It Would Have Been Delightful For Florida, But It Didn't Do For Burgundy, Even On The Eve Of November 1st, So That I Suffered Absurdly From The Rigor Of A Season That Had Not Yet Begun.

There was something in the air; I felt it the next day, even on the sunny quay of the Saone, where in spite of a fine southerly exposure I extracted little warmth from the reflection that Alphonse de Lamartine had often trod- den the flags.

Macon struck me, somehow, as suffer- ing from a chronic numbness, and there was nothing exceptionally cheerful in the remarkable extension of the river. It was no longer a river, - it had become a lake; and from my window, in the painted face of the inn, I saw that the opposite bank had been moved back, as it were, indefinitely. Unfortunately, the various objects with which it was furnished had not been moved as well, the consequence of which was an extraordinary confusion in the relations of thing. There were always poplars to be seen, but the poplar had become an aquatic plant. Such phenomena, however, at Macon attract but little attention, as the Saone, at certain seasons of the year, is nothing if not expansive. The people are as used to it as they ap- peared to be to the bronze statue of Lamartine, which is the principal monument of the _place_, and which, re- presenting the poet in a frogged overcoat and top- boots, improvising in a high wind, struck me as even less casual in its attitude than monumental sculpture usually succeeds in being.

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