Uzès is in Provence. Racine repaired to Lyons, and then down the Rhone to his destination. In the spirit of a true Parisian, he gives no token of delight at the beauties of nature: he talks of high mountains and precipitous rocks with a carelessness ill-befitting a poet; and shows at once that, though he could adorn passion and sentiment with the colours of poetry, he had not that higher power of the imagination which allies the emotions of the heart with the glories of the visible creation, and creates, as it were, "palaces of nature" for the habitation of the sublimer passions. We have several of his letters written at this period. They display vivacity, good humour, and a well-regulated mind: scraps of verses intersperse them; but these are merely _à propos_ of familiar or diverting events. There is no token of the elevated nor the fanciful--nothing, in short, of the poet who, if he did not, like his masters the Greeks, put a soul into rocks, streams, flowers, and the winds of heaven, yet afterwards showed a spirit true to the touch of human feeling, and capable of giving an harmonious voice to sorrow and to love. One of his chief annoyances during this visit was the patois of the people. He was eager to acquire a pure and elegant diction; and he feared that his ear would be corrupted by the jargon to which he was forced to listen. "I have as much need of an interpreter here," he writes, "as a Muscovite in Paris. However, as I begin to perceive that the dialect is a medley of Spanish mixed with Italian, and as I understand these two languages, I sometimes have recourse to them; yet often I lose my pains, asking for one thing and getting another. I sent a servant for a hundred small nails, and he brought me three boxes of _allumettes_." "This is a most tiresome town," he writes, in another letter: "the inhabitants amuse themselves by killing each other, and getting hanged. There are always lawsuits going on, wherefore I have refused all acquaintance; for if I made one friend I should draw down a hundred enemies. I have often been asked, unworthy as I am, to frequent the society of the place; for my ode having been seen at the house of a lady, every one came to visit the author: but it is to no purpose--_mens immota manet_. I never believed myself capable of enduring so much solitude, nor could you have ever hoped so much from my virtue. I pass all my time with my uncle, with St. Thomas, and Virgil. I make many notes on theology, and sometimes on poetry. My uncle has all sorts of kind schemes for me--but none are yet certain: however, he makes me dress in black from head to foot, and hopes to get something for me; when I shall pay my debts, if I can; for I cannot before. I ought to think on all the dunning you suffer on my account--I blush as I write; _erubuit puer; salva res est._"