eir varicoloured wings and
float in air, seem not more joyous than the Parisians have been during
the last two days of sunshine. The Jardins des Tuileries are crowded
with well-dressed groups; the budding leaves have burst forth with that
delicate green peculiar to early spring; and the chirping of
innumerable birds, as they flit from tree to tree, announces the
approach of the vernal season.

Paris is at no time so attractive, in my opinion, as in spring; and the
verdure of the foliage during its infancy is so tender, yet bright,
that it looks far more beautiful than with us in our London squares or
parks, where no sooner do the leaves open into life, than they become
stained by the impurity of the atmosphere, which soon deposes its dingy
particles on them, "making the green one"--black.

The Boulevards were well stocked with flowers to-day, the
_bouquetieres_ having resumed their stalls; and many a pedestrian might
be seen bargaining for these fair and frail harbingers of rosy spring.

How exhilarating are the effects of this season on the spirits
depressed by the long and gloomy winter, and the frame rendered languid
by the same cause! The heart begins to beat with more energetic
movement, the blood flows more briskly through the veins, and the
spirit of hope is revivified in the human heart. This sympathy between
awakening nature, on the earth, and on man, renders us more, that at
any other period, fond of the country; for this is the season of
promise; and we know that each coming day, for a certain time, will
bestow some new beauty on all that is now budding forth, until glowing,
laughing summer has replaced the fitful smiles and tears of spring.

And there are persons who tell me they experience nought of this
elasticity of spirits at the approach of spring! How are such mortals
to be pitied! Yet, perhaps, they are less so than we imagine, for the
same insensibility that prevents their being exhilarated, may preclude
them from the depression so peculiar to all who have lively feelings.

"I see nothing so very delightful in spring," said ---- to me,
yesterday. "_Au contraire_, I think it rather disagreeable, for the
sunshine cheats one into the belief of warmth, and we go forth less
warmly clad in consequence, so return home chilled by the sharp cold
air which always prevails at this season, and find, as never fails to
be the case, that our stupid servants have let out the fires, because,
truly, the sun was s