his hint: our
enthusiasm finds volume in every-day chit-chat, and dinner-table talk; it
lives by such fat feeding as gossip supplies; and gossip finds its
direction in the salons of the most popular of entertainers.

Washington has a peculiar and shifting social character--made up in its
winter elements of every variety of manner and of opinion. This manner and
these opinions, however, are very apt to revolve agreeably to what is
fixed at the metropolis; and since the diplomatic circles of the capital
are almost the only permanent social foci of habit and gossip, it is but
natural there should be a convergence toward their action. The fact is by
no means flattering; but we greatly fear that it is pointed with a great
deal of truth.

Our readers will observe, however, that we account in this way only for
the slackened tone of talk, and of salon enthusiasm; nor do we imagine
that any parlor influences whatever of the capital can modify to any
considerable degree, either legislative, or moral action.

-------------------------------------

Of Paris, now that she has fallen again into one, of her political
paroxysms, there is little gayety to be noted. And yet it is most
surprising how that swift-blooded people will play the fiddle on the
barricades! Never--the papers tell us--were the receptions at the Elysee
more numerously attended, and never were the dresses richer, or the jewels
more ostentatiously displayed.

Some half dozen brilliant _soirees_ were, it seems, on the _tapis_ at the
date of Louis Napoleon's manoeuvre; the invitations had been sent, and upon
the evenings appointed--a week or more subsequent to the turn of the magic
lantern--the guests presented themselves before closed doors. The occupants
and intended hosts were, it seems, of that timid class living along the
Faubourg St. Honore and the Faubourg St. Germain, who imagined themselves,
their titles, and their wealth, safer under the wing of King Leopold of
Belgium, than under the shadow of the new-feathered eagle. A thriving
romance or two, they say, belonged to the quiet movements of the Republic.
Thus, the papers make us a pleasant story out of CAVAIGNAC and his
prospective bride, Mademoiselle ODIER. And if we furbish up for the
reading of our country clients, we venture to say that we shall keep as
near the truth as one half of the letter-writers.

For two or three years, it seems that General Cavaignac has been a
constant visit