“Vous n’avez pas lu le Solitaire?” said Madame M. yesterday.  “Eh mon dieu! il est donc possible! vous? mais, ma chere, vous etes perdue de reputation, et pour jamais!”

To retrieve my lost reputation, I sat down to read Le Solitaire, and as I read my amazement grew, and I did in “gaping wonderment abound,” to think that fashion, like the insane root of old, had power to drive a whole city mad with nonsense; for such a tissue of abominable absurdities, bombast and blasphemy, bad taste and bad language, was never surely indited by any madman, in or out of Bedlam:  not Maturin himself, that king of fustian,

    “——­ever wrote or borrowed
    Any thing half so horrid!”

and this is the book which has turned the brains of half Paris, which has gone through fifteen editions in a few weeks, which not to admire is “pitoyable,” and not to have read “quelque chose d’inouie.”

The objects at Paris which have most struck me, have been those least vaunted.

The view of the city from the Pont des Arts, to-night, enchanted me.  As every body who goes to Rome views the Coliseum by moonlight, so nobody should leave Paris without seeing the effect from the Pont des Arts, on a fine moonlight night:—­

    “Earth hath not any thing to show more fair.”

It is singular I should have felt its influence at such a moment:  it appears to me that those who, from feeling too strongly, have learnt to consider too deeply, become less sensible to the works of art, and more alive to nature.  Are there not times when we turn with indifference from the finest picture or statue—­the most improving book—­the most amusing poem; and when the very commonest, and every-day beauties of nature, a soft evening, a lovely landscape, the moon riding in her glory through a clouded sky, without forcing or asking attention, sink into our hearts?  They do not console,—­they sometimes add poignancy to pain; but still they have a power, and do not speak in vain:  they become a part of us; and never are we so inclined to claim kindred with nature, as when sorrow has lent us her mournful experience.  At the time I felt this (and how many have felt it as deeply, and expressed it better!) I did not think it, still less could I have said it; but I have pleasure in recording the past impression.  “On rend mieux compte de ce qu’on a senti que de ce qu’on sent.”

September 8.—­Paris is crowded with English; and I do not wonder at it; it is, on the whole, a pleasant place to live in.  I like Paris, though I shall quit it without regret as soon as I have strength to travel.  Here the social arts are carried to perfection—­above all, the art of conversation:  every one talks much and talks well.  In this multiplicity of words it must happen of course that a certain quantum of ideas is intermixed:  and somehow or other, by dint of listening, talking, and looking about them, people