In the beginning of March the wanderer found himself in Paris. From this city he wrote to his lifelong friend in Dublin, Alexander Spencer:--
“I am perfectly ashamed of the rapid succession in which my letters of late have inundated the family, yet in my present state of doubt, &c., I think it better to write at once to prevent any further mischief. I yesterday received a letter from Connor (Joe), informing me that he had forwarded to me in Paris from Vienna a Dublin letter of the 28th of last month. Now none such has arrived, and I have received already letters from Vienna bearing date 2nd March. This delay has rendered me very unhappy about the ultimate fate of my letter, and as Connor has already left Vienna, I have no means of ascertaining anything about it there. I have written to him at [MS. undecipherable], where he is at present, but cannot receive his answer before five days, so that I think it better in the interval to stop payment of the bill, at all events until I can learn something about it. I have myself seen all the letters lately arrived in Paris from Vienna, so that its delay is in no wise attributable to the irregularity of the post in Paris.
“If this letter had arrived before, I should be now on my road homeward, but I am here in durance vile for want of it. But away with blue devils!
“Paris would be a delightful place had a man only ‘gilt’ enough: there are so many gay little varieties and vaudevilles, that you have never time to spare. The Palais Royal is a world in itself of all that is splendid and seducing, but with all these things a poor man has but a sorry time of it. Of the Italian Opera and of Verge I dare only read the _carte_, and content myself with a chop at Richard’s and the Opéra Comique. Is it not (I ask you in all calmness) a thought that might lead to insanity to see these lucky ones of fortune sent out on their travels with fat purses, enjoying all the advantage of seeing and hearing what they neither relish nor comprehend, while many a poor fellow might reap advantage and improvement, but is debarred from the narrowness of his circumstances?
“I am now very anxious to see my family and find myself at home, although I believe I am now spending the last few days of a period I shall always call the happiest of my life. I look back on my time in Germany with one feeling of unmixed pleasure; if there be the least tinge of regret, it is only because the time can never return, and that my happiest days are already spent.