Poitiers, September 15, 1844.

If I have delayed a reply to your letter of last month, which I found on my arrival here, it is not, as your guilty conscience will whisper, in retaliation for your remissness in sending me any word of yourself. You let ten days pass without even so much as thinking of writing me a line, which was very bad of you.

You speak in your letter of your reflections while at D. I suppose you enjoyed yourself there very much, and I am compelled to believe that you enjoy yourself only when you have an opportunity to play the coquette. Since leaving Paris I have had the most tedious sort of time. Like Ulysses, I have seen many customs, men, and cities, and I have found them all hideeously ugly. Then, I have had fever several times, which has surprised and also annoyed me, for it means that I am losing health. The country about here is the most level and the most uninteresting in France; yet there are a great many woods, with magnificent trees, and solitudes where I should love to have met you.

Your memory is now associated in my mind with a host of places, but I like to think of you especially in the woods and the museums. If it is any pleasure to you to know that you occupy a place—a large place, too—in my thoughts, you may be gratified to know that you are not forgotten in the midst of the busy life I am leading. Each tree recalls such and such a conversation. I spend my time meditating on our rambles.

I applaud Scribe most heartily for having made a virtuous and non-Catholic audience laugh at the expense of virtue. I am equally astonished at what you tell me of his delivery. Formerly he read like a cabby. One must believe that it is the Academic uniform which imparts this self-possession, and this thought consoles me not a little.

Since leaving Paris I have not unrolled my dissertation twice. If this continues, I do not believe, really, that I shall be able to change a line of it, and I have no doubt that at the last moment I shall be terror-stricken because of the quantity of nonsense I have allowed to remain. Until I have really set my sails in the direction of Paris I shall not know with any certainty the date of my departure. If the government does not compel me to go farther than Saintes, I fancy we shall reach Paris about the same time. What happiness if I could see you the next day! Good-bye. Write to me at Saintes; I expect to reach there soon, and to remain several days.