Various

“ The former is viewed with wonder and admiration; for size it is a province, for population a kingdom. But Paris, the modern Babel, with its boulevards and palaces, its five-and-twenty theatres, its gaudy restaurants and glittering coffee-houses, its light and cheerful aspect, so different from the soot-grimed walls of the English capital, is the land of promise to truant gentlemen and erratic ladies, whether from the Don or the Danube, the Rhine or the Wolga, from the frozen steppes of the chilly north, or the orange groves of the sunny south. ”

“ Monsieur le Marquis is going on thither to-morrow: and if Monsieur would be so obliging,—but I will run up and ask him and Madame, the sweetest lady in the world,—they will be glad to have you at dinner with them: you are all going to Mont Dor. You will be enchanted: excuse me, I will be back in an instant."
How curious, thought I, that without any doings of my own, I should just be thrown into the way of the person whom my curiosity—my impertinent, or silly curiosity, which you will—prompted me with the desire to meet. ”

“ We want an eye accustomed to look to other things beyond the sight of a gun-barrel—we want to know more about the quarry than the mere fact that it was flushed, fired at, and killed. Death can come but once to the black-cock as to the warrior, but are their lives to be accounted as nothing? Ponto we allow to be a beautiful brute—a little too thin-skinned, perhaps, for the moors, and apt, in case of mist, to lapse into a state of ague—yet, notwithstanding, punctual at his points, and cheap at twenty guineas of the current money of the realm. ”

“ However, the day was fine and frosty, and we were in the midst of some of the most magnificent scenery in Scotland; so that I, at least, was not much distressed at our want of luck. Poor Donald, who had not the same enjoyment in the beauty of the scene, unless it were enlivened by a herd of deer here and there, began to grumble and lament our hard fate; particularly as towards evening wild masses of cloud began to sweep up the glens and along the sides of the mountain, and every now and then a storm of cold rain and sleet added to the discomfort of our position. ”

“ Mr Gutzkow partakes a fault common to many of his countrymen—a tendency to extremes, an aptness either to trifle or to soar, now playing on the ground with the children, then floating in the clouds with mystical familiars, or on a winged hobbyhorse. Desultory in style, he neglects the classification of his subject. Abruptly passing from the grave to the light, from the solid to the frothy, he breaks off a profound disquisition or philosophical argument to chatter about the new vaudeville, and glides from a scandalous anecdote of an actress into the policy of Louis Philippe. ”

“ A Caledonian farmer, put down suddenly in the Limagne, would think himself in fairy regions; so kindly do all things come in it, so pure and excellent of their sort—in such variety, in such never-failing succession. Purple mountains, red plains, dark green woods, and a sky of pure azure—such is the combination of colours that meets the eye on first coming into Auvergne.
And yet man thrives not much in it; he remains a stunted half-civilized animal—with his black shaggy locks, his brown jacket, red sash, and enormous round beaver ”

“ Paris is too large in bad weather, and too small in fine. Really, when the sun shines, Paris is very small. The fashionable part of the Boulevards, the Rue Vivienne, the Rue Richelieu, the Palais Royal, in all that region you are soon so much at home that your face is known to every shopkeeper. Always the same impressions. In the daytime often insipid; more cheerful at night, when the gas-lights gleam. The art of false appearances is here brought to the greatest perfection. The commonest shops are so arranged as to deceive the eye. ”

“ Occasionally a grave-looking heron is seen balancing himself by some incomprehensible feat of gymnastics on the very topmost twig of a larch-tree, where he swings about in an unsteady manner, quite unbecoming so sage-looking a bird. Occasionally a thievish jackdaw dashes out from the cliffs opposite the heronry, and flies straight into some unguarded nest, seizes one of the large green eggs, and flies back to his own side of the river, the rightful owner of the eggs pursuing the active little robber with loud cries and the most awkward attempts at catching him. ”

“ If I could fly, I would away to those realms of light and warmth—far, far away in the southern clime, where the wants of the body should [486] be few, and where the vigour of life should be great. The glorious south is, like the joyous time of youth, full of hope and promise: all is sunny and bright: there, flowers bloom and birds sing merrily. ”

