een a settling-day since things were. You get entertainment pretty
much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a sort of odd
wanderers, to be stared at and followed like a quack doctor or a
caravan, we had no want of amusement in return; but as soon as we sank
into commonplace ourselves, all whom we met were similarly disenchanted.
And here is one reason of a dozen, why the world is dull to dull
persons.

In our earlier adventures there was generally something to do, and that
quickened us. Even the showers of rain had a revivifying effect, and
shook up the brain from torpor. But now, when the river no longer ran in
a proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, out-right, but
imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us day after day
without variety, we began to slip into that golden doze of the mind
which follows upon much exercise in the open air. I have stupefied
myself in this way more than once; indeed, I dearly love the feeling;
but I never had it to the same degree as when paddling down the Oise. It
was the apotheosis of stupidity.

We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes when I found a new paper, I took a
particular pleasure in reading a single number of the current novel; but
I never could bear more than three installments; and even the second was
a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in any way perspicuous, it
lost all merit in my eyes; only a single scene, or, as is the way with
these _feuilletons_, half a scene, without antecedent or consequence,
like a piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. The less I
saw of the novel, the better I liked it: a pregnant reflection. But for
the most part, as I said, we neither of us read anything in the world,
and employed the very little while we were awake between bed and dinner
in poring upon maps. I have always been fond of maps, and can voyage in
an atlas with the greatest enjoyment. The names of places are
singularly inviting; the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to
the eye; and to hit, in a map, upon some place you have heard of before
makes history a new possession. But we thumbed our charts on these
evenings with the blankest unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this
place or that. We stared at the sheet as children listen to their
rattle; and read the names of towns or villages to forget them again at
once. We had no romance in the matter; there was nobody so fancy-free.
If you had taken the maps away while we wer