little
purpose have I lived!!

"_Wednesday, April 28._ I have noticed a difference in manners between
the English, French, and Americans. If you are at the house of a friend
and should happen to meet Englishmen who are strangers to you, no
introduction takes place unless specially requested. The most perfect
indifference is shown towards you by these strangers, quite as much as
towards a chair or table. Should you venture a word in the general
conversation, they might or might not, as the case may be, take notice of
it casually, but coldly and distantly, and even if they should so far
relax as to hold a conversation with you through the evening, the moment
they rise to go all recognition ceases; they will take leave of every one
else, but as soon think of bowing to the chair they had left as to you.

"A Frenchman, on the contrary, respectfully salutes all in the room,
friends and strangers alike. He seems to take it for granted that the
friends of his friend are at least entitled to respect if not to
confidence, and without reserve he freely enters into conversation with
you, and, when he goes, he salutes all alike, but no acquaintance ensues.

"An American carries his civility one step further; if he meets you
afterwards, in other company, the fact that he has seen you at this
friend's and had an agreeable chit-chat is introduction enough, and,
unless there is something _peculiar_ in your case, he will ever after
know you and be your friend. This is not the case with the two former.

"The American is in this, perhaps, too unsuspicious and the others may
have good reasons for their mode, but that of the Americans has more of
generous sincerity and frankness and kindness in it.

"_Friday, April 30._ Painting all day except two hours at the Colonna
Palace--Landi's pictures--horrible!! How I was disappointed. I had heard
Landi, the Chevalier Landi, lauded to the skies by the Italians as the
greatest modern colorist. He was made a chevalier, elected a member of
the Academy at Florence and of the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and there
were his pictures which I was told I must by all means see. They are not
merely bad, they are execrable. There is not a redeeming point in a
single picture that I saw, not one that would have placed him on a level
with the commonest sign-painter in America. His largest work in his rooms
at present is the 'Departure of Mary Queen of Scots from Paris.' The
story is not told; the figures are