n delightful subjection to a refined and delicate feeling. Alas!
the morrow's sun saw us, by roads as opposite as our future paths
through life, departing from Bourges for ever.

Bidding farewell, even to a disagreeable person, when you know it to
be _for ever_, causes a blank, unpleasant sensation, and therefore I
was now weighed down with a feeling of desolation quite oppressive.
The sole thing that seemed to cling to me was my knapsack. No sooner
have I ever formed any sort of regard for any sort of person, than
Geoffrey Crayon's words, "Tom, you're wanted," dole upon my ear, and I
must away. This is the curse of the traveller. And now what has since
been the fate of this person? Confusion overwhelm the clogs and
procrastination of civilised society! As Geoffrey Crayon once more
bluntly states it, "Done," said the devil--"Done," said Tom
Walker--so they shook hands, and struck a bargain; and why could not
she and I have done the same! But she has gone, and that her days of
life might be brightened with cloudless serenity, no one so ardently
prayed, as a homeless and hopeless unknown; for I found that--

"The heart like the tendril accustomed to cling,
Let it grow where it will cannot flourish alone,
But must lean to the nearest, loveliest thing
It can twine itself round, and make closely its own."

And, to make the matter worse, I had also at this time finally to
separate from my oldest companions, a pair of shoes. They formed the
last relic of my English wardrobe, and had borne me over a long
distance. Having really an attachment for them, I placed them high up
in the fork of a Spanish chestnut tree, whither I could not help again
climbing up, that I might take a last look at them as they rested pale
with the dust of leagues, uncomplaining though deserted.

In a few days more I had reached the heart of Switzerland; but what a
contrast had I experienced in passing from one country to the other!
The whole of France, with the exception of my ever happy Loire, must
surely be the most monotonous and unpicturesque tract of the whole
continent; while Switzerland presents, at every turn, a combination
of the paradisaical and of terrific sterility. Smiling patriarchal
pastures, walled in by granite mountains, frowning in eternal silence
and solitude, save when thundering with the awful avalanche. I said
that their piles of granite were barren; but what a moment is it to
explore your way compani