PARIS.

You will see,And alas! and alas! for this letter to thee,If it be not writ a la electricity,Or by some still more potent diablerie!

There’s a flash of inspiration for you, which reminds me I had a feminine compliment yesterday among those other feminine impositions. If it had been of masculine origin, how different would have been the animus of the

Image not available for display: The Old Lion, Lucerne.The Old Lion, Lucerne.

“return-thanks.” She said, it must be true if one woman could bestow such words on another, so you needn’t try to put a pin in my balloon. “Mrs. Collins is alwaysinspired.” I had just “made a remark” as innocent as “a natural” (Scotch for idiot) of any intention to soar above “the dead level.” Think of my sudden inflation. In all your kite-flying days, you never gave one such “a bully send-off.” You may be sure I did not allow myself to “flop down” by opening my mouth except for “rations” the rest of the day. But was I ever “in the whole course of my long life” whirled about in such an eddy of nonsence? I can’t account for it, unless on the principle of counter-irritation, because writing to you who are so lavish of “good, sound sense.” Bite and wait for your own turn. I am applying soothing lotions already in anticipation of the crunching your reply will give me. How I’ll wish I had notthen. Well, now I may as well have out “my dance on a fiddle-string.”

I left off at Lucerne. I wish I could remember what I told you of that lovely week there. I shan’t venture on more than a word for fear of repeating myself. But I want you to know, if I did not tell you, what a hold that “lion” has taken. You know about it;that it is carved in a grotto out of the natural sandstone in the face of the grand cliff, the crest of which is fringed with overhanging trees. It is reclining, dying, transfixed by a broken lance, and protecting with its poor, helpless paw the shield of France with its Bourbon Lily. Anything more noble and pathetic I cannot conceive. It made my heart ache as the Dying Gladiator did. I wanted to get near enough to take its head in my lap and stroke it, and chafe its paw with my hands, and somehow make it feel my human sympathy. Indeed, it is a miracle “in kind,” that dead stone can be wrought into forms that so move one. The wonder of this is that it isa lion—the lord of the brute creation, it is true—but not a human being in a lion’s form. The qualities expressed are those tested in our intercourse with that “lower order of creation,” affection, sense of trust, faithfulness unto death. You don’t know how often I think of him, and yearn to him as to a living suffering creature, that majestic creation of one of my fellow beings. Oh! sometimes I take a most reverential pride in my race. Who was it—Dr. Holland—who said, “It is a great thing to be a man?” One must agree now and again. I shan’t linger on Lucerne now. Hereafter, may be. From therehere will have to be a skeletonized sketch. You can’t divine the difficulty of leaving out how trying such shadowy limning is to such an effusive creature as I, who have always had the dubious distinction of making not something, butso much out of nothing, of seeing more than is ever shown. Alas! poor me.

From Lucerne by the Schöellenen Defile and Furka Pass to the Rhone Glacier, a diligence trip from Andermat, giving many privileges in the way of fine views and other things, such as “getting up very high in the world.” At last nothing but barren rocks, snow and the plucky little wild flowers, that wouldn’t be beaten out of beautifying waste places as long as a cleft or cranny was found to give them a foothold. At the very highest, 7,992 feet, I could have made snow-balls with one hand and posies with the other without moving. I saw the great glacier from almost every point, and in such a glow of sunshine as can only be transcended in some other world. From it to Visp. Here I had my first “mule ride,”on horseback, with a guide to lead it. This for four hours; then a blessed exchange to an open carriage, which in as many more hours brought us to Zermatt, at the foot of the Matterhorn.Here the windows of my room just framed that curious freak of rock and snow, and I saw its transfiguration at dawn without moving my head from my pillow. Give me due credit though for the early wakefulness that won me that spectacle. First, in the wink of an eye, one glowing, burning golden ruby spot—the tip of the horn struck by the first gleam in the crystal of dawn; then it spread downward like the suffusion of a blush to where its base seemed resting on a dark pine-covered mountain; and behold! the whole gigantic horn a dazzling mass of that fervid glow. You can guess Beauty in the fairy story did not lie stiller or more breathless under her spell of enchantment.

Then I had my second mule-ride, this time a sure-enough mule, to make the ascent of the Gorner Grat. I don’t know what you know about it, but I am bound to tell you something at least of what I know. Just here I think I’ll confess to a singular hallucination;it seems to me that nothing I have been seeing was ever seen before. My analysis of this has only gone far enough to convince me there is no egotism, self-conceit or anything “on a lower range of feeling” in this, only that innocent, unsophisticated child-feeling over an experience out of itscommon way. This is a ridge of rock rising in the center of a vast hollow surrounded by a vaster amphitheater of snow-peaks and glaciers, the former including the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, etc., the latter numbering eleven. It is the sublimest spectacle my eyes have rested on. Retracing to Visp, then by rail along the Rhone to Leuk, whence by open carriage again to Leukesbad to make the passage of the Gemmi.

