ead-ach (sic) advertises me that it is time to
lay down my pen and get me to bed. I shall say some things to you in
my next, that I would have you to impart to the _strange man_, as
from yourself. My mind is at present tolerably quiet; if it were as
dead to sin, as it is to certain connections, I should be a great
saint. Adieu, my dear madam. Yours very affectionately, &c.

LET. LVII.

TO MR P.

I HAVE been running about Paris at a strange rate with my sister, and
strange sights have we seen. They are, at least, strange sights to
me; for, after having been accustomed to the gravity of Turks, I can
scarce look with an easy and familiar aspect at the levity and
agility of the airy phantoms that are dancing about me here; and I
often think that I am at a puppet-shew, amidst the representations of
real life. I stare prodigiously, but nobody remarks it, for every
body stares here, staring is a-la-mode--there is a stare of
attention and _interet_, a stare of curiosity, a stare of
expectation, a stare of surprise; and it will greatly amuse you to
see what trifling objects excite all this staring. This staring
would have rather a solemn kind of air, were it not alleviated by
grinning; for at the end of a stare, there comes always a grin; and
very commonly, the entrance of a gentleman or lady into a room is
accompanied with a grin, which is designed to express complacence and
social pleasure, but really shews nothing more than a certain
contortion of muscles, that must make a stranger laugh really, as
they laugh artificially. The French grin is equally remote from the
cheerful serenity of a smile, and the cordial mirth of an honest
English horse-laugh. I shall not perhaps stay here long enough to
form a just idea of French manners and characters, though this I
believe would require but little study, as there is no great depth in
either. It appears, on a superficial view, to be a frivolous,
restless, and agreeable people. The abbot is my guide, and I could
not easily light upon a better; he tells me, that here the women form
the character of the men, and I am convinced in the persuasion of
this, by every company into which I enter. There seems here to be no
intermediate state between infancy and manhood; for as soon as the
boy has quit his leading-strings, he is set agog in the world; the
ladies are his tutors, they make the first impressions, which,
generally remain, and they render the men ridiculous, by