_Half-past 10._--The party gone to bed. This _salle_, where I sit, how unlike a parlour in an English inn! Yet the history of a sea-fight, or a siege, painted on the walls, with the costumes of Philip the Second, or even of our own time, would have better suited my associations, with the names of Gravelines and Dunkirk, than the story of Cupid and Psyche now before my eyes, as large as life, on French paper! The paper is in panels, with big mirrors between, in gilt frames. With all this taste and finery, and wax candles,[38] and Brussels carpets, what a mixture of troublesome awkwardness! They brought us a ponderous teapot that would not pour out the tea; the latches (with metal enough to fasten up a dungeon) can hardly, by unpractised hands, be made to open and shut the doors! I have seen the diligence come into the yard and unload--heavy, dirty, dusty--a lap-dog walking about the top, like a panther in its cage, and viewing the gulf below. A monkey was an outside passenger when it departed. [Footnote 38: A charge was made for wax candles.--D. W.] _Furnes, July 13th, Thursday, 5 o'clock._--I will describe this Square. Houses yellow, grey, white, and _there_ is a green one! Yet the effect is not gaudy--a half Grecian church, with Gothic spire; storks have built their nests, and are sitting upon the venerable tower of another church, a sight that pleasingly reminds us of our neighbourhood to Holland. The interior of that which outwardly mimics the Grecian is Gothic, and rather handsome in form, but whitewashed, and bedaubed with tinsel, and dolls, and tortured images.... Bells continually tinkling. _There_ goes a woman to her prayers, in a long black cloak, and bright blue stockings; _here_ comes a nicely-dressed old woman, leaning on her staff! Surely it is a blessing to the aged in Roman Catholic countries to have the churches always open for them, if it were only that it makes a variety in the course of a long day! How soothing, how natural to the aged, thus to withdraw from the stir of household cares, and occupations in which they can no longer take a part! and I must say (little as I have yet seen of this mode of worshipping God) I never beheld more of the expression of piety and earnest feeling than in some of the very old people in these churches. Every avenue of the square of this town presents some picturesque continuation of buildings. All is old, and old-_fashioned_; nothing to complain of but a want of Dutch cleanliness, yet it does not obtrude on the eye, out of doors, and the exterior is grave, decent, and quiet....