Leukesbad is the place where they do the spectacular bathing, remaining in the baths for hours at a time, and to beguile the tediousness thereof having floating tables on which are placed books, papers, games or refreshments—the public admitted to see what good times can be got in that way. Also there is a great curiosity in the neighborhood; a little village of a most aspiring turn of mind has built itself like an eagle’s eyrie on the most inaccessible perch it could find, 8,895 feet high. The way to it is by a pathway or stairway of ladders fastened into the precipitous face of the mountains. The guide-book does not recommend a trial of it to persons liable to dizziness, and says the descent is more difficult than the ascent. It says also, however, that the view from the grotto at the end of the second ladder will repaythe climber. You can guess into what climber’s head that “put notions.” Yes, she stole off there Sunday morning, “all alone by herself,” took the measure of the feat and feet, laid aside ulster, umbrella and guide-book, and went up like a beast on all fours, and down like a crawfish. Alas! that you can never know the comfort and elation of having done it.

The passage of the Gemmi was another bona fide mule ride. I had heard so much about the precipitousness and the danger of the climb, my heart had been in my mouth whenever I thought of it for days before. Nothing but moral cowardice prevented the physical cowardice of—backing out. Were you to taunt me with “You couldn’t do it again,” a la Tom Sawyer, to the comrade who had just licked him (by the skin of his teeth), I’d follow his example andnot try. Imagine, as far as in you lies, a mule-ride up a tree or a steep spiral staircase; above, sheer precipices; below, to such frightful depths, the same—two and one-half hours of that. Do you wonder I went “into retreat” at the top, if not to give thanks, surely for the precious privilege of once more drawing some long breaths? It was a five and one-half hours’ mule-ride to Kandersteg atthe foot on the other side. We got to our hotel at 9 p. m., and slept the sleep of the elect. Open carriage next morning to Thun; the sunshine so glorious I didn’t believeitcould ever “do it again,” and every roll of the wheels bearing onward to fresh charms of earth, air and sky. From Thun to Interlaken for a week; Staubbach, drives and walks in honor of the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger. You know that part of the story well. All the world does it. But to no one did it ever happen what unto me there befell one wonder afternoon. At the Belvedere, atop of a pretty height which commands the best view of that trio of snow-covered beauties, a party of English ladies came in. I caught the eye of one lovely-faced, silver-haired, soft-voiced, sweet-mannered old lady; an instant exchange of bow and smile, and then much pleasant talk. At parting, she fixed her eyes on me with such a blessing-beaming look in them, and said with the clearest distinctness of those low, silver tones, “May all your walks be pleasant.” I shall carry that benediction with me in every walk my feet shall tread in the future. From Interlaken to Berne, striking afest, a peasant’s wrestling match, set for Sunday! Fine opportunity for seeing men, womenand peasants’ costumes. Heard its great organ; saw the bear-clock; paid my visit of courtesy to the bears; had all its exquisite views; went to its really fine museum to see those marvelous specimens of white and black quartz-crystals, one weighing over 290 pounds and several over 200; and also “Barry,” the noble St. Bernard that saved fifteen lives; and ever so much else. Then Fribourg and its lime-tree dating from 1476, its organ, and a walk that might belong to a tale of necromancy.

On to Lucerne andthe“Lake Leman,” where I went and sat in the garden in which Gibbon “wrote the conclusion of his great work.” And next, Chillon! I loitered away hours there. It is the loveliest, most romantic, picturesque spot. I wish I owned it! I stayed till the sun set fire to it, the lake and the snow peaks in the background, and then saw the full moon swing into space right over it; then a long, long sigh, and the train through several stages to Vernayaz, to make another “passage” to Chamouny. Another gorge, the Gorge de Trient at V. equals that at Pfäffers. A funny little two-wheeled vehicle and a guide, and we attacked the ascent. It wasn’t so perilous as that of the Gemmi, but it wasn’t easy. We crossed awaterfall tearing down the mountain side forty-nine times over as many bridges. It was beautiful beyond the reach of words. As to giving even an idea of the innumerable beauties of that route, it would take a long summer’s day to do it. There was another gorge, different, but as interesting: lovely vales, glaciers, torrents, mountains, snow peaks, cascades, almost as numerous as the hairs on your head, especially if you are inclining to baldness, and so on. At Chamouni the monarch “crowned long ago.” I was a most willing worshiper at his feet. Like Mark Twain, the only ascent of him I cared to make was by telescope. But I made that of the Brerent, the next best thing. The mule ride again, with a guide at the bit; but even that didn’t seem so good part of the time as my own feet, and the last half hourhadto be done that way. It was all “of a piece” climbing up rocks and plunging over stretches of snow, while my “little hand lay lightly”—not a bit of it—with the tightest kind of a grip, as well as “confidingly,” in that of my guide. He was as tender of me as a lover—more so—as for the time being we were bound to each other “for better and for worse.” The Mer-de-glace came in too; not the conventional walk across; for one whohad walked across the Ohio, what was that, pray? Bah! From Chamouni by diligence, in an ecstasy all the way to Geneva. There for some days, with excursions on the lake into its realms of inexplicable blue, where everything was so unreal and ethereal. I felt as if I too were a phantom, a dream, a spirit, just as little of a reality as all I was surrounded by. From Geneva here.

