This is, perhaps, what Balzac means by saying that life in the provinces is far more intense than in a capital—so intense, indeed, as frequently to be entirely made up of unnatural dislikes and equally unnatural likings; while that serene indifference which, after all, is the only really comfortable feeling in life, has here no place. Cranford-like, we all walked to and from the social meetings, which took place at alternate houses. The distances were so short as not to make it worth while getting in and out of a carriage, and people who loved their horses did not care to drive them on a cold, dark night over the slippery and uneven pavement of the town. Every party, therefore, terminated by a Cinderella-like transformation scene—thick wadded hoods, heavy fur cloaks, and monstrous clogs reducing us one and all to shapeless bundles, as we walked home in the starlight over the crisp, crunching snow. As the winter advances the social gloom deepens, and the liveliest spirits fall a prey to a sense of mild desperation. I began to realize the possibility of paying endless visits to the seal or the fat lady, and only wondered why no one had as yet hit upon the bright expedient of buying the one or marrying the other, merely by way of bringing some variety into his existence. Some women changed their cooks, and others their lovers, merely for change’s sake; and as there was far greater choice of the latter than of the former article—there being many men, but of cooks very few—any woman known to be capable of roasting a hen or making a plain rice-pudding became the centre of a dozen intrigues woven round her greasy person. A single roe-deer appearing in the market infallibly gave birth to three or four evening-parties within the week. You were invited to sup on its saddle at the general’s, to partake of the right haunch at the colonel’s house, and the left at the major’s, and might deem yourself exceptionally lucky indeed if not further compelled to study its anatomy at some other house or houses—everywhere accompanied by the identical brown sauce, the same slices of lemon, the self-same dresses, cards, and conversation! Oh, roebuck, roebuck! why did you not remain in your own native forest? Much better would it have been for yourself—and for us! FOOTNOTES: