incompatibilities--that bazaar of character--that proper resort of
semi-social egotism and unamalgable individualities--that troublous
haven, where the vessel may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no
anchorage. Yet even the Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn
imperceptibly twine round my lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver-
like, a passive fixture. Once, in particular, I remember to have _stuck_
at the Hôtel des Bons Enfants, in Paris--a place with nothing to
recommend it to one of ordinary locomotive energies. But there I stuck.
Business of importance called me to Bordeaux. I lingered for two months.
At length, by one of those nervous efforts peculiar to weak resolutions,
I made my arrangements, secured my emancipation, and found myself on the
way to the starting-place of the Diligence. I well remember the day:
'twas a rainy afternoon in spring. The aspect of the gayest city in the
world was dreary and comfortless. The rain dripped perpendicularly from
the eves of the houses, exemplifying the axiom, that lines are composed
of a succession of points. At the corners of the streets it shot a
curved torrent from the projecting spouts, flooding the channels, and
drenching, with a sudden drum-like sound, the passing umbrellas, whose
varied tints of pink, blue, and orange, like the draggled finery of
feathers and flounces beneath them, only made the scene more glaringly
desolate. Then came the rush and splatter of cabriolets, scattering
terror and defilement. The well-mounted English dandy shows his sense by
hoisting his parapluie; the French dragoon curls his mustachio at such
effeminacy, and braves the liquid bullets in the genuine spirit of
Marengo; the old French count picks his elastic steps with the placid
and dignified philosophy of the _ancien régime_; while the Parisian
dames, of all ranks, ages, and degrees, trip along, with one leg
undraped, exactly in proportion to the shapeliness of its configuration.

The huge clock of the Messagéries Royales told three as I entered the