“ How can it be, that in a country where nature is so genially disposed towards the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms of her wide empire, she should have played the niggard so churlishly when she peopled it with human beings? The men of the Bourbonnais are short and ordinary of appearance, remarkable more for the absence than for the presence of physical advantages, and the women are the ugliest in France!—mean and uninviting in person, and repulsive in dress! They are only to be surpassed in this unenviable distinction by those of Auvergne. ”

“ Is your unhappy clerk, whose wife and children have long since been dismissed to cheap bathing-quarters on the coast of Fife, where at this moment they are bobbing up and down among the tangled rocks, skirling as the waves come in, or hunting for diminutive crabs and cavies in the sea-worn pools—is that most oppressed and martyred of all mankind to be kept, by your relentless fiat, or rather wicked obstinacy, from participating in the same sanatory amusements with Bill, and Harry, and Phemie, and the rest of his curly-headed weans? ”

“ Let us see—the month is rapidly on the wane—we have hardly, in sporting phrase, broken the back of this the leading article. Shall we give up the moors, and celebrate this day as another Eve of St John? There is a light mist lying on the opposite hill, but in an hour or two it will be drawn up like a curtain by the sunbeams, and then every bush of heather will be sparkling with dewdrops, far brighter than a carcanet of diamonds. What a fine elasticity and freshness there is in the morning air! A hundred to one the grouse will sit like stones. Donald, my man, are there many birds on the hill? ”

“ That the people are a people of warriors, is not so surprising when we consider their locality, their ancestry, and the circumstances of their life. If they were merely marauders, we should be no more struck with the singularity of their state than we are with the vagabondism of the Albanians. A wild country, a wandering population, and distance from executive restraints, may, in any case, bring natural ferocity to a harvest of violence and rapine. But the Montenegrini disclaim the name of robbers and the practice of evil. ”

“ Without going the lengths that Mr Gutzkow does, or by any means coinciding in his sweeping censure of the artists who now furnish forth the Italian theatres of London and Paris, we doubt whether it is not fashion, as much as the excellence of the music, that draws the élite of French and English society to the Haymarket and the Salle Ventadour, and whether a German company of equal intrinsic merit would receive adequate patronage and encouragement in either capital, supposing even that they were allowed their choice of operas, and had the benefit of a handsome theatre and an able management. ”

“ One may have shot a man in a duel, but in order to remember the act with tranquillity, the deceased should have been the challenger. One may have received a blow in the opera house, and yet not deem it necessary, having already had one fatal encounter, to engage in a second, but it is hard that the giver of the blow must pass three years in prison. Such events would drive a German to emigration and the back-woods; they impel the Frenchman further forward into the busy crowd. Bitterness, melancholy, nervous excitement, and morbid agitation, are unmistakeably written upon Girardin's countenance. ”

“ I was one summer evening walking home from fishing in Loch Ness, and having occasion to fasten up some part of my tackle, and also expecting to meet my keeper, I sat down on the shore of the loch. I remained some time, enjoying the lovely prospect: the perfectly clear and unruffled loch lay before me, reflecting the northern shore in its quiet water. The opposite banks consisted, in some parts, of bright greensward, sloping to the water's edge, and studded with some of the most beautiful birch-trees in Scotland ”

“ Most devoutly do we wish that there were many more sportsmen of the same stamp! For ourselves, we confess to an organ of destructiveness not of the minimum degree. We never pass a pool, and hear the sullen plunge of the salmon, without a bitter imprecation upon our evil destiny if we chance to have forgotten our rod; and a covey rising around us, when unarmed, is a plea for suicide. But this feeling, as Mr St John very properly expresses it, is mere natural instinct—part of our original Adam, which it is utterly impossible to subdue. But give us rod or gun. ”

“ Their want of mature years and understanding," she continued, with a significant glance at Doña Inez—her indignation having been gradually aroused as she perceived the admiration lavished on her by the strangers, and the indifference with which they viewed her riper charms,—"may be one reason; but if the French are so unattractive, such madness is inexplicable."
"Arts, unholy arts all!" cried the Confessor. "Their damnable practices are the cause of it. They rob the damsels of their senses, with their infernal potions and elixirs. The wretches are in league with the devil." ”

