After studying the Teutonic tongue
for two and a half years at Harrow I was master of just two words
in it, ja and nein, so unquestionably there were gaps to fill up.
I was excedingly sorry to leave the delightful Ducros family who
had treated me so kindly, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to
comely Mme. Ducros for the careful way in which she taught me
history. In teaching history she used what I may call the synoptic
method, taking periods of fifty years, and explaining
contemporaneous events in France, Italy, Germany, and England
during that period.
With the exception of one friendly visit to the Ducros, I have
never seen pleasant Nyons again. Of late years I have often
meditated a pilgrimage to that sunny little cup in the Dauphine
hills, but have hesitated owing to one of the sad penalties
advancing years bring with them; every single one of my friends,
man or woman, must have passed away long since. I can see Nyons,
with its encircling fringe of blue hills, just as vividly,
perhaps, with my inner eyes as I could if it lay actually before
me, and now I can still people it with the noisy, gesticulating
inhabitants whom I knew and liked so much.
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