be introduced, for such
things sometimes give distinctness, as well as piquancy, to a
description.

During our first winter in Paris, our circle, never very large, was
principally confined to foreign families intermingled with a few French;
but since our return to town, from St. Ouen, we have seen more of the
people of the country. I should greatly mislead you, however, were I to
leave the impression that our currency in the French capital has been at
all general, for it certainly has not. Neither my health, leisure,
fortune, nor opportunities, have permitted this. I believe few, perhaps
no Americans, have very general access to the best society of any large
European town; at all events, I have met with no one who I have had any
reason to think was much better off than myself in this respect; and, I
repeat, my own familiarity with the circles of the capital is nothing to
boast of. It is in Paris, as it is everywhere else, as respects those
who are easy of access. In all large towns there is to be found a
troublesome and pushing set, who, requiring notoriety, obtrude
themselves on strangers, sometimes with sounding names, and always with
offensive pretensions of some sort or other; but the truly respectable
and estimable class, in every country, except in cases that cannot
properly be included in the rule, are to be sought. Now, one must feel
that he has peculiar claims, or be better furnished with letters than
happened to be my case, to get a ready admission into this set, or,
having obtained it, to feel that his position enabled him to maintain
the intercourse, with the ease and freedom that could alone render it
agreeable. To be shown about as a lion, when circumstances offer the
means; to be stuck up at a dinner-table, as a piece of luxury, like
strawberries in February, or peaches in April,--can hardly be called
association: the terms being much on a par with that which forms the
_liaisons_, between him who gives the entertainment, and the hired plate
with which his table is garnished. With this explanation, then, you are
welcome to an outline of the little I know on the subject.

One of the errors respecting the French, which has been imported into
America, through England, is the impression that they are not
hospitable. Since my residence here, I have often been at a loss to
imagine how such a notion could have arisen, for I am acquainted with no
town, in which it has struck me there is more true hospitality than