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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2843-h.zip b/2843-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba9f19f --- /dev/null +++ b/2843-h.zip diff --git a/2843-h/2843-h.htm b/2843-h/2843-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c31f97 --- /dev/null +++ b/2843-h/2843-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1984 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, by William Makepeace Thackeray (aka + Titmarsh) + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, by +William Makepeace Thackeray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Little Travels and Roadside Sketches + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2843] +Last Updated: December 17, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE TRAVELS *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + LITTLE TRAVELS <br /> AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA Titmarsh) + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary=""> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE + SKETCHES</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I.—FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO + BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II.—GHENT—BRUGES. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III.—WATERLOO. </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I.—FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM + </h2> + <p> + . . . I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" at Richmond, one of the + comfortablest, quietest, cheapest, neatest little inns in England, and a + thousand times preferable, in my opinion, to the "Star and Garter," + whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, with his hair curled, + frightens you off the premises; and where, if you are bold enough to brave + the sneering waiter, you have to pay ten shillings for a bottle of claret; + and whence, if you look out of the window, you gaze on a view which is so + rich that it seems to knock you down with its splendor—a view that + has its hair curled like the swaggering waiter: I say, I quitted the "Rose + Cottage Hotel" with deep regret, believing that I should see nothing so + pleasant as its gardens, and its veal cutlets, and its dear little + bowling-green, elsewhere. But the time comes when people must go out of + town, and so I got on the top of the omnibus, and the carpet-bag was put + inside. + </p> + <p> + If I were a great prince and rode outside of coaches (as I should if I + were a great prince), I would, whether I smoked or not, have a case of the + best Havanas in my pocket—not for my own smoking, but to give them + to the snobs on the coach, who smoke the vilest cheroots. They poison the + air with the odor of their filthy weeds. A man at all easy in his + circumstances would spare himself much annoyance by taking the above + simple precaution. + </p> + <p> + A gentleman sitting behind me tapped me on the back and asked for a light. + He was a footman, or rather valet. He had no livery, but the three friends + who accompanied him were tall men in pepper-and-salt undress jackets with + a duke's coronet on their buttons. + </p> + <p> + After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished his cheroot, the + gentleman produced another wind-instrument, which he called a "kinopium," + a sort of trumpet, on which he showed a great inclination to play. He + began puffing out of the "kinopium" a most abominable air, which he said + was the "Duke's March." It was played by particular request of one of the + pepper-and-salt gentry. + </p> + <p> + The noise was so abominable that even the coachman objected (although my + friend's brother footmen were ravished with it), and said that it was not + allowed to play toons on HIS 'bus. "Very well," said the valet, "WE'RE + ONLY OF THE DUKE OF B——'S ESTABLISHMENT, THAT'S ALL." The + coachman could not resist that appeal to his fashionable feelings. The + valet was allowed to play his infernal kinopium, and the poor fellow (the + coachman), who had lived in some private families, was quite anxious to + conciliate the footmen "of the Duke of B.'s establishment, that's all," + and told several stories of his having been groom in Captain Hoskins's + family, NEPHEW OF GOVERNOR HOSKINS; which stories the footmen received + with great contempt. + </p> + <p> + The footmen were like the rest of the fashionable world in this respect. I + felt for my part that I respected them. They were in daily communication + with a duke! They were not the rose, but they had lived beside it. There + is an odor in the English aristocracy which intoxicates plebeians. I am + sure that any commoner in England, though he would die rather than confess + it, would have a respect for those great big hulking Duke's footmen. + </p> + <p> + The day before, her Grace the Duchess had passed us alone in a + chariot-and-four with two outriders. What better mark of innate + superiority could man want? Here was a slim lady who required four—six + horses to herself, and four servants (kinopium was, no doubt, one of the + number) to guard her. + </p> + <p> + We were sixteen inside and out, and had consequently an eighth of a horse + apiece. + </p> + <p> + A duchess = 6, a commoner = 1/8; that is to say, + </p> + <p> + 1 duchess = 48 commoners. + </p> + <p> + If I were a duchess of the present day, I would say to the duke my noble + husband, "My dearest grace, I think, when I travel alone in my chariot + from Hammersmith to London, I will not care for the outriders. In these + days, when there is so much poverty and so much disaffection in the + country, we should not eclabousser the canaille with the sight of our + preposterous prosperity." + </p> + <p> + But this is very likely only plebeian envy, and I dare say, if I were a + lovely duchess of the realm, I would ride in a coach-and-six, with a + coronet on the top of my bonnet and a robe of velvet and ermine even in + the dog-days. + </p> + <p> + Alas! these are the dog-days. Many dogs are abroad—snarling dogs, + biting dogs, envious dogs, mad dogs; beware of exciting the fury of such + with your flaming red velvet and dazzling ermine. It makes ragged Lazarus + doubly hungry to see Dives feasting in cloth-of-gold; and so if I were a + beauteous duchess . . . Silence, vain man! Can the Queen herself make you + a duchess? Be content, then, nor gibe at thy betters of "the Duke of B——'s + establishment— that's all." + </p> + <p> + ON BOARD THE "ANTWERPEN," OFF EVERYWHERE. + </p> + <p> + We have bidden adieu to Billingsgate, we have passed the Thames Tunnel; it + is one o'clock, and of course people are thinking of being hungry. What a + merry place a steamer is on a calm sunny summer forenoon, and what an + appetite every one seems to have! We are, I assure you, no less than 170 + noblemen and gentlemen together, pacing up and down under the awning, or + lolling on the sofas in the cabin, and hardly have we passed Greenwich + when the feeding begins. The company was at the brandy and soda-water in + an instant (there is a sort of legend that the beverage is a preservative + against sea-sickness), and I admired the penetration of gentlemen who + partook of the drink. In the first place, the steward WILL put so much + brandy into the tumbler that it is fit to choke you; and, secondly, the + soda-water, being kept as near as possible to the boiler of the engine, is + of a fine wholesome heat when presented to the hot and thirsty traveller. + Thus he is prevented from catching any sudden cold which might be + dangerous to him. + </p> + <p> + The forepart of the vessel is crowded to the full as much as the genteeler + quarter. There are four carriages, each with piles of imperials and + aristocratic gimcracks of travel, under the wheels of which those + personages have to clamber who have a mind to look at the bowsprit, and + perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages overcome, you find + yourself confronted by a huge penful of Durham oxen, lying on hay and + surrounded by a barricade of oars. Fifteen of these horned monsters + maintain an incessant mooing and bellowing. Beyond the cows come a heap of + cotton-bags, beyond the cotton-bags more carriages, more pyramids of + travelling trunks, and valets and couriers bustling and swearing round + about them. And already, and in various corners and niches, lying on coils + of rope, black tar-cloths, ragged cloaks, or hay, you see a score of those + dubious fore-cabin passengers, who are never shaved, who always look + unhappy, and appear getting ready to be sick. + </p> + <p> + At one, dinner begins in the after-cabin—boiled salmon, boiled beef, + boiled mutton, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, and parboiled wine for any + gentlemen who like it, and two roast-ducks between seventy. After this, + knobs of cheese are handed round on a plate, and there is a talk of a tart + somewhere at some end of the table. All this I saw peeping through a sort + of meat-safe which ventilates the top of the cabin, and very happy and hot + did the people seem below. + </p> + <p> + "How the deuce CAN people dine at such an hour?" say several genteel + fellows who are watching the manoeuvres. "I can't touch a morsel before + seven." + </p> + <p> + But somehow at half-past three o'clock we had dropped a long way down the + river. The air was delightfully fresh, the sky of a faultless cobalt, the + river shining and flashing like quicksilver, and at this period steward + runs against me bearing two great smoking dishes covered by two great + glistening hemispheres of tin. "Fellow," says I, "what's that?" + </p> + <p> + He lifted up the cover: it was ducks and green pease, by jingo! + </p> + <p> + "What! haven't they done YET, the greedy creatures?" I asked. "Have the + people been feeding for three hours?" + </p> + <p> + "Law bless you, sir, it's the second dinner. Make haste, or you won't get + a place." At which words a genteel party, with whom I had been conversing, + instantly tumbled down the hatchway, and I find myself one of the second + relay of seventy who are attacking the boiled salmon, boiled beef, boiled + cabbage, &c. As for the ducks, I certainly had some pease, very fine + yellow stiff pease, that ought to have been split before they were boiled; + but, with regard to the ducks, I saw the animals gobbled up before my eyes + by an old widow lady and her party just as I was shrieking to the steward + to bring a knife and fork to carve them. The fellow! (I mean the widow + lady's whiskered companion)—I saw him eat pease with the very knife + with which he had dissected the duck! + </p> + <p> + After dinner (as I need not tell the keen observer of human nature who + peruses this) the human mind, if the body be in a decent state, expands + into gayety and benevolence, and the intellect longs to measure itself in + friendly converse with the divers intelligences around it. We ascend upon + deck, and after eying each other for a brief space and with a friendly + modest hesitation, we begin anon to converse about the weather and other + profound and delightful themes of English discourse. We confide to each + other our respective opinions of the ladies round about us. Look at that + charming creature in a pink bonnet and a dress of the pattern of a + Kilmarnock snuff-box: a stalwart Irish gentleman in a green coat and bushy + red whiskers is whispering something very agreeable into her ear, as is + the wont of gentlemen of his nation; for her dark eyes kindle, her red + lips open and give an opportunity to a dozen beautiful pearly teeth to + display themselves, and glance brightly in the sun; while round the teeth + and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their appearance, and her + whole countenance assumes a look of perfect health and happiness. See her + companion in shot silk and a dove-colored parasol; in what a graceful + Watteau-like attitude she reclines. The tall courier who has been bouncing + about the deck in attendance upon these ladies (it is his first day of + service, and he is eager to make a favorable impression on them and the + lady's-maids too) has just brought them from the carriage a small paper of + sweet cakes (nothing is prettier than to see a pretty woman eating sweet + biscuits) and a bottle that evidently contains Malmsey madeira. How + daintily they sip it; how happy they seem; how that lucky rogue of an + Irishman prattles away! Yonder is a noble group indeed: an English + gentleman and his family. Children, mother, grandmother, grown-up + daughters, father, and domestics, twenty-two in all. They have a table to + themselves on the deck, and the consumption of eatables among them is + really endless. The nurses have been bustling to and fro, and bringing, + first, slices of cake; then dinner; then tea with huge family jugs of + milk; and the little people have been playing hide-and-seek round the + deck, coquetting with the other children, and making friends of every soul + on board. I love to see the kind eyes of women fondly watching them as + they gambol about; a female face, be it ever so plain, when occupied in + regarding children, becomes celestial almost, and a man can hardly fail to + be good and happy while he is looking on at such sights. "Ah, sir!" says a + great big man, whom you would not accuse of sentiment, "I have a couple of + those little things at home;" and he stops and heaves a great big sigh and + swallows down a half-tumbler of cold something and water. We know what the + honest fellow means well enough. He is saying to himself, "God bless my + girls and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in + a more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and + not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, who + are chirping over a bottle of champagne. + </p> + <p> + There is, as you may fancy, a number of such groups on the deck, and a + pleasant occupation it is for a lonely man to watch them and build + theories upon them, and examine those two personages seated cheek by jowl. + One is an English youth, travelling for the first time, who has been hard + at his Guidebook during the whole journey. He has a "Manuel du Voyageur" + in his pocket: a very pretty, amusing little oblong work it is too, and + might be very useful, if the foreign people in three languages, among whom + you travel, would but give the answers set down in the book, or understand + the questions you put to them out of it. The other honest gentleman in the + fur cap, what can his occupation be? We know him at once for what he is. + "Sir," says he, in a fine German accent, "I am a brofessor of languages, + and will gif you lessons in Danish, Swedish, English, Bortuguese, Spanish + and Bersian." Thus occupied in meditations, the rapid hours and the rapid + steamer pass quickly on. The sun is sinking, and, as he drops, the + ingenious luminary sets the Thames on fire: several worthy gentlemen, + watch in hand, are eagerly examining the phenomena attending his + disappearance,—rich clouds of purple and gold, that form the + curtains of his bed,—little barks that pass black across his disc, + his disc every instant dropping nearer and nearer into the water. "There + he goes!" says one sagacious observer. "No, he doesn't," cries another. + Now he is gone, and the steward is already threading the deck, asking the + passengers, right and left, if they will take a little supper. What a + grand object is a sunset, and what a wonder is an appetite at sea! Lo! the + horned moon shines pale over Margate, and the red beacon is gleaming from + distant Ramsgate pier. