When I awoke,
Simpson was still sleeping the sleep of the just, on a coil of ropes and
(as appeared afterwards) his own hat; so I got a bottle of Bass and a
pipe and laid hold of an old Frenchman of somewhat filthy aspect (fiat
experimentum in corpora vii) to try my French upon. I made very heavy
weather of it. The Frenchman had a very pretty young wife; but my
French always deserted me entirely when I had to answer her, and so she
soon drew away and left me to her lord, who talked of French politics,
Africa, and domestic economy with great vivacity. From Ostend a smoking
hot journey to Brussels! At Brussels we went off after dinner to the
Pare. If any person wants to be happy, I should advise the Pare. You
sit drinking iced drinks and smoking penny cigars under great old trees.
The band place, covered walks, etc., are all lit up; and you can't fancy
how beautiful was the contrast of the great masses of lamplit foliage
and the dark sapphire night sky with just one blue star set overhead in
the middle of the largest patch. In the dark walks, too, there are
crowds of people whose faces you cannot see, and here and there a
colossal white statue at the corner of an alley that gives the place a
nice, _artificial,_ eighteenth-century sentiment.
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