About that book, and your need of the aid of “good taste, judgment and scholarship,” it strikes me any one who had to help that much would feel, like you, “certainly very glad when the creature was fledged.” Thankee, sir; I never can bear to know what I am to have for dinner, or any other meal. That for sauce. This for earnest. Call on Miss B——. I don’t know the woman who is so equal to such demand. She knows everything and has it at command. She is a long distance beyond me in such matters. This is no affectation; I mean it.

Many thanks for your charges in behalf of proper caretaking. I don’t mean to break down if I can help it. Am now taking a good rest. This pension is a kind of a home—Parishome. I could tell some things of its kindness—yes, even petting—would show how much I haveto be thankful for. The dear, good madame takes me in her arms, kisses me “from ear to ear,” and, what is better, smuggles “goodies” in to me unbeknown to the others! It is too funny to see her coming with one hand covered with a napkin and the forefinger of the other on her lips! My room adjoins the salon. I take the hint. Wouldn’t you? Answer.

L. G. C.

Paris, September 1, 1883.

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You wrote the last day of the year and did not give me a wish for the New! Did you forget? Or do you think the custom puerile? I think I like it most heartily, even with its limitations, as are set forth in some simple lines I came across, and which you must read to make your conscience tender:

“Tender and true, friend,Yet all unavailingTo guard or to give youOne gift that can bless.Should sorrow o’ertakeOr pain be assailing,I could not assure youOne trial the less.“Tender and true friendAs One—the all-loving,Whose arm will encompassShould evil be near.Cling closely to Him—in firmFaith in His provingTender and true, friend,Through all the New Year.”

“Tender and true, friend,Yet all unavailingTo guard or to give youOne gift that can bless.Should sorrow o’ertakeOr pain be assailing,I could not assure youOne trial the less.

“Tender and true friendAs One—the all-loving,Whose arm will encompassShould evil be near.Cling closely to Him—in firmFaith in His provingTender and true, friend,Through all the New Year.”

I hardly think you deserve to know what kind of time I had. You should not, only I wantto tell so much I can’t keep from it! I was invited to a friend’s Christmas Eve tree party. She has a lovely, cozy littleapartment. The tree was “a thing of beauty,” and we guests made a jam that occupied every available square inch of standing room. The elders proved to be more childish than the children themselves, clutching their presents as generous “Old Chris.” called their names, and screaming and laughing with glee at and with each other. Not the tree, nor the presents, nor the toilets, nor “the goodies” overcame me; but one superb, inexpressible specimen of the genushomo—an Apollo in silver locks, the frosty though kindly glow of at least seventy years. One sweeping glance sufficed for all the rest of that hilarious throng. Then I settled myself in the roomiest, deepest, sinkiest of spring-cushioned “arm-chairs,” and fastened my gaze on him, to wander no more while he stayed. His wife did not come. How I did wish she had, so I could see what manner of woman had dared to mate with that grand creature.

We, my hostess and myself, had a New Year’s Eve gathering. Nothing so commonplace as a tree, though. We put our heads together to devise something unique, and with that complacency characteristic of the “salt of theearth,” we feel assured we were a success. Here’s the program. See if you like it.

Salutatory, animpromptupoem, most carefullywritten out beforehandandreadbyme. This elicited great applause. Some amusing little characterizations by other ladies of our household. A metrical version of one of the many legends of that half-saint, half-angel of a woman—no, I don’t know where the woman came in—Elizabeth of Hungary, by my hostess, who is a woman of much culture and many gifts. This was received, as it should have been, with the hush and silence of deep feeling. Music and games. Then a fishing frolic; a big pond in which every guest was invited to fish, as he or she had abite, which meant a present. You can believe the fun waxed “uproarious.” I was in the pond to do the biting and put the fishes on the hook; but didn’t I make them tug! Some of them got so many bites they sang out, “Fishes, you needn’t bite any more if you don’t want to.” Just on the stroke of midnight, madame recited a moan of farewell to the passing year, and in the next breath hallelujahed into the New. We all joined in at the top of our lungs, and immediately turned to each other with hearty hand-shakings, warm wishes and somekisses. Enjoying thus with much merry and kindly talk that held us together till 2 a. m. Then I spoke the lines I have copied for you and we broke up. We had oursalonornamented with American and French flags and evergreens from Fountainbleau.

They have a custom here of keeping “Twelfth Night.” I never heard of it elsewhere. The shops are full of cakes baked expressly, each one containing “a charm,” as tiny as possible. A nice china pig, or “baby” most frequently; at least I saw nothing else. If a gentleman gets the charm, he names some lady for his “queen” throughout the year; if a lady, she names her “king.” I got the “baby,” the weest of manikins in china. For the rest, the days come and go as swiftly as so many rays of light, scarcely here till they are gone. I have grown to begrudge the hours I have to give to sleep. I never go to bed till midnight, oftenest later, recklessly sacrificing my “beauty sleep!”—and then with the utmost reluctance, and in the main feeling as if just risen from refreshing slumber. It takes, I can tell you, all my awe of the laws of physiology to force me to that.