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + A great rush is speedily made for the mattresses that lie in the boat at + the ship's side; and as the night is delightfully calm, many fair ladies + and worthy men determine to couch on deck for the night. The proceedings + of the former, especially if they be young and pretty, the philosopher + watches with indescribable emotion and interest. What a number of pretty + coquetries do the ladies perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they + take care to fall! All the little children have been gathered up by the + nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals the + eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian + nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been walking + the deck for some time with a great mattress on his shoulders, knowing + full well that were he to relinquish it for an instant, some other person + would seize on it, now stretches his bed upon the deck, wraps his cloak + about his knees, draws his white cotton nightcap tight over his head and + ears; and, as the smoke of his cigar rises calmly upwards to the deep sky + and the cheerful twinkling stars, he feels himself exquisitely happy, and + thinks of thee, my Juliana! + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Why people, because they are in a steamboat, should get up so deucedly + early I cannot understand. Gentlemen have been walking over my legs ever + since three o'clock this morning, and, no doubt, have been indulging in + personalities (which I hate) regarding my appearance and manner of + sleeping, lying, snoring. Let the wags laugh on; but a far pleasanter + occupation is to sleep until breakfast-time, or near it. + </p> + <p> + The tea, and ham and eggs, which, with a beefsteak or two, and three or + four rounds of toast, form the component parts of the above-named elegant + meal, are taken in the River Scheldt. Little neat, plump-looking churches + and villages are rising here and there among tufts of trees and pastures + that are wonderfully green. To the right, as the "Guide-book" says, is + Walcheren; and on the left Cadsand, memorable for the English expedition + of 1809, when Lord Chatham, Sir Walter Manny, and Henry Earl of Derby, at + the head of the English, gained a great victory over the Flemish + mercenaries in the pay of Philippe of Valois. The cloth-yard shafts of the + English archers did great execution. Flushing was taken, and Lord Chatham + returned to England, where he distinguished himself greatly in the debates + on the American war, which he called the brightest jewel of the British + crown. You see, my love, that, though an artist by profession, my + education has by no means been neglected; and what, indeed, would be the + pleasure of travel, unless these charming historical recollections were + brought to bear upon it? + </p> + <p> + ANTWERP. + </p> + <p> + As many hundreds of thousands of English visit this city (I have met at + least a hundred of them in this half-hour walking the streets, + "Guide-book" in hand), and as the ubiquitous Murray has already depicted + the place, there is no need to enter into a long description of it, its + neatness, its beauty, and its stiff antique splendor. The tall pale houses + have many of them crimped gables, that look like Queen Elizabeth's ruffs. + There are as many people in the streets as in London at three o'clock in + the morning; the market-women wear bonnets of a flower-pot shape, and have + shining brazen milk-pots, which are delightful to the eyes of a painter. + Along the quays of the lazy Scheldt are innumerable good-natured groups of + beer-drinkers (small-beer is the most good-natured drink in the world); + along the barriers outside of the town, and by the glistening canals, are + more beer-shops and more beer-drinkers. The city is defended by the + queerest fat military. The chief traffic is between the hotels and the + railroad. The hotels give wonderful good dinners, and especially at the + "Grand Laboureur" may be mentioned a peculiar tart, which is the best of + all tarts that ever a man ate since he was ten years old. A moonlight walk + is delightful. At ten o'clock the whole city is quiet; and so little + changed does it seem to be, that you may walk back three hundred years + into time, and fancy yourself a majestical Spaniard, or an oppressed and + patriotic Dutchman at your leisure. You enter the inn, and the old Quentin + Durward court-yard, on which the old towers look down. There is a sound of + singing—singing at midnight. Is it Don Sombrero, who is singing an + Andalusian seguidilla under the window of the Flemish burgomaster's + daughter? Ah, no! it is a fat Englishman in a zephyr coat: he is drinking + cold gin-and-water in the moonlight, and warbling softly— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Nix my dolly, pals, fake away, + N-ix my dolly, pals, fake a—a—way."* +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * In 1844. +</pre> + <p> + I wish the good people would knock off the top part of Antwerp Cathedral + spire. Nothing can be more gracious and elegant than the lines of the + first two compartments; but near the top there bulges out a little round, + ugly, vulgar Dutch monstrosity (for which the architects have, no doubt, a + name) which offends the eye cruelly. Take the Apollo, and set upon him a + bob-wig and a little cocked hat; imagine "God Save the King" ending with a + jig; fancy a polonaise, or procession of slim, stately, elegant court + beauties, headed by a buffoon dancing a hornpipe. Marshal Gerard should + have discharged a bombshell at that abomination, and have given the noble + steeple a chance to be finished in the grand style of the early fifteenth + century, in which it was begun. + </p> + <p> + This style of criticism is base and mean, and quite contrary to the orders + of the immortal Goethe, who was only for allowing the eye to recognize the + beauties of a great work, but would have its defects passed over. It is an + unhappy, luckless organization which will be perpetually fault-finding, + and in the midst of a grand concert of music will persist only in hearing + that unfortunate fiddle out of tune. + </p> + <p> + Within—except where the rococo architects have introduced their + ornaments (here is the fiddle out of tune again)—the cathedral is + noble. A rich, tender sunshine is streaming in through the windows, and + gilding the stately edifice with the purest light. The admirable + stained-glass windows are not too brilliant in their colors. The organ is + playing a rich, solemn music; some two hundred of people are listening to + the service; and there is scarce one of the women kneeling on her chair, + enveloped in her full majestic black drapery, that is not a fine study for + a painter. These large black mantles of heavy silk brought over the heads + of the women, and covering their persons, fall into such fine folds of + drapery, that they cannot help being picturesque and noble. See, kneeling + by the side of two of those fine devout-looking figures, is a lady in a + little twiddling Parisian hat and feather, in a little lace mantelet, in a + tight gown and a bustle. She is almost as monstrous as yonder figure of + the Virgin, in a hoop, and with a huge crown and a ball and a sceptre; and + a bambino dressed in a little hoop, and in a little crown, round which are + clustered flowers and pots of orange-trees, and before which many of the + faithful are at prayer. Gentle clouds of incense come wafting through the + vast edifice; and in the lulls of the music you hear the faint chant of + the priest, and the silver tinkle of the bell. + </p> + <p> + Six Englishmen, with the commissionaires, and the "Murray's Guide-books" + in their hands, are looking at the "Descent from the Cross." Of this + picture the "Guide-book" gives you orders how to judge. If it is the end + of religious painting to express the religious sentiment, a hundred of + inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. Who was ever piously affected + by any picture of the master? He can depict a livid thief writhing upon + the cross, sometimes a blond Magdalen weeping below it; but it is a + Magdalen a very short time indeed after her repentance: her yellow + brocades and flaring satins are still those which she wore when she was of + the world; her body has not yet lost the marks of the feasting and + voluptuousness in which she used to indulge, according to the legend. Not + one of the Rubens's pictures among all the scores that decorate chapels + and churches here, has the least tendency to purify, to touch the + affections, or to awaken the feelings of religious respect and wonder. The + "Descent from the Cross" is vast, gloomy, and awful; but the awe inspired + by it is, as I take it, altogether material. He might have painted a + picture of any criminal broken on the wheel, and the sensation inspired by + it would have been precisely similar. Nor in a religious picture do you + want the savoir-faire of the master to be always protruding itself; it + detracts from the feeling of reverence, just as the thumping of cushion + and the spouting of tawdry oratory does from a sermon: meek religion + disappears, shouldered out of the desk by the pompous, stalwart, + big-chested, fresh-colored, bushy-whiskered pulpiteer. Rubens's piety has + always struck us as of this sort. If he takes a pious subject, it is to + show you in what a fine way he, Peter Paul Rubens, can treat it. He never + seems to doubt but that he is doing it a great honor. His "Descent from + the Cross," and its accompanying wings and cover, are a set of puns upon + the word Christopher, of which the taste is more odious than that of the + hooped-petticoated Virgin yonder, with her artificial flowers, and her + rings and brooches. The people who made an offering of that hooped + petticoat did their best, at any rate; they knew no better. There is + humility in that simple, quaint present; trustfulness and kind intention. + Looking about at other altars, you see (much to the horror of pious + Protestants) all sorts of queer little emblems hanging up under little + pyramids of penny candles that are sputtering and flaring there. Here you + have a silver arm, or a little gold toe, or a wax leg, or a gilt eye, + signifying and commemorating cures that have been performed by the + supposed intercession of the saint over whose chapel they hang. Well, + although they are abominable superstitions, yet these queer little + offerings seem to me to be a great deal more pious than Rubens's big + pictures; just as is the widow with her poor little mite compared to the + swelling Pharisee who flings his purse of gold into the plate. + </p> + <p> + A couple of days of Rubens and his church pictures makes one thoroughly + and entirely sick of him. His very genius and splendor pails upon one, + even taking the pictures as worldly pictures. One grows weary of being + perpetually feasted with this rich, coarse, steaming food. Considering + them as church pictures, I don't want to go to church to hear, however + splendid, an organ play the "British Grenadiers." + </p> + <p> + The Antwerpians have set up a clumsy bronze statue of their divinity in a + square of the town; and those who have not enough of Rubens in the + churches may study him, and indeed to much greater advantage, in a good, + well-lighted museum. Here, there is one picture, a dying saint taking the + communion, a large piece ten or eleven feet high, and painted in an + incredibly short space of time, which is extremely curious indeed for the + painter's study. The picture is scarcely more than an immense magnificent + sketch; but it tells the secret of the artist's manner, which, in the + midst of its dash and splendor, is curiously methodical. Where the shadows + are warm the lights are cold, and vice versa; and the picture has been so + rapidly painted, that the tints lie raw by the side of one another, the + artist not having taken the trouble to blend them. + </p> + <p> + There are two exquisite Vandykes (whatever Sir Joshua may say of them), + and in which the very management of the gray tones which the President + abuses forms the principal excellence and charm. Why, after all, are we + not to have our opinion? Sir Joshua is not the Pope. The color of one of + those Vandykes is as fine as FINE Paul Veronese, and the sentiment + beautifully tender and graceful. + </p> + <p> + I