THE PROFESSOR’S SPECTACLES.
We paid everybody and everything, and departed sadly. No matter how joyously you enter a French hotel, you walk out to the music, mentally, of the Dead March in Saul. But what are you going to do about it? You cannot sleep in the streets, and you must eat, and the pirates have you in an iron grip, and they realize the strength and impregnability of their position.
Paris is another octopus, differing from London only in the quality and style of its feelers. London has been built up by main strength, that being its characteristic. Paris has as many feelers as London, and they are perhaps as strong and far-reaching; but they are wrapped in velvet. It is a rather pleasant thing to be devoured by the French octopus. He does not rend you limb from limb, like the English one, but he holds you just as firmly, and sucks your life blood in so delightful a way, that you rather like the operation.
Paris is the city of luxury. No matter where you go, nor among what class of people, you see but two things—a vast population catering to sensualism, and another vast population paying the price for it.
The difference between London and Paris is shown even in its proprietary medicines. In London the walls groan, or would if they could, under announcements of liver medicines; in Paris the walls of corresponding conspicuousness are covered with advertisements of articles for the hair and complexion. A French woman will get on with almost any kind of a liver, but she must have hair to her heels, and a complexion that is faultless. No matter what kind of underclothing she has on, or no matter if she hasn’t any, the outside must be dressed in elegance and taste. Paris lives largely for the eye.