Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

DOWN THE RHONE
by time as it was in the long-vanished days of his
childhood. The other kind of house shows by many
touching signs that it has noted his griefs and misfortunes and has felt for them, but the stone house
doesn't-it is not of his evanescent race, it has no
kinship with him, nor any interest in him.
A professional letter writer happened along presently, and one of the young girls got him to write
a letter for her. It seemed strange that she could
not write it herself. The courier said that the peasant
women of the Rh6ne do not care for education, but
only for religion; that they are all good Catholics,
and that their main ambition in life is to see the
Rhone's long procession of stone and bronze Virgins
added to, until the river shall be staked out with
them from end to end; and that their main pleasure
in life is to contribute from their scant centimes to
this gracious and elevating work. He says it is a
quite new caprice; that ten years ago there was not
a Virgin in this part of France at all, and never had
been. This may be true, and, of course, there is
nothing unreasonable about it, but I have already
found out that the courier's statements are not
always exact.
I had a hot fried fish and coffee in a garden shed
roofed with a mat of vines, but the rain came
through in streams and I got drenched in spite of
our umbrellas, for one cannot manage table implements and umbrellas all at the same time with
anything like good success.
Mem.-Last evening, for economy's sake, proposed
to be a Frenchman because Americans and English
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