saw, too, an exhibition of the modern Belgian artists (1843), the + remembrance of whose pictures after a month's absence has almost entirely + vanished. Wappers's hand, as I thought, seemed to have grown old and + feeble, Verboeckhoven's cattle-pieces are almost as good as Paul Potter's, + and Keyser has dwindled down into namby-pamby prettiness, pitiful to see + in the gallant young painter who astonished the Louvre artists ten years + ago by a hand almost as dashing and ready as that of Rubens himself. There + were besides many caricatures of the new German school, which are in + themselves caricatures of the masters before Raphael. + </p> + <p> + An instance of honesty may be mentioned here with applause. The writer + lost a pocket-book containing a passport and a couple of modest ten-pound + notes. The person who found the portfolio ingeniously put it into the box + of the post-office, and it was faithfully restored to the owner; but + somehow the two ten-pound notes were absent. It was, however, a great + comfort to get the passport, and the pocket-book, which must be worth + about ninepence. + </p> + <p> + BRUSSELS. + </p> + <p> + It was night when we arrived by the railroad from Antwerp at Brussels; the + route is very pretty and interesting, and the flat countries through which + the road passes in the highest state of peaceful, smiling cultivation. The + fields by the roadside are enclosed by hedges as in England, the harvest + was in part down, and an English country gentleman who was of our party + pronounced the crops to be as fine as any he had ever seen. Of this matter + a Cockney cannot judge accurately, but any man can see with what + extraordinary neatness and care all these little plots of ground are + tilled, and admire the richness and brilliancy of the vegetation. Outside + of the moat of Antwerp, and at every village by which we passed, it was + pleasant to see the happy congregations of well-clad people that basked in + the evening sunshine, and soberly smoked their pipes and drank their + Flemish beer. Men who love this drink must, as I fancy, have something + essentially peaceful in their composition, and must be more easily + satisfied than folks on our side of the water. The excitement of Flemish + beer is, indeed, not great. I have tried both the white beer and the + brown; they are both of the kind which schoolboys denominate "swipes," + very sour and thin to the taste, but served, to be sure, in quaint Flemish + jugs that do not seem to have changed their form since the days of Rubens, + and must please the lovers of antiquarian knick-knacks. Numbers of + comfortable-looking women and children sat beside the head of the family + upon the tavern-benches, and it was amusing to see one little fellow of + eight years old smoking, with much gravity, his father's cigar. How the + worship of the sacred plant of tobacco has spread through all Europe! I am + sure that the persons who cry out against the use of it are guilty of + superstition and unreason, and that it would be a proper and easy task for + scientific persons to write an encomium upon the weed. In solitude it is + the pleasantest companion possible, and in company never de trop. To a + student it suggests all sorts of agreeable thoughts, it refreshes the + brain when weary, and every sedentary cigar-smoker will tell you how much + good he has had from it, and how he has been able to return to his labor, + after a quarter of an hour's mild interval of the delightful leaf of + Havana. Drinking has gone from among us since smoking came in. It is a + wicked error to say that smokers are drunkards; drink they do, but of + gentle diluents mostly, for fierce stimulants of wine or strong liquors + are abhorrent to the real lover of the Indian weed. Ah! my Juliana, join + not in the vulgar cry that is raised against us. Cigars and cool drinks + beget quiet conversations, good-humor, meditation; not hot blood such as + mounts into the head of drinkers of apoplectic port or dangerous claret. + Are we not more moral and reasonable than our forefathers? Indeed I think + so somewhat; and many improvements of social life and converse must date + with the introduction of the pipe. + </p> + <p> + We were a dozen tobacco-consumers in the wagon of the train that brought + us from Antwerp; nor did the women of the party (sensible women!) make a + single objection to the fumigation. But enough of this; only let me add, + in conclusion, that an excellent Israelitish gentleman, Mr. Hartog of + Antwerp, supplies cigars for a penny apiece, such as are not to be + procured in London for four times the sum. + </p> + <p> + Through smiling corn-fields, then, and by little woods from which rose + here and there the quaint peaked towers of some old-fashioned chateaux, + our train went smoking along at thirty miles an hour. We caught a glimpse + of Mechlin steeple, at first dark against the sunset, and afterwards + bright as we came to the other side of it, and admired long glistening + canals or moats that surrounded the queer old town, and were lighted up in + that wonderful way which the sun only understands, and not even Mr. + Turner, with all his vermilion and gamboge, can put down on canvas. The + verdure was everywhere astonishing, and we fancied we saw many golden + Cuyps as we passed by these quiet pastures. + </p> + <p> + Steam-engines and their accompaniments, blazing forges, gaunt + manufactories, with numberless windows and long black chimneys, of course + take away from the romance of the place but, as we whirled into Brussels, + even these engines had a fine appearance. Three or four of the snorting, + galloping monsters had just finished their journey, and there was a + quantity of flaming ashes lying under the brazen bellies of each that + looked properly lurid and demoniacal. The men at the station came out with + flaming torches—awful-looking fellows indeed! Presently the + different baggage was handed out, and in the very worst vehicle I ever + entered, and at the very slowest pace, we were borne to the "Hotel de + Suede," from which house of entertainment this letter is written. + </p> + <p> + We strolled into the town, but, though the night was excessively fine and + it was not yet eleven o'clock, the streets of the little capital were + deserted, and the handsome blazing cafes round about the theatres + contained no inmates. Ah, what a pretty sight is the Parisian Boulevard on + a night like this! how many pleasant hours has one passed in watching the + lights, and the hum, and the stir, and the laughter of those happy, idle + people! There was none of this gayety here; nor was there a person to be + found, except a skulking commissioner or two (whose real name in French is + that of a fish that is eaten with fennel-sauce), and who offered to + conduct us to certain curiosities in the town. What must we English not + have done, that in every town in Europe we are to be fixed upon by + scoundrels of this sort; and what a pretty reflection it is on our country + that such rascals find the means of living on us! + </p> + <p> + Early the next morning we walked through a number of streets in the place, + and saw certain sights. The Park is very pretty, and all the buildings + round about it have an air of neatness—almost of stateliness. The + houses are tall, the streets spacious, and the roads extremely clean. In + the Park is a little theatre, a cafe somewhat ruinous, a little palace for + the king of this little kingdom, some smart public buildings (with S. P. + Q. B. emblazoned on them, at which pompous inscription one cannot help + laughing), and other rows of houses somewhat resembling a little Rue de + Rivoli. Whether from my own natural greatness and magnanimity, or from + that handsome share of national conceit that every Englishman possesses, + my impressions of this city are certainly anything but respectful. It has + an absurd kind of Lilliput look with it. There are soldiers, just as in + Paris, better dressed, and doing a vast deal of drumming and bustle; and + yet, somehow, far from being frightened at them, I feel inclined to laugh + in their faces. There are little Ministers, who work at their little + bureaux; and to read the journals, how fierce they are! A great thundering + Times could hardly talk more big. One reads about the rascally Ministers, + the miserable Opposition, the designs of tyrants, the eyes of Europe, + &c., just as one would in real journals. The Moniteur of Ghent + belabors the Independent of Brussels; the Independent falls foul of the + Lynx; and really it is difficult not to suppose sometimes that these + worthy people are in earnest. And yet how happy were they sua si bona + norint! Think what a comfort it would be to belong to a little state like + this; not to abuse their privilege, but philosophically to use it. If I + were a Belgian, I would not care one single fig about politics. I would + not read thundering leading-articles. I would not have an opinion. What's + the use of an opinion here? Happy fellows! do not the French, the English, + and the Prussians, spare them the trouble of thinking, and make all their + opinions for them? Think of living in a country free, easy, respectable, + wealthy, and with the nuisance of talking politics removed from out of it. + All this might the Belgians have, and a part do they enjoy, but not the + best part; no, these people will be brawling and by the ears, and parties + run as high here as at Stoke Pogis or little Pedlington. + </p> + <p> + These sentiments were elicited by the reading of a paper at the cafe in + the Park, where we sat under the trees for a while and sipped our cool + lemonade. Numbers of statues decorate the place, the very worst I ever + saw. These Cupids must have been erected in the time of the Dutch dynasty, + as I judge from the immense posterior developments. Indeed the arts of the + country are very low. The statues here, and the lions before the Prince of + Orange's palace, would disgrace almost the figurehead of a ship. + </p> + <p> + Of course we paid our visit to this little lion of Brussels (the Prince's + palace, I mean). The architecture of the building is admirably simple and + firm; and you remark about it, and all other works here, a high finish in + doors, wood-works, paintings, &c., that one does not see in France, + where the buildings are often rather sketched than completed, and the + artist seems to neglect the limbs, as it were, and extremities of his + figures. + </p> + <p> + The finish of this little place is exquisite. We went through some dozen + of state-rooms, paddling along over the slippery floors of inlaid woods in + great slippers, without which we must have come to the ground. How did his + Royal Highness the Prince of Orange manage when he lived here, and her + Imperial Highness the Princess, and their excellencies the chamberlains + and the footmen? They must have been on their tails many times a day, + that's certain, and must have cut queer figures. + </p> + <p> + The ball-room is beautiful—all marble, and yet with a comfortable, + cheerful look; the other apartments are not less agreeable, and the people + looked with intense satisfaction at some great lapis-lazuli tables, which + the guide informed us were worth four millions, more or less; adding with + a very knowing look, that they were un peu plus cher que l'or. This speech + has a tremendous effect on visitors, and when we met some of our steamboat + companions in the Park or elsewhere—in so small a place as this one + falls in with them a dozen times a day—"Have you seen the tables?" + was the general question. Prodigious tables are they, indeed! Fancy a + table, my dear—a table four feet wide—a table with legs. Ye + heavens! the mind can hardly picture to itself anything so beautiful and + so tremendous! + </p> + <p> + There are some good pictures in the palace, too, but not so + extraordinarily good as the guide-books and the guide would have us to + think. The latter, like most men of his class, is an ignoramus, who showed + us an Andrea del Sarto (copy or original), and called it a Correggio, and + made other blunders of a like nature. As is the case in England, you are + hurried through the rooms without being allowed time to look at the + pictures, and, consequently, to pronounce a satisfactory judgment on them. + </p> + <p> + In the Museum more time was granted me, and I spent some hours with + pleasure there. It is an absurd little gallery, absurdly imitating the + Louvre, with just such compartments and pillars as you see in the noble + Paris gallery; only here the pillars and capitals are stucco and white in + place of marble and gold, and plaster-of-paris busts of great Belgians are + placed between the pillars. An artist of the country has made a picture + containing them, and you will be ashamed of your ignorance when you hear + many of their names. Old Tilly of Magdeburg figures in one corner; Rubens, + the endless Rubens, stands in the midst. What a noble countenance it is, + and what a manly, swaggering consciousness of power! + </p> + <p> + The picture to see here is a portrait, by the great Peter Paul, of one of + the governesses of the Netherlands. It is just the finest portrait that + ever was seen. Only a half-length, but such a majesty, such a force, such + a splendor, such a simplicity about it! The woman is in a stiff black + dress, with a ruff and a few pearls; a yellow curtain is behind her—the + simplest arrangement that can be conceived; but this great man knew how to + rise to his occasion; and no better proof can be shown of what a fine + gentleman he was than this his homage to the vice-Queen. A common bungler + would have painted her in her best clothes, with crown and sceptre, just + as our Queen has been painted by—but comparisons are odious. Here + stands this majestic woman in her every-day working-dress of black satin, + LOOKING YOUR HAT OFF, as it were. Another portrait of the same personage + hangs elsewhere in the gallery, and it is curious to observe the + difference between