the apostle of frankness and plain speaking, the same
to prince as to peasant? What I would like would be a ramble through the
less visited parts of Europe,--countries in which civilization slants
in just as the rays of a setting sun steal into a forest at evening.
I would buy me a horse. Oh, Blonde." thought I, suddenly, "am I not in
search of you? Is it not in the hope to recover you that I am here; and,
with you for my companion, am I not content to roam the world, taking
each incident of the way with the calm of one who asks little of his
fellow-man save a kind word as he passes, and a God-speed as he goes?"
I knew perfectly that, with any other beast for my "mount," I could
not view the scene of life with the same bland composure. A horse that
started, that tripped, that shied, reared, kicked, craned his neck, or
even shook himself, as certain of these beasts do, would have kept me in
a paroxysm of anxiety and uneasiness, the least adapted of all modes for
thoughtfulness and reflection. Like an ill-assorted union, it would have
given no time save for squabble and recrimination. But Blondel almost
seemed to understand my mission, and lent himself to its accomplishment.
There was none of the obtrusive selfishness of an ordinary horse in his
ways. He neither asked you to remark the glossiness of his skin, nor the
graceful curve of his neck; he did not passage nor curvet Superior to
the petty arts by which vulgar natures present themselves to notice, he
felt that destiny had given him a duty, and he did it.

Thus thinking, I returned once more to the spirit which had first sent
me forth to ramble, to wander through the world, spectator, not actor;
to be with my fellow-men in sympathy, but not in action; to sorrow and
rejoice as they did, but, if possible, to understand life as a drama,
in which, so long as I was the mere audience, I could never be
painfully afflicted or seriously injured by the catastrophe: a wonderful
philosophy, but of which, up to the present, I could not boast any
pre-eminent success.

CHAPTER XII. THE DUCHY OF HESSE-KALBBRATONSTADT

I grew impatient to leave Ostend; every association connected with the
place was unpleasant. I hope I am not unjust in my estimate of it I
sincerely desire to be neither unjust to men nor cities, but I thought
it vulgar and commonplace. I know it is hard for a watering-place to
be otherwise; there is something essentially low in the green-baize
and bathing-hous