strolled for a while in rectangular alleys, destitute of
herbage, and received a deeper impression of vanished
things. The cathedral, on the pedestal of its hill, looks
considerably farther than the fair-ground and the
Jacobins, between the rather bare poles of whose
straightly planted trees you may admire it at a con-
venient distance. I admired it till I thought I should
remember it (better than the event has proved), and
then I wandered away and looked at another curious
old church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Couture. This sacred
edifice made a picture for ten minutes, but the picture
has faded now. I reconstruct a yellowish-brown facade,
and a portal fretted with early sculptures; but the
details have gone the way of all incomplete sensations.
After you have stood awhile in the choir of the
cathedral, there is no sensation at Le Mans that goes
very far. For some reason not now to be traced, I
had looked for more than this. I think the reason
was to some extent simply in the name of the place;
for names, on the whole, whether they be good reasons
or not, are very active ones. Le Mans, if I am not
mistaken, has a sturdy, feudal sound; suggests some-
thing dark and square, a vision of old ramparts and
gates. Perhaps I had been unduly impressed by the
fact, accidentally revealed to me, that Henry II., first
of the English Plantagenets, was born there. Of course
it is easy to assure one's self in advance, but does it
not often happen that one had rather not be assured?
There is a pleasure sometimes in running the risk of
disappointment. I took mine, such as it was, quietly