"Qui est cet homme la ?" said one, "comme il est epris de lui-meme." "How silly he is," cried another--"how ugly," said a third.

What a taste in literature--such a talker--such shallowness, and such assurance--not worth the answering--could not slip in a word--disagreeable, revolting, awkward, slovenly, were the most complimentary opinions bestowed upon the unfortunate Vincent.

The women called him un horreur, and the men un bete.

The old railed at his mauvais gout, and the young at his mauvais coeur, for the former always attribute whatever does not correspond with their sentiments, to a perversion of taste, and the latter whatever does not come up to their enthusiasm, to a depravity of heart.
As for me, I went home, enriched with two new observations; first, that one may not speak of any thing relative to a foreign country, as one would if one was a native.

National censures become particular affronts.
Secondly, that those who know mankind in theory, seldom know it in practice; the very wisdom that conceives a rule, is accompanied with the abstraction, or the vanity, which destroys it.