hotel and wander about like doves turned out of the dove-cote, and
seeking where to inhabit.... We have seen nothing in Paris, except the
shell of it, yet. No theatres--nothing but business. Yet two evenings
ago we hazarded going to a 'reception' at Lady Elgin's, in the Faubourg
St. Germain, and saw some French, but nobody of distinction. It is a
good house, I believe, and she has an earnest face which must mean
something. We were invited, and _are_ invited to go every Monday, and
that Monday in particular, between eight and twelve. You go in a morning
dress, and there is tea. Nothing can be more _sans facon_, and my
tremors (for, do you know, I was quite nervous on the occasion, and
charged Robert to keep close to me) were perfectly unjustified by the
event. You see it was an untried form of society--like trying a Turkish
bath. I expected to see Balzac's duchesses and _hommes de lettres_ on
all sides of me, but there was nothing very noticeable, I think, though
we found it agreeable enough. We go on Friday evening to a Madame
Mohl's, where we are to have some of the 'celebrities,' I believe, for
she seems to know everybody of all colours, from white to red. Then
Mazzini is to give us a letter to George Sand--come what will, we must
have a letter to George Sand--and Robert has one to Emile Lorquet of the
'National,' and Gavarni of the 'Charivari,' so that we shall manage to
thrust our heads into this atmosphere of Parisian journalism, and learn
by experience how it smells. I hear that George Sand is seldom at Paris
now. She has devoted herself to play-writing, and employs a houseful of
men, her son's friends and her own, in acting privately with her what
she writes--trying it on a home stage before she tries it at Paris. Her
son is a very ordinary young man of three-and-twenty, but she is fond of
him....

Never expect me to agree with you in that _cause celebre_ of 'ladies and
gentlemen' against people of letters. I don't like the sort of veneer
which passes in society--yes, I like it, but I don't love it. I know
what the thing is worth as a matter of furniture-accomplishment, and
there an end. I should rather look at the scratched silent violin in the
corner, with the sense that music has come out of it or will come. I am
grateful to the man who has written a good book, and I recognise
reverently that the roots of it are in him. And, do you know, I was not
disappointed at all in what I saw of writers of books in London