XXXVIII.
The Foregoing Reflections Occur, In A Cruder Form,
As It Were, In My Note-Book, Where I Find This Remark
Appended To Them:
"Don't take leave of Lamartine on
that contemptuous note; it will be easy to think of
something more sympathetic!
" Those friends of mine,
mentioned a little while since, who accuse me of always
tipping back the balance, could not desire a paragraph
more characteristic; but I wish to give no further evi-
dence of such infirmities, and will therefore hurry away
from the subject, - hurry away in the train which, very
early on a crisp, bright morning, conveyed. me, by way
of an excursion, to the ancient city of Bourg-en-Bresse.
Shining in early light, the Saone was spread, like a
smooth, white tablecloth, over a considerable part of
the flat country that I traversed. There is no provision
made in this image for the long, transparent screens
of thin-twigged trees which rose at intervals out of
the watery plain; but as, under the circumstances,
there seemed to be no provision for them in fact, I
will let my metaphor go for what it is worth. My
journey was (as I remember it) of about an hour and
a half; but I passed no object of interest, as the phrase
is, whatever. The phrase hardly applies even to Bourg
itself, which is simply a town _quelconque_, as M. Zola
would say. Small, peaceful, rustic, it stands in the
midst of the great dairy-feeding plains of Bresse, of
which fat county, sometime property of the house of
Savoy, it was the modest capital.
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