often pleasing? If
the reader is of those who sometimes think upon the dear ones they have
lost, if he is alone, if the day is waning or the night has come, let
him read on; otherwise, he should lay aside this book at once. If he
has never buried a good old relative, infirm and poor, he will not
understand these pages, which to some will seem redolent of musk, to
others as colorless and virtuous as those of Florian. In short, the
reader must have known the luxury of tears, must have felt the
silent pangs of a passing memory, the vision of a dear yet far-off
Shade,--memories which bring regret for all that earth has swallowed up,
with smiles for vanished joys.

And now, believe that the writer would not, for the wealth of England,
steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative.
The following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the
treasures of your sensibility--if you have any.

In these days the French language has as many idioms and represents as
many idiosyncracies as there are varieties of men in the great family of
France. It is extremely curious and amusing to listen to the different
interpretations or versions of the same thing or the same event by the
various species which compose the genus Parisian,--"Parisian" is here
used merely to generalize our remark.

Therefore, if you should say to an individual of the species Practical,
"Do you know Madame Firmiani?" he would present that lady to your
mind by the following inventory: "Fine house in the rue du Bac, salons
handsomely furnished, good pictures, one hundred thousand francs a year,
husband formerly receiver-general of the department of Montenotte." So
saying, the Practical man, rotund and fat and usually dressed in black,
will project his lower lip and wrap it over the upper, nodding his head
as if to add: "Solid people, those; nothing to be said against them."
Ask no further; Practical men settle everybody's status by figures,
incomes, or solid acres,--a phrase of their lexicon.

Turn to the right, and put the same question to that other man, who
belongs to the species Lounger. "Madame Firmiani?" he says; "yes, yes,
I know her well; I go to her parties; receives Wednesdays; highly
creditable house."--Madame Firmiani is metamorphosed into a house! but
the house is not a pile of stones architecturally superposed, of
course not, the word presents in Lounger's language an indescribable
idiom.--Here the Lounger, a spare man w