href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@44429@[email protected]#link456" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">456
A PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER......................458
THE PLEASURES OF WINTER.......................461
A DISCUSSION WITHIN BOUNDS....................463
HEAVEN........................................464
THE SOURCE OF THINGS..........................466
GRACE AT MEAT.................................467
THE REST OF THE WEARY.........................468
AT THE HOTEL OF THE GREAT SUN.................470
NEAR LUCHON...................................473
CHAPELLE AND LACHAUMONT.......................476
VALLEY OF LUCHON..............................481
URBS IN REVRE.................................484
HEAD-PIECE....................................485
A TALENTED FAMILY.............................487
LUCHON........................................491
BAGNERES......................................493
"ALL WAS IN HARMONY"..........................495
NEAR CASTEL-VIEIL.............................497
RUINS OF CASTEL-VIEIL.........................499
THE MALADETTA.................................503
"THESE MOUNTAIN SKELETONS"....................505
"A CLEFT IN THE ETERNAL ROCK".................507
TAIL-PIECE....................................508
HEAD-PIECE....................................509
ST. BERTRAND DE COMINGES......................510
TOULOUSE......................................512
SAINT SERININE AT TOULOUSE....................515
CHURCH OF ST. ETIENNE, TOULOUSE...............519
THE MUSEUM AT TOULOUSE........................521

TO MARCELIN.

(EMILE PLANAT.)

This, my dear Marcelin, is a trip to the Pyrenees; I have been there, and that is a praiseworthy circumstance; many writers, including some of the longest-winded, have described these scenes without leaving home.

And yet I have serious shortcomings to confess, and am deeply humbled thereat. I have not been the first to scale any inaccessible mountain; I have broken neither leg nor arm; I have not been eaten by the bears; I have neither saved any English heiress from being swept away by the Gave, nor yet have I married one; I have not been present at a single duel; my experiences include no tragic encounter with brigands or smugglers. I have walked much, and talked a little, and now I recount the pleasures of my eyes and ears. What sort of a man can he be who comes home from a long absence bringing all his limbs with him, is not the least in the world a hero, and yet does not blush to confess it? In this book I have talked as if with thee. There is a Marcelin whom the public knows, a shrewd critic, a caustic wit, the lover and delineator of every worldly elegance; there is another Marcelin, known to but three or four, a learned and thoughtful man. If there are any good ideas in this work, half of them belong to him; to him, then, I restore them.

H. TAINE.