the various contracts. Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of

cormorants; and the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of

architectural terms, the theory of strains, and the prices of materials

in the States, formed a strong bond of union between what might have

been otherwise an ill-assorted pair, and led my grandfather to pronounce

me, with emphasis, "a real intalligent kind of a cheild." Thus a second

time, as you will presently see, the capitol of my native State had

influentially affected the current of my life.

I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had done a

stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly delighted to escape

out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge instead into the rainbow city

of Paris. Every man has his own romance; mine clustered exclusively

about the practice of the arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and

the world of Paris as depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the

_Comedie Humaine_. I was not disappointed--I could not have been; for

I did not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made. Z. Marcas

lived next door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel of the Rue

Racine; I dined at my villainous restaurant with Lousteau and with

Rastignac: if a curricle nearly ran me down at a street-crossing, Maxime

de Trailles would be the driver. I dined, I say, at a poor restaurant

and lived in a poor hotel; and this was not from need, but sentiment.

My father gave me a profuse allowance, and I might have lived (had I

chosen) in the Quartier de l'Etoile and driven to my studies daily.

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