There
all is smoke and fire, everything gleams, crackles, flames,
evaporates, dies out, then lights up again, with shooting sparks, and
is consumed. In no other country has life ever been more ardent or
acute. The social nature, even in fusion, seems to say after each
completed work: "Pass on to another!" just as Nature says herself.
Like Nature herself, this social nature is busied with insects and
flowers of a day--ephemeral trifles; and so, too, it throws up fire
and flame from its eternal crater. Perhaps, before analyzing the
causes which lend a special physiognomy to each tribe of this
intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed out
which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals in
more or less degree.
By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction
has rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon
which all kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian,
with his indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth,
lives like a child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at
everything, consoles himself for everything, jests at everything,
forgets, desires, and tastes everything, seizes all with passion,
quits all with indifference--his kings, his conquests, his glory, his
idols of bronze or glass--as he throws away his stockings, his hats,
and his fortune. In Paris no sentiment can withstand the drift of
things, and their current compels a struggle in which the passions are
relaxed: there love is a desire, and hatred a whim; there's no true
kinsman but the thousand-franc note, no better friend than the
pawnbroker.
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