AN OCTOBER ABROAD 191 



can at least. Yet the mere change of air and sky, 

 and the escape from that sooty, all- pervasive, chim- 

 ney-flue smell of London, was so sudden and com- 

 plete, that the first hour of Paris was like a refresh- 

 ing bath, and gave rise to satisfaction in which 

 every pore of the skin participated. My room at 

 the hotel was a gem of neatness and order, and the 

 bed a marvel of art, comfort, and ease, three feet 

 deep at least. 



Then the uniform imperial grace and eclat of the 

 city was a new experience. Here was the city of 

 cities, the capital of taste and fashion, the pride and 

 flower of a great race and a great history, the city 

 of kings and emperors, and of a people which, after 

 all, loves kings and emperors, and will not long, 

 I fear, be happy without them, — a gregarious, ur- 

 bane people, a people of genius and destiny, whose 

 God is Art and whose devil is Communism. Lon- 

 don has long ago outgrown itself, has spread, and 

 multiplied, and accumulated, without a correspond- 

 ing inward expansion and unification; but in Paris 

 they have pulled down and built larger, and the 

 spirit of centralization has had full play. Hence 

 the French capital is superb, but soon grows monoto- 

 nous. See one street and boulevard, and you have 

 seen it all. It has the unity and consecutiveness 

 of a thing deliberately planned and built to order, 

 from beginning to end. Its stone is all from one 

 quarry, and its designs all the work of one architect. 

 London has infinite variety, and quaintness, and 

 picturesqueness, and is of all possible shades of din- 



