The free and easy life led by the artists suited him exactly, although
he found it hard to accomplish any work of his own, but dreamed and
planned all sorts of essays, verses, and tales which he never wrote,
while the others put their pictures on canvas.

"I kept always two books in my pocket," he says, "one to read and one to
write in. As I walked my mind was busy fitting what I saw with
appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside I would either read, or a
pencil and penny version-book would be in my hand, to note down the
features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived
with words."

If there was little work, to show after a stop at Fontainebleau he had
many memories of good-fellowship and some of the friends he met there
were to be the first to greet him when he came to live on this side of
the water.

While on their "Inland Voyage" the two canoemen had decided that the
most perfect mode of travel was by canal-boat. What could be more
delightful? "The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along; the banks of
the canal slowly unroll their scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge
floats by great forests and through great cities with their public
buildings and their lamps at night; and for the bargee, in his floating
home, 'travelling abed,' it is merely as if he were listening to another
man's story or turning the leaves of a picture book in which he had no
concern. He may take his afternoon walk in some foreign country on the
banks of the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own fireside."

They grew most enthusiastic over the idea and told one another how they
would furnish their "water villa" with easy chairs, pipes, and tobacco,