the two, and see how a man of genius paints a portrait, + and how a common limner executes it. + </p> + <p> + Many more pictures are there here by Rubens, or rather from Rubens's + manufactory,—odious and vulgar most of them are; fat Magdalens, + coarse Saints, vulgar Virgins, with the scene-painter's tricks far too + evident upon the canvas. By the side of one of the most astonishing + color-pieces in the world, the "Worshipping of the Magi," is a famous + picture of Paul Veronese that cannot be too much admired. As Rubens sought + in the first picture to dazzle and astonish by gorgeous variety, Paul in + his seems to wish to get his effect by simplicity, and has produced the + most noble harmony that can be conceived. Many more works are there that + merit notice,—a singularly clever, brilliant, and odious Jordaens, + for example; some curious costume-pieces; one or two works by the Belgian + Raphael, who was a very Belgian Raphael, indeed; and a long gallery of + pictures of the very oldest school, that, doubtless, afford much pleasure + to the amateurs of ancient art. I confess that I am inclined to believe in + very little that existed before the time of Raphael. There is, for + instance, the Prince of Orange's picture by Perugino, very pretty indeed, + up to a certain point, but all the heads are repeated, all the drawing is + bad and affected; and this very badness and affectation, is what the + so-called Catholic school is always anxious to imitate. Nothing can be + more juvenile or paltry than the works of the native Belgians here + exhibited. Tin crowns are suspended over many of them, showing that the + pictures are prize compositions: and pretty things, indeed, they are! Have + you ever read an Oxford prize-poem! Well, these pictures are worse even + than the Oxford poems—an awful assertion to make. + </p> + <p> + In the matter of eating, dear sir, which is the next subject of the fine + arts, a subject that, after many hours' walking, attracts a gentleman very + much, let me attempt to recall the transactions of this very day at the + table-d'-hote. 1, green pea-soup; 2, boiled salmon; 3, mussels; 4, crimped + skate; 5, roast-meat; 6, patties; 7, melons; 8, carp, stewed with + mushrooms and onions; 9, roast-turkey; 10, cauliflower and butter; 11, + fillets of venison piques, with asafoetida sauce; 12, stewed calf's-ear; + 13, roast-veal; 14, roast-lamb; 15, stewed cherries; 16, rice-pudding; 17, + Gruyere cheese, and about twenty-four cakes of different kinds. Except 5, + 13, and 14, I give you my word I ate of all written down here, with three + rolls of bread and a score of potatoes. What is the meaning of it? How is + the stomach of man to be brought to desire and to receive all this + quantity? Do not gastronomists complain of heaviness in London after + eating a couple of mutton-chops? Do not respectable gentlemen fall asleep + in their arm-chairs? Are they fit for mental labor? Far from it. But look + at the difference here: after dinner here one is as light as a gossamer. + One walks with pleasure, reads with pleasure, writes with pleasure—nay, + there is the supper-bell going at ten o'clock, and plenty of eaters, too. + Let lord mayors and aldermen look to it, this fact of the extraordinary + increase of appetite in Belgium, and, instead of steaming to Blackwall, + come a little further to Antwerp. + </p> + <p> + Of ancient architectures in the place, there is a fine old Port de Halle, + which has a tall, gloomy, bastille look; a most magnificent town-hall, + that has been sketched a thousand of times, and opposite it, a building + that I think would be the very model for a Conservative club-house in + London. Oh! how charming it would be to be a great painter, and give the + character of the building, and the numberless groups round about it. The + booths lighted up by the sun, the market-women in their gowns of brilliant + hue, each group having a character and telling its little story, the + troops of men lolling in all sorts of admirable attitudes of ease round + the great lamp. Half a dozen light-blue dragoons are lounging about, and + peeping over the artist as the drawing is made, and the sky is more bright + and blue than one sees it in a hundred years in London. + </p> + <p> + The priests of the country are a remarkably well-fed and respectable race, + without that scowling, hang-dog look which one has remarked among reverend + gentlemen in the neighboring country of France. Their reverences wear + buckles to their shoes, light-blue neck-cloths, and huge three-cornered + hats in good condition. To-day, strolling by the cathedral, I heard the + tinkling of a bell in the street, and beheld certain persons, male and + female, suddenly plump down on their knees before a little procession that + was passing. Two men in black held a tawdry red canopy, a priest walked + beneath it holding the sacrament covered with a cloth, and before him + marched a couple of little altar-boys in short white surplices, such as + you see in Rubens, and holding lacquered lamps. A small train of + street-boys followed the procession, cap in hand, and the clergyman + finally entered a hospital for old women, near the church, the canopy and + the lamp-bearers remaining without. + </p> + <p> + It was a touching scene, and as I stayed to watch it, I could not but + think of the poor old soul who was dying within, listening to the last + words of prayer, led by the hand of the priest to the brink of the black + fathomless grave. How bright the sun was shining without all the time, and + how happy and careless every thing around us looked! + </p> + <p> + The Duke d'Arenberg has a picture-gallery worthy of his princely house. It + does not contain great pieces, but tit-bits of pictures, such as suit an + aristocratic epicure. For such persons a great huge canvas is too much, it + is like sitting down alone to a roasted ox; and they do wisely, I think, + to patronize small, high-flavored, delicate morceaux, such as the Duke has + here. + </p> + <p> + Among them may be mentioned, with special praise, a magnificent small + Rembrandt, a Paul Potter of exceeding minuteness and beauty, an Ostade, + which reminds one of Wilkie's early performances, and a Dusart quite as + good as Ostade. There is a Berghem, much more unaffected than that + artist's works generally are; and, what is more, precious in the eyes of + many ladies as an object of art, there is, in one of the grand saloons, + some needlework done by the Duke's own grandmother, which is looked at + with awe by those admitted to see the palace. + </p> + <p> + The chief curiosity, if not the chief ornament of a very elegant library, + filled with vases and bronzes, is a marble head, supposed to be the + original head of the Laocoon. It is, unquestionably a finer head than that + which at present figures upon the shoulders of the famous statue. The + expression of woe is more manly and intense; in the group as we know it, + the head of the principal figure has always seemed to me to be a grimace + of grief, as are the two accompanying young gentlemen with their pretty + attitudes, and their little silly, open-mouthed despondency. It has always + had upon me the effect of a trick, that statue, and not of a piece of true + art. It would look well in the vista of a garden; it is not august enough + for a temple, with all its jerks and twirls, and polite convulsions. But + who knows what susceptibilities such a confession may offend? Let us say + no more about the Laocoon, nor its head, nor its tail. The Duke was + offered its weight in gold, they say, for this head, and refused. It would + be a shame to speak ill of such a treasure, but I have my opinion of the + man who made the offer. + </p> + <p> + In the matter of sculpture almost all the Brussels churches are decorated + with the most laborious wooden pulpits, which may be worth their weight in + gold, too, for what I know, including his reverence preaching inside. At + St. Gudule the preacher mounts into no less a place than the garden of + Eden, being supported by Adam and Eve, by Sin and Death, and numberless + other animals; he walks up to his desk by a rustic railing of flowers, + fruits, and vegetables, with wooden peacocks, paroquets, monkeys biting + apples, and many more of the birds and beasts of the field. In another + church the clergyman speaks from out a hermitage; in a third from a carved + palm-tree, which supports a set of oak clouds that form the canopy of the + pulpit, and are, indeed, not much heavier in appearance than so many huge + sponges. A priest, however tall or stout, must be lost in the midst of all + these queer gimcracks; in order to be consistent, they ought to dress him + up, too, in some odd fantastical suit. I can fancy the Cure of Meudon + preaching out of such a place, or the Rev. Sydney Smith, or that famous + clergyman of the time of the League, who brought all Paris to laugh and + listen to him. + </p> + <p> + But let us not be too supercilious and ready to sneer. It is only bad + taste. It may have been very true devotion which erected these strange + edifices. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II.—GHENT—BRUGES. + </h2> + <p> + GHENT. (1840.) + </p> + <p> + The Beguine College or Village is one of the most extraordinary sights + that all Europe can show. On the confines of the town of Ghent you come + upon an old-fashioned brick gate, that seems as if it were one of the city + barriers; but, on passing it, one of the prettiest sights possible meets + the eye: At the porter's lodge you see an old lady, in black and a white + hood, occupied over her book; before you is a red church with a tall roof + and fantastical Dutch pinnacles, and all around it rows upon rows of small + houses, the queerest, neatest, nicest that ever were seen (a doll's house + is hardly smaller or prettier). Right and left, on each side of little + alleys, these little mansions rise; they have a courtlet before them, in + which some green plants or hollyhocks are growing; and to each house is a + gate, that has mostly a picture or queer-carved ornament upon or about it, + and bears the name, not of the Beguine who inhabits it, but of the saint + to whom she may have devoted it—the house of St. Stephen, the house + of St. Donatus, the English or Angel Convent, and so on. Old ladies in + black are pacing in the quiet alleys here and there, and drop the stranger + a curtsy as he passes them and takes off his hat. Never were such patterns + of neatness seen as these old ladies and their houses. I peeped into one + or two of the chambers, of which the windows were open to the pleasant + evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously plain, a quaint old chair or two, + and little pictures of favorite saints decorating the spotless white + walls. The old ladies kept up a quick, cheerful clatter, as they paused to + gossip at the gates of their little domiciles; and with a great deal of + artifice, and lurking behind walls, and looking at the church as if I + intended to design that, I managed to get a sketch of a couple of them. + </p> + <p> + But what white paper can render the whiteness of their linen; what black + ink can do justice to the lustre of their gowns and shoes? Both of the + ladies had a neat ankle and a tight stocking; and I fancy that heaven is + quite as well served in this costume as in the dress of a scowling, + stockingless friar, whom I had seen passing just before. The look and + dress of the man made me shudder. His great red feet were bound up in a + shoe open at the toes, a kind of compromise for a sandal. I had just seen + him and his brethren at the Dominican Church, where a mass of music was + sung, and orange-trees, flags, and banners decked the aisle of the church. + </p> + <p> + One begins to grow sick of these churches, and the hideous exhibitions of + bodily agonies that are depicted on the sides of all the chapels. Into one + wherein we went this morning was what they called a Calvary: a horrible, + ghastly image of a Christ in a tomb, the figure of the natural size, and + of the livid color of death; gaping red wounds on the body and round the + brows: the whole piece enough to turn one sick, and fit only to brutalize + the beholder of it. The Virgin is commonly represented with a dozen swords + stuck in her heart; bleeding throats of headless John Baptists are + perpetually thrust before your eyes. At the Cathedral gate was a + papier-mache church-ornament shop—most of the carvings and reliefs + of the same dismal character: one, for instance, represented a heart with + a great gash in it, and a double row of large blood-drops dribbling from + it; nails and a knife were thrust into the heart; round the whole was a + crown of thorns. Such things are dreadful to think of. The same gloomy + spirit which made a religion of them, and worked upon the people by the + grossest of all means, terror, distracted the natural feelings of man to + maintain its power—shut gentle women into lonely, pitiless convents—frightened + poor peasants with tales of torment—taught that the end and labor of + life was silence, wretchedness, and the scourge—murdered those by + fagot and prison who thought otherwise. How has the blind and furious + bigotry of man perverted that which God gave us as our greatest boon, and + bid us hate where God bade us love! Thank heaven that monk has gone out of + sight! It is pleasant to look at the smiling, cheerful old Beguine, and + think no more of yonder livid face. + </p> + <p> + One of the many convents in this little religious city seems to be the + specimen-house, which is shown to strangers, for all the guides conduct + you thither, and I saw in a book kept for the purpose the names of + innumerable Smiths and Joneses registered. + </p> + <p> + A very kind, sweet-voiced, smiling nun (I wonder, do they always choose + the most agreeable and best-humored sister of the house to show it to + strangers?) came tripping down the steps and across the flags of the + little garden-court, and welcomed us with much courtesy