We are having a nice time, though I felt like Dante when he turned round and missed Virgil, when I found that Rowse had flown. However, three days after John [Holmes] arrived in excellent health and spirits—likes our hotel, and will stay ad libitum. His knee is not quite right, but otherwise he is robustious. He confided to me yesterday that the first time we walked out, he wished me to guide him to where he could get some oysters! He thought they would quite set him up. He is very droll with his German, and delightful to the last degree. In French he is as inarticulate as one of his favorite shell-fish. We have a little woman who comes to talk with us an hour a day, and so soon as I get fluid I am going to Littré. I already enter into conversation at table with gusto.
To the Same.
Paris, 14 November, 1872.
...I am very glad you sent the Emersons to me. I have engaged him a lovely little apartment au premier at 8 frs. the day. I think I shall take it myself when they go, for I am more and more minded to stay the winter through. We are all well and send lots of love to all of you. Fanny is at work on French exercises all day, and as for me, when I get my French suit of clothes I shall be a thorough Gaul. I am ready for a revolution (or at any rate an e mute) to-morrow. It is pretty chilly here now, and I almost wish the Commune had put off their bonfires till the middle of November, when they would have done some good. I am writing on a marble table, and my fingers are numb as gutta percha.
To the Same.
Paris, 6 December, 1872.
There has been an untoward gap in my correspondence, because I have fallen back a little into home habits, and have been pegging away at Old French again.... But the days are so short! and it has been such gloomy weather. Fifty-seven days of rain, think of it, and the only excitement the crue of the Seine. Yes, we are beginning to have another, for we are threatened with a revolution. The Right are resolved to push things to extremes, and would rather have a military triumvirate than Thiers with a ministry of his own choosing. The French look upon Paris as the metropolis of the world, but I am more and more struck with a certain provincialism of mind shown in the importance they attach to their own personality. Every one of them has the flavor of a village great man. It is not individuality I mean, but value of self. No man can bring himself to get out of the way, even though it is the country he is blocking. I pick up a good deal at my table d’hôte and am more and more pleased with it.
I have not yet been to call on Littré, but I shall before long. My French still refuses to go trippingly from my tongue. However, I manage now to converse at table, and plunge into general discussion bravely. In the intervals of the rain (for it does not always rain all day long, though it rains every day) I take long walks in every direction, and am grown pretty intimate with Paris. I still like it and the people. By the way, Clarice (the maid who waits at breakfast) said to me this morning: “Les aristocrats ne veulent pas que la basse classe soit instruite. Ils croient que le peuple sait trop déja. Avec la République nous aurions l’instruction obligatoire. Ah, ce serait une chose très bonne pour nous.” I am inclined to believe that the people know more than my friend, the Marquis de Grammont, thinks!
To the Same.
Paris, 11 January, 1873.