when one has not to go a
long distance. Paris has changed terribly of late years, but there are
moments when all her old brilliancy comes back, when the air is again
full of the intoxicating effervescence of life, when the
well-remembered conviction comes over one that in Paris the main object
of every man's and every woman's existence is to make love, to amuse
and to be amused. Terrible things have happened, it is true; blood has
run like rain through the streets; and great works are created, great
books are written, and Art has here her workshop and her temple, her
craftsmen and her high priests. The Parisians have a right to take
themselves seriously; but we cannot--we graver, grimmer men of rougher
race. Do what they will, we can never quite believe that genius can
really hew and toil all day and laugh all night; we can never get rid
of the idea that there must be some vast delusion about Paris, some
great stage trick, some hugely clever deception by which a quicksand is
made to seem like bedrock, and a stone pavement like a river of
quicksilver.

The great cities all have faces. If all the people who live in each
city could be photographed exactly one over the other, the result would
be the general expression of that city's face. New York would be
discontented and eager; London would be stolidly glum and healthy, with
a little surliness; Berlin would be supercilious, overbearing; Rome
would be gravely resentful; and so on; but Paris would be gay,
incredulous, frivolous, pretty and impudent. The reality may be gone,
or may have changed, but the look is in her face still when the light
of a May morning shines on it.

What should we get, if we could blend into one picture the English
descriptions of Paris left us by Thackeray, Sala, Du Maurier? Would it
not show us that face as it is still, when we see it in spring? And
drawn by loving hands too, obeying the eyes of genius. An empty square
in Berlin suggests a possible regimental parade, in London a mass
meeting; in Paris it is a playground waiting for the Parisians to come
out and enjoy themselves after their manner, like pretty moths and
dragon-flies in the sun.

But there is another side to it. More than any city in the world, Paris
has a dual nature. Like Janus, she has two faces; like Endymion, half
her life is spent with the gods, half with the powers of darkness. She
has her sweet May mornings, but she has her hideous nights when the
north wind blows and t