In the “Chair of Gargantua,” on which my eye falls, as I turn over the pages, an actual thunder-storm is breaking.  The scene is somewhere upon the Lower Seine.  From the middle of the left of the picture the lofty river-bank stretches far across, forming all the background;—­its extreme distance hidden by a bold thrust of the right bank, which juts into the picture just far enough to shelter a white village, which lies gleaming upon the edge of the water.  On all the foreground lies the river, broad as a bay.  The storm is coming down the stream.  Over the left spur of the bank, and over the meeting of the banks, it broods black as night.  Through a little rift there is a glimpse of serene sky, from which a mellow light streams down upon the edges and angles of a few cliffs upon the farther shore.  All the rest is heavily shadowed.  The edges of the coming tempest are tortuous and convulsed, and you know that a fierce wind is driving the black billows on; yet all the water under the lee of the shores is as tranquil as a dream; a white sail, near to the white village, hangs slouchingly to the mast:  but in the foreground the tempest has already caught the water; a tall lugger is scudding and careening under it as if mad; the crews of three fishermen’s boats, that toss on the vexed water, are making a confused rush to shorten sail, and you may almost fancy that you hear their outcries sweeping down the wind.  In the middle scene, a little steamer is floating tranquilly on water which is yet calm; and a column of smoke piling up from its tall chimney rises for a space placidly enough, until the wind catches and whisks it before the storm.  I would wager ten to one, upon the mere proof in the picture, that the fishermen and the washerwomen in the foreground will be drenched within an hour.

When I have once opened the covers of Turner,—­especially upon such a wet day as this,—­it is hard for me to leave him until I have wandered all up and down the Loire, revisited Tours and its quiet cathedral, and Blois with its stately chateau, and Amboise with its statelier, and coquetted again with memories of the Maid of Orleans.

From the Upper Loire it is easy to slip into the branching valleys which sidle away from it far down into the country of the Auvergne.  Turner does not go there, indeed; the more’s the pity; but I do, since it is the most attractive region rurally (Brittany perhaps excepted) in all France.  The valleys are green, the brooks are frequent, the rivers are tortuous, the mountains are high, and luxuriant walnut-trees embower the roads.  It was near to Moulins, on the way hither, through the pleasant Bourbonnois, that Tristram Shandy met with the poor, half-crazed Maria, piping her evening service to the Virgin.

And at that thought I must do no less than pull down my “Tristram Shandy,” (on which the dust of years has accumulated,) and read again that tender story of the lorn maiden, with her attendant goat, and her hair caught up in a silken fillet, and her shepherd’s pipe, from which she pours out a low, plaintive wail upon the evening air.