how one has been able to stay away from them so long.

Too excited to sleep, although fatigued, I am writing down my
impressions; yet how tame and colourless they seem on paper when
compared with the emotions that dictate them! How often have I
experienced the impossibility of painting strong feelings during their
reign!

[_Mem_.--We should be cautious in giving implicit credit to
descriptions written with great power, as I am persuaded they indicate
a too perfect command of the faculties of the head to admit the
possibility of those of the heart having been much excited when they
were written.

This belief of mine controverts the assertion of the poet--

"He best can paint them who has felt them most."

Except that the poet says who _has_ felt; yes, it is after, and not
when most felt that sentiments can be most powerfully expressed. But to
bed! to bed!]

I have had a busy day; engaged during the greater portion of it in the
momentous occupation of shopping. Every thing belonging to my toilette
is to be changed, for I have discovered--"tell it not in Gath"--that my
hats, bonnets, robes, mantles, and pelisses, are totally _passée de
mode_, and what the _modistes_ of Italy declared to be _la dernière
mode de Paris_ is so old as to be forgotten here.

The woman who wishes to be a philosopher must avoid Paris! Yesterday I