into the neat + little old-fashioned, red-bricked, gable-ended, shining-windowed Convent + of the Angels. First she showed us a whitewashed parlor, decorated with a + grim picture or two and some crucifixes and other religious emblems, + where, upon stiff old chairs, the sisters sit and work. Three or four of + them were still there, pattering over their laces and bobbins; but the + chief part of the sisterhood were engaged in an apartment hard by, from + which issued a certain odor which I must say resembled onions: it was in + fact the kitchen of the establishment. + </p> + <p> + Every Beguine cooks her own little dinner in her own little pipkin; and + there was half a score of them, sure enough, busy over their pots and + crockery, cooking a repast which, when ready, was carried off to a + neighboring room, the refectory, where, at a ledge-table which is drawn + out from under her own particular cupboard, each nun sits down and eats + her meal in silence. More religious emblems ornamented the carved + cupboard-doors, and within, everything was as neat as neat could be: + shining pewter-ewers and glasses, snug baskets of eggs and pats of butter, + and little bowls with about a farthing's-worth of green tea in them—for + some great day of fete, doubtless. The old ladies sat round as we examined + these things, each eating soberly at her ledge and never looking round. + There was a bell ringing in the chapel hard by. "Hark!" said our guide, + "that is one of the sisters dying. Will you come up and see the cells?" + </p> + <p> + The cells, it need not be said, are the snuggest little nests in the + world, with serge-curtained beds and snowy linen, and saints and martyrs + pinned against the wall. "We may sit up till twelve o'clock, if we like," + said the nun; "but we have no fire and candle, and so what's the use of + sitting up? When we have said our prayers we are glad enough to go to + sleep." + </p> + <p> + I forget, although the good soul told us, how many times in the day, in + public and in private, these devotions are made, but fancy that the + morning service in the chapel takes place at too early an hour for most + easy travellers. We did not fail to attend in the evening, when likewise + is a general muster of the seven hundred, minus the absent and sick, and + the sight is not a little curious and striking to a stranger. + </p> + <p> + The chapel is a very big whitewashed place of worship, supported by half a + dozen columns on either side, over each of which stands the statue of an + Apostle, with his emblem of martyrdom. Nobody was as yet at the distant + altar, which was too far off to see very distinctly; but I could perceive + two statues over it, one of which (St. Laurence, no doubt) was leaning + upon a huge gilt gridiron that the sun lighted up in a blaze—a + painful but not a romantic instrument of death. A couple of old ladies in + white hoods were tugging and swaying about at two bell-ropes that came + down into the middle of the church, and at least five hundred others in + white veils were seated all round about us in mute contemplation until the + service began, looking very solemn, and white, and ghastly, like an army + of tombstones by moonlight. + </p> + <p> + The service commenced as the clock finished striking seven: the organ + pealed out, a very cracked and old one, and presently some weak old voice + from the choir overhead quavered out a canticle; which done, a thin old + voice of a priest at the altar far off (and which had now become quite + gloomy in the sunset) chanted feebly another part of the service; then the + nuns warbled once more overhead; and it was curious to hear, in the + intervals of the most lugubrious chants, how the organ went off with some + extremely cheerful military or profane air. At one time was a march, at + another a quick tune; which ceasing, the old nuns began again, and so sung + until the service was ended. + </p> + <p> + In the midst of it one of the white-veiled sisters approached us with a + very mysterious air, and put down her white veil close to our ears and + whispered. Were we doing anything wrong, I wondered? Were they come to + that part of the service where heretics and infidels ought to quit the + church? What have you to ask, O sacred, white-veiled maid? + </p> + <p> + All she said was, "Deux centiemes pour les suisses," which sum was paid; + and presently the old ladies, rising from their chairs one by one, came in + face of the altar, where they knelt down and said a short prayer; then, + rising, unpinned their veils, and folded them up all exactly in the same + folds and fashion, and laid them square like napkins on their heads, and + tucked up their long black outer dresses, and trudged off to their + convents. + </p> + <p> + The novices wear black veils, under one of which I saw a young, sad, + handsome face; it was the only thing in the establishment that was the + least romantic or gloomy: and, for the sake of any reader of a sentimental + turn, let us hope that the poor soul has been crossed in love, and that + over some soul-stirring tragedy that black curtain has fallen. + </p> + <p> + Ghent has, I believe, been called a vulgar Venice. It contains dirty + canals and old houses that must satisfy the most eager antiquary, though + the buildings are not quite in so good preservation as others that may be + seen in the Netherlands. The commercial bustle of the place seems + considerable, and it contains more beer-shops than any city I ever saw. + </p> + <p> + These beer-shops seem the only amusement of the inhabitants, until, at + least, the theatre shall be built, of which the elevation is now complete, + a very handsome and extensive pile. There are beer-shops in the cellars of + the houses, which are frequented, it is to be presumed, by the lower sort; + there are beer-shops at the barriers, where the citizens and their + families repair; and beer-shops in the town, glaring with gas, with long + gauze blinds, however, to hide what I hear is a rather questionable + reputation. + </p> + <p> + Our inn, the "Hotel of the Post," a spacious and comfortable residence, is + on a little place planted round with trees, and that seems to be the + Palais Royal of the town. Three clubs, which look from without to be very + comfortable, ornament this square with their gas-lamps. Here stands, too, + the theatre that is to be; there is a cafe, and on evenings a military + band plays the very worst music I ever remember to have heard. I went out + to-night to take a quiet walk upon this place, and the horrid brazen + discord of these trumpeters set me half mad. + </p> + <p> + I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a subterraneous + beer-shop, where men and women were drinking to the sweet music of a + cracked barrel-organ. They take in a couple of French papers at this cafe, + and the same number of Belgian journals. You may imagine how well the + latter are informed, when you hear that the battle of Boulogne, fought by + the immortal Louis Napoleon, was not known here until some gentlemen out + of Norfolk brought the news from London, and until it had travelled to + Paris, and from Paris to Brussels. For a whole hour I could not get a + newspaper at the cafe. The horrible brass band in the meantime had quitted + the place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of little boys + came to the cafe and set up a small concert: one played ill on the guitar, + but sang, very sweetly, plaintive French ballads; the other was the comic + singer; he carried about with him a queer, long, damp-looking, mouldy + white hat, with no brim. "Ecoutez," said the waiter to me, "il va faire + l'Anglais; c'est tres drole!" The little rogue mounted his immense + brimless hat, and, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his + waistcoat, began to faire l'Anglais, with a song in which swearing was the + principal joke. We all laughed at this, and indeed the little rascal + seemed to have a good deal of humor. + </p> + <p> + How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as much as in France! What + lies they tell of us; how gladly they would see us humiliated! Honest + folks at home over their port-wine say, "Ay, ay, and very good reason they + have too. National vanity, sir, wounded—we have beaten them so + often." My dear sir, there is not a greater error in the world than this. + They hate you because you are stupid, hard to please, and intolerably + insolent and air-giving. I walked with an Englishman yesterday, who asked + the way to a street of which he pronounced the name very badly to a little + Flemish boy: the Flemish boy did not answer; and there was my Englishman + quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear as if he must answer. He + seemed to think that it was the duty of "the snob," as he called him, to + obey the gentleman. This is why we are hated—for pride. In our free + country a tradesman, a lackey, or a waiter will submit to almost any given + insult from a gentleman: in these benighted lands one man is as good as + another; and pray God it may soon be so with us! Of all European people, + which is the nation that has the most haughtiness, the strongest + prejudices, the greatest reserve, the greatest dulness? I say an + Englishman of the genteel classes. An honest groom jokes and hobs-and-nobs + and makes his way with the kitchen-maids, for there is good social nature + in the man; his master dare not unbend. Look at him, how he scowls at you + on your entering an inn-room; think how you scowl yourself to meet his + scowl. To-day, as we were walking and staring about the place, a worthy + old gentleman in a carriage, seeing a pair of strangers, took off his hat + and bowed very gravely with his old powdered head out of the window: I am + sorry to say that our first impulse was to burst out laughing—it + seemed so supremely ridiculous that a stranger should notice and welcome + another. + </p> + <p> + As for the notion that foreigners hate us because we have beaten them so + often, my dear sir, this is the greatest error in the world: well-educated + Frenchmen DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE BEATEN THEM. A man was once ready to + call me out in Paris because I said that we had beaten the French in + Spain; and here before me is a French paper, with a London correspondent + discoursing about Louis Buonaparte and his jackass expedition to Boulogne. + "He was received at Eglintoun, it is true," says the correspondent, "but + what do you think was the reason? Because the English nobility were + anxious to revenge upon his person (with some coups de lance) the checks + which the 'grand homme' his uncle had inflicted on us in Spain." + </p> + <p> + This opinion is so general among the French, that they would laugh at you + with scornful incredulity if you ventured to assert any other. Foy's + history of the Spanish War does not, unluckily, go far enough. I have read + a French history which hardly mentions the war in Spain, and calls the + battle of Salamanca a French victory. You know how the other day, and in + the teeth of all evidence, the French swore to their victory of Toulouse: + and so it is with the rest; and you may set it down as pretty certain, + 1st, That only a few people know the real state of things in France, as to + the matter in dispute between us; 2nd, That those who do, keep the truth + to themselves, and so it is as if it had never been. + </p> + <p> + These Belgians have caught up, and quite naturally, the French tone. We + are perfide Albion with them still. Here is the Ghent paper, which + declares that it is beyond a doubt that Louis Napoleon was sent by the + English and Lord Palmerston; and though it states in another part of the + journal (from English authority) that the Prince had never seen Lord + Palmerston, yet the lie will remain uppermost—the people and the + editor will believe it to the end of time. . . . See to what a digression + yonder little fellow in the tall hat has given rise! Let us make his + picture, and have done with him. + </p> + <p> + I could not understand, in my walks about this place, which is certainly + picturesque enough, and contains extraordinary charms in the shape of old + gables, quaint spires, and broad shining canals—I could not at first + comprehend why, for all this, the town was especially disagreeable to me, + and have only just hit on the reason why. Sweetest Juliana, you will never + guess it: it is simply this, that I have not seen a single decent-looking + woman in the whole place; they look all ugly, with coarse mouths, vulgar + figures, mean mercantile faces; and so the traveller walking among them + finds the pleasure of his walk excessively damped, and the impressions + made upon him disagreeable. + </p> + <p> + In the Academy there are no pictures of merit; but sometimes a second-rate + picture is as pleasing as the best, and one may pass an hour here very + pleasantly. There is a room appropriated to Belgian artists, of which I + never saw the like: they are, like all the rest of the things in this + country, miserable imitations of the French school—great nude + Venuses, and Junos a la David, with the drawing left out. + </p> + <p> + BRUGES. + </p> + <p> + The change from vulgar Ghent, with its ugly women and coarse bustle, to + this quiet, old, half-deserted, cleanly Bruges, was very pleasant. I have + seen old men at Versailles, with shabby coats and pigtails, sunning + themselves on the benches in the walls; they had seen better days, to be + sure, but they were gentlemen still: and so we found, this morning, old + dowager Bruges basking in the pleasant August sun, and looking if not + prosperous, at least cheerful and well-bred. It is the quaintest and + prettiest of all the quaint and pretty towns I have seen. A painter might + spend months here, and wander from church to church, and admire old towers + and pinnacles, tall gables, bright canals, and pretty little patches of + green garden and moss-grown wall, that reflect in the clear quiet water. + Before the