orn of its former pretensions, reduced in
size, no longer so comfortable, so delightfully easy of access as to
its shelves--had an excellent collection of volumes in French.

How often in later life I blessed the discriminating collectors of that
library! Nothing worth while at that time, even "L'Homme" of Ernest
Hello, seemed to have been left out; I fear that I was not always guided
by the critics of the period. I found Am['e]d['e]e Achard as interesting as
Octave Feuillet; George Sand bored me; I could never get through even
"La Petite Fadette," although the critics were constantly recommending
her for her "vitality." I found Madame de G['e]rardin's "La Femme qui
D['e]teste Son Mari" one of the cleverest plays I had yet read. I have not
seen it since; but, outside of some of the pieces of Augier, it seemed
to me to be the best bit of construction I knew, and the human interest
and the suspense were so admirably kept up. There were some plays by
Octave Feuillet--"Redemption" was one and "Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme
Pauvre," which divided my admiration with the management of "Adrienne
Lecouvreur," by Scribe, and "Mademoiselle de la Seigli[`e]re," by Jules
Sandeau. The French playwrights of to-day have not even the technique of
their predecessors.

At this time I was very royalist, an infuriated partisan of the Comte de
Chambord--Henry V., as a few of us preferred to call him. And this
reminds me of my partisanship in things English--if I may turn for the
moment from things French--and of a little incident not without humour.
I was ardently devoted to the cause of the Stuarts, and was for a time
attached to the White Rose Society, whose correspondents in England
invariably sent their letters, with the stamp turned upside down, to
indicate their contempt for the Guelf dynasty. But when, at a small and
frugal reunion at Mr. Green's restaurant in Philadelphia, our host--he
was an American Walsh of the family of de Serrant--insisted on waving
his glass of beer over the finger bowls, to insinuate that we were
drinking to the last of the Stuarts across the water--whoever he might
be--and another member suggested that, if it were not for the brutal
Hanoverians on the throne of England, we, in the British Colonies, might
be still enjoying the blessedness of being ruled by a descendant of Mary
Stuart, I resigned! I was still devoutly faithful to the divine Mary of
Scotland; but I would not have her mixed up in American politics!