tyled--being seated
in the _balcon_, were brought in closer contact, whether by the crowd,
or otherwise, than was agreeable to them. From remonstrances they
proceeded to murmurs, not only "loud, but deep," and from
murmurs--"tell it not in Ascalon, publish it not in Gath"--to violent
pushing, and, at length, to blows. The audience were, as well they
might be, shocked; the _Gendarmes_ interfered, and order was soon
restored. The extreme propriety of conduct that invariably prevails in
a Parisian audience, and more especially in the female portion of it,
renders the circumstance I have narrated remarkable.

Met Lady G., Lady H., and the usual circle of _habitues_ last night at
Madame C----'s. The first-mentioned lady surprises me every time I meet
her, by the exaggeration of her sentiment and the romantic notions she
entertains. Love, eternal love, is her favourite topic of conversation;
a topic unsuited to discussion at her age and in her position.

To hear a woman, no longer young, talking passionately of love, has
something so absurd in it, that I am pained for Lady C., who is really
a kind-hearted and amiable woman. Her definitions of the passion, and
descriptions of its effects, remind me of the themes furnished by
Scudery, and are as tiresome as the tales of a traveller recounted some
fifty years after he has made his voyage. Lady H., who is older than
Lady G., opens wide her round eyes, laughs, and exclaims, "Oh,
dear!--how very strange!--well, that is so funny!" until Lady C. draws
up with all the dignity of a heroine of romance, and asserts that "few,
very few, are capable of either feeling or comprehending the passion."
A fortunate state for those who are no longer able to inspire it!

To grow old gracefully, proves no ordinary powers of mind, more
especially in one who has been (oh, what an odious phrase that same
_has been_ is!) a beauty. Well has it been observed by a French writer,
that women no longer young and handsome should forget that they ever
were so.

I have been reading Wordsworth's poems again, and I verily believe for
the fiftieth time. They contain a mine of lofty, beautiful, and natural
thoughts. I never peruse them without feeling proud that England has
such a poet, and without finding a love for the pure and the noble
increased in my mind. Talk of the ideal in poetry? what is it in
comparison with the positive and the natural, of which he gives such
exquisite delineations, lifting his read