real life are superlatively uninteresting; so that it is one-half
of art to select from realities those which contain possibilities
of poetry.

In 1819 I was traveling from Paris to Moulins. The state of my
finances obliged me to take an outside place. Englishmen, as you
know, regard those airy perches on the top of the coach as the
best seats; and for the first few miles I discovered abundance of
excellent reasons for justifying the opinion of our neighbors. A
young fellow, apparently in somewhat better circumstances, who
came to take the seat beside me from preference, listened to my
reasoning with inoffensive smiles. An approximate nearness of
age, a similarity in ways of thinking, a common love of fresh
air, and of the rich landscape scenery through which the coach
was lumbering along,--these things, together with an
indescribable magnetic something, drew us before long into one of
those short-lived traveller's intimacies, in which we unbend with
the more complacency because the intercourse is by its very
nature transient, and makes no implicit demands upon the future.

We had not come thirty leagues before we were talking of women
and love. Then, with all the circumspection demanded in such
matters, we proceeded naturally to the topic of our lady-loves.
Young as we both were, we still admired "the woman of a certain
age," that is to say, the woman between thirty-five and forty.
Oh! any poet who should have listened to our talk, for heaven
knows how many stages beyond Montargis, would have reaped a
harvest of flaming epithet, rapturous description, and very
tender confidences. Our bashful fears, our silent interjections,
our blushes, as we met each other's eyes, were expressive with an