eep, although fatigued, I am writing down my
impressions; yet how tame and colourless they seem on paper when
compared with the emotions that dictate them! How often have I
experienced the impossibility of painting strong feelings during their
reign!

[_Mem_.--We should be cautious in giving implicit credit to
descriptions written with great power, as I am persuaded they indicate
a too perfect command of the faculties of the head to admit the
possibility of those of the heart having been much excited when they
were written.

This belief of mine controverts the assertion of the poet--

"He best can paint them who has felt them most."

Except that the poet says who _has_ felt; yes, it is after, and not
when most felt that sentiments can be most powerfully expressed. But to
bed! to bed!]

I have had a busy day; engaged during the greater portion of it in the
momentous occupation of shopping. Every thing belonging to my toilette
is to be changed, for I have discovered--"tell it not in Gath"--that my
hats, bonnets, robes, mantles, and pelisses, are totally _passee de
mode_, and what the _modistes_ of Italy declared to be _la derniere
mode de Paris_ is so old as to be forgotten here.

The woman who wishes to be a philosopher must avoid Paris! Yesterday I
entered it, caring or thinking as little of _la mode_ as if there were
no such tyrant; and lo! to-day, I found myself ashamed, as I looked
from the Duchess de Guiche, attired in her becoming and pretty
_peignoir a la neige_ and _chapeau du dernier gout_, to my own dress
and bonnet, which previously I had considered very wearable, if not
very tasteful.

Our first visit was to Herbault's, the high-priest of the Temple of
Fashion at Paris; and I confess, the look of astonishment which he
bestowed on my bonnet did not help to reassure my confidence as to my
appearance.

The Duchesse, too quick-sighted not to observe his surprise, explained
that I had been six years absent from Paris, and only arrived the night
before from Italy. I saw the words _a la bonne heure_ hovering on the
lips of Herbault, he was too well-bred to give utterance to them, and
immediately ordered to be brought forth the choicest of his hats, caps,
and turbans.

Oh, the misery of trying on a new _mode_ for the first time, and before
a stranger! The eye accustomed to see the face to which it appertains
enveloped in a _chapeau_ more or less large or small, is shocked at the
first attempt to wea