The sun sets, trailing a wash of pale, watery gold; torn, inky clouds spatter the sky; sombre shadows fill the acacia-groves; and on, on, pounds the train, untiring, rhythmically throbbing. [Sidenote: LAUSANNE October 7] “_Tout paysage est un état d’âme._” Often must Amiel, who lived his life on the shores of this great lake, have brooded over her moods. Deep-blue, she lies plunged in silent meditation; wrapped in the opal-tinted mists of evening, she dreams the vague, glad dreams of fancy; now she smiles, she laughs even, as little ripples, all gilded by the sun-rays, trip across her surface; she has her grey days of gloom, and her dark days of despair: she has also her _jours de fête_, and her _jours de grande toilette_, under a sky heavy-loaded with blue: often, in the moonlight, she lies white, tranquil, statuesque, like a beautiful, sleeping woman: at times her humour is bewilderingly capricious; the fleeting, furious rages of a spoilt child sweep across her; or, ink-coloured, she sulks during long hours, sullenly wrathful. [Sidenote: OLD MARSEILLES AT MIDDAY October 10] Up every staircase-street—dark crevasses, pinched between tall, peeling cliffs; along the quay, flaunting, tattered, brawling colours, sweating and swarming with noisy life—negroes, Chinamen, Arabs, Lascars, Italians, Greeks—the angry hum of a thousand tongues and the clatter of straining mules.... At midday, when all the smooth stone pavement lies bathed in lusty sunshine, you may feel the pulse of old Marseilles quicken to fever-heat its turbulent throbbing.... Across the sea, polished as a pool of molten metal, the Southern sun strews his golden highway; the frail forest of masts stiffens, congealed like a fine etched pattern; side by side lie the herds of steamers, silent, drowsy, vermilion-bellied beasts; and over there, to the left, high above the city, the slim silhouette of Notre-Dame de la Garde shows a glimmer of dusky gilt.... Oh! for the crude crowd of blatant hues and the flood of fierce vitality that belong to old Marseilles at midday! [Sidenote: MONTE CARLO October 15] High, beneath the lofty dome of sullen sky, like a great white globe of electric light, the full moon hangs; beyond the bay, the twinkling lights of Monaco are dropping long golden tears into the sea: no breath of breeze to sway the black drooping palms; only the full, solemn phrase of Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” slowly recurring to linger in the still, grave air of the night.... The moonbeams spangle with silver the twin minarets of the temple of Chance; and stately officials swing back its portals to meet the silent tide of worshippers that ceaselessly ebbs and flows, blackening the broad flight of marble steps.