inn-window is a garden, from which in the early morning issues + a most wonderful odor of stocks and wallflowers; next comes a road with + trees of admirable green; numbers of little children are playing in this + road (the place is so clean that they may roll in it all day without + soiling their pinafores), and on the other side of the trees are little + old-fashioned, dumpy, whitewashed, red-tiled houses. A poorer landscape to + draw never was known, nor a pleasanter to see—the children + especially, who are inordinately fat and rosy. Let it be remembered, too, + that here we are out of the country of ugly women: the expression of the + face is almost uniformly gentle and pleasing, and the figures of the + women, wrapped in long black monk-like cloaks and hoods, very picturesque. + No wonder there are so many children: the "Guide-book" (omniscient Mr. + Murray!) says there are fifteen thousand paupers in the town, and we know + how such multiply. How the deuce do their children look so fat and rosy? + By eating dirt-pies, I suppose. I saw a couple making a very nice savory + one, and another employed in gravely sticking strips of stick betwixt the + pebbles at the house-door, and so making for herself a stately garden. The + men and women don't seem to have much more to do. There are a couple of + tall chimneys at either suburb of the town, where no doubt manufactories + are at work, but within the walls everybody seems decently idle. + </p> + <p> + We have been, of course, abroad to visit the lions. The tower in the Grand + Place is very fine, and the bricks of which it is built do not yield a + whit in color to the best stone. The great building round this tower is + very like the pictures of the Ducal Palace at Venice; and there is a long + market area, with columns down the middle, from which hung shreds of + rather lean-looking meat, that would do wonders under the hands of + Cattermole or Haghe. In the tower there is a chime of bells that keep + ringing perpetually. They not only play tunes of themselves, and every + quarter of an hour, but an individual performs selections from popular + operas on them at certain periods of the morning, afternoon, and evening. + I have heard to-day "Suoni la Tromba," "Son Vergin Vezzosa," from the + "Puritani," and other airs, and very badly they were played too; for such + a great monster as a tower-bell cannot be expected to imitate Madame Grisi + or even Signor Lablache. Other churches indulge in the same amusement, so + that one may come here and live in melody all day or night, like the young + woman in Moore's "Lalla Rookh." + </p> + <p> + In the matter of art, the chief attractions of Bruges are the pictures of + Hemling, that are to be seen in the churches, the hospital, and the + picture-gallery of the place. There are no more pictures of Rubens to be + seen, and, indeed, in the course of a fortnight, one has had quite enough + of the great man and his magnificent, swaggering canvases. What a + difference is here with simple Hemling and the extraordinary creations of + his pencil! The hospital is particularly rich in them; and the legend + there is that the painter, who had served Charles the Bold in his war + against the Swiss, and his last battle and defeat, wandered back wounded + and penniless to Bruges, and here found cure and shelter. + </p> + <p> + This hospital is a noble and curious sight. The great hall is almost as it + was in the twelfth century; it is spanned by Saxon arches, and lighted by + a multiplicity of Gothic windows of all sizes; it is very lofty, clean, + and perfectly well ventilated; a screen runs across the middle of the + room, to divide the male from the female patients, and we were taken to + examine each ward, where the poor people seemed happier than possibly they + would have been in health and starvation without it. Great yellow blankets + were on the iron beds, the linen was scrupulously clean, glittering + pewter-jugs and goblets stood by the side of each patient, and they were + provided with godly books (to judge from the binding), in which several + were reading at leisure. Honest old comfortable nuns, in queer dresses of + blue, black, white, and flannel, were bustling through the room, attending + to the wants of the sick. I saw about a dozen of these kind women's faces: + one was young—all were healthy and cheerful. One came with bare blue + arms and a great pile of linen from an outhouse—such a grange as + Cedric the Saxon might have given to a guest for the night. A couple were + in a laboratory, a tall, bright, clean room, 500 years old at least. "We + saw you were not very religious," said one of the old ladies, with a red, + wrinkled, good-humored face, "by your behavior yesterday in chapel." And + yet we did not laugh and talk as we used at college, but were profoundly + affected by the scene that we saw there. It was a fete-day: a mass of + Mozart was sung in the evening—not well sung, and yet so exquisitely + tender and melodious, that it brought tears into our eyes. There were not + above twenty people in the church: all, save three or four, were women in + long black cloaks. I took them for nuns at first. They were, however, the + common people of the town, very poor indeed, doubtless, for the priest's + box that was brought round was not added to by most of them, and their + contributions were but two-cent pieces,—five of these go to a penny; + but we know the value of such, and can tell the exact worth of a poor + woman's mite! The box-bearer did not seem at first willing to accept our + donation—we were strangers and heretics; however, I held out my + hand, and he came perforce as it were. Indeed it had only a franc in it: + but que voulez-vous? I had been drinking a bottle of Rhine wine that day, + and how was I to afford more? The Rhine wine is dear in this country, and + costs four francs a bottle. + </p> + <p> + Well, the service proceeded. Twenty poor women, two Englishmen, four + ragged beggars, cowering on the steps; and there was the priest at the + altar, in a great robe of gold and damask, two little boys in white + surplices serving him, holding his robe as he rose and bowed, and the + money-gatherer swinging his censer, and filling the little chapel with + smoke. The music pealed with wonderful sweetness; you could see the prim + white heads of the nuns in their gallery. The evening light streamed down + upon old statues of saints and carved brown stalls, and lighted up the + head of the golden-haired Magdalen in a picture of the entombment of + Christ. Over the gallery, and, as it were, a kind protectress to the poor + below, stood the statue of the Virgin. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III.—WATERLOO. + </h2> + <p> + It is, my dear, the happy privilege of your sex in England to quit the + dinner-table after the wine-bottles have once or twice gone round it, and + you are thereby saved (though, to be sure, I can't tell what the ladies do + up stairs)—you are saved two or three hours' excessive dulness, + which the men are obliged to go through. + </p> + <p> + I ask any gentleman who reads this—the letters to my Juliana being + written with an eye to publication—to remember especially how many + times, how many hundred times, how many thousand times, in his hearing, + the battle of Waterloo has been discussed after dinner, and to call to + mind how cruelly he has been bored by the discussion. "Ah, it was lucky + for us that the Prussians came up!" says one little gentleman, looking + particularly wise and ominous. "Hang the Prussians!" (or, perhaps, + something stronger "the Prussians!") says a stout old major on half-pay. + "We beat the French without them, sir, as beaten them we always have! We + were thundering down the hill of Belle Alliance, sir, at the backs of + them, and the French were crying 'Sauve qui peut' long before the + Prussians ever touched them!" And so the battle opens, and for many mortal + hours, amid rounds of claret, rages over and over again. + </p> + <p> + I thought to myself considering the above things, what a fine thing it + will be in after-days to say that I have been to Brussels and never seen + the field of Waterloo; indeed, that I am such a philosopher as not to care + a fig about the battle—nay, to regret, rather, that when Napoleon + came back, the British Government had not spared their men and left him + alone. + </p> + <p> + But this pitch of philosophy was unattainable. This morning, after having + seen the Park, the fashionable boulevard, the pictures, the cafes—having + sipped, I say, the sweets of every flower that grows in this paradise of + Brussels, quite weary of the place, we mounted on a Namur diligence, and + jingled off at four miles an hour for Waterloo. + </p> + <p> + The road is very neat and agreeable: the Forest of Soignies here and there + interposes pleasantly, to give your vehicle a shade; the country, as + usual, is vastly fertile and well cultivated. A farmer and the conducteur + were my companions in the imperial, and could I have understood their + conversation, my dear, you should have had certainly a report of it. The + jargon which they talked was, indeed, most queer and puzzling—French, + I believe, strangely hashed up and pronounced, for here and there one + could catch a few words of it. Now and anon, however, they condescended to + speak in the purest French they could muster; and, indeed, nothing is more + curious than to hear the French of the country. You can't understand why + all the people insist upon speaking it so badly. I asked the conductor if + he had been at the battle; he burst out laughing like a philosopher, as he + was, and said "Pas si bete." I asked the farmer whether his contributions + were lighter now than in King William's time, and lighter than those in + the time of the Emperor? He vowed that in war-time he had not more to pay + than in time of peace (and this strange fact is vouched for by every + person of every nation), and being asked wherefore the King of Holland had + been ousted from his throne, replied at once, "Parceque c'etoit un + voleur:" for which accusation I believe there is some show of reason, his + Majesty having laid hands on much Belgian property before the lamented + outbreak which cost him his crown. A vast deal of laughing and roaring + passed between these two worldly people and the postilion, whom they + called "baron," and I thought no doubt that this talk was one of the many + jokes that my companions were in the habit of making. But not so: the + postilion was an actual baron, the bearer of an ancient name, the + descendant of gallant gentlemen. Good heavens! what would Mrs. Trollope + say to see his lordship here? His father the old baron had dissipated the + family fortune, and here was this young nobleman, at about five-and-forty, + compelled to bestride a clattering Flemish stallion, and bump over dusty + pavements at the rate of five miles an hour. But see the beauty of high + blood: with what a calm grace the man of family accommodates himself to + fortune. Far from being cast down, his lordship met his fate like a man: + he swore and laughed the whole of the journey, and as we changed horses, + condescended to partake of half a pint of Louvain beer, to which the + farmer treated him—indeed the worthy rustic treated me to a glass + too. + </p> + <p> + Much delight and instruction have I had in the course of the journey from + my guide, philosopher, and friend, the author of "Murray's Handbook." He + has gathered together, indeed, a store of information, and must, to make + his single volume, have gutted many hundreds of guide-books. How the + Continental ciceroni must hate him, whoever he is! Every English party I + saw had this infallible red book in their hands, and gained a vast deal of + historical and general information from it. Thus I heard, in confidence, + many remarkable anecdotes of Charles V., the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, + all of which I had before perceived, with much satisfaction, not only in + the "Handbook," but even in other works. + </p> + <p> + The Laureate is among the English poets evidently the great favorite of + our guide: the choice does honor to his head and heart. A man must have a + very strong bent for poetry, indeed, who carries Southey's works in his + portmanteau, and quotes them in proper time and occasion. Of course at + Waterloo a spirit like our guide's cannot fail to be deeply moved, and to + turn to his favorite poet for sympathy. Hark how the laureated bard sings + about the tombstones at Waterloo:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "That temple to our hearts was hallow'd now, + For many a wounded Briton there was laid, + With such for help as time might then allow, + From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed. + And they whom human succor could not save, + Here, in its precincts, found a hasty grave. + And here, on marble tablets, set on high, + In English lines by foreign workmen traced, + The names familiar to an English eye, + Their brethren here the fit memorial placed; + Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell + THEIR GALLANT COMRADES' rank, and where they fell. + The stateliest monument of human pride, + Enriched with all magnificence of art, + To honor chieftains who in victory died, + Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart + Than these plain tablets by the soldier's hand + Raised to his comrades in a foreign land." +</pre> + <p> + There are lines for you! wonderful for justice, rich in thought and novel + ideas. The passage concerning their gallant comrades' rank should be + specially remarked. There indeed they lie, sure enough: the Honorable + Colonel This of the Guards, Captain That of the Hussars, Major So-and-So + of the Dragoons, brave men and good, who did their duty by their country + on that day, and died in the performance of it. + </p> + <p> + Amen. But I confess fairly, that in looking at these tablets, I felt very + much disappointed at not seeing the names of the MEN as well