192 WINTER SUNSHINE 



giness and weather- stains. It shows its age, showa 

 the work of innumerable generations, and is more 

 an aggregation, a conglomeration, than Paris is. 

 Paris shows the citizen, and is modern and demo- 

 cratic in its uniformity. On the whole, I liked 

 London best, because I am so much of a country- 

 man, I suppose, and affect so little the metropolitan 

 spirit. In London there are a few grand things to 

 be seen, and the pulse of the great city itself is like 

 the throb of the ocean; but in Paris, owing either 

 to my jaded senses or some other cause, I saw 

 nothing that was grand, but enough that was beauti- 

 ful and pleasing. The more pretentious and elabo- 

 rate specimens of architecture, like the Palace of the 

 Tuileries or the Palais Royal, are truly superb, 

 but they as truly do not touch that deeper chord 

 whose awakening we call the emotion of the sublime. 

 But the fitness and good taste everywhere dis- 

 played in the French capital may well offset any 

 considerations of this kind, and cannot fail to be 

 refreshing to a traveler of any other land, — in the 

 dress and manners of the people, in the shops and 

 bazaars and show-windows, in the markets, the 

 equipages, the furniture, the hotels. It is entirely 

 a new sensation to an American to look into a Pari- 

 sian theatre, and see the acting and hear the music. 

 The chances are that, for the first time, he sees the 

 interior of a theatre that does not have a hard, 

 business-like, matter-of-fact air. The auditors look 

 comfortable and cosy, and quite at home, and do 

 not, shoulder to shoulder and in solid lines, make a 



