And pleasant recollections come to us of Oliver Goldsmith, who, as he tells us, oft led
‘The sportive choir
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire.’
The traveller who does as the writer did—leaves the train at Marseilles, and travels home slowly, will find as much pleasure in that little trip as in any part of his pilgrimage to the East.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AVIGNON.
Leaving Marseilles, the place at which I tarried next was Avignon, where I had comfortable and cheap quarters at the Hôtel Grillon. It was there I saw the only drunken man that came under my notice in France. It was market-day, and the town was full of country-folk, many of whom came to my hotel for the excellent déjeuner provided for guests; amongst then was an individual—not a farmer, for he did not wear a blouse—who managed, in spite of the fact that he had had quite enough, to consume the quart bottle of vin ordinaire which, in French country hotels, every one is supposed to take at lunch and drink. The allowance was too much for me. The lunch in every case was so excellent and tempting that I could not manage another heavy meal, and was glad to content myself with tea. One thing surprised me at all the country hotels, and that was the predominance of the military element. At every meal there were great numbers of officers present, and, so far as I could judge by the way in which these sons of Mars did justice to the good things provided, all in first-rate physical condition. Avignon is full of soldiers—we met them everywhere. All round the place the old walls seemed turned into barracks.
I stopped at Avignon to see the burial-place of John Stuart Mill. He was fond of Avignon, and spent a great deal of his life there. I am afraid, on the whole, he was rather a hard, cold man. He had a sister living in Paris, but, often as he passed through it, he never went to see her. I suppose he had learnt a good deal from Godwin’s ‘Political Justice,’ which had a great influence at one time among superior people, I remember, when I read it many years ago. You never see the book now. Godwin shows how wrong is the indulgence of social and family affection. Perhaps the philosopher’s way of looking at such things is the right one, after all. As I was sitting with a friend, a philosopher, on board the Midnight Sun, a gentleman, to whom we were neither of us particularly attached, passed us. ‘I think I could save that man’s life,’ I said. ‘Why should you?’ he asked; ‘ought we not to think of the greatest happiness of the greatest number?’ The reply was irresistible, and I acquiesced. ‘Is it not the survival of the fittest,’ I asked myself, ‘that best accords with Nature’s scheme? “If,” says Godwin, “you are in a boat with your father and a philosopher, and you meet with an accident, you are to save the philosopher and leave your father to perish.”’
Mill’s philosophy seems to have been of a similar character. At any rate, his sister’s husband complained much, to an acquaintance of mine, of the philosopher’s neglect. But his worship of Mrs. Taylor, who afterwards became his wife, was intense. They sleep together in the same grave in the cemetery, a mile or two out of Avignon. On the tomb is the inscription: ‘John Stuart Mill, born 20 May, 1806, died 4 May, 1873,’ and that is all. On the surface of the tomb—a plain white flat one—is a long eulogium of his wife, who had died before him. Her influence, the inscription records, has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be felt in time to come. Following her life, we are told, this earth would become the type of heaven. Her death is described as ‘an irreparable loss.’ The grave is separated by an iron rail from the rest, and is fringed with a few evergreens. It is plain and simple, and certainly much more in accordance with English taste than the rest.
One should visit the cemetery, if only to see what a French cemetery is—all glitter and glass, for many of the flowers placed on the tombs are under glass, and the place was quite dazzling in the summer—or, rather, the autumn—sun. The ground is carefully laid out, and well planted with trees and flowering shrubs. It seems to me of considerable extent, and people come there every day to place fresh flowers on the graves of those they love. It was early in the morning when I was there, yet a good many ladies were engaged in their pious work. By most of the graves were chairs placed for the mourners, who love to repair to such a place. It is evident that family affection is strong in France.
Avignon, I should think, is a pleasant place in which to reside, with its mild atmosphere and a nice country all round. There is a broad promenade (if a short one), with a monument to a native worthy, and trees;