observation, meditation and conversation. It
brought before them every kind of human
tragedy,—every variety of scenery and
costume and grouping in the background,
thronged with figures called up by their
imagination. Others took them up and laid
them down, simply saying, "This is a pretty
face!" "Oh what a pair of eyebrows!"
"Look at this queer dress!"

Yet, after all, having something to take up
and to look at, is a relief and of use to persons
who, without being self-conscious, are nervous
from not being accustomed to society. Oh
Cassandra! Remember when you with your
rich gold coins of thought, with your noble
power of choice expression, were set down,
and were thankful to be set down, to look at
some paltry engravings, just because people did
not know how to get at your ore, and you did
not care a button whether they did or not, and
were rather bored by their attempts, the end
of which you never found out. While I, with
my rattling tinselly rubbish, was thought
"agreeable and an acquisition!" You would
have been valued at Madame de Sablé's, where
the sympathetic and intellectual stream of
conversation would have borne you and your
golden fragments away with it, by its soft
resistless gentle force.

BROKEN LANGUAGE.

THE traveller who arrives at the Paris
terminus of the Great Northern Railway, in a
well-filled train, late at night, knowing
nothing of the Gallic tongue, may be strangely
puzzled. He is ushered into a large cold
room, where he waits for half-an-hour, while
the luggage is forwarded from the van to a
convenient platform to be searched. It
is, however, when the railway official throws
the door of this cold room wide open,
and declares that Messieurs les Voyageurs
may now pick out their respective
portmanteaus, that the traveller becomes at
once sorely puzzled. By the aid of vigorous
pantomime he may be able to convey a sense
of his want to a Frenchman who speaks
French. Unhappily it is his usual fate to
be pounced upon by a biped who speaks
a strange language known in certain parts of
France as English; but which no Englishman
can understand. Anglican-French is not an
euphonious tongue; but Gallic-English beats
it. The Parisian commissioner will talk this
wild language, even to Englishmen who have
been long resident in France. Answer him
in French, he will still reply in his hybrid
jargon. Tell him that you have three
bagages, he replies that Monsieur's lokge
shall be attended to. And then, when
he gets excited—when some opposing
commissioner crosses his path to lure you
from him, how terribly wild is this extraordinary
person's tongue! Yet, as I have written,
he will speak it, for has he not gone through
a cours d'Anglais, and should he admit that
is English is of little use to the hotel, will
he not be dismissed? Lucky is the traveller
who escapes from him.

To follow the announcements in the shop
windows of Paris, the simple-minded
traveller would imagine that an English master
would have a sinecure in Paris. Say that
he desires to find lodgings. At a house
where French only is spoken he will
possibly be puzzled, for the landlady will
inevitably ask him whether he requires an
apartment in three or four pieces—"pieces"
being the idiom for rooms, and "an apartment"
that for a series of rooms shut off from the
rest of a house. It is clear that to wend his
way through idioms of this puzzling nature he
must have considerable patience. But he will
find patience will be more conspicuously
required when he sees, hanging up under a huge
gateway, "Apartments let, to be furnished."
Perhaps he infers from this announcement,
that some person of a confiding nature had
taken apartments; and that, having once
found himself in possession, he had discovered
that he could not furnish them —hence
this pathetic appeal to the sympathy of the
public. Perhaps the appeal proceeds from
a newly married couple: perhaps it proceeds
from the confident student of six lessons.

Say that the visitor strolls away to
the Rotonde, to enjoy a cup of coffee, and
to read Galignani. He turns to the
advertisement columns in the hope of finding
the rooms he requires. Presently he
discovers the announcement of a Restaurant
"done" into English. The reader is informed
that at this establishment the gourmet can
have extraordinary delicacies for two francs
and a half, including a bottle of Mâcon. The
announcement might be attractive—if it
could be understood. The dinner is thus
described: "One has a potage; three dishes;
two legumes; and a dessert. The potage does
not displace itself,"—in plainer English, if
the diner object to it he can have no other
dish instead.

He may glean from this entry in the bill
that the potage is some happy combination
easily digestible, since it has no inclination
to disturb the eater; but what can he make
of two legumes! Yet this tempting bill of
fare is specially translated for his comprehension,
and inserted, that it may surely reach
him, in the English paper of Paris! Well, he
wonders, and, perhaps, out of mere curiosity,
wanders to this notable restaurant. Here
he finds a bill of fare printed in English: he
refers to it eagerly for explanations. Observe
the note under the title: "One is prayed not
to ask for things out of season." "One" is
tempted by this prayer to look over the book
full of delicacies which it prefaces. One finds
that "hashed seal" is a dish recommended,
and that "chops of kid " may be enjoyed at
a reasonable rate. One tastes these delicacies:
the hashed seal turning out to be "hashed
teal." One does not care to patronise this