You ought to see these girls. Emma might look
like a Madonna, were it not for her wicked wit; and as to Anna and
Lizzie, as they glance by me, now and then, I seem to think them a
kind of sprite, or elf, made to inhabit shady old houses, just as
twinkling harebells grow in old castles; and then the gracious mamma,
who speaks French, or English, like a stream of silver--is she not,
after all, the fairest of any of them? And there is Caroline, piquant,
racy, full of conversation--sharp as a quartz crystal: how I like to
hear her talk! These people know Paris, as we say in America, "like a
book." They have studied it aesthetically, historically, socially.
They have studied French people and French literature,--and studied it
with enthusiasm, as people ever should, who would truly understand.
They are all kindness to me. Whenever I wish to see any thing, I have
only to speak; or to know, I have only to ask. At breakfast every
morning we compare notes, and make up our list of wants. My first, of
course, was the Louvre. It is close by us. Think of it. To one who has
starved all a life, in vain imaginings of what art might be, to know
that you are within a stone's throw of a museum full of its miracles,
Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, Roman sculptors and modern painting, all
there!
I scarcely consider myself to have seen any thing of art in England.
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