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LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

PART I.

We are no “lion-hunters.”  When we wish to learn something of eminent authors, we hasten to the nearest book-shop and buy their works.  They put the best of themselves in their books.  The old saw tells us how completely all great men give the best part of themselves to the public, while the valet-de-chambre picks up little else than food for contempt.  Nevertheless, we are as inquisitive about everything that concerns eminent people as anybody can be.  We would not blot a single line from Boswell.  We protest against a word being effaced from the garrulous pages of Lady Blessington and Leigh Hunt.  We “hang” the stars with which Earl Russell has milky-wayed Moore’s Diary.  But we are no “lion-hunters,” (the name should be “lion-harriers,”) simply because this chase is not the best way to take the game we desire.  What does the lion-hunter secure?  A commonplace observation upon the weather, an adroit or awkward parry of flattery, and some superficial compliment upon one’s native place or present residence; for a great man at bay is nothing more nor less than a casual acquaintance extremely on his guard, and, commonly, extremely fatigued by admirers.  True, one obtains an acquaintance with the great man’s voice, and the hearth where he lives, and the right to boast with truth, “I have seen him.” Voila tout! Now this is not what we want.  We desire some good, clear, faithful account of these people, as they are, when they talk freely and easily to their contemporaries, to their peers.  Boswell’s picture of the Literary Club is invaluable, although, with the insatiable curiosity of the nineteenth century, we regret that the prince of reporters failed to sketch the persons and peculiarities of the dramatis personae whose conversations he has so faithfully recorded.

We wish to go behind the scenes, and to hear the conversation engaged in in the green-room.  We expect to see some dirt, some grease-pots, stained ropes, and unpainted pulleys,—­and, to tell the truth, we want to see these blemishes.  They are encouraging.  They lessen the distance between us and it by teaching us that even fairy-land knows no exemption from those imperfections which blur our purest natures.

A work has lately appeared in Europe which in some measure gratifies this desire.  It exhibits in full light a good many scenes of literary life in Paris.  They may be and probably are exaggerated, but exaggerations do not mar truth; if they did, we should be obliged to throw away the microscope, with nativities and divining-rods.  We are tempted to give our readers a share of the pleasure we have found in perusing this picture of Paris life.  We forewarn them that we have taken liberties innumerable with the book.  We have compressed into these few leaves a volume of several hundred pages.  We have