The point of view from which the author of _Paris of the Parisians_ in 1900 studied French life remained the same down to 1915, when he died. Nor did he ever change his interpretative methods into didactic or political ones. But it was inevitable that, as years passed, fresh knowledge and enlarged experience would come to the student of French life who, at twenty, sought to convey his impressions as he at that time received them. His impressions were not altered, nor, as a result of his increased knowledge of life, did he ever become himself less appreciative of the special virtues he discovered in the serious, as well as in the joyous, sides of the French art of living. On his own side, he remained to the end of his life (as so many of his friends testify) the same unworldly, joyous being, of profound and tender sympathies, impatient of all rules and systems save those that derive their authority from human kindness. But as a result of his inborn power of vision and gifts of observation and expression, his impressions became more lucid and were given greater force by the exceptional opportunities he enjoyed. During his residence in Paris, throughout the years when most of the essays in criticism contained in this volume were written, he was dramatic critic of French life and the French stage for _The Fortnightly Review_, and as Paris correspondent, given more or less a free hand by other leading periodicals to which he was a contributor; so that he could direct his attention to the study of many aspects of Parisian life not exclusively bounded by political interests. Looking through the list of subjects dealt with in these chapters, it will be seen that the criticism of French life carried through by John F. Macdonald (if by “criticism” we understand what Matthew Arnold defined as “an impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is”) covered, from 1907 to 1913, nearly all events in every domain of Parisian life during this critical period. In other words, the present volume supplies the evidence which not only confirms the impressions that he sought to convey to his fellow-countrymen in _Paris of the Parisians_, but it lends the authority that belongs to a judgment founded upon a right criticism to the sentence which I may, in conclusion, quote from his article on the “Paris of To-day,” originally published in _The Fortnightly Review_, July, 1915, and reprinted (by the editor’s kind permission) in his posthumous book, _Two Towns—One City_.