Their Prayer Books Contain Much That
Is Excellent, If It Was Not Mixed With So Much That Is Idolatrous.
Monday, June 20.
Went to have our passport _vised_. The sky was
black, and the rain pouring in torrents. As I reached the quay the
Seine was rushing dark, and turbidly foaming. I crept into a fiacre,
and was amused, as we rattled on, to see the plight of gay and
glittering Paris. One poor organ grinder, on the Pont National, sat
with his umbrella over his head, and his body behind the parapet,
grinding away, in the howling storm. It was the best use for a hand
organ I ever saw. The gardens of the Tuileries presented a sorry
sight. The sentries slunk within their boxes. The chairs were stacked
and laid on their sides. The paths were flooded; and the classic
statues looked as though they had a dismal time of it, in the general
shower bath.
My passport went through the office of the American embassy,
prefecture of the police, and the _bureau des affaires etrangeres_,
and the Swiss legation, and we were all right for the frontier.
Our fair hostesses are all Alpine mountaineers, posted up in mountain
lore. They make you look blank one moment with horror at some escape
of theirs from being dashed down a precipice; the next they run you a
rig indeed over the Righi; anon you shamble through Chamounix, and
break your neck over the Col-de-balme, and, before you are aware, are
among the lacking at Interlachen.
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