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November 30.
This is Sunday evening, and a Sunday in
Paris always puts me in mind of your story about somebody who said, “Bless you!
they make such a noise that the Devil could n't meditate.”
All the extra work and odd jobs of life are put into Sunday.
Your washerwoman comes Sunday, with her innocent, goodhumored face, and would be infinitely at a loss to know why she should n't. Your bonnet, cloak, shoes, and everything are sent home Sunday morning, and all the way to church there is such whirligiging and pirouetting along the boulevards as almost takes one's breath away.
Today we went to the Oratoire to hear M. Grand Pierre.
I could not understand much; my French ear is not quick enough to follow.
I could only perceive that the subject was
La Charite, and that the speaker was fluent, graceful, and earnest, the audience serious and attentive.
Last night we were at
Baron de Triqueti's again, with a party invited to celebrate the birthday of their eldest daughter,
Blanche, a lovely girl of nineteen.
There were some good ladies there who had come eighty leagues to meet me, and who were so delighted with my miserable French that it was quite encouraging.
I believe I am getting over the sandbar at last, and conversation is beginning to come easy to me.
There were three French gentlemen who had just been reading “Dred” in
English, and who were as excited and full of it as could be, and I talked with them to a degree that astonished myself.
There is a review of “Dred” in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” which has long extracts from the book, and is written in a very appreciative and favorable spirit.
Generally speaking,
