In the Theatre Francais, I saw Rachel, the actress.  She appeared in the character of “Virginia,” in a tragedy of that name, by the poet Latour.  Her appearance as she came upon the stage alone, convinced me she would not belie her renown.  She is rather small in stature, with dark, piercing eyes and rich black hair; her lips are full, but delicately formed, and her features have a marked yet flexible outline, which conveys the minutest shades of expression.  Her voice is clear, deep and thrilling, and like sonic grand strain of music, there is power and meaning in its slightest modulations.  Her gestures embody the very spirit of the character; she has so perfectly attained that rare harmony of thought, sound and action, or rather, that unity of feeling which renders them harmonious, that her acting seems the unstudied, irrepressible impulse of her soul.  With the first sentence she uttered, I forgot Rachel.  I only saw the innocent Roman girl; I awaited in suspense and with a powerful sympathy, the developement of the oft-told tragedy.  My blood grew warm with indignation when the words of Appius roused her to anger, and I could scarcely keep back my tears, when, with a voice broken by sobs, she bade farewell to the protecting gods of her father’s hearth.

Among the bewildering variety of ancient ornaments and implements in the Egyptian Gallery of the Louvre, I saw an object of startling interest.  A fragment of the Iliad, written nearly three thousand years ago!  One may even dare to conjecture that the torn and half-mouldered slip of papyrus, upon which he gazes, may have been taken down from the lips of the immortal Chiun.  The eyes look on those faded characters, and across the great gulf of Time, the soul leaps into the Past, brought into shadowy nearness by a mirage of the mind.  There, as in the desert, images start up, vivid, yet of a vague and dreamy beauty.  We see the olive groves of Greece—­white-robed youths and maidens sit in the shade of swaying boughs—­and one of them reads aloud, in words that sound like the clashing of shields, the deeds of Achilles.

As we step out the western portal of the Tuileries, a beautiful scene greets us.  We look on the palace garden, fragrant with flowers and classic with bronze copies of ancient sculpture.  Beyond this, broad gravel walks divide the flower-bordered lawns and ranks of marble demigods and heroes look down on the joyous crowd.  Children troll their hoops along the avenues or skip the rope under the clipped lindens, whose boughs are now tinged a pale yellow by the bursting buds.  The swans glide about on a pond in the centre, begging bread of the bystanders, who watch a miniature ship which the soft breeze carries steadily across.  Paris is unseen, but heard, on every side; only the Column of Luxor and the Arc de Triomphe rise blue and grand above the top of the forest.  What with the sound of voices, the merry laughter of the children and a host of smiling faces, the scene touches a happy chord in one’s heart, and he mingles with it, lost in pleasant reverie, till the sounds fade away with the fading light.