July 5 Friday – Sam, Jackson, and Slote left Marseilles for Paris on an evening train.
WE have come five hundred miles by rail through the heart of France. What a bewitching land it is! What a garden! Surely the leagues of bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and their grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped and measured and their symmetry preserved by the most architectural of gardeners. Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that divide the beautiful landscape like the squares of a checker-board are set with line and plummet, and their uniform height determined with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is wonderful [Innocents Abroad Ch. 12].
Sam wrote from Marseilles to his mother and family. “We are here. Start for Paris to-morrow. All well. Had a gorgeous 4 of July jollification yesterday at sea” [MTL 2: 68].