owitziana."

[Illustration: THE _Lampottes_; THE COUNTRY HOUSE OF M. DE BLOWITZ.]

The "Blowitziana"! This, however, is just what some of us feel more
inspired, than at liberty, to give. I recall here, over this paper,
too many things at once; and all the impressions, seeing M. de Blowitz
as I do continually, fortunately lack perspective. But to note this
and that about him seems in a way as much a duty as a pleasure, for I
remember well that my original notion of this remarkable man was
widely different from that which began to form in my mind once I knew
him. I don't think that people who hear about him, people who read his
name in the newspapers, the average citizen of the world who doesn't
know him personally, have quite the right idea about him. During the
last twenty years he has obtained a reputation for being the most
persistent ferreter of news in existence; but in many minds there is
distrust whenever, over his signature, some unexpected revelation
comes to change the key in the European concert. Perhaps an
unlooked-for document is published, interrupting the plans of
European statesmen, bringing to nothing all their most elaborate
scheming; and on the morrow, by some official source, comes a denial
that any such document was ever dreamed of. It is obviously
impracticable for M. de Blowitz to give his proofs, and this or that
unthinking reader, used to a thousand irresponsible writers who care
only for what is sensational, and who never verify their information,
hurriedly relegates the disclosure of the "Times" correspondent to the
same category. This is natural enough, of course. But let there be no
mistake. The revelation was worthy of the name; of this you may be
sure. M. de Blowitz has done all that he intended to do. He has nipped
in the bud this or that diplomatic scheme; he has anticipated some
subsequent further revelation; or it may be he has laid the net for
some other and less wary diplomatist. The diplomatists themselves are
not so incredulous. They listen to what M. de Blowitz is saying with a
more respectful attention, and, thinking discretion the better part of
valor, they usually end in bringing their mite to his universal
diplomatic bureau. Upon his discretion they know they can count.

Here is a fact in point. Breakfasting once in Paris with an amiable
lady and a very distinguished diplomatist who was also a poet, the
conversation fell on the subject of M. de Blowitz and Count Munster
who