Still, however, it is of affairs that I have felt pressed to write you ever since I left home,--indeed, ever since I received your letter from Montreal. I have felt [169] that I ought at least to tell you that I see no prospect of doing anything that you desire of me. When I shall be able to address myself to any considerable task again, I know not. At present I am lying quite perdu. I have lost all faculty, but to read French histories, memoirs, novels, periodicals, etc., and to run after this great show-world of Paris,--Louvre, gallery, opera, what not. I am longing to get behind these visible curtains, and to know the spirit, character, manner of being, of this French people. At present all is problem to me. No Sunday, literally no cessation of labor, no sanctity of domestic ties with multitudes, no honesty or truth (it is commonly reported), but courtesy, kindness, it seems, and a sort of conventional fidelity,--for instance, no stealing; a million of people here, but without either manufactures or commerce on a great scale; petit manufacture, petit trade, petit menage, petit prudence unexampled, and the grandest tableaux of royal magnificence in public works and public grounds to be seen in the world; the rez-au-chaussee (ground floor) of Paris, a shop; all the stories above, to be let; a million of people, and nobody at home, in our American sense of the word; an infinite boutiquerie, an infinite bonbonnerie, an infinite stir and movement, and no deep moral impulse that I can see; a strange melange of the most shallow levity in society, the most atrocious license in literature, and the most savage liberalism in politics,--on the whole, what sort of people is it? He bien!-to come down from my high horse before I break my neck,--here we are, at honest housekeeping; for we hope to pay the bills. Hope to pay, did I say? We pay as we go; that is the only way here; no stores, no larder, no bins, no garners,--the shops of [170] Paris are all this to every family. Our greatest good-fortune here is in having the Walshes for our next-door neighbors; and who should I find in Mrs. W. but a very loving cousin and hearty admirer of yours? She wishes to write a P. S. in my letter, and I am so happy to come to you in such good company, as well as to enhance the value of my letter with something better than I can write, that I very gladly give the space to her. I am only sorry and ashamed that it is so little. And so, with all our love to you all, I am as ever yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. To the Same. CHAMPEL, NEAR GENEVA, July 18, 1842.