But "use lessens marvel;" and when the first delightful excitement is over, and we begin to feel weary from its very intensity, the next step is backward into rationality, low spirits, and grumbling. From that moment the English tourist talks of nothing but wide rivers, magnificent bridges, prodigious _trottoirs_, unrivalled drains, and genuine port. It is at this stage that the traveller, in order to continue his enjoyment and bring it to perfection, should remit his examination of the exterior of noble _hôtels_, and endeavour to be admitted to the much more enduring enchantment which prevails within them. So much has already been said and written on the grace and charm of the French language in conversation, that it is quite needless to dwell upon it. That _good things_ can be said in no other idiom with equal grace, is a fact that can neither be controverted nor more firmly established than it is already. Happily, the art of expressing a clever thought in the best possible words did not die with Madame de Sévigné; nor has it yet been destroyed by revolution of any kind. It is not only for the amusement of an hour, however, that I would recommend the assiduous cultivation of good French society to the English. Great and important improvements in our national manners have already arisen from the intercourse which long peace has permitted. Our dinner-tables are no longer disgraced by inebriety; nor are our men and women, when they form a party expressly for the purpose of enjoying each other's society, separated by the law of the land during half the period for which the social meeting has been convened. But we have much to learn still; and the general tone of our daily associations might be yet farther improved, did the best specimens of Parisian habits and manners furnish the examples. It is not from the large and brilliant parties which recur in every fashionable mansion, perhaps, three or four times in each season, that I think we could draw much improvement. A fine party at Lady A----'s in Grosvenor Square, is not more like a fine party at Lady B----'s in Berkeley Square, than a fine party in Paris is to one in London. There are abundance of pretty women, handsome men, satin, gauze, velvet, diamonds, chains, stars, moustaches, and imperials at both, with perhaps very little deserving the name of rational enjoyment in either. I suspect, indeed, that we have rather the advantage on these crowded occasions, for we more frequently change the air by passing from one room to another when we eat our ices; and as the tulip-tinctured throng enjoy this respite from suffocation by detachments, they have often not only opportunity to breathe, but occasionally to converse also, for several minutes together, without danger of being dislodged from their standing-ground.