I entrust my letter to a bird of passage who will cross your latitude; the postman is so impatient to continue his course that I am compelled to postpone the details of my journey.
THE SWALLOW’S SECOND LETTER.
I have striven to beguile the days of absence by relating my experiences as they occur en route, knowing that loving hearts find a charm in incidents the most simple and the most indifferent to strangers. The weather favours my progress, and nature is arrayed in her gayest attire. It seems, indeed, as if the kindly sun shone her brightest to cheer me on my way.
I have made a multitude of new acquaintances, nevertheless you need neither feel jealous nor uneasy on my account. I have not the leisure, still less the desire, to make friends, although I am forced at times to halt and acknowledge courtesies, as my quality of stranger has opened the hearts and homes of many hospitable tribes. Notwithstanding the fact that pressing invitations pour in upon me, I studiously refuse to accept them, preferring as I do my wandering life, full of all that is unexpected and capricious, above the daintiest fare and the finest society.
You predicted ennui and disenchantment. I still happily await the advent of these foes, taking my amusements when and where I find them. Up to the present moment these last have come unbidden to my door.
This morning I breakfasted tête-à-tête with the most accomplished singer I have ever heard, a Nightingale, who, willingly yielding to my entreaties, at the close of our repast sang some of his favourite pieces.
It was not without a feeling of vanity that I thought of those who would have given anything to fill my place. All distinctions, you know, are flattering, and the one which made me the sole listener to harmony so divine, made me more important in my own eyes.
I was strongly impressed with the simplicity of the artist. Seeing him so négligé in his dress, so careless in his posture and manner, no one would have thought that he was a person so distinguished, at least I have still a strange illusion that prompts me to look for talent only beneath a grave and dignified exterior. I have discovered that this is simply an illusion, you will therefore admit I have made some progress.
This remarkable tenor informed me that he lives for his pleasure, the best mode of living one can adopt; so he said, but I doubted the soundness of the opinion, and was careful not to be led away by doctrine so heterodox.