d in the domain of art.

"O the rain here yesterday!" (26th of June.) "A great sea-fog rolling
in, a strong wind blowing, and the rain coming down in torrents all day
long. . . . This house is on a great hill-side, backed up by woods of young
trees. It faces the Haute Ville with the ramparts and the unfinished
cathedral--which capital object is exactly opposite the windows. On the
slope in front, going steep down to the right, all Boulogne is piled and
jumbled about in a very picturesque manner. The view is charming--closed
in at last by the tops of swelling hills; and the door is within ten
minutes of the post-office, and within quarter of an hour of the sea.
The garden is made in terraces up the hill-side, like an Italian garden;
the top walks being in the before-mentioned woods. The best part of it
begins at the level of the house, and goes up at the back, a couple of
hundred feet perhaps. There are at present thousands of roses all about
the house, and no end of other flowers. There are five great
summer-houses, and (I think) fifteen fountains--not one of which
(according to the invariable French custom) ever plays. The house is a
doll's house of many rooms. It is one story high, with eight and thirty
steps up and down--tribune wise--to the front door: the noblest French
demonstration I have ever seen I think. It is a double house; and as
there are only four windows and a pigeon-hole to be beheld in front, you
would suppose it to contain about four rooms. Being built on the
hill-side, the top story of the house at the back--there are two stories
there--opens on the level of another garden. On the ground floor there
is a very pretty hall, almost all glass; a little dining-room opening on
a beautiful conservatory, which is also looked into through a great
transparent glass in a mirror-frame over the chimney-piece, just as in
Paxton's room at Chatsworth; a spare bed-room, two little drawing-rooms
opening into one another, the family bed-rooms, a bath-room, a glass
corridor, an open yard, and a kind of kitchen with a machinery of stoves
and boilers. Above, there are eight tiny bed-rooms all opening on one
great room in the roof, originally intended for a billiard-room. In the
basement there is an admirable kitchen with every conceivable requisite
in it, a noble cellar, first-rate man's room and pantry; coach-house,
stable, coal-store and wood-store; and in the garden is a pavilion,
containing an excellent spare bed-room