_January 1st_, 1875.--We dined at the Embassy for the _Jour de l'an_. While there rain fell and the streets were covered with _verglas_. I walked with great difficulty to Thiers's at the Hotel Bagration, three doors off, where the scene was burlesque. Not a carriage could move; not a horse could stand; and the company walked home with napkins tied round their feet. [But Mrs. Reeve, who was at the dinner, wrote: Our _fiacre_ managed to crawl home with Hopie and me. Henry, who had gone to the Thiers's, returned safely on his feet tied up in dusters. M. Thiers suggested dusters on the hands also, so as to go _a quatre pattes_; but Henry did not become a quadruped. I was horribly uneasy till he came in, but his was the ludicrous side of the question; of the tragic, I heard next day plenty of instances.] _January 3rd_.--Dined with the Duc de Nemours, and went to the Duchesse Decazes's reception. Home on the 7th. _From the Rev. G. W. Cox_ [Footnote: Now Sir George Cox, Bart.] _February 5th_.--Nothing but lack of leisure has prevented me from expressing sooner the very hearty satisfaction and delight with which I have read and re-read your article on Mill's Essays. I suppose it is this article which has sent the 'Edinburgh' into a second edition. I am rejoiced to think that it is so. The ground which you take is, I feel sure, impregnable; but the force of your whole argument, which is much what I have tried to work out for years past, only makes me lament the more the folly of the line taken by most of the writers who shrink from the materialistic and atheistic philosophy of Mill and Tyndall--for the latter seems to put himself into the same boat. I believe that the thought of England is, on this subject, taking, or is likely to take, a very healthy turn, which such an article as yours must greatly promote. _From M. B. St.-Hilaire_ Paris, February 5th.