The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-15
From a Letter by Henry Watterson the Louisville courier-Journal,

From a Letter by Henry Watterson in
 the Louisville courier-Journal.
 HO be directed by the Gods under
 train of circumstances which one
 4 cannot eonfrol--or words to that efTect-to return to Paris for a sojourn however brief, may be regarded by many as cruel dispensation of Providence
 Yet Paris has its compensatons Look ing out of my window up and down the Rue Castiglione and seeing the Column Vendome quite safe in its pace-looklng up and down the Rue de Rivoli the Colon nades still lntact-Q am occupying a chamber, I will not say a suite of rooms, 1 in the Hotel Continental at the angle of the two streets)-just across the way the gardens of what was once Palace of the Tulleries, beginning to put forth the glory of the spring and alive with chil- dren-away wonder in the distance to the left the towers of Notre Dame and the dome of the Institute of France, to the right the Obelislx in the Place de la Con- corde, and beyond the shining stream the golden globe over the tomb of Napoleon observing these things along with the re-
  endurable wine cellar are night at hand I yield the Christians sigh of resignation and murmur. Tt might be worse.'
 I may not be,as tall as a churchsteeple. nor as patient as Job, but I am not of those who let.meiancholy mark them for her own Ans old Partisan friend of mine once told me he had passed a long life worrying over things that never came to pass Iris better to laugh than be sigh ing" sang the jewellers over the poisoned l chalice. There are fools in the world who | affect to be as wretched as Hamlet, though they have seen no ghost and have no father to avenged saying somewhere | in Wilhelm Meister I thinlS-quite forget ting that most of the ills we hoard are ills l because we hoard them. Here's the re- script equally ,of religion, and philosophy; 1 to enjoy what we have, however frugal | the fare; to be thankful when we stump our toe we did,not break our neck: to suf- fer no fancy to come into the head we cannot kick out at the heel: arguing with the man in the play that towards eie many times before they are ready for tl undertaken, whilst brave men taste ol death but once; exclalming with the psalmist, q have been young, and now am old, yet have Tsnot seen the righteous l forsaken, nor his seed begging bread,'' and chirping with Shakespeare, "come what come may, time and the hour run through the toughest day,' Anyhow. "thems my sentiments.7 and so. remem- bering that
 | "All places that the eye of Heaven visits Are to the wise man ports and happy havens."
 I reconcile myself to Paris and shall not distress myself, not weary my reader with useless lamentation.
 Paris, the changeless, is ever changing. | The most cosmopolite of cities, it is the most provincial The Bouevards are an epitome of human life. The Boulevardier l is just as much of dandy as ever he was; and, let me add, just as much of a pessimist. He is never happy unless he is miserable. Though he enjoys the sworld to its topmost bent. nothing is as good as it was-not even oysters. He talks, as lis father talked, of the far-off days when the Bois de Boulogne was an aristocratic resort, when ladies thought themselves disgraced if the cushions of their car riages were not provided with holland covers, when Tortonis was in its glory, when the Empire and crionolines still sur vived. He bewails the disappearance of Paris as 1t used to be in his blase fancy and as it survives in the minds of those who know the city only through books