they do it, and very picturesque they look. I think I shall put
this letter in the post to-morrow as we got a letter to-night.


(On Envelope.)


'M. Lamartine has now by his eloquence conquered the whole armed
crowd of citizens threatening to kill him if he did not immediately
proclaim the Republic and red flag. He said he could not yield to
the citizens of Paris alone, that the whole country must be
consulted; that he chose the tricolour, for it had followed and
accompanied the triumphs of France all over the world, and that the
red flag had only been dipped in the blood of the citizens. For
sixty hours he has been quieting the people: he is at the head of
everything. Don't be prejudiced, Frank, by what you see in the
papers. The French have acted nobly, splendidly; there has been no
brutality, plundering, or stealing. . . . I did not like the
French before; but in this respect they are the finest people in
the world. I am so glad to have been here.'


And there one could wish to stop with this apotheosis of liberty
and order read with the generous enthusiasm of a boy; but as the
reader knows, it was but the first act of the piece. The letters,
vivid as they are, written as they were by a hand trembling with
fear and excitement, yet do injustice, in their boyishness of tone,
to the profound effect produced. At the sound of these songs and
shot of cannon, the boy's mind awoke. He dated his own
appreciation of the art of acting from the day when he saw and