Thus musing sadly, I reached St. Cloud, and _that_, at least, and the
Boulogne that led me to it, had not been very perceptibly altered, and
looked as though I had only left them a week ago. The sweet aspect from
the bridge, on either side and beyond, filled me with the old
enchantment. There, at least, the glory had not departed.
I hastened through the gilded gates and up the broad walk to the grand
cascade. There, among the lovely wreathed urns and jars of geranium,
still sat or reclined or gesticulated, the old, unalterable gods; there
squatted the grimly genial monsters in granite and marble and bronze,
still spouting their endless gallons for the delectation of hot Parisian
eyes. Unchanged, and to all appearance unchangeable (save that they were
not nearly so big as I had imagined), their cold, smooth, ironical
patience shamed and braced me into better cheer. Beautiful, hideous,
whatever you please, they seemed to revel in the very sense of their
insensibility of their eternal stability--their stony scorn of time and
wind and weather, and the peevish, weak-kneed, short-lived discontent of
man. It was good to fondly pat them on the back once more--when one
could reach them--and cling to them for a little while, after all the
dust and drift and ruin I had been tramping through all day.
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