The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-15
BACK TO LITTLE OLD PARIS

and imaginative memories. Paris, he in- sists, is far less pleasant place to liy9 than it was. In those days, he tells ns.l it was less effuspe in it's welcome to the vulgar foreigner. but it was more origi- nal, more personal. In those days 1t was still possible to meander along the boue;
 wards, as Dr. Johnson took a.. walk down
 Fleet street for the simple pleasure of the thing; but who, he means, can enjoy the boulevards, with the din and odors or motor cars,. the hideous advertisihg signs on the housetops, the ill-kept pavements filtered with paper, the hustle, confusion, and higgledy- -piggledy manners? To him, the subtle essence. of the place has evap-
 orated. Paris, according to his equiyocai conceit, is no longer worth copying. Now. I have known Paris, and known it exceeding we'll, for nearly 50 years, and do not hesitate to say, 1t has been ini-
 proving all the time and is more brilliant
 today than ever it was. I knew Paris
 when Alexandre Dumas, the elder, walk ed it's streets, recognized by everybody
 wherever he appeared, and little old Ros-
 sini stunned himself daily in the Rue Chausee d'Antin; the Paris of George
 Sand and Alfred de Musset; of the Maison
 Doree and the Cafe Voltaire over the
 river; the Paris of Henri de Villemessant,< ,< Emile de Giradin. Janvier de la Motte,
 Aureien scholl, the Due de Morny, Ma poleon IT.. Victor Hugo. Francisque Sar- cey, Edmond About, Cora Pearl, and lots of others equally distinguished and dis reputable
 o111a 1 has winning way of making itself detes-
 table when put to it, and. have rarely
 known it to take so much trouble in this
 regard as during the last ten or dozen
 seasons of what we call spring
 As rule. coming from anywhere out
 of France, either from England or Ger
 many, to Paris is like stepping from cold into a warm bath. Even the little
 swindles with which you are cozened of
 your good small change have charm
 about them There is constant suspi.
 cion of music in the air. The snake-llke,
 route from the Rue Richelieu at the head
 of the Boulevard des Italiens down by the Grand opera house and the Madeleine and \ into and across the place, where they once
 set up the guillotne and did the aristo- | rats and some others to death, and on- 1 V Nrd up the Champs Elysees to the Arch 1 of Stars has the true serpentine fascina- l ton.
 The smell of the asphalt is in truth of
 the Lotos bloom. The wavings of the
 chestnut boughs, signals of the forbidden,
 are siren. The glitter is licentious and dazzling; a certain resplendency of cos tune and suggestion under the electric clusters about the cafes, the theaters and
 the hotels Then, the procession-bless
 you!-the procession the red legs of the soldiers and the white caps of the gris- cites; ouvrier, cocotte and gamin, helter- skelter amid the hurrying throng of 1 sjght-seers. foreign and domestic-for even l the geuine Partisan never ceases to be
 sightseer-the procession is the most won-
 drous. the most ever-changing in the 1 whole world, yet always the same and
 no end to it. Just back and forth again, 1 living loom whose shuttles flash through
 strands of many colors. not always of the
 cleanest: merry-go-round, through
 whose brilliant medley of contradictions
 of laughter and light, one cannot help catching glinapses of another sort Of | Niobe, all tears, or sorrow and want ana l anguish Nor any lack of humor, liar 1 leouin with his cap and bells; albeit, the art of looking is on the down grade and good red wine is going out of fashion, be- cause very dear and very hard to get. Eh ben; Paris still has it's compensations.