note.... Have the Basque mountains and the snowy haunts of the
Pyrenees taken away thy urbanity?... May he, who advises thee to
keep silence, never enjoy the singing of sweet songs nor the
voices of Nature ... sad and in need may he live in desolate
regions, and wander silent in the rounded heights of the Alpine
range.

The sounds of Nature are detailed with great delicacy in this appeal,
and we see that the Alps are referred to as desolate regions.

In another letter (25) he reminded his friend of their mutual love,
their home at Burdigala, his country-house with its vine-slopes,
fields, woods, etc., and went on:

Yet without thee no year advanceth with grateful change of
season; the rainy spring passeth without flower, the dog-star
burns with blazing heat, Pomona bringeth not the changing scents
of autumn, Aquarius pours forth his waters and saddens winter.
Pontius, dear heart, seest thou what thou hast done?

Closing in the same tender strain with a picture of his hope
fulfilled:

Now he leaves the snowy towns of the Iberians, now he holds the
fields of the Tarbellians, now passeth he beneath the halls of
Ebromagus, now he is gliding down the stream, and now he knocketh
at thy door! Can we believe it? Or do they who love, fashion
themselves dreams?

The greater inwardness of feeling here, as contrasted with classic