them till I touch the soil of Italy. Indeed, I doubt whether there be
anything really worth recording in the little distinctions between one
nation and another; at any rate, after the first novelty is over, new
things seem equally commonplace with the old. There is but one little
interval when the mind is in such a state that it can catch the fleeting
aroma of a new scene. And it is always so much pleasanter to enjoy this
delicious newness than to attempt arresting it, that it requires great
force of will to insist with one's self upon sitting down to write. I
can do nothing with Marseilles, especially here on the Mediterranean,
long after nightfall, and when the steamer is pitching in a pretty lively
way.

(Later.)--I walked out with J----- yesterday morning, and reached the
outskirts of the city, whence we could see the bold and picturesque
heights that surround Marseilles as with a semicircular wall. They rise
into peaks, and the town, being on their lower slope, descends from them
towards the sea with a gradual sweep. Adown the streets that descend
these declivities come little rivulets, running along over the pavement,
close to the sidewalks, as over a pebbly bed; and though they look vastly
like kennels, I saw women washing linen in these streams, and others
dipping up the water for household purposes. The women appear very much
in public at Marseilles. In the squares and places you see half a dozen
of them together, sitting in a social circle on the bottoms of upturned
baskets, knitting, talking, and enjoying the public sunshine, as if it
were their own household fire. Not one in a thousand of them, probably,
ever has a household fire for the purpose of keeping themselves warm, but
only to do their little cookery; and when there is sunshine they take
advantage of it, and in the short season of rain and frost they shrug
their shoulders, put on what warm garments they have, and get through the
winter somewhat as grasshoppers and butterflies do,--being summer insects