"To say that I am pleased with what I have thus far seen of Paris would be a phrase of very inadequate meaning: I am surprised and delighted. I have been to the Louvre, the Tuileries, Place Vendôme, St. Cloud,--here, there, and everywhere,--and I have not yet seen a twentieth part of the objects which claim a stranger's attention. One cannot go into the streets for a moment, indeed, but something new attracts his curiosity; and it seems to me that my senses, which I have heretofore considered adequate to the usual purposes of life, ought now to be enlarged and quickened for the full enjoyment of the objects which surround me. I have, of course, visited some of the theatres, of which there are upwards of twenty now open. A number of the best actors, however, are absent from the city, fulfilling provincial engagements, and may not be expected back for a month or more. I went to the Théâtre Porte St. Martin the other night, to see Mademoiselle Georges, now, on the French stage, the queen of tragedy. I saw her perform the part of Lucrece Borgia, in Victor Hugo's drama of that name. Her personation was truly beautiful,--nay, that is too cold a word; it was grand, and even terrible! Though a woman more than fifty years old, never can I forget the dignity of her manner, the flexible and expressive character of her yet fine face, and the rich, full, stirring, and well-modulated tones of her voice. How different is her and nature's style from the sickly abortions of the present English school of acting, lately introduced upon the American stage!--the snakelike writhing and contortion of body, the rolling and straining of the eyeballs till they squint, the shuffling gait, and the whining monotone,--how different, I say, from all this is the natural and easy style of Mademoiselle Georges! In her you trace no servile imitations of a bad model; but you behold that sort of excellence which makes you forget you are in a theatre,--that perfection of art by which art is wholly concealed,--the lofty and the thrilling, the subdued and the graceful, harmoniously mingling, the spirit being caught from living nature. I had been led to believe that, in France, the highest order of tragic excellence had died with Talma. It is not so. I consider Mademoiselle Georges the very incarnation of the tragic muse.