The tone of society in Paris is very far from John Bullish. They do not ask what a man is worth, or whether his father is owner of a tin-mine or a borough—but what he has to say, whether he is amiable and _spirituel_. In the case (unless a marriage is on the _tapis_) no one inquires whether his account at his banker’s is high or low; or whether he has come in his carriage or on foot. An English soldier of fortune, or a great traveller, is listened to with some attention as a _marked character_; while a booby lord is no more regarded than his own footman in livery. The blank after a man’s name is expected to be filled up with talent or adventures, or he passes for what he really is, a cypher. LXII Our young Englishmen in Paris do not make much figure in the society of Frenchmen of education and spirit. They stumble at the threshold in point of manners, dress, and conversation. They have not only to learn the language, but to _unlearn_ almost every thing else. Both words and things are different in France; our raw recruits have to get rid of a host of prejudices, and they do it awkwardly and reluctantly, and if they attempt to make a regular stand, are presently out-voted. The terms _gothic_ and _barbarous_ are talisman to strike them dumb. There is, moreover, a clumsiness in both their wit and advances to familiarity, that the spiteful _brunettes_ on the other side of the water do not comprehend, and that subjects them to constant sneers; and every false step adds to their confusion and want of confidence. But their lively antagonists are so flushed with victory and victims to their loquacity and charms, that they are not contented to lecture them on morals, metaphysics, sauces, and _virtù_, but proceed to teach them the true pronunciation and idiom of the English tongue. Thus a smart French widow having blundered by saying, ‘I have never _made_ a child;’ and perceiving that it excited a smile, maintained, for three whole days, against a large company, that it was better than saying, ‘I never _had_ a child.’ LXIII The Parisian _trip_ (say what they will) is not grace. It is the motion of a puppet, and may be mimicked, which grace _cannot_. It may be different from the high, heavy-heeled walk of the Englishwoman. Is it not equally remote from the step (if step it may be called) of an Andalusian girl? LXIV