confide with their own firmness, in their
fortitude, their lofty sense of duty, their
courage, and their religion.

MADAME BUSQUE'S.

BELIEVE me, Eusebius (to be classical and
genteel), that many more good things exist
in this world than are dreamt of in any
philosophy—from that of the most rose-
coloured optimist to that of the sourest
cynic. Don't put any faith in yonder ragged,
morose, shameful old man, who, because
he lives in a tub instead of decent lodgings,
and neglects, through sulky laziness,
to trim his hair and beard and wear clean
body-linen, calls himself Diogenes and a
philosopher, forsooth. If the old cynic would
only take the trouble to clean the horn sides
of his lantern, and trim the wick of the
candle within it, he would not find it quite so
difficult to find an honest man. That all
is vanity here below, I am perfectly ready
to admit; but have no confidence in the
philosophy, which, with its parrot-prate of the
Prince of Wisdom's apothegm—vanity—
turns up its nose at, or pretends to ignore,
the existence of the hidden good. Believe
me, good is everywhere.

Poor, naked, hungry, sick, wronged as we
may be through long years, snug incomes,
well-cut coats, good dinners, sound health,
justice and fame will come, must come at
last, if we will only wait, and hope, and
work. All have not an equal share, and
some men, by a continuous infelicity
which the most submissive are tempted to
regard as an adverse and remorseless fate,
fall down weary and die upon, the very
threshold of mundane reward; but let any
average man—the medium between Miser-
rimus and Felicissimus—look retrospectively
into himself, and consider how many good
things have happened to him unexpectedly,
unasked for, undeserved; how many happinesses
of love, friendship, sight, feeling, have
come upon him unawares—have " turned
up," so to say familiarly. A great Italian
poet has said that there is no greater sorrow
than the remembrance in misfortune of the
happy time, it can be scarcely so. It is
balm rather than anguish for a man when
fortune has thrown the shadow of a cypress
over him, to recall the dear friends, the
joyous meetings, the good books, the leafy
days of old; for with the remembrance
comes hope that these good things (present
circumstances looking ever so black) will
return again. It is only when we know that
we have spurned, misused, wasted the
jewelled days in the year's rosary, that
remembrance becomes sorrow; for
Remembrance then is associated with Monsieur
Remorse; and we wish—ah, how vainly!
ah, how bitterly!—that those days had never
been, or that they might be again, and we
use them better.

All things, good or bad, are relative; and
though it would not be decent to express
as much joy for the discovery of a good
dinner as of a good friend, yet, both being
relatively good in their way, I may be
permitted to rejoice relatively over both in
my way. I have not been very successful
lately in the friendship line; but in the article
of dinners I have really made a discovery.
A succulent daily banquet has popped upon
me suddenly; and I feel bound to record
its excellences here, to the glory of the
doctrine of fortuitous good in general, and of
Madame Busque in particular.

I am resident in Paris, and feel the necessity
of dining seven consecutive times a
week. Such a necessity is not felt in the
same degree in London. A man may take a
chop in the city, a snack at lunch time, a steak
with his tea, a morsel after the play. None
of these are really dinners, but are considered
sufficient apologies for them. Moreover, you
can call upon a friend, and be asked to take
a " bit of dinner " with him. People don't
ask you to take a bit of dinner with them in
Paris. With the French, dinner is an institution.
You are asked to it solemnly.
Probably you dine at a restaurant, and know
how much the repast costs your friend;
for you see him pay the bill. Besides, going
out to dinner costs more money in gloves,
fine linen, starch, cab-hire, and losses at
cards afterwards, than a first-rate dinner
given by yourself to yourself. So, as I am
neither a diplomatist, a subscriber to a
table-d'-hôte, a marrying man, or a pique-
assiette (by which I mean an individual
who gets invited to grand dinners by asking
to be asked), I find that the great majority
of my quotidian dinners have to be
provided at my own cost and charges. I cannot
dine at home; in the first place, because one
can do scarcely anything at home in France
save sleep; in the second place, because I
am alone, and must have company at dinner,
be it only a waiter, a chandelier, or that
bald-headed old gormandiser with the legion
of honour, full of gravy and gravity, who
sits opposite to me at the Café Corazza, eats
seven courses, and has two silver hooks
fastened to the lappels of his coat, whereon to
suspend the napkin that shields his greedy
old shirtfront from falling sauces.

Now I like dining at the Café Corazza,
which was kept, in my time, by Ouix my
friend. I knew him when he was about ninety
years old; rouged; had curly hair and
moustaches as black as jet, and used to tell stories
of the days when he was maitre-d'hôtel to
Charles the Tenth, and brought in the first
dish, dressed—Ouix, not the dish—in a court
suit and a sword by his side. I like all the
downstairs Palais Royal dinners; Verrey's;
Vefours; the Three Provençal Brothers. I
like Vachette's on the Boulevard. I like
the newly invented Dîners de Paris, where
for three francs fifty you may eat like an