 

 strength of lungs (not a bell in the Pyrenees), and 

 more twirling of thumbs, than all the conduct of an 

 English journey. I have acquired an intimate acquaint- 

 ance with the French cuisine in the same way, and 

 marvellous it is to see the dinners they turn out with 

 one or two saucepans, a few bits of live charcoal, a 

 gridiron, and an infinite number of earthen pots, which 

 in this country are perfect salamanders. Another of the 

 French arts of which I have always intended to speak 

 is that of the coiffure of the women in the S.W. of 

 France, between Bordeaux and Bareges. It consists 