“Heaven of the weary head,Bed, bed, delicious bed!”

I am not writing a book, painting a picture, composing an opera, inventing a new fangled bit of machinery, or even devising a new fashion in woman’s gear! No, nor am I planning any extra wickedness; have not committed such sins as banish sleep, and yet I shun sleep. What’s the trouble then? Of the most serious kind, because beyond remedy. Not all the narcotics known to science can lull me to that acceptance of “tired nature’s sweet restorer” that should come as naturally as breathing and loving; it is this, it is this:

“The years they are going,And ah! I am growingQuite old, yes, quite old, Gaffer Gray.”

To think of sparing five or six hours out of twenty-four for oblivion! Would it could be otherwise. For you see “of the making of books there is no end,” and readers must be found for them. None more eager or indefatigable than I. If only the days had more hours, the years more months, and sleep did not claim!

I have “Characteristics.” I am your debtor for all the years to come for having written such a book. “‘T would be but little could I say how much.” I thank you for your publisher’spromptness in sending me the book itself. It is one to have and to hold as a possession forever; to pick up and pore over, lay down and meditate on, and it has this quality of every genuine work: you cannot take much at a time; it forces you to pause and ponder, and once begun you cannot put it away for long; it claims you like a cluster of luscious grapes, one at a time, and, indeed, with pauses between, but no cessation till the bunch is finished. I shall not tell you yet which I like best, but I will tell you which I had already read and read firstbeforeyour letter came, with its suggestion of what I would most probably prefer, and which you evidently prefer yourself—the last two! I am lending the book around. “The old beauty” has it now, and she quotes from it and uses its anecdotes, by way of illustration, always with due acknowledgment of their source. “That book I am reading of Mrs. Collins’ friend.” I think I never showed such unselfishness. My reward is great, though; she is charmed, and intends to get both it and “Library Notes” as soon as she goes home. I had a letter from Miss B—— since she received her copy, and she is so enthusiastic: “It is a capital book. The articleon Burns I like best so far. I can’t tell what re-reading may do for the others. I like the drift of his mind exceedingly, and his Essays—themes, whatever they are—are unique, and the flavor is sharp and wholesome. There is nothing better I have read—that ismodern—that reads in his direction.” There! Are those not good words, indeed? May it have half the success it so richly merits!

Well, I must hurry to the finis. But first, such is the vanity of a wise woman, I am going to give you an excerpt from a love-letter that came in the same budget with yours: “I must write to you to-night, because I have been thinking and thinking of you, and wishing with all my heart I was with you, if only for these holidays; for I am sure you are like myself, and feel loneliest at this time, when all are rejoicing; but if we were together, there would be such a glow of affection that the proverbial yule log would fade by comparison, and it would take several families to supply an amount of devotion equal to ours. But let us hope we shall spend many Christmases together. I must and will have you, for I don’t believe there is any one cares half so much for me, and I am sure yourplace in my affection is simply unapproachable to the rest of woman or mankind either.”

Isn’t she a darling of darlings who wrote that? And it was not Miss B——.

L. G. C.

Paris, January 1, 1884.

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HAVE been enjoying Paris to the last degree. Weather as near perfection as this sublunary sphere allows. “The season” in full blast. Opera, theater and concerts for ourselves, these and all kinds of social entertainments, balls, parties, dinners, etc., for those who belong here and are “to the manner born.”

President Grevy gives jams and crushes; the remains of the aristocracy seem most given tothe races, which occur almost daily somewhere in and around Paris; the ambassadors give their dinners and receptions; the artists, the literateurs, the everybody, are giving their particular kind of entertainment. Arsene Houssaye gave one the other day—his “Assembly,” it is called. It is peculiar, called “The Chase of the Dominos.” Everybody has to wear a domino. To insure an invitation, wit, vivacity and gayety are indispensable, while, in addition, behind the masks of the womenmust be beauty. Eulogy exhausts itself on the brilliancy of thesuccess of this host. A dreamland palace, the earth despoiled of its treasures to adorn it, an exquisite cuisine, and the incomparable host. There is no hostess. One’s private character has nothing to do with it; only genius, it would seem. Such a curious medley of guests as were mentioned, Sarah Bernhardt heading the list of the feminine! I—I—wouldn’t have minded being there, not “incog,” but invisible! Just to have heard and seen that constellation of blazing stars. Every name was one known to fame.

I am having my chance at the musical side of Paris.

