me express myself warmly, but I assure you it was nothing but concern,
nor was mixed with a grain of pouting. I knew some of your reasons, and
guessed others. The latter grieve me heartily; but I advise you to do as
I do: when I meet with ingratitude, I take a short leave both of it and
its host. Formerly I used to look out for indemnification somewhere
else; but having lived long enough to learn that the reparation
generally proved a second evil of the same sort, I am content now to
skin over such wounds with amusements, which at least leave no scars. It
is true, amusements do not always amuse when we bid them. I find it so
here; nothing strikes me; everything I do is indifferent to me. I like
the people very well, and their way of life very well; but as neither
were my object, I should not much care if they were any other people, or
it was any other way of life. I am out of England, and my purpose is
answered.

Nothing can be more obliging than the reception I meet with everywhere.
It may not be more sincere (and why should it?) than our cold and bare
civility; but it is better dressed, and looks natural; one asks no
more. I have begun to sup in French houses, and as Lady Hertford has
left Paris to-day, shall increase my intimacies. There are swarms of
English here, but most of them are going, to my great satisfaction. As
the greatest part are very young, they can no more be entertaining to me
than I to them, and it certainly was not my countrymen that I came to
live with. Suppers please me extremely; I love to rise and breakfast
late, and to trifle away the day as I like. There are sights enough to
answer that end, and shops you know are an endless field for me. The
city appears much worse to me than I thought I remembered it. The French
music as shocking as I knew it was. The French stage is fallen off,
though in the only part I have seen Le Kain I admire him extremely. He
is very ugly and ill made, and yet has an heroic dignity which Garrick