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*AN OCTOBER ABROAD, 



are so clever, as art, one becomes reprehensibly indif- 

 ferent to their license. Whatever sins the French may „ 

 be guilty of, they never sin against art and good taste 

 (except when in the frenzy of revolution), and, if Pro- 

 priety is sometimes obliged to cry out " For shame ! " 

 in the French capital, she must do so with ill-concealed 

 admiration, like a fond mother chiding with word and 

 gesture, while she approves with tone and look. It is 

 a foolish charge, often made, that the French make 

 vice attractive ; they make it provocative of laughter ; 

 the spark of wit is always evolved, and what is a better 

 antidote to this kind of poison than mirth ? 



They carry their wit even into their cuisine. Every 

 dish set before you at the table is a picture, and tickles 

 your eye before it does your palate. When I ordered 

 fried eggs, they were brought on a snow-white napkin, 

 which was artistically folded upon a piece of orna- 

 mented tissue-paper, that covered a china plate ; if I 

 asked for cold ham, it came in flakes, arrayed like 

 great rose-leaves, with a green sprig or two of parsley 

 dropped upon it, and surrounded by a border of calves - 

 foot jelly, like a setting of crystals. The bread re- 

 vealed new qualities in the wheat, it was so sweet and 

 nutty ; and the fried potatoes, with which your beef- 

 steak comes snowed under, are the very flower of the 

 culinary art, and I believe impossible in any other 

 country. 



Even the ruins are in excellent taste, and are by far 

 the best-behaved ruins I ever saw for so recent ones. I 



