“You can stay here in Boston,” he replied, “as long as the weather is warm, and probably may find some employment; for you have a rich, active and intelligent population; but don’t remain in the winter; for it is the coldest city in the universe. In point of temperature, St. Petersburg is comparatively a terrestrial paradise. However you can receive letters wherever you may be by having them directed here, if you will take the precaution of always sending your address to the post-office. I do not mean to say that they will come to you rapidly; because of course every thing goes on with less regularity and certainty, under a republican than under a monarchical government. In republics, where place and power depends upon mere popular favor, the greater part of the business of the State is carried on by inexperienced men, for, generally speaking, each public officer is kicked out before he can gain the experience necessary for his office—just as a tradesman, without capital, does all his work by apprentices. There are exceptions of course—men who get such hold of public confidence, that even faction cannot shake them—but these are rare, and to have work half done and ill done is part of the compensation to be paid for great rapidity of progress and general diffusion of comfort. But I am digressing. You have nothing to do, Monsieur De Lacy, but to leave your address at the post-office, and you shall hear from me as soon as I obtain intelligence.” He added a good many of very judicious instructions as to my conduct in Boston, where he certainly must have been before, although he did not say so; and he left me, I confess, with a much more pleasant impression of his male than his female character. I did not anticipate much, it is true, from his promises, and perhaps did not feel quite so sure of his sincerity as I ought to have done. I suppose there are some professions and some occasions in which charlatanism is absolutely necessary; but I think we rarely respect the people who practice it; and the impression produced by his appearance in the character of Madame Du Four, was never, and never will be effaced from my memory. I could not get rid of the ludicrous recollections, and we rarely expect much service from people who make us laugh. Letters of introduction to persons in Boston, I had none; and I suffered for several days all the inconveniences which a stranger, without personal friends in a city, feels at his first residence. The solitariness, as it were, pressed upon me, and the more people I met in the crooked and narrow streets, made me only feel the more solitary. Of Monsieur Du Four I saw no more at that time, and I began to think of removing to some other town, where the people were not so cold and repulsive, when I suddenly made an acquaintance which greatly changed the current of affairs.