unt of trouble to learn, just out of respect for
your own soul; and there's a great deal in that point of view, in one's
noblest moments; but one's noblest moments are like bubbles, radiant
while they last, then going pop! quite to one's own surprise, leaving
one all flat, and nothing to show for the late bubble except a little
commonplace soap.

Well, I am like that, and when I'm not nobly bubbling I love to say what
I'm thinking to somebody who will understand, instead of feeding on
myself.

It really was a waste of good material to see all that lovely scenery
slipping by like a panorama, and to be having quite heavenly thoughts
about it, which must slip away too, and be lost for ever. I got to the
pass when it would have been a relief to be asked if "this were my first
visit to the Riviera;" because I could hastily have said "Yes," and then
broken out with a volley of impressions.

Seeing beautiful things when you travel by rail consists mostly on
getting half a glimpse, beginning to exclaim, "Oh, look _there_!" then
plunging into the black gulf of a tunnel, and not coming out again until
after the best bit has carefully disappeared behind an uninteresting,
fat-bodied mountain. But travelling by motor-car! Oh, the difference!
One sees, one feels; one is never, never bored, or impatient to arrive
anywhere. One would enjoy being like the famous brook, and "go on
forever."

Other automobiles were ahead of us, other cars were behind us, in the
procession of Nomads leaving the South for the North, but there had been
rain in the night, so that the wind carried little dust. My spirit sang
when we had left the long, cool avenue lined with the great
silver-trunked plane trees (which seemed always, even in sunshine, to be
dappled with moonlight) and dashed toward the barrier of the Esterels
that flung itself across our path. The big blue car bounded up the
steep road, laughing and purring, like some huge creature of the desert
escaped from a cage, regaining its freedom. But every time we neared a
curve it was considerate enough to slow down, just enough to swing round
with measured rhythm, smooth as the rocking of a child's cradle.

Perhaps, thought I, the chauffeur wasn't cross, but only concentrated.
If I had to drive a powerful, untamed car like this, up and down roads
like that, I should certainly get motor-car face, a kind of inscrutable,
frozen mask that not all the cold cream in the world could ever melt.

I wond