ost franc, but if you ask him to
change a gold piece he will steal five; where your eyes are ravished
with the beauty, and the greenness, and the smoothness and apparent
ease of living of all its inhabitants; where your mind is filled with
the pictures, the music, the art, the general atmosphere of culture
and wit; where the cooking is so good but so elusive, and where the
shops are so bewitching that you have spent your last dollar without
thinking, and you are obliged to cable for a new letter of credit from
home before you know it--this is Paris.

Paris is very educational. I can imagine its influence broadening some
people so much that their own country could never be ample enough to
cover them again. I can imagine it narrowing others so that they would
return to America more of Puritans than ever. It is amusing, it is
fascinating, it is exciting, it is corrupting. The French must be the
most curious people on earth. How could even heavenly ingenuity create
a more uncommon or bewildering contradiction and combination? Make up
your mind that they are as simple as children when you see their
innocent picnicking along the boulevards and in the parks with their
whole families, yet you dare not trust yourself to hear what they are
saying. Believe that they are cynical, and _fin de siecle_, and
skeptical of all women when you hear two men talk, and the next day
you hear that one of them has shot himself on the grave of his
sweetheart. Believe that politeness is the ruling characteristic of
the country because a man kisses your hand when he takes leave of you.
But marry him, and no insult as regards other women is too low for him
to heap upon you. Believe that the French men are sympathetic because
they laugh and cry openly at the theatre. But appeal to their
chivalry, and they will rescue you from one discomfort only to offer
you a worse. The French have sentimentality, but not sentiment. They
have gallantry, but not chivalry. They have vanity, but not pride.
They have religion, but not morality. They are a combination of the
wildest extravagance and the strictest parsimony. They cultivate the
ground so close to the railroad tracks that the trains almost run over
their roses, and yet they leave a Place de la Concorde in the heart of
the city.

You can buy the wing of a chicken at a butcher's and take it home to
cook it. But your bill at a restaurant will appall you. Water is the
most precious and exclusive drink you can