And yet is it credible? In spite of its beauty, harmony and incomparable charm, our society has also its malcontents. There are here and there certain recusants who declare they are soaked and saturated with the essence, so remarkably pure and so much above proof, of our excessive and compulsory society. They find our realm of beauty too static, our atmosphere of happiness too tranquil. In vain to please them we vary from time to time the intensity and colouring of our illuminations and ventilate our colonnades with a kind of refreshing breeze. They persist in condemning as monotonous our day devoid of clouds or night; our year, devoid of seasons; our towns devoid of country-life. Very curiously when the month of May comes round, this feeling of restlessness which they alone experience at ordinary times, becomes contagious and well-nigh general. And so it is the most melancholy and least busy month of the year. One would say that the Spring driven from every place, from the gloomy immensity of the heavens and from the frozen surface of the earth has, as we, sought refuge under ground; or rather that her wandering ghost returns at stated seasons to visit us and tantalise us by her haunting presence. It is then that the city of the musicians grows full and their music becomes so sweet, pathetic, mournful, and desperately harrowing that we see lovers by hundreds at a time take each other by the hand and go up to gaze upon the death-dealing sky.... In reference to this I ought to say that there was recently a false alarm caused by a madman who pretended he had seen the sun coming back to life and melting the ice. At this news which had not been otherwise confirmed, quite a considerable portion of the population became unsettled and gave itself up to the pleasing task of forming plans for an early exodus. Such unhealthy and revolutionary dreams evidently only serve to foment artificial discontent.