This fellow’s evolutions, and the little prologue,
in which the showman made a humorous eulogium of his
troop, praising their indifference to applause and
hisses, and their single devotion to their art, were
the only circumstances in the whole affair that you
could fancy would so much as raise a smile. But
the villagers of Precy seemed delighted. Indeed,
so long as a thing is an exhibition, and you pay to
see it, it is nearly certain to amuse. If we
were charged so much a head for sunsets, or if God
sent round a drum before the hawthorns came in flower,
what a work should we not make about their beauty!
But these things, like good companions, stupid people
early cease to observe: and the Abstract Bagman
tittups past in his spring gig, and is positively not
aware of the flowers along the lane, or the scenery
of the weather overhead.
BACK TO THE WORLD
Of the next two days’ sail little remains in
my mind, and nothing whatever in my note-book.
The river streamed on steadily through pleasant river-side
landscapes. Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers
in blue blouses, diversified the green banks; and the
relation of the two colours was like that of the flower
and the leaf in the forget-me-not. A symphony
in forget-me-not; I think Theophile Gautier might
thus have characterised that two days’ panorama.
The sky was blue and cloudless; and the sliding surface
of the river held up, in smooth places, a mirror to
the heaven and the shores. The washerwomen hailed
us laughingly; and the noise of trees and water made
an accompaniment to our dozing thoughts, as we fleeted
down the stream.
The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the
river, held the mind in chain. It seemed now
so sure of its end, so strong and easy in its gait,
like a grown man full of determination. The surf
was roaring for it on the sands of Havre.
For my own part, slipping along this moving thoroughfare
in my fiddle-case of a canoe, I also was beginning
to grow aweary for my ocean. To the civilised
man, there must come, sooner or later, a desire for
civilisation. I was weary of dipping the paddle;
I was weary of living on the skirts of life; I wished
to be in the thick of it once more; I wished to get
to work; I wished to meet people who understood my
own speech, and could meet with me on equal terms,
as a man, and no longer as a curiosity.
And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew
up our keels for the last time out of that river of
Oise that had faithfully piloted them, through rain
and sunshine, for so long. For so many miles
had this fleet and footless beast of burthen charioted
our fortunes, that we turned our back upon it with
a sense of separation. We had made a long detour
out of the world, but now we were back in the familiar
places, where life itself makes all the running, and
we are carried to meet adventure without a stroke of
