even supposing I were capable of the exertion
—would lead me astray from the small
personal rules and regulations on which I
depend absolutely for the recovery of my
health. There is no help for me: it is one
of the conditions of my sick existence that
I must think of myself, and look through
myself at all that goes on around me. This
practice may seem, to persons in health,
suggestive of anything rather than advantage to
a man's temper and disposition. But, however
my illness may have weakened me mentally,
I cannot think that it has, morally, done me
much harm. I certainly envy no other man's
health and happiness. I feel no jealous pang
when I hear laughter about me. I can look
at people out of my window, running easily
across the road, while I can hardly crawl
from one end of my chamber to the other,
without feeling insulted by their activity.
Still, it is true, at the same time, and it
must be owned, that I warm to people now
exactly in proportion as I see them sensibly
and sincerely touched by my suffering condition;
and that I like, or dislike, my habitation
for the time being, just as it happens
to suit, or not to suit, all the little requirements
of my temporary infirmity. If I were
introduced to one of the most eminent men
in the country at this moment, and he did
not look sorry to see me ill, I should never
care to set eyes on the eminent man again.
If I had a superb room with the finest view
in the world, but no bed-side conveniences
for my pill-boxes and medicine-bottles, I
would leave that superb room and fine view,
and go cheerfully to a garret in an alley,
provided it adapted itself comfortably to the
arrangement of my indispensable invalid's
lumber. This is doubtless a humiliating
confession; but it is well that I should make it
once for all; for, the various opinions and
impressions which I am about frankly to
write down, will be found to be more or less
coloured by what I venture to describe as
the involuntary egotism of a sick man.

Let us see how my new lodging in
Paris suits me; and why it is that I
immediately become quite fond of it.

I live in a little building of my own, called
a Pavilion. Outside, it resembles, as to size,
brightness, and apparent insubstantiality, a
private dwelling-house in a Pantomime. I
expect as I drive up to it, for the first time,
to see Clown grinning at the door, and
Harlequin jumping through the window, to
the accompaniment of lively music of the most
agreeably unclassical kind. A key is
produced, and a wonderful little white door,
through which no fat man could penetrate
even sideways, is opened; I ascend a steep
flight of a dozen steps, and enter my toy-castle:
my own, independent, solitary, miniature
mansion. The first room is the drawing-room.
It is about the size of a large packing-case,
with a gay looking-glass and clock, with
bright red chairs and sofa, with a cosy
round table, with a big window looking out
on another Pavilion opposite, and on a great
house set back in a courtyard. Being a very
small apartment, it has (or it would not be a
French room) three doors. One I have just
entered by. Another leads into a bedchamber
of the same size as the drawing-room,
just as brightly and neatly furnished,
with a window that looks out on the
everlasting gaiety and bustle of the Champs
Elysées. The third door leads into a dressing-
room half the size of the drawing-room, and
having a fourth door which opens into a
kitchen half the size of the dressing-room,
but of course possessing a fifth door which
leads out again to the head of the staircase.
As no two people meeting in the kitchen
could possibly pass each other, or remain in
the apartment together without serious
inconvenience, the two doors leading in and
out of it may be pronounced useful as well as
ornamental. Into this quaint little culinary
crevice the coal merchant, the wood
merchant, and the water-carrier squeeze their way,
and find a doll's cellar and cistern all ready
for them. They might be followed, if I were
only well enough to give dinners, by a cook
and his scullions—for I possess, besides the
cellar and cistern, an elaborate charcoal stove
in the kitchen, at which any number of
courses might be prepared by any culinary
artist of slim figure and robust constitution,
who could cook composedly with a row of
small fires under his nose and a lukewarm
wall against his back. Every room in my
tiny dwelling is precious to me; but the
Benjamin of my small architectural family is
this kitchen. When my spirits are low I
look into it, and call up imaginatively the
figure of a restless gesticulating French cook,
composing made-dishes excitably, with my
kitchen-range roasting his stomach, my coal-
cellar forcing itself between his legs, and
my cistern scrubbing his shoulder. I call
up this vision any day I like, and always
retire from the contemplation of it, quite
vivacious for a sick man.

But what is the main secret of my fondness
for the Pavilion? It does not, I am
afraid, lie in the brightness and elegance of
the little rooms, or even in the delightful
independence of inhabiting a lodging, which is
also a house of my own, where I can neither
be disturbed nor overlooked by any other
lodgers. The one irresistible appeal which
my Parisian apartment makes to my sympathies
consists in the perfect manner in which
it fits my wants and flatters my weaknesses
as an invalid. I have quite a little druggist's
stock-in-trade of physic-bottles, glasses,
spoons, card-boxes, and prescriptions; I have
all sorts of queer vestments and coverings,
intended to guarantee me against all variations
of temperature and all degrees of
exposure, by night as well as by day; I have
ready remedies that must be kept in my
bedchamber, and elaborate applications that