Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/320

308 by which he should know them. He began this inquiry as soon as he stepped into Newbury Street from his mother's door, and he was destined to continue it for the first few weeks of his stay in Boston. As time went on, his attention relaxed; for one could n't do more than see, as he said to his mother and another person; and he had seen. Then the novelty wore off,—the novelty which is often so absurdly great in the eyes of the American who returns to his native land after a few years spent in the foreign element,—an effect to be accounted for only on the supposition that in the secret parts of his mind he recognizes the aspect of life in Europe as, through long heredity, the more familiar; so that superficially, having no interest to oppose it, it quickly supplants the domestic type, which, upon his return, becomes supreme, but with its credit in many cases appreciably and permanently diminished. Florimond painted a few things while he was in America, though he had told his mother he had come home to rest; but when, several months later, in Paris, he showed his "notes," as he called them, to a friend, the young Frenchman asked him if Massachusetts were really so much like Andalusia.

There was certainly nothing Andalusian in the prospect as Florimond traversed the artificial bosom of the Back Bay. He had made his way promptly into Beacon Street, and he greatly admired that vista. The long straight avenue lay airing its newness in the frosty day, and all its individual façades, with