- Libros en formato ePub -
The
Parisians
It was a bright
day in the early spring of 1869. All Paris
seemed to have turned out to enjoy itself. The
Tuileries, the Champs Elysees, the Bois de
Boulogne, swarmed with idlers. A stranger might
have wondered where Toil was at work, and in
what nook Poverty lurked concealed. A
millionaire from the London Exchange, as he
looked round on the magasins, the equipages, the
dresses of the women; as he inquired the prices
in the shops and the rent of apartments,—might
have asked himself, in envious wonder, How on
earth do those gay Parisians live? What is their
fortune? Where does it come from?
As the day declined, many of the scattered
loungers crowded into the Boulevards; the cafes
and restaurants began to light up.
About this time a young man, who might be some
five or six and twenty, was walking along the
Boulevard des Italiens, heeding little the
throng through which he glided his solitary way:
there was that in his aspect and bearing which
caught attention. He looked a somebody; but
though unmistakably a Frenchman, not a Parisian.
His dress was not in the prevailing mode: to a
practised eye it betrayed the taste and the cut
of a provincial tailor. His gait was not that of
the Parisian,—less lounging, more stately; and,
unlike the Parisian, he seemed indifferent to
the gaze of others...
 Alice,
The Mysteries
It was towards the evening of a day in
early April that two ladies were seated by the
open windows of a cottage in Devonshire. The
lawn before them was gay with evergreens,
relieved by the first few flowers and fresh turf
of the reviving spring; and at a distance,
through an opening amongst the trees, the sea,
blue and tranquil, bounded the view, and
contrasted the more confined and home-like
features of the scene. It was a spot remote,
sequestered, shut out from the business and
pleasures of the world; as such it suited the
tastes and character of the owner.
That owner was the younger of the ladies seated
by the window. You would scarcely have guessed,
from her appearance, that she was more than
seven or eight and twenty, though she exceeded
by four or five years that critical boundary in
the life of beauty. Her form was slight and
delicate in its proportions, nor was her
countenance the less lovely because, from its
gentleness and repose (not unmixed with a
certain sadness) the coarse and the gay might
have thought it wanting in expression. For there
is a stillness in the aspect of those who have
felt deeply, which deceives the common eye,—as
rivers are often alike tranquil and profound, in
proportion as they are remote from the springs
which agitated and swelled the commencement of
their course, and by which their waters are
still, though invisibly, supplied...

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