eroes portrayed
in the poetic pictures of a Virgil; and yet in the days of my dreamy
youth, when I turned my face to the West, I did so under the full
conviction that the land of prose was before me and the land of poetry
behind my back!

Thanks to Saint Hubert and the golden ring of the word "Mexico," I did
turn my face in that direction: and no sooner had I set foot on those
glorious shores, trodden by a Columbus and a Cortez, than I recognised
the home both of the poetic and the picturesque. In that very land,
called prosaic--the land of dollars--I inhaled the very acme of the
poetic spirit; not from the rhythm of books, but expressed in the most
beautiful types of the human form, in the noblest impulses of the human
soul, in rock and stream, in bird, and leaf and flower. In that very
city, which, thanks to perjured and prejudiced travellers, I had been
taught to regard as a sort of outcast camp, I found humanity in its
fairest forms--progress blended with pleasure--civilisation adorned with
the spirit of chivalry as with a wreath. Prosaic indeed! a
dollar-loving people! I make bold to assert, that in the concave of
that little crescent where lies the city of New Orleans will be found a
psychological _melange_ of greater variety and interest than exists in
any space of equal extent on the globe's surface. There the passions,
favoured by the clime, reach their fullest, highest development, Love
and hate, joy and grief, avarice, ambition--all attain to perfect
vigour. There, too, the moral virtues are met with in full purity.
Cant has there no home, hypocrisy must be deep indeed to avoid exposure
and punishment. Genius is almost universal--universal, too, is
activity. The stupid and the slothful cannot exist in this moving world
of busy life and enjoyment.

An ethnological _melange_ as well this singular city presents. Perhaps
no other city exhibits so great a variety of nationalities as in its
streets. Founded by the French, held by the Spaniards, "annexed" by the
Americans, these three nations form the elements of its population. But
you may, nevertheless, there meet with representatives of most other
civilised, and of many "savage" people. The Turk in his turban, the
Arab in his burnouse, the Chinaman with shaven scalp and queue, the
black son of Africa, the red Indian, the swarthy Mestize, yellow
Mulatto, the olive Malay, the light graceful Creole, and the not less
graceful Quadroon, jostle each other