well that I cannot work out my own ideal, but I deeply feel that it is beautiful and true."
It was in the summer of 1834 that an opportunity occurred for Miss Landon, through the medium of Sir A. Farquhar and his daughter, to visit Paris, where her friend, Miss Turin, was then staying. She had, in fact, determined on laying the scene of a new novel in the period of the French revolution, and it was desirable for her to become acquainted with the locality of the places she was to describe.
Though expressing herself delighted with Paris, she seems to have had a horror of sight-seeing, for she says of herself, "I really do not, in my heart, care for all the articles in marble, stone, or brick, that were ever ushered in with a paragraph in the Stranger's Guide. In my plan of Paradise, people will ride very little, and walk not at all. In revenge, they shall have the most comfortable chairs, and talk from morning till night."
A pleasing though somewhat melancholy little volume, entitled "Traits and Trials of Early Life," containing prose stories for children, by L. E. L., was published by Mr. Colburn in 1836. In the "History of a Child," she appears to have recorded the reminiscences of her own childhood, which render it particularly interesting, and perhaps in the picture of her own she has described the feelings and sensations of most timid and reserved, but at the same time clever and imaginative children.
It was in the autumn of 1836, that Miss Landon first met Mr. George Maclean, at the house of a mutual acquaintance at Hampstead. This gentleman was the eldest son of the Rev. James Maclean, of Urquhart, Elgin, and nephew to Lieut.-general Sir John Maclean. When about eighteen, he had been appointed secretary
