Excerpt from Lectures, Vol. 5 of 10: Illustrated and Embellished With Views of the World's Famous Places and People, Being the Identical Discourses Delivered During the Past Eighteen Years Under the Title of the Stoddard Lectures Aris is preeminently the City of Pleasure. It is the P cradle of the freshest thought, the newest fashion, and the latest luxury. Within its limits there is little else than sunshine, gaiety, and life. It is the paradise of pleasure-seekers. Each window is an exhibition of art; each square the centre of some carnival; at every step we seem to hear the exclamations of the votaries of joy. Triumphal arches here amaze us, columns appeal to us, statues attract us, theatres invite us, and art mu seums tempt us to behold their treasures, glowing upon canvas or crystallized in marble. Gardens and parks lure us within their shaded haunts, where music floats among the trees. The boulevards, with their swift currents of tumultuous life, sweeping in opposite directions or circling in brilliant eddies in each open square, confuse and dazzle us as we behold them; while, best of all, historical associations add sub Lou's xvx. Stantial charms to these ephemeral delights. In the French metropolis, To-day has for a constant background Yesterday. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.