which such changes suggest to one's consideration, there can be no
possible doubt as to the fact that the country and its people are
infinitely less interesting than they were.

My plans were soon made, and I hastened to lay them before Mr.
Colburn, who was at that time publishing for my mother. The trip was
my main object, and I should have been perfectly contented with terms
that paid all the expenses of it. _Dî auctius fecerunt_, and I came
home from my ramble with a good round sum in my pocket.

I was not greedy of money in those days, and had no unscriptural
hankerings after laying up treasure upon earth. All I wanted was a
sufficient supply for my unceasing expenditure in locomotion and inn
bills--the latter, be it observed, always on a most economical scale.
I was not a profitable customer; I took nothing "for the good of the
house." I had a Gargantuesque appetite, and needed food of some sort
in proportion to its demands. I neither took, or cared to take, any
wine with my dinner, and never wanted any description of "nightcap."
As for accommodation for the night, anything sufficed me that gave me
a clean bed and a sufficient window-opening on fresh air, under such
conditions as made it possible for me to have it open all night. To
the present day I cannot sleep to my liking in a closed chamber; and
before now, on the top of the Righi, have had my bed clothes blown off
my bed, and snow deposited where they should have been.

But _quo musa tendis?_ I was talking about my travels in Brittany.

I do not think my book was a bad _coup d'essai_. I remember old John
Murray coming out to me into the front office in Albemarle Street,
where I was on some business of my mother's, with a broad good-natured