Taine has often been urged by friends who have been in America to visit
the United States, both with a view to repair his somewhat shattered
health and to write a book about us after the manner of his _Notes on
England_. He always says he will do so; and it is probable that upon
the completion of the great work, of which the third and last volume is
now nearly finished, he and Madame Taine will set sail for our shores.

One of the peculiarities of Paris, regarded as a _weltstadt_, is, that
it contains no socially disreputable quarters: there is no part of the
city where men of wealth and position do not live. Thus, Theuriet and
Cherbuliez reside in the Quartier du Luxembourg (between the Latin
Quarter and the Faubourg St. Germain), as did Sainte-Beuve, About and
Tourgueneff in the Rue de Douai (toward Montmartre), Girardin and Dumas
in the Champs Elysees, Feuillet in the Rue de Rivoli, etc. Feuillet's
name is, I think, as well known in the United States as that of any
French man of letters except Taine, and if his biography were written he
would be as famous for his eccentricities as was Balzac. An old friend
of his once told me that one day, in calling upon Madame Feuillet, he
expressed his regret that she had no regular reception-day, as in that
case he would be able to see her more frequently. "Well," she answered,
"I should like to have one, but, you see, it is quite impossible. One
can't light the candles till after four o'clock, and before that time it
is so dark here in the entresol that you can't see anybody." (I should
have prefaced this anecdote by saying, for the benefit of those readers
who have never been in Paris, that the entresol is a low story just over
the shops, and that the Rue de Rivoli is one of the noisiest streets in
the city.)--"But Feuillet has leased the third and fourth floors: why
don't you receive up there?" responded the visitor.--"Oh, Octave would
never hear of such a thing. Why, when I merely asked leave to hang some
of my dresses up stairs, he would not let me: 'I have leased this whole
story in order to have silence about me when I write, and the story
overhead to have quiet above me. If you should hang your dresses up
here, your maid would all the time be rummaging round, and that would
derange my thoughts.'" Another of Feuillet's oddities is his hatred of
railways. He has a country-place on the coast in Normandy, and every
summer sends down his wife and children and servant by rail; a