The severe, the frisky, the classical, the
Louis Quinze, were there--from Joan of Arc in her
soldierly cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay--and God
forgive me for a man that knew better!--the humorous
was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we
criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even
upon the closest inspection they looked quite like
statuettes; and yet nobody would have a gift of them!
Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it out-lives
the man: but about the sixth month, when I already owed
near two hundred dollars to Pinkerton, and half as much
again in debts scattered about Paris, I awoke one
morning with a horrid sentiment of oppression, and
found I was alone; my vanity had breathed her last
during the night. I dared not plunge deeper in the
bog; I saw no hope in my poor statuary; I owned myself
beaten at last; and sitting down in my night-shirt,
beside the window, whence I had a glimpse of the tree-
tops at the corner of the boulevard, and where the
music of its early traffic fell agreeably upon my ear,
I penned my farewell to Paris, to art, to my whole past
life, and my whole former self.
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