Thought can fly as rapidly as the winds, spread out, divagate, and lose itself, without finding anything but water, or perhaps vague America, nameless islands, or some country with red fruits, humming-birds and savages; or the silent twilight of the pole, with its spouting whales; or the great cities lighted by coloured glass, Japan with its porcelain roofs, and China with its sculptured staircases and its pagodas decorated with golden bells.
Thus does the mind people and animate this infinity, of which it tires so soon, in order that it may appear less vast.

One cannot think of the desert without its caravans, of the ocean without its ships, of the bowels of the earth without evoking the treasures that they are supposed to conceal.
We returned to Conquet by way of the cliff.

The breakers were dashing against its foot.

Driven by a sea-breeze, they would come rushing in, strike the rocks and cover them with rippling sheets of water.

Half an hour later, in a _char-a-banc_ drawn by two sturdy little horses, we reached Brest, which we left with pleasure two days afterwards.