as the + officers. Are they to be counted for nought? A few more inches of marble + to each monument would have given space for all the names of the men; and + the men of that day were the winners of the battle. We have a right to be + as grateful individually to any given private as to any given officer; + their duties were very much the same. Why should the country reserve its + gratitude for the genteel occupiers of the army-list, and forget the + gallant fellows whose humble names were written in the regimental books? + In reading of the Wellington wars, and the conduct of the men engaged in + them, I don't know whether to respect them or to wonder at them most. They + have death, wounds, and poverty in contemplation; in possession, poverty, + hard labor, hard fare, and small thanks. If they do wrong, they are handed + over to the inevitable provost-marshal; if they are heroes, heroes they + may be, but they remain privates still, handling the old brown-bess, + starving on the old twopence a day. They grow gray in battle and victory, + and after thirty years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, + fresh from a preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but + yesterday with a pinafore in to papa's dessert—such a young + gentleman, I say, arrives in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly takes + the command over our veteran, who obeys him as if God and nature had + ordained that so throughout time it should be. + </p> + <p> + That privates should obey, and that they should be smartly punished if + they disobey, this one can understand very well. But to say obey for ever + and ever—to say that Private John Styles is, by some physical + disproportion, hopelessly inferior to Cornet Snooks—to say that + Snooks shall have honors, epaulets, and a marble tablet if he dies, and + that Styles shall fight his fight, and have his twopence a day, and when + shot down shall be shovelled into a hole with other Styleses, and so + forgotten; and to think that we had in the course of the last war some + 400,000 of these Styleses, and some 10,000, say, of the Snooks sort—Styles + being by nature exactly as honest, clever, and brave as Snooks—and + to think that the 400,000 should bear this, is the wonder! + </p> + <p> + Suppose Snooks makes a speech. "Look at these Frenchmen, British + soldiers," says he, "and remember who they are. Two-and-twenty years since + they hurled their King from his throne and murdered him" (groans). "They + flung out of their country their ancient and famous nobility—they + published the audacious doctrine of equality—they made a cadet of + artillery, a beggarly lawyer's son, into an Emperor, and took ignoramuses + from the ranks—drummers and privates, by Jove!—of whom they + made kings, generals, and marshals! Is this to be borne?" (Cries of "No! + no!") "Upon them, my boys! down with these godless revolutionists, and + rally round the British lion!" + </p> + <p> + So saying, Ensign Snooks (whose flag, which he can't carry, is held by a + huge grizzly color-sergeant,) draws a little sword, and pipes out a feeble + huzza. The men of his company, roaring curses at the Frenchmen, prepare to + receive and repel a thundering charge of French cuirassiers. The men + fight, and Snooks is knighted because the men fought so well. + </p> + <p> + But live or die, win or lose, what do THEY get? English glory is too + genteel to meddle with those humble fellows. She does not condescend to + ask the names of the poor devils whom she kills in her service. Why was + not every private man's name written upon the stones in Waterloo Church as + well as every officer's? Five hundred pounds to the stone-cutters would + have served to carve the whole catalogue, and paid the poor compliment of + recognition to men who died in doing their duty. If the officers deserved + a stone, the men did. But come, let us away and drop a tear over the + Marquis of Anglesea's leg! + </p> + <p> + As for Waterloo, has it not been talked of enough after dinner? Here are + some oats that were plucked before Hougoumont, where grow not only oats, + but flourishing crops of grape-shot, bayonets, and legion-of-honor + crosses, in amazing profusion. + </p> + <p> + Well, though I made a vow not to talk about Waterloo either here or after + dinner, there is one little secret admission that one must make after + seeing it. Let an Englishman go and see that field, and he NEVER FORGETS + IT. The sight is an event in his life; and, though it has been seen by + millions of peaceable GENTS—grocers from Bond Street, meek attorneys + from Chancery Lane, and timid tailors from Piccadilly—I will wager + that there is not one of them but feels a glow as he looks at the place, + and remembers that he, too, is an Englishman. + </p> + <p> + It is a wrong, egotistical, savage, unchristian feeling, and that's the + truth of it. A man of peace has no right to be dazzled by that red-coated + glory, and to intoxicate his vanity with those remembrances of carnage and + triumph. The same sentence which tells us that on earth there ought to be + peace and good-will amongst men, tells us to whom GLORY belongs. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, by +William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE TRAVELS *** + +***** This file should be named 2843-h.htm or 2843-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/4/2843/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Little Travels and Roadside Sketches + +Author: William Makepeace Thackeray + +Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2843] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE TRAVELS *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES + + +By William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA Titmarsh) + + + + +I. FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM + +II. GHENT--BRUGES:-- + +Ghent (1840) + +Bruges + +III. WATERLOO + + + + +LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES + + + + +I.--FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM + + +. . . I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" at Richmond, one of the +comfortablest, quietest, cheapest, neatest little inns in England, and +a thousand times preferable, in my opinion, to the "Star and Garter," +whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, with his hair curled, +frightens you off the premises; and where, if you are bold enough to +brave the sneering waiter, you have to pay ten shillings for a bottle +of claret; and whence, if you look out of the window, you gaze on a view +which is so rich that it seems to knock you down with its splendor--a +view that has its hair curled like the swaggering waiter: I say, I +quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" with deep regret, believing that I +should see nothing so pleasant as its gardens, and its veal cutlets, and +its dear little bowling-green, elsewhere. But the time comes when people +must go out of town, and so I got on the top of the omnibus, and the +carpet-bag was put inside. + + +If I were a great prince and rode outside of coaches (as I should if I +were a great prince), I would, whether I smoked or not, have a case of +the best Havanas in my pocket--not for my own smoking, but to give them +to the snobs on the coach, who smoke the vilest cheroots. They poison +the air with the odor of their filthy weeds. A man at all easy in his +circumstances would spare himself much annoyance by taking the above +simple precaution. + +A gentleman sitting behind me tapped me on the back and asked for a +light. He was a footman, or rather valet. He had no livery, but the +three friends who accompanied him were tall men in pepper-and-salt +undress jackets with a duke's coronet on their buttons. + +After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished his cheroot, +the gentleman produced another wind-instrument, which he called a +"kinopium," a sort of trumpet, on which he showed a great inclination +to play. He began puffing out of the "kinopium" a most abominable +air, which he said was the "Duke's March." It was played by particular +request of one of the pepper-and-salt gentry. + +The noise was so abominable that even the coachman objected (although +my friend's brother footmen were ravished with it), and said that it +was not allowed to play toons on HIS 'bus. "Very well," said the valet, +"WE'RE ONLY OF THE DUKE OF B----'S ESTABLISHMENT, THAT'S ALL." The +coachman could not resist that appeal to his fashionable feelings. The +valet was allowed to play his infernal kinopium, and the poor fellow +(the coachman), who had lived in some private families, was quite +anxious to conciliate the footmen "of the Duke of B.'s establishment, +that's all," and told several stories of his having been groom in +Captain Hoskins's family, NEPHEW OF GOVERNOR HOSKINS; which stories the +footmen received with great contempt. + +The footmen were like the rest of the fashionable world in this +respect. I felt for my part that I respected them. They were in daily +communication with a duke! They were not the rose, but they had lived +beside it. There is an odor in the English aristocracy which intoxicates +plebeians. I am sure that any commoner in England, though he would die +rather than confess it, would have a respect for those great big hulking +Duke's footmen. + +The day before, her Grace the Duchess had passed us alone in a +chariot-and-four with two outriders. What better mark of innate +superiority could man want? Here was a slim lady who required four--six +horses to herself, and four servants (kinopium was, no doubt, one of the +number) to guard her. + +We were sixteen inside and out, and had consequently an eighth of a +horse apiece. + +A duchess = 6, a commoner = 1/8; that is to say, + +1 duchess = 48 commoners. + +If I were a duchess of the present day, I would say to the duke my noble +husband, "My dearest grace, I think, when I travel alone in my chariot +from Hammersmith to London, I will not care for the outriders. In these +days, when there is so much poverty and so much disaffection in the +country, we should not eclabousser the canaille with the sight of our +preposterous prosperity." + +But this is very likely only plebeian envy, and I dare say, if I were +a lovely duchess of the realm, I would ride in a coach-and-six, with a +coronet on the top of my bonnet and a robe of velvet and ermine even in +the dog-days. + +Alas! these are the dog-days. Many dogs are abroad--snarling dogs, +biting dogs, envious dogs, mad dogs; beware of exciting the fury of +such with your flaming red velvet and dazzling ermine. It makes ragged +Lazarus doubly hungry to see Dives feasting in cloth-of-gold; and so +if I were a beauteous duchess . . . Silence, vain man! Can the Queen +herself make you a duchess? Be content, then, nor gibe at thy betters of +"the Duke of B----'s establishment-- that's all." + + +ON BOARD THE "ANTWERPEN," OFF EVERYWHERE. + +We have bidden adieu to Billingsgate, we have passed the Thames Tunnel; +it is one o'clock, and of course people are thinking of being hungry. +What a merry place a steamer is on a calm sunny summer forenoon, and +what an appetite every one seems to have! We are, I assure you, no less +than 170 noblemen and gentlemen together, pacing up and down under the +awning, or lolling on the sofas in the cabin, and hardly have we passed +Greenwich when the feeding begins. The company was at the brandy and +soda-water in an instant (there is a sort of legend that the beverage is +a preservative against sea-sickness), and I admired the penetration of +gentlemen who partook of the drink. In the first place, the steward WILL +put so much brandy into the tumbler that it is fit to choke you; and, +secondly, the soda-water, being kept as near as possible to the boiler +of the engine, is of a fine wholesome heat when presented to the hot and +thirsty traveller. Thus he is prevented from catching any sudden cold +which might be dangerous to him. + +The forepart of the vessel is crowded to the full as much as the +genteeler quarter. There are four carriages, each with piles of +imperials and aristocratic gimcracks of travel, under the wheels of +which those personages have to clamber who have a mind to look at the +bowsprit, and perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages overcome, +you find yourself confronted by a huge penful of Durham oxen, lying +on hay and surrounded by a barricade of oars. Fifteen of these horned +monsters maintain an incessant mooing and bellowing. Beyond the cows +come a heap of cotton-bags, beyond the cotton-bags more carriages, more +pyramids of travelling trunks, and valets and couriers bustling and +swearing round about them. And already, and in various corners and +niches, lying on coils of rope, black tar-cloths, ragged cloaks, or hay, +you see a score of those dubious fore-cabin passengers, who are never +shaved, who always look unhappy, and appear getting ready to be sick. + +At one, dinner begins in the after-cabin--boiled salmon, boiled beef, +boiled mutton, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, and parboiled wine for +any gentlemen who like it, and two roast-ducks between seventy. After +this, knobs of cheese are handed round on a plate, and there is a talk +of a tart somewhere at some end of the table. All this I saw peeping +through a sort of meat-safe which ventilates the top of the cabin, and +very happy and hot did the people seem below. + +"How the deuce CAN people dine at such an hour?" say several genteel +fellows who are watching the manoeuvres. "I can't touch a morsel before +seven." + +But somehow at half-past three o'clock we had dropped a long way down +the river. The air was delightfully fresh, the sky of a faultless +cobalt, the river shining and flashing like quicksilver, and at this +period steward runs against me bearing two great smoking dishes covered +by two great glistening hemispheres of tin. "Fellow," says I, "what's +that?" + +He lifted up the cover: it was ducks and green pease, by jingo! + +"What! haven't