The sword is at rest now, lodged on my staircase, and of one thing I am sure: no one is likely to run away with it. I have lost curiosities too tempting for specialists to keep their fingers from; but no one will carry away my sword. I shall go, but the sword will remain.
Dooll, but the mutton good--Les Bains de Sextius--Ironwork caps to towers--S. Jean de Malthe--Museum--Cathedral--Tapestries and tombs--The cloisters--View from S. Eutrope--King René of Anjou--His misfortunes--His cheeriness--His statue at Aix--Introduces the Muscat grape.
I had a friend, a parson, a good fellow, who was some years ago in Cumberland, where he was concerned about the spiritual condition of the neighbouring parsons. Among these latter was one, very bucolic, with a heavy red face. My friend urged him to take advantage of a "retreat," that is a gathering of clergy for devotion and meditation, that was to take place in Carlisle. After some persuasion the heavy-souled parson agreed to go, and my dear good friend hoped that some spark of spiritual zeal might be thus kindled in him.
When the retreat was at an end he button-holed him, and asked, "Well, how did you get on?"
"Dooll, varry dooll!" replied the heavy soul, "I shud ha' left long ago, but--the mutton was good."
I had gone for a couple of weeks to commercial inns, and now that I visited Aix I thought I would like to see another aspect of Gallic life, so I went to the Hôtel des Bain de Sextius, and took a plunge into the society of patients drinking waters and taking baths. I may say of that social phase in the Bain, that it was "dooll, varry dooll, but the mutton was good." I was a fool to go there; of course one cannot expect people with their livers and their spleens, and their entire internal tubular mechanism out of order, to be chirpy and frolicsome. There were a good many ladies there, pale, I could not quite make out whether from ill-health or from violet-powder; but I think the latter had something to do with their pallor, for, after drinking, when they wiped their lips, roses began to bloom, wherever the napkin touched. They lived up to their appearance, natural or applied, they were "mild-eyed, melancholy, lotus-eaters," to whom it was "always afternoon." The gentlemen were equally sad, still and forlorn. But the mutton was good. The feeding left little to be wished for.