Some years previously, I had been sent on a special mission to the government at Paris, and having finally executed it, I resigned the post, and resolved to make my residence there, since it is the only place on earth where one can live.  Every morning I half expect to see the country, beyond the city, white with an encampment of the nations, who, having peacefully flocked there over night, wait till the Rue St. Honore shall run out and greet them.  It surprises me, sometimes, that those pretending to civilization are content to remain at a distance.  What experience have they of life,—­not to mention gayety and pleasure, but of the great purpose of life,—­society?  Man evidently is gregarious; Fourier’s fables are founded on fact; we are nothing without our opposites, our fellows, our lights and shadows, colors, relations, combinations, our point d’appui, and our angle of sight.  An isolated man is immensurable; he is also unpicturesque, unnatural, untrue.  He is no longer the lord of Nature, animal and vegetable,—­but Nature is the lord of him; the trees, skies, flowers, predominate, and he is in as bad taste as green and blue, or as an oyster in a vase of roses.  The race swings naturally to clusters.  It being admitted, then, that society is our normal state, where is it to be obtained in such perfection as at Paris?  Show me the urbanity, the generosity in trifles, better than sacrifice, the incuriousness and freedom, the grace, and wit, and honor, that will equal such as I find here.  Morality,—­we were not speaking of it,—­the intrusion is unnecessary; must that word with Anglo-Saxon pertinacity dog us round the world?  A hollow mask, which Vice now and then lifts for a breath of air, I grant you this state may be called; but since I find the vice elsewhere, countenance my preference for the accompanying mask.  But even this is vanishing; such drawing-rooms as Mme. de St. Cyr’s are less and less frequent.  Yet, though the delightful spell of the last century daily dissipates itself, and we are not now what we were twenty years ago, still Paris is, and will be till the end of time, for a cosmopolitan, the pivot on which the world revolves.

It was, then, as I have said, the day of Mme. de St. Cyr’s dinner.  Punctually at the hour, I presented myself,—­for I have always esteemed it the least courtesy which a guest can render, that he should not cool his hostess’s dinner.

The usual choice company waited.  There was the Marquis of G., the ambassador from home, Col.  Leigh, an attache of that embassy, the Spanish and Belgian ministers,—­all of whom, with myself, completed a diplomatic circle.  There were also wits and artists, but no ladies whose beauty exceeded that of the St. Cyrs.  With nearly all of this assemblage I held certain relations, so that I was immediately at ease—­G. was the only one whom, perhaps, I would rather not have met, although we were the best of friends.  They awaited but one, the Baron Stahl.  Meanwhile Delphine stood coolly taking the measurement of the Marquis of G., while her mother entertained one and another guest with a low-toned flattery, gentle interest, or lively narration, as the case might demand.