“ So, at least, the author of Hochelaga instructs us, avouching his belief that a lady of any age and unlimited attractions may travel through the whole Union without a single annoyance, but aided, on the contrary, by the most attentive and unobtrusive civility. And many American ladies do so travel; their own propriety of behaviour, and the chivalry of their countrymen, for sole protectors. The best seat in coach and at table, the best of every thing, indeed, is invariably given up to them. This practical courtesy to the sex is certainly an excellent point in the American character. ”

“ Miss Lola is not the only lady of her cloth making her chief society of the men on whose suffrage her reputation, as an actress, depends. In Paris, people are apt to pin their faith on their newspaper, and, finding that the plan saves a deal of thought, trouble, and investigation, they see with the eyes and hear with the ears of the editor, go to the theatres which he tells them are amusing, and read the books that he puffs. Actresses, especially second-rate ones, thus find themselves in the dependence of a few coteries of journalists, whom they spare no pains to conciliate. ”

“ It would be absurd to claim for these people the general merit of devotion; to suppose that as a general rule they are actuated by the love of religion. Alas! they are undoubtedly very ignorant of the religion for which they fight. Yet, so far as knowledge serves them, they are religious; where error is the consequence of ignorance, we may grieve, but should be slow to condemn. Some are probably led to heroism by liberal devotion to the person of the Bishop; some because they have been nursed in the idea that Turks are their natural enemies, whom to destroy is a work of merit. ”

“ His strong objections to a residence in Paris were as nothing against the opposition of the wife resolved to gain her point and vanquish. Paris was odious to him on many grounds. It was paradise to a woman created for pleasure—alive and herself only when absorbed in the mad pursuit of pleasure. Sinclair regarded a sojourn in Paris as fatal to the repose which he yearned to secure: his wife looked upon it as a guarantee for the joyous excitement which her temperament rendered essential to existence. General Travis was in Paris; so was the Earl of Minden ”

“ Great humanity and utter absence of wantonness in the prosecution of his sport, is a most pleasing characteristic of Mr St John. He well understands the meaning of Wordsworth's noble maxim,—
"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels;"
and can act upon it without cant, without cruelty, and, above all, without hypocrisy. And truly, when we consider where he has been located for the last few years, in a district which offers a greater variety of game to the sportsman than any other in Great Britain, his moderation becomes matter of legitimate praise. ”

“ It is, however, thickly embellished with bright-coloured stones, rudely set in brass; thus we find the Montenegrini women obeying the same instinct that leads the dames of civilisation to suffer that they may shine. This belt is the obvious distinction in dress between the two sexes; and when it is hidden by the long rug, or scarf, which is common to both men and women, there remains between them no striking difference of costume. This rug is to the Montenegrino what the capote is to the Greek and Albanian, his companion in all weathers—his shelter against the storm, and his bed at night. ”

“ Come, come, I will spare you," he added, as the rich blood mantled over Doña Inez's cheek—"that tell-tale blush is a sufficient answer. Then, why not make them happy?" he added, more seriously; "the Marquis de La Tour d'Auvergne, the heir of an ancient line, and a noble fortune, is in every respect a suitable alliance for either the Conde de Miranda, or General De Lucenay. Besides which, he is a very presentable young fellow, as you see, not to speak of the trifle of their being overhead and ears in love with each other already." ”

“ But to a man of Mr St John's accomplishment and observant habits, the mere prey is a matter of far less moment than the insight which such a locality affords, into the habits and instincts of the creatures which either permanently inhabit or casually visit our shores. His journal is far more than a sportsman's book. It contains shrewd and minute observations on the whole of our northern fauna—the results of many a lonely but happy day spent in the woods, the glens, the sand-tracts, by river and on sea. ”

“ The dark-eyed Spanish belles, with their basquinas and lace mantillas, their flexible figures, and their miniature feet so exquisitely chaussées; the handsome caballeros, with their dark profiles and black mustaches, their sombre costume, brilliantly relieved by the gold tissue divans, and varied arabesques of the glittering saloon, they looked like the noble pictures of Velasquez or Murillo just stepped out of their frames. As Ernest was re-entering the saloon, the voices of a group of ladies, from whom he was concealed by the crimson drapery of the curtains, caught his attention. ”