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I walked over "the vine-covered hills and gay regions
of France," erect and satisfied; for the image of man was not cast down
and chained to the foot of arbitrary thrones: I was at no loss for
language, for that of all the great schools of painting was open to me.
The whole is vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, freedom,
all are fled: nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French
people!--There is undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign
parts that is to be had nowhere else: but it is more pleasing at the
time than lasting. It is too remote from our habitual associations to be
a common topic of discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another
state of existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is
an animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort to
exchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the pulse of our
old transports revive very keenly, we must "jump" all our present
comforts and connections. Our romantic and itinerant character is not
to be domesticated.


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