Birmingham state herald., 1896-10-11
IMPRESSIONS ]"
FRESH, FORCEFUL AND FASCINATING
An Alabama Maiden Who Has Done Europe, Writes in Entrancing Vein of Coun-
 tries, Costumes and Customs.

Impressions are difficult things to ex- press. They are gradual tangled accu- mutation of many ideas which one finds as difficult to unwind and put into a nice, compact ball as a skein of tangled silk. And yet impressions are necessary; well expressed impressions if one wishes to have ones dignity with ones friends. What, you've been abroad eighteen months and have got no impressions? Inn possiblel There is only one thing worse than coming home without impressions, and that is coming home without clothes, Paris clothes. But then, you see, you can't buy impressions from French dress makers; at least any impressions that one would care to remember, and I believe girls are generally supposed to spend most of their time abroad in such merci- less hands. Impressions are one of the very few things that can't be bought in Paris. No, that's a mistake. You can buy them, but they are the dearest things I know. Even a dream-like concoction by Duval does not come up to them in price. Besides, there have been so many impressions given by so many people that record ones own little unwound skein, and yet as write Paris dances before my eyes-Paris on a day in June with it's long avenues of horse chetnutS, it's gleam- ing, gay nconsequent boulevards filled with deliciously simple and absurdly naughty children, for the Parisen- is the greatest of all children; it's sunny, laugh ing streets, it's innumerable fiacres, with their dirty, reckless, surly drivers, who stop every moment to swear the most impossible oaths and exchange vulgar but very weak pointed witticisms with his comrades, and who takes fiendish delight in endangering your neck. I see the klnd-hearted, simple people in the ,l.@ nIxrra To aud one any assistance and who beam and become genial the minute baby enters, and who address the most confidential remarks to one with simple candor which 1t is impossible to resist; who are always and at all times polite unless there is a courant d' air, and then heaven help the unlucky Englishman or Ameri- can (and it always is the Englishman or American) who is responsible for it. Let one lower window ever so little and i'm medately the genial smiles disappear and one hears mutterings as of distant thunder and one shakes with terror and realizes what an awful thing the French revolution must have been, and then one shuts the window and swallows mil lions of microbes.
 see the delicious fresh smelling flower maret at the Madeline and hear the minor sing song notes of the vegetable woman selling carrots and asparagus, and the gardens of the TullerieS overfioWng with nurses and their small charges and the old man at the corner who sells chest nuts and remembers your face every time you come I see the Champs ElyseeS and the Bais with its brilliant throngs and the cafes with their gay laughing crowds and I see the French women, the best dressed, best gOwned women in the world, who fling their smiles with equal gra- ciousness to the street sweeper and to the fashionably dressed boulervardier. I see all this and I remember that I have got mpressons-impression which will stay with me forever; impressions of the most genial, most lovable people on earth. Paris is a great, beautiful many colored butterfly which has flown into my brain and keeps buZzing and breed- ing a long dream of rose colored impress sions which will help to tighten any tire some moments which may come in the future.
 My impressions of Paris are essentially rose colored and light as my impressions of Germans are heavy and stupid and those of Sweden old and silent and those of Spain sad and serious.
 But 1 very much fear my impressions of Spain will not interest any one. Our people have too decided an opinion of their own to wish to change And yet it seems to me that their sympathy would go out a little if they could see the Spaniards at home; see them in their dignity and in their pride struggling for WHdl they tH1nk are tnelT TlBntS, against insurmountable difficulties. And If they could see the queen battling as few wo- men ever battle to hold together her kingdom and to hand down her trust to her fatherless care, they could not re- fuse their sympathy end admiration. If they could only see how eagerly the men draw lots and how gladly they leave home to fight for what is theirs. It can be no easier for the Spaniards to endure the criticism of Americans and that de- sire to interfere which Is no stronger than 1t was for our southern people when other countries sided with the north in their meddling with our affairs. Yes, decid- edly, I have some impressions; the skein Is beginning to unwind, impressions filled with the dignity and grandeur of the Spaniard, impressions of their fine, silent pride of their poverty-stricken country, of their charming, simple cour- tesy. of their exquisite breeding, of their kind hearts and the most vivid impress sion of all was f night w in