I retired lately to Ireland to write this little book, and was struck, after long residence in France, by the violent contrast between French and Irish character in these respects. I was used to the simple, courteous, willing, active trades-people of Paris, who give themselves no airs, dress dowdily, live modestly. I found the same class in Ireland, even in a small village, dressed daily as Solomon in all his glory never was, with tailor-made gowns worth ten and twelve guineas, and with haughty manners that would bewilder a princess of the blood; the one cutting the other, Heaven only knows on what assumption of superiority, and all hastening from their counters in smart turnouts, duly to subscribe their loyal names to the list of the Queen’s visitors. I felt like Rip Van Winkle—as if I had waked in my native land and found everyone gone mad with pride and pretension. When I ventured into a shop to make an insignificant purchase, a gorgeous dandy with a lisp condescended to attend to me, or a lady looking like a duchess, and most desirous that you should take her for such, dropped from the height of her grandeur to my humble person, and was good enough in her superior way to look after me. Everybody was seemingly so above trade or business or bread-winning of any kind that I was glad enough to pack up my papers and things and come back to a race more simple and less pretentious, where the people work with good-will, and sell you a yard of tape or a hat without insufferable condescension, and where tradesmen and their wives do not think it necessary to confer on crowned heads the honour of their call. In pursuit of my investigations on this subject I was taken to the house of a very small trades-person, who lived over her shop. The owner wore a twelve-guinea silk-lined gown trimmed with Irish point. I could well imagine what sort of residence hers would be in France. For Ireland it was a sort of Aladdin surprise. Majesty indeed might have sat in that sitting-room. It was furnished with faultless taste: beautiful old Sèvres, proof engravings exquisitely framed, buhl cabinets; everything—curtains, chairs, sixteenth-century benches and couches, quaint ornaments, the spoils of frequent auctions of gentlemen’s houses—was chosen with the best of judgment by an ignorant peasant woman, whose bringing up, surroundings, and life had been of the most sordid kind. I was shown the bedroom, and found it a no less pleasing and surprising vision, a nest of modern luxury and beauty, such a bedroom as in Paris you would see only along the handsome and expensive avenues.