A pleasant American family, father, mother and two young lady daughters, give me the opportunity; always ready to go and eager to have me along. I am more than gratified. Will you be shocked if I admit to a Sunday afternoon concert? You know Sunday has none of our sacredness to Parisians; it is only a better, freer sort of fête day for those who have time to spare. Not all have. On my way to the concert, a week ago Sunday, I saw the house-painters busy; great wagons full of house-plunder—families changing their abodes, etc. Once in the concert-hall, “The Conservatoire,” the music made everything divine, I am sure.I do not coax impressions; so I think I may tell you, as proof of the character of the music, that at one part I seemed suddenly to have escaped from earth to that sphere we think of as Heaven. Hosts and hosts of orchestras were playing in perfect harmony with choruses joining in of countless myriads of voices, and through it all I was catching the music of the spheres. To give the least idea of how I felt, is beyond me. I was more than lifted up into “the seventh heaven.” The entire audience seemed equally under the unutterable influence. It is considered the finest audience in every respect that Paris has.

Am to spend to-morrow at the Luxembourg with one of the charming, young American girls. Don’t you wish you could be along? She is bright, well informed, amiable—a girl worth knowing and not too young—say about twenty-six or twenty-seven. She talks well, has an active mind, is ambitious for knowledge, and I like her. Besides, she cossets me if I feel under the weather. I think I like that best of all! Would not you? I can answer for you—yes. I am too tired for another sheet. Are you not glad?

L. G. C.

Paris, April 1, 1884.

WAS very glad to get your letter. It came several days ago, and I have been watching for that opportunity that never comes to those who have nothing to do to answer it. You know my trick of promptness. I never feel quite comfortable with the consciousness of a duty awaiting its performance. Consciousness or force of habit—which?N’importe; the result is the same. And any way, are they not interchangeable?

Yes, I am again a wandering star; or, if you will not let me go up into the empyrean, a genuine nomad. How some old Bedouin would delight in my companionship, if he could not make a big ransom off of me! But the delights of such a life are not without qualification. The passage in the Etruria was diabolical. Such pitching and tossing—why, long before it was over, I felt more like a jelly-fish than a mermaid! I was not sea-sick, but just so tired out with trying to keep my feet and my—rations—existence became loathsome. Ever so many distinguishedfellow-voyagers, but I did not care even to look at them.

But—I had a beautiful week in London (not in point of weather!), seeing sights and people. Lambeth Palace—I cannot stop to tell anything about it that you ought to know; only I read in his own handwriting that curious sentence,

“Dum spiro, spero. Charles R.,”

of the poor king who lost his head. How I wondered when and moved by what impulse he wrote it! And a story told by the custodian as we passed an empty niche which had once contained the statue of Thomas a Becket: Some repairs were being made. It was remarked by one of the workmen: “That niche once held a saint; now the niche remains, but the saint is gone.” Immediately another spoke up: “Did he leave his address?”

We gave the good part of a day to Whitehall afterwards, and saw the spot where Charles was beheaded, and looked through the window of the banqueting-hall, now a chapel, which he walked out of on his way to the scaffold. “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”

The Government Buildings, too, proved absorbingly interesting, especially as getting tosee them is a privilege. An English cousin is an official, fortunately for us. I saw Gladstone’s seat in the Cabinet chamber. And Salisbury’s, too, removed to the opposite side of the table. I did not care so much for it. And from there to Temple Bar; the church first, which I had seen several times. Also the dining-hall of the barristers. A member of that honorable body was of our party, a friend of my cousin, and a cousin of the sculptor Flaxman. He is a bachelor and “lives in chambers.” As often as I have read that expression, I never thought of trying to realize what it meant. Imagine my excitement and delight when he insisted on our going with him to his chambers for “five o’clock tea.” It was raining, dismal and chilly outside. Such a lot of crazy, queer, enchanting little cuddy-holes as we were ushered into! I’ll tell you all about them by and by. He saw my fascinated gaze at an old clock, and at once invited me to a prowl with him. I don’t know how many little dens he took me into, each stuffed full as they could hold of antique gems, curios, etc.; among them several lovely old clocks, aged three hundred years and more. The conclusion of our prowl was the crowning delight:he gave me one! I don’t know what I said, but I know hewill live forever in my heart. He was a charming host, and I hope he will invite us again!

Next, we spent two days at Canterbury, not only “doing” the cathedral, but rambling about the quaint and curious old town, and getting impressions of its inhabitants, so unlike ourselves. We attended vesper services in “Little St. Martin’s on the Hill,” where Christianity was first preached in Great Britain by St. Augustine. Some parts of its walls are 1,500 years old. I am not going to make a guide-book of my letter, but if you don’t know about this church it is worth your while “to read up” on it. Then we crossed the channel, and brought up at Amiens. Its cathedral and museum are temptations to all tourists. We loitered two days before coming here. The time was well put in. I fear I am more humane than esthetic though, for I was more interested in an institution, quite modern and altogether practical, into which we stumbled, as it were. It was for children whose mothers were out doing work by the day. They are clothed, fed and educated, as well as kept from morning till night. I had read about such an institution years ago in a book by Sir Francis Head, called “A Faggot of French Sticks.”

