It is astonishing how chilly the words of age fall upon the glowing enthusiasm of youth. As we go on through life, doubtless we gather all the same cold truths; but it is by degrees, not all at once, as when the freezing experience of many years is poured forth, like a sudden fall of snow upon our hearts. Lucky, most lucky is it, that we cannot believe the lessons which the old would teach us; for certainly if we were as wise when we come into life as we are when we go out of it, there would be nothing great, and very little good, done in the world; I mean that there would be no enthusiasm of wish or of endeavour. Nevertheless, there is always some damp rests upon the mind from such views of human existence, however warm may be the fire of the heart; and when Father Francis had repeated his lines upon Glory, he left a weight upon me which I found difficult to throw off. We were now near Luz, and the good father's mule--which, by the way, was the best epitome I ever saw of a selfish and interested spirit--as if it entertained a presentiment of approaching hay and oats, suffered its sober legs to be seduced into an amble that speedily brought us to the door of the little cabaret where we were to pass the night. The accommodations which its appearance promised, were not of the most exquisite description, and one must have been very charitable to suppose it contained anything better than pumpkin soup and goose's thighs.[2] Father Francis, however, was tired and exhausted with a longer ride than he had taken for more than fifty years. Houssaye was an old soldier, and I was too young and in too high health to trouble myself much about the quality of my entertainment. Dismounting then, our horses were led into the stable, and we ourselves were shown to the room of general reception, which we found already tenanted by a fat monk, all grease and jollity; and a thin gentleman in black, who, for grimness and solemnity, looked like a mourning sword in a black scabbard. It seemed as if nature, having made a more fat and jovial man than ordinary in the capuchin, had been fain to patch up his companion out of the scrapings of her dish. Father Francis did not appear to like the couple, and indeed he had reason; for it wanted no great skill in physiognomy to read in the jovial countenance of the monk a very plain history of the sort of self-denial and sensual mortification which he practised on himself. As for his companion, had I known as much of the world as I do now, I should instantly have understood him to be one of those solemn villains, who, if they sometimes lose a good opportunity by want of conversational powers, often catch many a gull by their gravity, and escape many an error into which a talkative rascal is sure to fall by his very volubility.