Paris, n.Definitions

Paris is a city that is terribly derisive of all absurd pretensions but its own.

Paris is a city of gaities and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief.

Paris is a city where great ideas perish, done to death by a witticism.

Paris is a city that makes demands of the heart, just as munich makes demands of the stomach.

Paris is a festive town, a thin crust of gilded, polished joy, such that it matters little if hell's just beneath.

Paris is a city of encounters, of furtive and painful discoveries. All isms converge there, including the anti-isms, all the revolutionaries too, including the counterrevolutionaries.

Paris is a city where one can arrange one's life exactly as one pleases. . . There are facilities for every kind of habit and taste, and everything is accepted and understood.

Paris is a city of dinners, soirees, erratic millionaires, painters, translators, lobsters, absinthe, music promenades, oysters, sherry, aspirin, pictures, sapphic heiresses, editors, books, sailors.