[Paris—Sunday, 16 October 1859]
Sunday 16th Rained very hard in the early morning but soon cleared and we walked á l’Oratoire and heard Mon. Coqueril Fils. A most impressive intellectual and Christ-like discourse. Text “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
Mr Pliny Miles came in after church & stayed at our rooms while we went to drive on the Bois de Boulogne with poor Mrs Wales. Mr Osborne (“Spiridion”) and P. Miles passed the evening till ½ past 12 talking of many delightful things. It was a strangely contrasted scene, which those too [sic] men made. One strong reckless all-venturing the other thoughtful, refined, and cautious—I will not say to a fault. The one living in England but often bustling about among Frenchmen and without speaking a word of their language making himself comfortable among them by meeting them on their own coarse all-expressing ground; the other living among them continually for years and studying French till he must speak it fluently enough to satisfy all except his own critical ears, visiting in the first French society also, yet who never feels at home—cannot like the people, and lives among them like a soul in purgatorial chains. It was interesting to see these men together & see them read each other with the interest of new weird books.
