If such a life had been disagreeable to him, it would have lost all the significance that it now has for us.  But where others would have found affliction, he had consolation, and where they would have lain desperate and squalid, he marched elate and ready to strike the stars.  “Never,” he says, “did I think so much, exist so much, be myself so much, as in the journeys that I have made alone and on foot.  Walking has something about it which animates and enlivens my ideas.  I can hardly think while I am still; my body must be in motion, to move my mind.  The sight of the country, the succession of agreeable views, open air, good appetite, the freedom of the alehouse, the absence of everything that could make me feel dependence, or recall me to my situation—­all this sets my soul free, gives me a greater boldness of thought.  I dispose of all nature as its sovereign lord; my heart, wandering from object to object, mingles and is one with the things that soothe it, wraps itself up in charming images, and is intoxicated by delicious sentiment.  Ideas come as they please, not as I please:  they do not come at all, or they come in a crowd, overwhelming me with their number and their force.  When I came to a place I only thought of eating, and when I left it I only thought of walking.  I felt that a new paradise awaited me at the door, and I thought of nothing but of hastening in search of it."[65]

Here again is a picture of one whom vagrancy assuredly did not degrade:—­“I had not the least care for the future, and I awaited the answer [as to the return of Madame de Warens to Savoy], lying out in the open air, sleeping stretched out on the ground or on some wooden bench, as tranquilly as on a bed of roses.  I remember passing one delicious night outside the town [Lyons], in a road which ran by the side of either the Rhone or the Saone, I forget which of the two.  Gardens raised on a terrace bordered the other side of the road.  It had been very hot all day, and the evening was delightful; the dew moistened the parched grass, the night was profoundly still, the air fresh without being cold; the sun in going down had left red vapours in the heaven, and they turned the water to rose colour; the trees on the terrace sheltered nightingales, answering song for song.  I went on in a sort of ecstasy, surrendering my heart and every sense to the enjoyment of it all, and only sighing for regret that I was enjoying it alone.  Absorbed in the sweetness of my musing, I prolonged my ramble far into the night, without ever perceiving that I was tired.  At last I found it out.  I lay down luxuriously on the shelf of a niche or false doorway made in the wall of the terrace; the canopy of my bed was formed by overarching tree-tops; a nightingale was perched exactly over my head, and I fell asleep to his singing.  My slumber was delicious, my awaking more delicious still.  It was broad day, and my opening eyes looked on sun and water and green things, and an adorable landscape.  I rose up and gave myself a shake; I felt hungry and started gaily for the town, resolved to spend on a good breakfast the two pieces of money which I still had left.  I was in such joyful spirits that I went along the road singing lustily."[66]