----Oh yes, to be sure! there is a Grande Place at Mont
Dor-les-Bains, as well as at any other town, village, or city. Did you
ever in your life hear or see any thing French to which the epithet of
_Grand_ had not been, by some means or other, tacked on? From the _Grand
Monarque_ at the head of the _Grande Armee_ of the _Grande Nation_, down
to the _Grand limonadier_ of the _Grand Cafe_ of the _Grande Place_, it
is all _Grand_. Oh, this villanous spirit of exaggeration! this attempt
at the sublime so inevitably linked to the ridiculous!----Just so! I was
leaning over the balustrade of my window, which, from the third story of
the hotel, "gave," as they term it, into the Grande Place. Now it is one
of the most delightful things imaginable, after you have indulged in
your morning's ablutions, and have produced that indefinable lilac tint
on your chin, which tells of easy shaving soap and a Rogers's true old
English razor, to don your shawl dressing-gown, and, having adjusted
your _bonnet grec_ towards the right side of your head, so as to allow
the glossy curl to escape and hang pendant on the left; when all this is
done, to "light the brown cigar," to put yourself in an elegant
reclining posture between your opening _jalousies_, and, with both
elbows resting on the red velvet cushion that crowns the hard edge of
the balustrade, to puff forth light wreaths of blue vapour into the
balmy air, and to see the bathers come back from the baths. There you
may "think down hours to moments:" and so was it with myself; for I took
my post at my window by half-past six, and at nine I was still there.
Every now and then went forth my curling column; then my eye would catch
the glorious "mountain-tops bathed in the golden light of morn;" then I
would give a glance at sublunary things awhile, and speculate on the
moving animals below; then puff, and gaze, and speculate again; and all
that while be the happiest of men, in the absolute absence of any thing
but perfect idleness.

You may say what you please, but it does the mind good to think of
nothing at times; to let the impressions of passing events glide through
the soul, and titillate the imagination, but to "leave no trace behind."
Oh yes! this fairy dancing on the sands of life's dull shore, is very
pleasant occupation for a summer morn, and eke a summer eve. It is
poetical, to say the least of it; and day-dreams may sometimes prove not
less agreeable than those mysterious scenes of