Unfortunately, though well pleased to witness the gambols of the assembly, owing to my superior stature I failed to catch a single word in the confusion of voices, and I retired sickened and deafened by the vociferation, grinding of teeth, whisking of tails, whistling and howling, without being able to form a conjecture as to the subject under discussion. For all that, something was carried, and the speeches, it is said, appeared in the official organ next day in most harmonious prose. There are those who say that all the _séances_ resemble this one in a greater or less degree, so I shall dispense with witnessing another.[2] [2] It is evident that the Giraffe falls into a mistake, which is scarcely an excusable one were she not quite innocent. Confined in the Jardin des Plantes, she could not visit the Chamber of Deputies, which she imagines she is describing. What she did see was the Monkeys’ palace.—ED. I had proposed to give you, before closing my letter, some specimens of the language now used in Paris. You will be able to form your own notions of it from the following sentences, which have just been exchanged between a young man with a Bison’s beard, and a young woman with the eyes of a Gazelle, to whom he was trying to justify his long absence:— “I was preoccupied, beautiful Isoline, with sublime ideas, of which your woman’s heart has the noble intuition. Placed by the capacities which they have been willing to accord to me at the zenith of the adepts of perfectionabilisation, and long absorbed in philosophic, philanthropic, and humanitarian speculations, I was tracing the plan of a political encyclism which would moralise all peoples, harmonise all institutions, utilise all the faculties, and develop all the sciences; but I was not the less drawn towards you by the most passionate attraction, and I”—— “Say no more,” solemnly interrupted Isoline; “do not think me a stranger to those lofty aspirations, and pray do not suspect my spirit capable of being charmed by the baits of a coarse nature. Proud of your destiny, dear Adhimar, in the sentiment which unites us I only see an elective affinity which the instinct of cohesion has confounded {360} with a sympathetic individuality, or, to express myself more clearly, the fusion of these isolated idiosyncrasies which feel the need of becoming simultaneous.” Here the conversation was continued in a low voice, and I think I may suppose that it became more intelligible, for the young philosopher was beaming with pleasure when he left Isoline. THE GIRAFFE. [Illustration] {361} THE CROAKINGS OF A CROW.