and habits of the nations. Without
arrogating to myself the pretension of a critic, I should be unjust if
I did not acknowledge that I have perused many a French novel by modern
authors, from which I have derived interest and pleasure.

The French critics are not loath to display their acumen in reviewing
the works of their compatriots, for they not only analyze the demerits
with pungent causticity, but apply to them the severest of all tests,
that of ridicule; in the use of which dangerous weapon they excel.

House-hunting the greater part of the day. Oh the weariness of such an
occupation, and, above all, after having lived in so delightful a house
as the one we inhabit! Many of our French friends have come and told us
that they had found hotels exactly to suit us: and we have driven next
day to see them, when lo and behold! these eligible mansions were
either situated in some disagreeable _quartier_, or consisted of three
fine _salons de reception_, with some half-dozen miserable dormitories,
and a passage-room by way of _salle a manger_.

Though Paris abounds with fine _hotels entre cour et jardin_, they are
seldom to be let; and those to be disposed of are generally divided
into suites of apartments, appropriated to different persons. One of
the hotels recommended by a friend was on the Boulevards, with the
principal rooms commanding a full view of that populous and noisy
quarter of Paris. I should have gone mad in such a dwelling, for the
possibility of reading, or almost of thinking, amidst such an
ever-moving scene of bustle and din, would be out of the question.

The modern French do not seem to appreciate the comfort of quiet and
seclusion in the position of their abodes, for they talk of the
enlivening influence of a vicinity to these same Boulevards from which
I shrink with alarm. It was not so in former days; witness the
delightful hotels before alluded to, _entre cour et jardin_, in which
the inhabitants, although in the centre of Paris, might enjoy all the
repose peculiar to a house in the country. There is something, I am
inclined to think, in the nature of the Parisians that enables them to
support noise better than we can,--nay, not only to support, but even
to like it.

I received an edition of the works of L.E.L. yesterday from London. She
is a charming poetess, full of imagination and fancy, dazzling one
moment by the brilliancy of her flights, and the next touching the
heart by some stroke of