From a short letter to
Barron Field, it appears, indeed, that he thought Paris "a glorious
picturesque old city," to which London looked "mean and new," although the
former had "no Saint Paul's or Westminster Abbey." "I and sister," he
writes, "are just returned from Paris. We have eaten frogs! It has been
such a treat! Nicest little delicate things; like Lilliputian rabbits."
But this is all. His Reminiscences, whatever they were, do not enrich his
correspondence. In conversation he used to tell how he had once intended
to ask the waiter for an egg (oeuf), but called, in his ignorance, for Eau
de vie, and that the mistake produced so pleasant a result, that his
inquiries afterwards for Eau de vie were very frequent.
In his travels to Cambridge, which began to be frequent about this time,
his gains were greater. For there he first became acquainted with Miss
Emma Isola, for whom, as I can testify, he at all times exhibited the
greatest parental regard. When he and Mary Lamb first knew her, she was a
little orphan girl, at school. They invited her to spend her holidays with
them; and she went accordingly: the liking became mutual, and gradually
deepened into great affection.
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