found that a journey in a
stage-coach is remarkably favourable to the production of good
resolution and sage designs for the future; which I account for partly
on the ground that they cannot, under such circumstances, demand to be
carried into immediate execution, and therefore may be indulged in the
more freely; and partly on this other ground, that one who has become a
traveller has loosened himself from his old customary moorings, and so
gives himself, as it were, a new starting-point in life, from which he
may, if the spirit of delusion is still happily strong within him, draw
a mathematically straight line in the given direction A B, to be the
faithful index of his future career.

What a generous sample of humanity it is that a well filled diligence
carries out of the gates of Paris! The mountain of luggage upon the
roof, consisting of boxes of all shapes and sizes, does not contain in
its numerous _strata_ of stuffs, and implements, and garments, rags and
fine linen, a greater variety of dead material, than does the threefold
interior, with its complement of human beings, of living character and
sentiment. As to the observation not unfrequently made, that Frenchmen
have less variety of character than ourselves, it is one which seems to
me to have little or no foundation. Something there doubtless is of
national character, which pervades all classes and all classifications
of men; and this colouring, seen diffused over the mass, makes us
apprehend, at first view, that there is in the several parts a radical
similarity which, in fact, does not exist. We have only to become a
little more intimate with the men themselves, and this national
colouring fades away; while the strong peculiarities resulting from
social position, or individual temperament, stand out in sharp relief.
And, in general, I will venture to say of national character--whatever
people may be spoken of--that one may compare it to the colour which the
sea bears at different times, or which different seas are said to be
distinguished by: view the great surface at a distance, it is blue, or
green, or grey; but take up a handful of the common element, and it is
an undistinguishable portion of brackish water. It is French, or
Flemish, or Spanish nature in the mass, and at a distance; looked at
closer, and in the individual, there is little else than plain human
nature to be seen.

But I did not open my journal to philosophize upon national character;
bu