And here—well Parisis Paris! The weather interferes though. It is rain, or clouds, or fog, or dampness, almost all the time. Sight-seeing does not prosper under such auspices. Still we have seen a great deal. Among those that have fastened on my memory, like tar on one’s best gown, is “a sight I saw” at the Jardin des Plantes. In one of the cages of the wildest of the wild beasts a dog and tigress are dwelling, and have dwelt together in peace and harmony for six years! And the birds and the animals seemed as conscious of observation and as eager to excite admiration as their kindred, the human race. There is nothing more interesting here, I think, than this garden. The collection and arrangement of the plants are something wonderful. Then its age, 250 years, and the association of great names, such as Cuvier, Buffon, Humboldt, etc., give a vivid impression of the value of men to mankind.

I have had some new experiences in various ways. Several trips on the Seine in long, slender steamers called swallows, both by day and night, moonlight and gaslight. And drives on the quais, the most magnificent I know of. Palaces and palaces, and gardens and gardens, on the one hand, and the grand balustrade overhangingthe river, with its myriad crafts, all repeated on the opposite bank, the drive bordered by double rows of trees. One can’t help owning the beauty, grandeur and completeness of this Paris, not all of it like that of youth “La Beaute du Diable.” I have met some pleasant people, too. And was at a Thanksgiving Dinner, turkey and mince pies, American fashion. Everything tempting, but the pies looked so delicious, I said to myself as the hostess was cutting them, “If she does not give me a big piece, I shall wish I had not come.” She did!

L. G. C.

Paris, December 6, 1885.

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MY return will be delayed a few weeks longer. It was a trial to feel I must submit to this at first, but since these dreadful storms have been raging on the ocean and coasts I have become reconciled. I have had my share of “old ocean’s buffetings.”

I am here en route for home. Miss B—— came from Sweden to Berlin and remained there a week. She had never been there before. Then she came here, to join the lady with whom she had crossed and was to recross. On reaching here, our program had to be changed. The Arizona was not to sail at the appointed time, being postponed to meet the new postal arrangements. Miss B——’s friend got her head set on the Nile trip. Miss B—— was all eagerness. They would not go without me. The position was embarrassing. So I had to consent. We leave day after to-morrow. Think of it! You have bantered me to write to you from Europe, Asia, Africa, and so on! Perhaps you will get a line or so from under old Cheop’s unfathomablecountenance, or from melodious Memnon’s colossal knee. How I wish he—it—would burst forth once more into that mournful plaint, just for me!

L. G. C.

Paris, December 3, 1886.

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YOURS of the 23d February came last night. I had spent the evening out. It was pleasant, indeed, to find letters and papers on my table awaiting me.

Sorry I disappointed you about the Jerusalem trip. “It was not my fault,” you may be sure. That is one of the drawbacks of traveling in a party. The composing members are much given to pulling different ways and not making any sacrifice of individual preferences. This friction is trying, but the “kindly race of men” (Heaven save the mark!) is gregarious, and traveling alone is almost worse. So—o—o—h! Next time you shall have a letter written in the shadow of the temple; perhaps another under a canopy of the boughs of the Cedars of Lebanon; and yet another within sound of the purling brook of Hebron. Be consoled. Above all, do not doubt that I shall make contributions from every “grand division” to your entertainment. It is not so long ago you prodded me with that expectation on your part.Not that I missed its flavor of mockery,ma foi!Ah! the “golden fair enchanted” future, that holds the goals of all our ambitions, the realities of all our dreams, the crowns of all our victories!

Do not send the book. Anxious and eager as I am to see it, I am not willing to run the risk of missing it. I am no nearer a decision as to the date of sailing than this: it will not be earlier than the 26th of this, or later than the middle of next month. If the latter, because I will have waited for company. Some very agreeable ladies are going then, and have urged me to wait. When I persisted in holding the negative attitude, one became exasperated and burst forth, “I bet five dollars you will.” Didn’t “Old Kaintuck” speak out then? And if I must tell on myself, I have not felt so sure I would not since!

I like the title of the book more and more. There is genius in it. Whose? Don’t tell me not yours. It is “so smart,” as they say in Kentucky. I never think of it without its stirring my brain to try “to think up” a better one. It must be “a brilliant success.”

We are in a tremendous hubbub. “Madame” is “moving.” We are going to bealmost “next-door neighbors” to Queen Isabella.

As soon as in order, “Madame” gives a house-warming. She is a generous soul, and ought to be achatelaine. Her grandmother was a duchess at the court of Louis XVI. She never not only omits them, but makes chances to give entertainments. An invalid heiress follows with “a five o’clock tea” in her private salon. There will be rivalry oftea-gowns; mine is ready. Ever since I gave it a trial donning on its coming from “the man-tailor,” they have called me “Lady Collins.” Bloom and beauty having departed, age and wrinkles are—knighted. Heigh, ho! why could not one have all honors together?

L. G. C.

Paris, March 8, 1887.

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HERE I am still. You will doubtless be surprised. I am.

