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Mrs. Jameson
Published by Good Press, 2019
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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 do learn, and information to a certain point is general. Those who have knowledge are not shy of imparting it, and those who are ignorant take care not to seem so; but are sometimes agreeable, often amusing, and seldom bêtes. Nowhere have I seen unformed sheepish boys, nowhere the surliness, awkwardness, ungraciousness, and uneasy proud bashfulness, I have seen in the best companies in England. Our French friend Lucien has, at fifteen, the air and conversation of a finished gentleman; and our English friend C—— is at eighteen, the veriest log of a lumpish school-boy that ever entered a room. What I have seen of society, I like: the delicious climate too, the rich skies, the clear elastic atmosphere, the out of doors life the people lead, are all (in summer at least) delightful. There may be less comfort here; but nobody feels the want of it; and there is certainly more amusement—and amusement is here truly "le suprême bonheur." Happiness, according to the French meaning of the word, lies more on the surface of life: it is a sort of happiness which is cheap and ever at hand. This is the place to live in for the merry poor man, or the melancholy rich one: for those who have too much money, and those who have too little; for those who only wish, like the Irishman "to live all the days of their life,"—prendre en légère monnaie la somme des plaisirs: but to the thinking, the feeling, the domestic man, who only exists, enjoys, suffers through his affections—
"Who is retired as noontide dew,
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