ve resolved on a period of
residence, _first_ to call upon such of the British residents as they
may feel disposed to visit, which acts of courtesy, are, generally
speaking, the prelude to a reciprocity of agreeable and social
intercourse.

An air of high respectability, and elegance, is characteristic of the
Anglo-French circle of acquaintance pervading Tours and its environs;
the newly arrived man of social habits and fashion, may if he chooses,
soon possess the happy consciousness of feeling, that, though distant
from friends and native land, he has his customary social comforts, and
habitual pleasures and refinements of life, completely at his command.

It is true, these enjoyments exist in a limited and circumscribed form,
but for this very reason, facility of intercourse and goodfellowship,
are distinguished by an acuteness of character, rarely to be found in
the far more expansive arrondisements of English society at home.

The warm, generous heart of the Englishman, like the concentrated rays
of the genial orb of day, here, glows with the greater intensity on all
who come within the sphere of its vivifying influence.

Behold him seated at his hospitable board, which groans beneath the
cheapened luxuries and substantial fare, alike of his native and his
adopted land, and gladdened by the presence of his selected countrymen,
who perhaps like himself, have quitted their native shores, to seek for
renewed pleasure, wonted repose, health, or it may be economy, abroad.
The sparkling champagne speedily thaws the icy formula which too often
envelopes and conceals the best, inherent feelings of his nature, and in
the exuberance of his zeal for the universal cultivation of the _social
principle_, and his lively sense of national toleration and liberality,
he rises to toast, with equal sincerity, the beloved Queen of old
England, or the citizen King of France.

And in what a pretty sylvan retreat has he snugly domiciled
himself!--his white freestone villa, which presents a pleasing display
of architectural elegance, is replete with every internal comfort; a
smiling _parterre_, decked with many a fine specimen of the stately
cypress, a garden stored with rare and luscious fruits, and the generous
vine every where hanging in graceful festoons, are the most prominent
adjuncts of his sequestered retirement.

There is in short, an exclusiveness, a completeness, spaciousness and
peacefulness, about this his foreign abode,