[ On ] the 8th of July, 1872, I took the London train at the Gare du Nord, Paris.
Many relations and friends came to the station to see me off. Some had been in England, some had read books on England, but all seemed to know a great deal about it. Advice, cautions, suggestions, were poured into my ears.
"Be sure you go and see Madame Tussaud's to-morrow," said one.
"Now," said another, "when you get to Charing Cross, don't fail to try and catch hold of a fellow-passenger's coat, and hold fast till you get to your hotel. The fog is so thick in the evening that the lamp-lights are of no use, you know."
All information is valuable when you start for a foreign country. But I could not listen to more. Time was up.
I shook hands with my friends and kissed my relations, including an uncle and two cousins of the sterner sex. This will sound strange to English or American ears. Well, it sounds just as strange to mine, now.
I do not know that a long residence in England has greatly improved me (though my English friends say it has), but what I do know is, that I could not now kiss a man, even if he were a bequeathing uncle ready to leave me all his money.
II.
EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A FRENCHMAN IN SEARCH OF A SOCIAL POSITION IN ENGLAND.