I see from your letters that you are spending your time merrily in promenades and amusements of all kinds. I try to imagine what may be the relative merit of an inhabitant of Pas-de-Calais compared to one from Grenoble. Everything considered, I have leanings toward the former, for the reasons that he is less noisy, and has never had any parliament to persuade him that he has a mind, and that he has a political importance. I knew, however, two intelligent men from Grenoble, but they had spent their life in Paris. I can not conceive of what the women can be like. It is not very long since I abandoned imaginary pictures of the human heart, so that I might cease to interest myself in the mental status of the present age.... I am still ill, and suspect sometimes that I am travelling on the grand railway which leads beyond the tomb. At times the idea is painful to me, at others I find in it the consolation which one feels in a railway train: the absence of responsibility before a superior and irresistible power.... CCII PARIS, _August 12, 1859_. I shall visit you before the end of the month. It is very probable that before going to Spain I shall make a short journey to Germany. I am not even sure that I shall go to Spain at all, for I hear the cholera has broken out there, and that will drive away the friends whom I wish to see. Tell me, therefore, when I may go to see you. When you wish to delay negotiations you are more clever than the Austrian diplomats in finding dilatory excuses. Send me a prompt answer. It is understood, of course, that I shall always accept good reasons, sensible objections, but they must be explained definitely and frankly. You are well aware that whenever it is a question of deciding between the greatest happiness for me and the least inconvenience for you, I shall never hesitate. I told you--did I not?--that I was reading the _Letters of Madame du Deffand_,[21] that is, the last ones. They are most interesting, and give one a good idea of the social life of that period. There is, however, a great deal of tiresome repetition. You shall read them, if you wish. CCIII PARIS, _Saturday, September 3, 1859_. I fear very much that we shall meet no more this year on this side of the Acheron, and I am unwilling to leave without bidding you farewell, and telling you something of my peregrinations. I shall start Monday--that is, day after to-morrow--for Tarbes, where I shall remain, probably, until the 12th, when I shall return to Paris for several days, and leave again soon afterwards for Spain. If I believed in presentiments, I should not cross the Pyrenees; but it is too late to change my mind, and I must make my visit, which will probably be the last, to Madrid. I am too old and too ill to undertake another such journey. If I did not feel in duty bound to go bidding good-bye to some of my best friends, I should not budge from my hole.