PARIS, _Oct._ 3, 1765.

I don't know where you are, nor when I am likely to hear of you. I write
at random, and, as I talk, the first thing that comes into my pen.

I am, as you certainly conclude, much more amused than pleased. At a
certain time of life, sights and new objects may entertain one, but new
people cannot find any place in one's affection. New faces with some
name or other belonging to them, catch my attention for a minute--I
cannot say many preserve it. Five or six of the women that I have seen
already are very sensible. The men are in general much inferior, and not
even agreeable. They sent us their best, I believe, at first, the Duc de
Nivernois. Their authors, who by the way are everywhere, are worse than
their own writings, which I don't mean as a compliment to either. In
general, the style of conversation is solemn, pedantic, and seldom
animated, but by a dispute. I was expressing my aversion to disputes:
Mr. Hume, who very gratefully admires the tone of Paris, having never
known any other tone, said with great surprise, "Why, what do you like,
if you hate both disputes and whisk?"

What strikes me the most upon the whole is, the total difference of
manners between them and us, from the greatest object to the least.
There is not the smallest similitude in the twenty-four hours. It is
obvious in every trifle. Servants carry their lady's train, and put her
into her coach with their hat on. They walk about the streets in the
rain with umbrellas to avoid putting on their hats; driving themselves
in open chaises in the country without hats, in the rain too, and yet
often wear them in a chariot in Paris when it does not rain. The very
footmen are powdered from the break of day, and yet wait behind their