am presently to contend for a seat, in the dim light and cigar-stench of
the great station of the Lyons line. Making slow way through the
hostilities of the platform, in partly real, partly weak politeness, as may
be, I find the corner seats of course already full of prohibitory cloaks
and umbrellas; but manage to get a middle back one; the net overhead is
already surcharged with a bulging extra portmanteau, so that I squeeze my
desk as well as I can between my legs, and arrange what wraps I have about
my knees and shoulders. Follow a couple of hours of simple patience, with
nothing to entertain one's thoughts but the steady roar of the line under
the wheels, the blinking and dripping of the oil lantern, and the more or
less ungainly wretchedness, and variously sullen compromises and
encroachments of posture, among the five other passengers preparing
themselves for sleep: the last arrangement for the night being to shut up
both windows, in order to effect, with our six breaths, a salutary
modification of the night air.

4. The banging and bumping of the carriages over the turn-tables wakes me
up as I am beginning to doze, at Fontainebleau, and again at Sens; and the
trilling and thrilling of the little telegraph bell establishes itself in
my ears, and stays there, trilling me at last into a shivering, suspicious
sort of sleep, which, with a few vaguely fretful shrugs and fidgets,
carries me as far as Tonnerre, where the 'quinze minutes d'arret'
revolutionize everything; and I get a turn or two on the platform, and
perhaps a glimpse of the stars, with promise of a clear morning; and so
generally keep awake past Mont Bard, remembering the happy walks one used
to have on the terrace under Buffon's tower, and thence watching, if
perchance, from the mouth of the high tunnel, any film of moonlight may
show the far undulating masses of the hills of Citeaux. But most likely one
knows the place where the great old view used to be only by the sensible
quickening of the pace as the train turns down the incline, and crashes