Page:The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas, and The Point of View (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1883).djvu/287

Rh enormous signs, holes in the pavement, oceans of mud, commis-voyageurs, young ladies looking for the husband. On the other hand, no beggars and no cocottes—none, at least, that you see. A colossal mediocrity, except (my brother-in-law tells me) in the machinery, which is magnificent. Naturally, no architecture (they make houses of wood and of iron), no art, no literature, no theatre. I have opened some of the books; mais ils ne se laissent pas lire. No form, no matter, no style, no general ideas; they seem to be written for children and young ladies. The most successful (those that they praise most) are the facetious; they sell in thousands of editions. I have looked into some of the most vantés; but you need to be forewarned, to know that they are amusing; des plaisanteries de croquemort. They have a novelist with pretensions to literature, who writes about the chase for the husband and the adventures of the rich Americans in our corrupt old Europe, where their primeval candor puts the Europeans to shame. C'est proprement écrit; but it 's terribly pale. What is n't pale is the newspapers—enormous, like everything else (fifty columns of advertisements), and full of the commérages of a continent. And such a tone, grand Dieu! The amenities, the personalities, the recriminations, are like so many coups de revolver. Headings six inches tall; correspondences from places one never heard of; telegrams from Europe about Sarah Bernhardt; little paragraphs about nothing at all; the menu of the neighbor's dinner; articles on