t of novelty, the one thought came, and made all stale to me.
Like Dr. Donne, I dwelt with the image of my dead self at my side.

Thus for many, many months we journeyed together---I and my sorrow--and
passed through fair and famous places, and saw the seasons change under
new skies. To the quaint old Flemish cities and the Gothic Rhine--to the
plains and passes of Spain--to the unfrequented valleys of the Tyrol and
the glacier-lands of Switzerland I went, but still found not the
forgetfulness I sought. As in Holbein's fresco the skeleton plays his
part in every scene, so my trouble stalked beside me, drank of my cup,
and sat grimly at my table. It was with me in Naples and among the
orange groves of Sorrento. It met me amid the ruins of the Roman Forum.
It travelled with me over the blue Mediterranean, and landed beside me
on the shores of the Cyclades. Go where I would, it possessed and
followed me, and brooded over my head, like the cloud that rested on
the ark.

Thinking over this period of my life, I seem to be turning the leaves of
a rich album, or wandering through a gallery of glowing landscapes, and
yet all the time to be dreaming. Faces grown familiar for a few days and
never seen after--pictures photographed upon the memory in all their
vividness--glimpses of cathedrals, of palaces, of ruins, of sunset and
storm, sea and shore, flit before me for a moment, and are gone like
phantasmagoria.

And like phantasmagoria they impressed me at the time. Nothing seemed
real to me. Startled, now and then, into admiration or wonder, my apathy
fell from me like a garment, and my heart throbbed again as of old. But
this was seldom--so seldom that I could almost count the times when it
befell me.

Thus it was that travelling did me no permanent good. It enlarged my
experience; it undoubtedly cultivated my taste; but it brought me
neither rest, nor sympathy, nor consolation. On the contrary, it widened
the gulf between me and my fellow-men. I formed no friendships. I kept
up no correspondence. A sojourner in hotels, I became more and more
withdrawn from all tender and social impulses, and almost forgot the
very name of home. So strong a hold did this morbid love of
self-isolation take upon me, that I left Florence on one occasion, after
a stay of only three days, because I had seen the names of a Saxonholme
family among the list of arrivals in the Giornale Toscano.

Three years went by thus--three springs--three vintage