G1UL1ETTA. 221 



the mail shrinking into huddled and silent distress from the 

 swirl of a winter snowstorm ; and for type of the present Ely- 

 sian dispensation, the inside of a first-class saloon carriage, 

 with a beautiful young lady in the last pattern of Parisian 

 travelling dress, conversing, Daily news in hand, with a young 

 officer her fortunate vis-a-vis on the subject of our military 

 successes in Afghanistan and Zululand.* 



3. I will not, in presenting it must not be called, the 

 other side, but the supplementary, and wilfully omitted, 

 facts, of this ideal, oppose, as I fairly might, the discomforts 

 of a modern cheap excursion tr'ain, to the chariot-and-four, 

 with outriders and courier, of ancient noblesse. I will com- 

 pare only the actual facts, in the former and in latter years, of 

 iny own journey from Paris to Geneva. As matters are now 

 arranged, I find myself, at half -past eight in the evening, 

 waiting in a confused crowd with which I am presently to 

 contend for a seat, in the dim light and cigar-stench of the 

 great station of the Lyons line. Making slow way through 

 the hostilities of the platform, in partly real, partly weak po- 

 liteness, as may be, I find the corner seats of course already 

 full of prohibitory cloaks and umbrellas ; but manage to get 

 a middle back one ; the net overhead is already surcharged 

 with a bulging extra portmanteau, so that I squeeze rny desk 

 as well as I can between my legs, and arrange what wraps I 

 have about my knees and shoulders. Follow a couple of 

 hours of simple patience, with nothing to entertain one's 

 thoughts but the steady roar of the line under the wheels, the 

 blinking and dripping of the oil lantern, and the more or less 

 ungainly wretchedness, and variously sullen compromises 

 and encroachments of posture, among the five other passen- 

 gers preparing themselves for sleep : the last arrangement for 

 the night being to shut up both windows, in order to effect, 

 with our six4>reaths, a salutary modification of the night air. 



4. The banging and bumping of the carriages over the turn- 

 tables wakes me up as I am beginning to doze, at Fontaine- 

 bleau, and again at Sens ; and the trilling and thrilling of the 



* See letter on the last results of our African campaigns, in the Morn- 

 ing Post of April 14th, of this year. 



