d away into the light haze of the horizon, with such lovely
violet spots in its caves and hollows, and such soft white gleams on its
short headlands--such exquisite gradations of distance and such
capricious interruptions of perspective--that one could only say that
the land was really trying to smile as hard as the sea. The smile of the
sea was a positive simper. Such a glittering and twinkling, such a
softness and blueness, such tiny little pin-points of foam, and such
delicate little wrinkles of waves--all this made the ocean look like a
flattered portrait.

The day I speak of was a Sunday, and there were to be races at Fecamp,
ten miles away. The agreeable thing was, of course, to walk to Fecamp,
over the grassy downs. I walked and walked, over the levels and the
dells, having land and ocean quite to myself. Here and there I met a
shepherd, lying flat on his stomach in the sun, while his sheep, in
extreme dishabille (shearing time being recent), went huddling in front
of me as I approached. Far below, on the blue ocean, like a fly on a
table of lapis, crawled a little steamer, carrying people from Etretal
to the races. I seemed to go much faster, yet the steamer got to Fecamp
before me. But I stopped to gossip with a shepherd on a grassy hillside,
and to admire certain little villages which are niched in small,
transverse, seaward-sloping valleys. The shepherd told me that he had
been farm-servant to the same master for five-and-thirty years--ever
since the age of ten; and that for thirty-five summers he had fed his
flock upon those downs. I don't know whether his sheep were tired of
their diet, but he professed himself very tired of his life. I remarked
that in fine weather it must be charming, and he observed, with
humility, that to thirty-five summers there went several rainy days.

The walk to Fecamp would be purely delightful if it were not for the
_fonds_. The _fonds_ are the transverse valleys just mentioned--the
channels, for the most part, of small water-courses which discharge
themselves into the sea. The downs subside, precipitately, to the level
of the beach, and then slowly lift their grassy shoulders on the other
side of the gully. As the cliffs are of immense height, these
indentations are profound, and drain off a little of the exhilaration of
the too elastic pedestrian. The first _fond_ trike him as delightfully
picturesque, and he is down the long slope on one side and up the
gigantic hump on the