To M. Humbert Ferrand, at Paris.

Côte-Saint-André, June 10, 1825.

My Dear Ferrand,

I am no sooner away from the capital than I feel an irresistible need of converse with you. I myself proposed that you should not write to me until a fortnight after my departure, so that I might not then have to remain for too long a time without news of you, but I am now going to ask you to write as soon as possible, because I hope that you will not be lazy enough to write merely once to me, and then to let me languish for two months, like the man of sorrow who, far from the rock of Hope, longed to go to Tortoni's for a vanille ice (Portier in. lib. Blousac, p. 32).

I have taken a somewhat wearisome trip to Tarare; there, having alighted to make the ascent on foot, I found myself, as it were in spite of myself, engaged in conversation with two youths who had a dilettante appearance, and, as such, were unapproachable so far as I was concerned. They began by informing me that they were on their way to Mount St. Bernard for the purpose of landscape painting, and that they were pupils of MM. Guérin and Gros.