Day after to-morrow will be a birthday anniversary, and everybody has found it out! Ugh! Think what a nightmare the prospect of that tell-tale cake, with its little wax tapers to the number of my years!

You don’t know about the cake. My dear good landladywillobserve the birthdays of her guests with a grand dinner. This cake is the “grand pièce de résistance,” borne into the room and making the circuit of the table with its little tapers, for the inspection of everybody. Would you like such a fireworks’ display of your years?

Well, being a man, maybe you would not care. But do not pronounce on me. Just wait till you are transmigrated into a woman to come into a knowledge of our much abused reserve on this point.

If a woman ever is “the weaker vessel,” believe me just here is where it comes in. Theidea of home dominates her, though the home itself has been desolated and broken up forever. This is not all in my case.

Do you know what it is to have dispensations of conscientiousness? I am sorely troubled at times, and the trouble grows. It seems such a life of idleness and self-gratification this I am living, one of luxurious wandering and enjoyment of the fair face of this lovely mother earth, and beautiful accumulations from all times and nations and peoples. The flight of time—Schiller says—

“Arrowy swift the present fleeth.”

But to me the years now seem come and gone like lightning flashes.

Shall I tell you how the days go? Will you care to hear? It cannot be but that much of interest should come into them. The “sight-seeing,” of course, never comes to an end. Think how impossible when I tell you the “Salon,” just opened for its annual exposition, numbers largely over 5,000 works; thirty-seven rooms of pictures! I spent yesterday afternoon in them. Guess the wear on eyes, feet and brain of the most cursory survey. At last I had to sit down, and close my eyes to shut them all out,ifI could. As if I could!

Why I could not even sleep for their haunting, though I went to bed before ten to spare my eyes from further seeing. One gorgeous “Cleopatra,” Cabanal’s, proved as irresistible a sorceress to me as if I had been a Caesar or an Anthony. It represents that incident given by Plutarch in his “Life of Anthony,” when, after the battle of Actium, dreading what may happen to herself, she is having deadly poisons tried on prisoners condemned to death, to find out which would cause the least suffering. I shall not go into a description, but, if possible, will get a photograph, and show you that to give you some idea. Another historical incident, from the brush of Charrier, is that of the Empress Ariadne, who, becoming disgusted with the excesses and cruelties of her husband, the Emperor Zeno, had him, when he was—some say in an epileptic fit, others drunk—walled up in the royal tomb. She is standing beside it, bending in the attitude of listening to his furious struggle. Such a picture has a dreadful fascination. Another, by Constant, is of “Theodora,” throned in all her oriental barbaric magnificence. This is Sara Bernhardt’s great character, and the picture is very like her, whether or not meant for a portrait.I saw her in it. Do not think I am going to surfeit you on pictures though.

Here is something about living, working, worth-having-been-born women. Two Frenchladiesof the St. Germain exclusive strain. Parents gone, fortune gone, health gone for years. Then the struggle for a living. You can’t think how interesting I find them. One is a genius, an exquisite musician, a composer. Some of her compositions are the daintiest, most poetical and pathetic I ever listened to. She is a writer of books as well, charming ones at that. The other is a singer. They gave me a Musicale a few nights ago. I saw some most entertaining messieurs. One in particular, could not speak English, but could read it. You should have heard him discuss Scott, Dickens, and Shakespeare; the last with a fervid enthusiasm. I’ll tell you more of these “anon.” One beautiful,fellowcountrywoman, “divinely tall and most divinely fair,” proves delightful. She invites me to “four o’clock tea and homemade cake,” and what talks we have, and what bouts of sauce, not to say wit!

Then Paris is looking its loveliest in the witchery of May greenness and bluest of skies that fairly laugh. Long walks and longerdrives and dawdles, andprowlsin which plethoric purses are swiftlydepleted. I can not keep a sou in my pocket. How much I shall have to tell, but I know who will never—listen!

L. G. C.

Paris, April 20, 1887.

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AH! you good friend, both the letter and the book have come. If either had come by itself, I would have thanked you most for it; but as they came together, I—I thank you most for—both. How could I do less? “Fifty-two, did you say it was?” No, I did not say. I never meddle with figures. If I do, I am sure to get the worst of it. I do not like to get worsted. Do you? As for a woman’s telling her age, who expects it? The silly! As a matter of fact, I can say, in a general way, I am old enough, though I might be older; and young enough, though I might be younger. I might be sixty-two; I might be even no more than forty, yet the trouble is I am neither. So far as all the world is concerned, it has no concern whatever in the matter. So far as you are, I have a misgiving you know without my telling. I only wish you had not known before you finished the book; and that you had asked me, and when I thus declined to tell on myself, you had wrought yourself into a fume aboutit. But don’t I feel cheated that I shall never know how you would have threshed out that cereal! Is not it a curious fact that overproduction is one of the ills of the present period of our little planet’s history?

