Such instances form a pleasing contrast to the outward gayety we habitually associate with Paris. It boasts a world of patient labor. Emile Souvestre has drawn some faithful and charming pictures of these scenes, wherein philosophy and cheerfulness illumine the haunts of modest toil. In England and America only artists of great merit enjoy consideration; but in Paris the pursuit itself insures countenance and sympathy, which in themselves yield vast encouragement. There are more odd characters ensconced in the nooks of this capital than anywhere else in Europe;--men who have become unconsciously metropolitan friars--living in celibate dens, haunting libraries and gardens, subsisting on a bare competence, and working out some darling theory or speculative problem; lonely in the midst of a crowd, and content in their self-imposed round of frugality and investigation. I found the dissatisfied spirit of a young artist, whom I had known in America, here completely soothed; instead of feeling himself overpowered by the commercial spirit of his own country, one of a neglected minority, striving in vain to excite interest in a vocation too profitless for a community absorbed in trade, politics, and fashion, he now experienced the advantage of a recognized class, and the excitement of a fraternity in art; his life, studies, aims were those of hundreds as limited in their circumstances and as ideal in their aspirations; galleries, studios, lectures, models, criticism, illustrious men, noble examples, friendly words and true companionship, made his daily life, independent of its achievements, one of self-respect, of growing knowledge, and assured satisfaction. Without some pursuit thus enlisting the higher powers and justifying, as it were, the independent career of a resident, it is astonishing how the crust of selfishness gathers over the heart in Paris; the habit of living with an exclusive view to personal enjoyment, where the arrangements of life are so favorable, becomes at last engrossing; and a soulless machine, with no instincts but those of self-gratification, is often the result, especially if no ties of kindred mitigate the hardihood of epicurism. We soon learn to echo Rochefoucauld's words as he entered Mazarin's carriage,--'everything happens in France;' and, like Goethe, cast ourselves on the waves of accident with a more than Quixotic presage,--if not of actual adventure, at least of adventurous observation; for it is a realm where Fashion, the capricious tyrant of modern civilization, has her birth, where the '_vielle femme remplissait une mission importante et tutelaire pour tous les âges_;' where the _raconteur_ exists not less in society than in literature; the elysium of the scholar, the nucleus of opinion, the arena of pleasure, and the head-quarters of experiment, scientific, political, artistic, and social.