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 228 was the sight of the gray Chateau d'If standing, stern and solitary, amid the roughened waters. "Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and the caucus," may, as Emerson says, "rest on the same foundations of wonder as the town of Troy and the Temple of Delphos;" but, personally, I am more susceptible to Troy, or even to the Chateau d'If, than I am to banks, of which useful institutions Marseilles contains a number, all very handsome and imposing. This is, perhaps, a matter of temperament and training, or it may be that mine is one of those "primitive natures" for whose "weak and childish imaginations," as Mr. Howells phrases it, such unrealities are a necessary stimulant. It is true that I might, if I chose, shelter myself under the generous mantle of Dr. Johnson, who was known to say that "the books we read with most pleasure are light compositions which contain a quick succession of events;" but, after all, this was but the expression of the doctor's personal preference, and of no more weight than are the words of living critics who share, or who do not share, in his opinion.