Those thousands of pictures! That magnificent, enormous “Salon!” Can you believe it—there are ever so many other “Expositions” in full blast? They come in such numbers and swift succession, to see each is to wipe out the memory of the one just seen as the succeeding wave does that just gone before. Yet the great names are a temptation you do not even dream of struggling against. You would not if you could. The last time it was Millet’s. I hope you have seen his “L’Angelus,” or at least an engraving. There is the original or a replica, in Baltimore, I think, which has been exhibited in the United States. I had seen an engraving only, but it was an imperishable memory. When it was mentioned as one of a full collection of his works to be exhibited, you will see I could not have missed it.

I wish I dare attempt to describe the many out of it that won at once my most enthusiastic homage. Almost all peasants and peasant life, shepherds and shepherdesses, with their flocks,peasant women feeding children or chickens, harvest fields and gleaners—the subjects so simple and homely, the treatment just the magic of brush and colors, the mastery of genius. Not all held me equally; but all that I liked held me absolutely. I never had a more unalloyed enjoyment. How I wish I could buy all of them and bring them home with me! Not one was for sale, all being loaned by their owners for the purpose of realizing enough to erect a monument to his memory.

But I can’t talk any more about pictures. I want to thank you for “the little book.” Thank you for it, from its very inscription, through every phase of its working out, to the finished volume I have just read and laid down with a pang because it is ended, because there is no more.It is a book.It is worth having written; worth having taken time to write. It merits all the praise lavished upon it. There is not a word too much. It may be like all those they liken it to, but it is most like yourself. There can be no question of the brilliancy within, the handling of such vast and varied materials; of the enormous reading, the close attention, the critical observations, the careful judgment, the good taste, necessary for such anacquisition of knowledge and information as you have so delightfully utilised. The best about it is not that it is brimming over with this information, brilliancy, entertainingness, power, but that it is full of wisdom as well. The combination to such degree is not common.

It came—“the little book”—at nine last night. I read the letter, and another from another gentleman, then began to handleit. I cut the string; took off the wrapping; looked at the binding; pondered over the title, liking it better and better; then—the reluctant plunge. I knew I ought not begin reading, as if I should become interested I could not stop. Late reading tells so on me. Besides, it is the worst form of “late”—keeping right on till the book is finished. Well, you or some one had cut only a part of the leaves. You got the full credit. I said when I began: “How thoughtful in him to cut the leaves.” Directly I found some were left for me to do—of course, exactly when I could least bear to lose a moment. My paper-knife went through with a rip, I can tell you. On again, almost holding my breath, or swept away in a convulsion of laughter. Then more leaves to cut. I became suspicious, and said something not altogether amiable, maybe: “He did this onpurpose.” There was repetition of cut and uncut all the way through; and I shall always believe, even though you convince me to the contrary, that you did this with malice prepense—knowing the obstruction and interruption would act like salt on thirst. At midnight I said: “I will not read another word.” I was very tired, having had a long drive, nearly from noon till night. A word about that drive. It was with an invalid heiress, the same I have mentioned. I wish she and you might “make a match of it.” She is so bright and every way agreeable, besides having the fortune!

The drive was in the Champs Elysées and the Bois du Boulogne, the fashionable resort. It is always a kind of gay carnival of fashion. The brilliant afternoons; the handsome equipages, the elegant occupants arrayed as not Solomon in all his glory was. The—your—sex not less so than mine! You ought to have seen one I saw yesterday. Alone in his open carriage, evidently “got up” to attract attention; a lilac ribbon tie; vest of silk, matching in color; boutonnière of flowers in the same dainty color; and pantaloons of plaid lilac and white. Was not that a spectacle? But once in the beautiful park, such visions were lost sight of. The sky, airfoliage and flowers were Eden’s own. I got out of the carriage and gatheredherhands full of daisies and anemones. She sat in the shadow and quiet of the trees watching me. One avenue was specially interesting. On the left were pretty bits of water, scarcely lakes, low hills with tumbling cascades, stretches of thick-set trees and flowery hedges. On the right, vanishing distances of the greenest sward, edged with scattered clumps of trees, blotched with alternate sunshine and shadow. Away off rose the hills that encircle Paris—a misty greenish-black rampart against the sky. Sometimes we talked; sometimes were silent. These blessed long days! At six o’clock we came home, lest she should become too much fatigued. But I could not stay indoors, and went out again for a walk. I came back loaded with old-fashioned spice pinks—have not you some in your garden?—and great golden marguerites.

But “the little book.” This morning I was at it again long before getting-up time. The maid smiled when she came in at seven. And now I have read it, and knowing the pleasure of the reading, I can not help wishing more of it was still to do.

Hurry and write another, please. Why not“A Club of Two. From the note-book of a woman whowassociable?” Beat Mrs. Caudle if you like, or Prue. I am so glad you have given “Prue and I” a place in your book. It has always been one of my giving-away books. Only the other day I was telling of it to some who do not know it. Think of their loss.

Can not say a word about coming, but that it will be soon.

L. G. C.

Paris, May 29, 1887.

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