desires to enjoy the pleasures thrown into her own path, but has no wish to exclude others from a participation in them; and is happy in the freedom from all that disagreeable responsibility which is the principal object of the ambition of a woman of fashion in London.

If I have ennuyed you by the tableau I have attempted to paint, pardon me; and be assured it is hardly more ennuyeux than the originals from which it was sketched.

In no country is selfishness so unblushingly practised, and openly avowed, as in England, by a certain set. "Be prosperous and happy, never require our services, and we will remain your friends," is the principle on which society acts here; and this is so well understood, that, for the most part, those who stand in need of aid, shrink from soliciting it from their closest and dearest nominal friends.

But this selfishness is apparent in the gene

A LONDONER'S RETURN FROM INDIA. 185

rality of the actions of my countrymen. If a person, with whom they have been in the habit of associating, leaves England for a year, and then returns, his former acquaintances seldom seek to renew the intimacy. They have, during his absence, filled up his place; they have become accustomed not to look for, or go to him; and it requires a year, at least, with a good house and a good cook, to re-establish the friendships his absence has interrupted.

A man repairs to India, condemned by sad necessity to recruit his shattered fortunes. He goes, casting many a longing, lingering look behind, at the haunts and companions of his youth, with whom he leaves a portion of his heart. He returns with his dearly bought gold, purchased with his best years, and no inconsiderable portion of his liver, impatient to mingle again with those from whom he sighed to part. He has forgotten the characteristic coldness of

manner of his countrymen, and approaches each remembered face, with gladness and warmth; when he is chilled by a careless "How are you?" accompanied by an extension of the fore-finger of the right hand, and followed by a nonchalant demand of, "How long have you been in town? I have not seen you

for some time."

He encounters the same reception from all his old associates, who, reminded by the change in his face of the possibility of a nearly similar one in their own visages, conceive a dislike to him; and, unless he is supposed to possess countless lacs of rupees, and to be fond of play, he is voted a bore, and condemned to seek for society among the golden-visaged members of the Asiatic club, who can sympathise in his loss of liver, and expatiate on the comforts of curry and sangarree.

A good cook is the most infallible essential

towards the acquisition of popularity in London; and he who allows a dozen guests to judge of the talents of his chef de cuisine, once a week, is certain of being considered a person of im portance. The stomach is so near the heart, that he who gratifies the one, will be sure to make an agreeable impression on the other: hence, a giver of good dinners is always popular. He may be a man suspected of having perpetrated many evil deeds, and convicted of some; but if he stops the mouths of a certain set of gourmands with fillets de volaille aux truffes, he may defy censure.

A modern Lucullus, whose fame was less approved than his dinners, was once nearly cut by his friends because he refused to submit to the extravagant demands of his cook, who asked for double the usual wages; and it was not until he had satisfied them, by positive

proof, that the successor was quite as good an artiste, that they renewed the bond of union.

You, who have seen society in Italy, Ger

many, and France, can form no idea of its incongruities in England. Its laws-if laws they may be called are at once the most

absurd and partial; the most lax in the general principles, and unjust in their individual punishments.

Yet this country, which we on the Continent were led to believe was the land, par excellence, where female propriety was the most indispensable essential for ensuring a good reception; and the want of it a barrier which neither rank, wealth, nor genius, could enable their possessor to surmount,—every day's experience proves to be precisely that where its absence is the least severely punished.

Nothing is more usual than to hear, in a