se coat, with two
large pockets full of books. I had met him once before at Milan, and
again in a steamer on Lago Maggiore. He was always reading. He read in
the diligence--he read when he was walking--he read all through dinner
at the _tables-d'-hote_. He had a mania for reading; and, might, in
fact, be said to be bound up in his own library.

Meeting thus on the mountain, we fell into conversation. He told me that
he was on his way to Geneva, that he detested continental life, and that
he was only waiting the arrival of certain letters before starting
for England.

"But," said I, "you do not, perhaps, give continental life a trial. You
are always absorbed in the pages of a book; and, as for the scenery, you
appear not to observe it."

"Deuce take the scenery!" he exclaimed, pettishly. "I never look at it.
All scenery's alike. Trees, mountains, water--water, mountains, trees;
the same thing over and over again, like the bits of colored glass in a
kaleidoscope. I read about the scenery, and that is quite enough
for me."

"But no book can paint an Italian lake or an Alpine sunset; and when one
is on the spot...."

"I beg your pardon," interrupted the traveller in gray. "Everything
is much pleasanter and more picturesque in books than in
reality--travelling especially. There are no bad smells in books. There
are no long bills in books. Above all, there are no mosquitoes.
Travelling is the greatest mistake in the world, and I am going home as
fast as I can."

"And henceforth, I suppose, your travels will be confined to your
library," I said, smiling.

"Exactly so. I may say, with Hazlitt, that 'food, warmth, sleep, and a
book,' are all I require. With those I may make the tour of the world,
and incur neither expense nor fatigue."

"Books, after all, are friends," I said, with a sigh.

"Sir," replied the traveller, waving his hand somewhat theatrically,
"books are our first real friends, and our last. I have no others. I
wish for no others. I rely upon no others. They are the only associates
upon whom a sensible man may depend. They are always wise, and they are
always witty. They never intrude upon us when we desire to be alone.
They never speak ill of us behind our backs. They are never capricious,
and never surly; neither are they, like some clever folks,
pertinaciously silent when we most wish them to shine. Did Shakespeare
ever refuse his best thoughts to us, or Montaigne decline to be
companionable? Did y