We next arrived at Irun, the first Spanish town, in a storm of sleet and rain, and in a hurricane of wind. In fact, it had rained, and blown great guns and small arms, almost incessantly for the last four days at Bayonne and Biarritz, and the farther south we got the worse got the weather. People for some inscrutable reason go to Spain for the winter. They had surely better remain in the mild and even climate of Ventnor or Torquay; for if the sample of autumn we were favoured with was supposed to be genial, the Fates and common sense defend us against experimentalising with our miserable bodies upon the Spanish winter! To winter amidst the damps, or rather wets (for damp is a mild expression indeed), the violent winds and the shelterless plains of the north of Spain would, we fancy, be sufficient to send a Laplander into a consumption. What effect it would produce upon a delicate English female, we cannot attempt to decide upon our own authority. We doubt not, however, that Seville, Valencia, Granada, or even Barcelona, with their sunny skies and favourable position, may be more favourable to the invalid, and melt the icy fingers of winter ere they can reach him; though, alas! the frost of death will strike down its victims even under warm and radiant skies. True, it seems at times as if death might be touched with a temporary remorse, and be persuaded to defer the fatal blow; but what matter a few moments longer in a dreary world? Of what value is another year amidst a sea of troubles--an ocean of toils and cares? Whether our life be a dream of sorrow or of bliss, it must shortly end. If the former, why should we care to prolong it? If the latter, it is like the one joyous life-hour of the butterfly,--'tis gone at our sunset, when the poor heart has beaten itself out. The blushing flowers of summer, even as we bend over them, fade, wither, and die; and the music of a woman's whisper faints away even as it is uttered. All that is mortal, all that is lovely, must pass away into darkness, and the objects of our fondest affections must disappear in the shifting sands of Time!