1836.


* * * * *


DIARY OF AN ENNUYÉE.[A]

* * * * *

_Calais, June 21._--What young lady, travelling for the first time on
the Continent, does not write a "Diary?" No sooner have we slept on
the shores of France--no sooner are we seated in the gay salon at
Dessin's, than we call, like Biddy Fudge, for "French pens and French
ink," and forth steps from its case the morocco-bound diary, regularly
ruled and paged, with its patent Bramah lock and key, wherein we are
to record and preserve all the striking, profound, and original
observations--the classical reminiscences--the thread-bare raptures--the
poetical effusions--in short, all the never-sufficiently-to-be-exhausted
topics of sentiment and enthusiasm, which must necessarily suggest
themselves while posting from Paris to Naples.

Verbiage, emptiness, and affectation!

Yes--but what must I do, then, with my volume in green morocco?

Very true, I did not think of that.

We have all read the DIARY OF AN INVALID, the best of all