When abroad I had bought a French one-volume novel which I had seen praised in the _Figaro_. I will not give its name, nor that of its author. If it indeed portrays persons really living in Paris, and if these persons are not wholly exceptional (but, if so, why this novel, which implies the contrary and denounces them?) then is the latest state of Republican Paris worse than its former state in the days of the _degringolade_ of the Empire, and Paris must undergo a fearful purgation before she will once again possess _mens sana in corpore sano_. I read this disgusting novel half-way through until its meaning became quite clear to me, and then I proceeded by leaps and bounds, landing on dry places and skipping over the filth in order to see how the author worked out a moral and punished his infamous scoundrel of a chief personage. No. Moral there was none, except an eloquent appeal to Paris to rise and crush these reptiles and their brood. On the wretched night when feverish, ill, and sleepless, I lay miserably in the saloon of the Flemish steamer crossing to Queenborough, I opened the porthole above me and threw this infernal book into the sea. After this I bore the sufferings of that night with a lighter heart. * * * * * Suffice it that I arrived at home--and how glad I was to get there--broken down, prostrate and only fit for bed----where with railways running round and round my head, steamboats dashing and thumping about my brain, the shrieks of German and Flemish porters ringing in my ears, SKURRIE always forcing me to travel on, on, on, against my will, I remained for about three weeks. _Advice gratis to all Drinkers of Waters_.--"The story shows," as the Moral to the fables of AESOP used to put it, that when you have finished your cure, make straight by the easiest stages for the seaside at home. Avoid all exertion: and ask your medical man before leaving to tell you exactly what to eat, drink, and avoid, for the next three weeks at least after the completion of your cure. * * * * *