Your letter was just what a
letter should be,--crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me,
till you came to Paris, and your philosophical indolence or indifference
stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language!
What the devil! are men nothing but word-trumpets? Are men all tongue
and ear? Have these creatures, that you and I profess to know _something
about_, no faces, gestures, gabble; no folly, no absurdity, no induction
of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women; no
similitude nor dissimilitude to English? Why, thou cursed Smellfungus!
your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you
spell it,--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time), was exactly
in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a
Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I
should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the
nearest pleasure which a grown man can substitute for that unknown one,
which he can never know,--the pleasure of the first entrance into life
from the womb. I daresay, in a short time, my habits would come back
like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; and I
should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here that
seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the water;
but I suppose you will want to be told some news.
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