From the Cite Bergere, out along the right-hand side of the Boulevards, down past the front of the Madeleine, across the Place de la Concorde, and up the Champs Elysees as far as the Arc de Triomphe; this is the route I take in going.  Arrived at the arch, I cross over, and come back by the same roads, but on the other side of the way.  I have a motive in this.  There is a certain second-hand book-shop on the opposite side of the Boulevard des Italiens, which draws me by a wholly irresistible attraction.  Had I started on that side, I should have gone no further.  I should have looked, lingered, purchased, and gone home to read.  But I know my weakness.  I have reserved the book-shop for my return journey, and now, rewarded and triumphant, compose myself for a quiet study of its treasures.

And what a book-shop it is!  Not only are its windows filled—­not only are its walls a very perspective of learning—­but square pillars of volumes are built up on either side of the door, and an immense supplementary library is erected in the open air, down all the length of a dead-wall adjoining the house.

Here then I pause, turning over the leaves of one volume, reading the title of another, studying the personal appearance of a third, and weighing the merits of their authors against the contents of my purse.  And when I say “personal appearance,” I say it advisedly; for book-hunters, are skilled Lavaters in their way, and books, like men, attract or repel at first sight.  Thus it happens that I love a portly book, in a sober coat of calf, but hate a thin, smart volume, in a gaudy binding.  The one promises to be philosophic, learnedly witty, or solidly instructive; the other is tolerably certain to be pert and shallow, and reminds me of a coxcombical lacquey in bullion and red plush.  On the same principle, I respect leaves soiled and dog’s-eared, but mistrust gilt edges; love an old volume better than a new; prefer a spacious book-stall to all the unpurchased stores of Paternoster Row; and buy every book that I possess at second-hand.  Nay, that it is second-hand is in itself a pass port to my favor.  Somebody has read it before; therefore it is readable.  Somebody has derived pleasure from it before; therefore I open it with a student’s sympathy, and am disposed to be indulgent ere I have perused a single line.  There are cases, however, in which I incline to luxury of binding.  Just as I had rather have my historians in old calf and my chroniclers in black letter, so do I delight to see my modern poets, the Benjamins of my affections, clothed in coats of many colors.  For them no moroccos are too rich, and no “toolings” too elaborate.  I love to see them smiling on me from the shelves of my book-cases, as glowing and varied as the sunset through a painted oriel.

Standing here, then, to-day, dipping first into this work and then into that, I light upon a very curious and interesting edition of Froissart—­an edition full of quaint engravings, and printed in the obsolete spelling of two hundred years ago.  The book is both a treasure and a bargain, being marked up at five and twenty francs.  Only those who haunt book-stalls and luxuriate in old editions can appreciate the satisfaction with which I survey