—Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don’t know whether the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as Natural History, or whether there was not a little malice in his description. At any rate, when I gave my translation to B. F. to turn back again into French, one reason was that I thought it would sound a little bald in English, and some people might think it was meant to have some local bearing or other,—which the author, of course, didn’t mean, inasmuch as he could not be acquainted with anything on this side of the water. [The above remarks were addressed to the school-mistress, to whom I handed the paper after looking it over. The divinity-student came and read over her shoulder,—very curious, apparently, but his eyes wandered, I thought. Fancying that her breathing was somewhat hurried and high, or _thoracic_, as my friend, the Professor, calls it, I watched her a little more closely.—It is none of my business.—After all, it is the imponderables that move the world,—heat, electricity, love. _Habet_?] This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin made into boarding-school French, such as you see here; don’t expect too much;—the mistakes give a relish to it, I think. LES SOCIÉTÉS POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES. Ces Sociétés là sont une Institution pour suppléer aux besoins d’esprit et de coeur de ces individus qui ont survécu à leurs émotions à l’égard du beau sexe, et qui n’ont pas la distraction de l’habitude de boire.