Page:Petrach, the first modern scholar and man of letters.djvu/327

I was leaving, the last one was that I should write to you as fully about the countries I visited and the various things I saw and heard as I should tell about them, were we face to face. I was not to spare the pen, nor to strive for elegance or terseness of expression. Everything was to be included, not simply the more picturesque incidents. In Cicero's words, you told me to write “whatever might come into the cheek.” I promised to do this, and from the numerous letters which I have despatched on the way it would seem that I had kept my engagement. If you had desired me to treat of higher things I should have done what I could; but it seems to me in the present case that the object of my letter should be rather to instruct the reader than to give consequence to the writer. If you and I wish to appear before the public we can do so in books, but in our letters let us just talk with one another. But to continue, I left Cologne June 30, in such heat and dust that I sighed for Virgil's “Alpine snows and the rigours of the Rhine.” I next passed through the Forest of Ardennes, alone, and, as you will be surprised to hear, in time of war. But God, it is said, grants especial protection to the unwary. I had long known something of this region from books; it seemed to me a very wild and dismal place indeed. However, I will not undertake with my pen a journey which I have but just completed with my horse. After many wanderings I reached Lyons to-day. It, too, is a noble Roman colony, a little older even than Cologne. From this point two well known rivers flow together into our ocean, the