they done YET, the greedy creatures?" I asked. "Have the +people been feeding for three hours?" + +"Law bless you, sir, it's the second dinner. Make haste, or you won't +get a place." At which words a genteel party, with whom I had been +conversing, instantly tumbled down the hatchway, and I find myself one +of the second relay of seventy who are attacking the boiled salmon, +boiled beef, boiled cabbage, &c. As for the ducks, I certainly had +some pease, very fine yellow stiff pease, that ought to have been +split before they were boiled; but, with regard to the ducks, I saw the +animals gobbled up before my eyes by an old widow lady and her party +just as I was shrieking to the steward to bring a knife and fork to +carve them. The fellow! (I mean the widow lady's whiskered companion)--I +saw him eat pease with the very knife with which he had dissected the +duck! + +After dinner (as I need not tell the keen observer of human nature who +peruses this) the human mind, if the body be in a decent state, expands +into gayety and benevolence, and the intellect longs to measure itself +in friendly converse with the divers intelligences around it. We ascend +upon deck, and after eying each other for a brief space and with a +friendly modest hesitation, we begin anon to converse about the weather +and other profound and delightful themes of English discourse. We +confide to each other our respective opinions of the ladies round about +us. Look at that charming creature in a pink bonnet and a dress of the +pattern of a Kilmarnock snuff-box: a stalwart Irish gentleman in a green +coat and bushy red whiskers is whispering something very agreeable into +her ear, as is the wont of gentlemen of his nation; for her dark eyes +kindle, her red lips open and give an opportunity to a dozen beautiful +pearly teeth to display themselves, and glance brightly in the sun; +while round the teeth and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their +appearance, and her whole countenance assumes a look of perfect health +and happiness. See her companion in shot silk and a dove-colored +parasol; in what a graceful Watteau-like attitude she reclines. The tall +courier who has been bouncing about the deck in attendance upon these +ladies (it is his first day of service, and he is eager to make a +favorable impression on them and the lady's-maids too) has just brought +them from the carriage a small paper of sweet cakes (nothing is prettier +than to see a pretty woman eating sweet biscuits) and a bottle that +evidently contains Malmsey madeira. How daintily they sip it; how happy +they seem; how that lucky rogue of an Irishman prattles away! Yonder +is a noble group indeed: an English gentleman and his family. Children, +mother, grandmother, grown-up daughters, father, and domestics, +twenty-two in all. They have a table to themselves on the deck, and the +consumption of eatables among them is really endless. The nurses have +been bustling to and fro, and bringing, first, slices of cake; then +dinner; then tea with huge family jugs of milk; and the little people +have been playing hide-and-seek round the deck, coquetting with the +other children, and making friends of every soul on board. I love to +see the kind eyes of women fondly watching them as they gambol about; a +female face, be it ever so plain, when occupied in regarding children, +becomes celestial almost, and a man can hardly fail to be good and happy +while he is looking on at such sights. "Ah, sir!" says a great big man, +whom you would not accuse of sentiment, "I have a couple of those little +things at home;" and he stops and heaves a great big sigh and swallows +down a half-tumbler of cold something and water. We know what the honest +fellow means well enough. He is saying to himself, "God bless my girls +and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in a +more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and +not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, +who are chirping over a bottle of champagne. + +There is, as you may fancy, a number of such groups on the deck, and +a pleasant occupation it is for a lonely man to watch them and build +theories upon them, and examine those two personages seated cheek by +jowl. One is an English youth, travelling for the first time, who has +been hard at his Guidebook during the whole journey. He has a "Manuel du +Voyageur" in his pocket: a very pretty, amusing little oblong work it is +too, and might be very useful, if the foreign people in three languages, +among whom you travel, would but give the answers set down in the book, +or understand the questions you put to them out of it. The other honest +gentleman in the fur cap, what can his occupation be? We know him at +once for what he is. "Sir," says he, in a fine German accent, "I am a +brofessor of languages, and will gif you lessons in Danish, Swedish, +English, Bortuguese, Spanish and Bersian." Thus occupied in meditations, +the rapid hours and the rapid steamer pass quickly on. The sun is +sinking, and, as he drops, the ingenious luminary sets the Thames on +fire: several worthy gentlemen, watch in hand, are eagerly examining the +phenomena attending his disappearance,--rich clouds of purple and gold, +that form the curtains of his bed,--little barks that pass black across +his disc, his disc every instant dropping nearer and nearer into the +water. "There he goes!" says one sagacious observer. "No, he doesn't," +cries another. Now he is gone, and the steward is already threading the +deck, asking the passengers, right and left, if they will take a +little supper. What a grand object is a sunset, and what a wonder is an +appetite at sea! Lo! the horned moon shines pale over Margate, and the +red beacon is gleaming from distant Ramsgate pier. + +***** + +A great rush is speedily made for the mattresses that lie in the boat at +the ship's side; and as the night is delightfully calm, many fair ladies +and worthy men determine to couch on deck for the night. The proceedings +of the former, especially if they be young and pretty, the philosopher +watches with indescribable emotion and interest. What a number of pretty +coquetries do the ladies perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they +take care to fall! All the little children have been gathered up by the +nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals +the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian +nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been +walking the deck for some time with a great mattress on his shoulders, +knowing full well that were he to relinquish it for an instant, some +other person would seize on it, now stretches his bed upon the deck, +wraps his cloak about his knees, draws his white cotton nightcap tight +over his head and ears; and, as the smoke of his cigar rises calmly +upwards to the deep sky and the cheerful twinkling stars, he feels +himself exquisitely happy, and thinks of thee, my Juliana! + +***** + +Why people, because they are in a steamboat, should get up so deucedly +early I cannot understand. Gentlemen have been walking over my legs ever +since three o'clock this morning, and, no doubt, have been indulging +in personalities (which I hate) regarding my appearance and manner of +sleeping, lying, snoring. Let the wags laugh on; but a far pleasanter +occupation is to sleep until breakfast-time, or near it. + +The tea, and ham and eggs, which, with a beefsteak or two, and three +or four rounds of toast, form the component parts of the above-named +elegant meal, are taken in the River Scheldt. Little neat, plump-looking +churches and villages are rising here and there among tufts of trees and +pastures that are wonderfully green. To the right, as the "Guide-book" +says, is Walcheren; and on the left Cadsand, memorable for the English +expedition of 1809, when Lord Chatham, Sir Walter Manny, and Henry Earl +of Derby, at the head of the English, gained a great victory over the +Flemish mercenaries in the pay of Philippe of Valois. The cloth-yard +shafts of the English archers did great execution. Flushing was taken, +and Lord Chatham returned to England, where he distinguished himself +greatly in the debates on the American war, which he called the +brightest jewel of the British crown. You see, my love, that, though an +artist by profession, my education has by no means been neglected; and +what, indeed, would be the pleasure of travel, unless these charming +historical recollections were brought to bear upon it? + + +ANTWERP. + +As many hundreds of thousands of English visit this city (I have met +at least a hundred of them in this half-hour walking the streets, +"Guide-book" in hand), and as the ubiquitous Murray has already depicted +the place, there is no need to enter into a long description of it, +its neatness, its beauty, and its stiff antique splendor. The tall +pale houses have many of them crimped gables, that look like Queen +Elizabeth's ruffs. There are as many people in the streets as in London +at three o'clock in the morning; the market-women wear bonnets of +a flower-pot shape, and have shining brazen milk-pots, which are +delightful to the eyes of a painter. Along the quays of the lazy Scheldt +are innumerable good-natured groups of beer-drinkers (small-beer is the +most good-natured drink in the world); along the barriers outside of +the town, and by the glistening canals, are more beer-shops and more +beer-drinkers. The city is defended by the queerest fat military. The +chief traffic is between the hotels and the railroad. The hotels give +wonderful good dinners, and especially at the "Grand Laboureur" may be +mentioned a peculiar tart, which is the best of all tarts that ever a +man ate since he was ten years old. A moonlight walk is delightful. At +ten o'clock the whole city is quiet; and so little changed does it seem +to be, that you may walk back three hundred years into time, and fancy +yourself a majestical Spaniard, or an oppressed and patriotic Dutchman +at your leisure. You enter the inn, and the old Quentin Durward +court-yard, on which the old towers look down. There is a sound of +singing--singing at midnight. Is it Don Sombrero, who is singing an +Andalusian seguidilla under the window of the Flemish burgomaster's +daughter? Ah, no! it is a fat Englishman in a zephyr coat: he is +drinking cold gin-and-water in the moonlight, and warbling softly-- + + "Nix my dolly, pals, fake away, + N-ix my dolly, pals, fake a--a--way."* + + + * In 1844. + +I wish the good people would knock off the top part of Antwerp Cathedral +spire. Nothing can be more gracious and elegant than the lines of the +first two compartments; but near the top there bulges out a little +round, ugly, vulgar Dutch monstrosity (for which the architects have, no +doubt, a name) which offends the eye cruelly. Take the Apollo, and set +upon him a bob-wig and a little cocked hat; imagine "God Save the King" +ending with a jig; fancy a polonaise, or procession of slim, stately, +elegant court beauties, headed by a buffoon dancing a hornpipe. Marshal +Gerard should have discharged a bombshell at that abomination, and have +given the noble steeple a chance to be finished in the grand style of +the early fifteenth century, in which it was begun. + +This style of criticism is base and mean, and quite contrary to the +orders of the immortal Goethe, who was only for allowing the eye to +recognize the beauties of a great work, but would have its defects +passed over. It is an unhappy, luckless organization which will be +perpetually fault-finding, and in the midst of a grand concert of music +will persist only in hearing that unfortunate fiddle out of tune. + +Within--except where the rococo architects have introduced their +ornaments (here is the fiddle out of tune again)--the cathedral is +noble. A rich, tender sunshine is streaming in through the windows, +and gilding the stately edifice with the purest light. The admirable +stained-glass windows are not too brilliant in their colors. The +organ is playing a rich, solemn music; some two hundred of people are +listening to the service; and there is scarce one of the women kneeling +on her chair, enveloped in her full majestic black drapery, that is +not a fine study for a painter. These large black mantles of heavy silk +brought over the heads of the women, and covering their persons, fall +into such fine folds of drapery, that they cannot help being picturesque +and noble. See, kneeling by the side of two of those fine devout-looking +figures, is a lady in a little twiddling Parisian hat and feather, in +a little lace mantelet, in a tight gown and a bustle. She is almost as +monstrous as yonder figure of the Virgin, in a hoop, and with a huge +crown and a ball and a sceptre; and a bambino dressed in a little hoop, +and in a little crown, round which are clustered flowers and pots of +orange-trees, and before which many of the faithful are at prayer. +Gentle clouds of incense come wafting through the vast edifice; and in +the lulls of the music you hear the faint chant of the priest, and the +silver tinkle of the bell. + +Six Englishmen, with the commissionaires, and the "Murray's Guide-books" +in their hands, are looking at the "Descent from the Cross." Of this +picture the "Guide-book" gives you orders how to judge. If it is the end +of religious painting to express the religious sentiment, a hundred of +inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. Who was ever piously affected +by any picture of the master? He can depict a livid thief writhing upon +the cross, sometimes a blond Magdalen weeping below it; but it is a +Magdalen a very short time indeed after her repentance: her yellow +brocades and flaring satins are still those which she wore when she was +of the world; her body has not yet lost the marks of the feasting and +voluptuousness in which she used to indulge, according to the legend. +Not one of the Rubens's pictures among all the scores that decorate +chapels and churches here, has the least tendency to purify, to touch +the affections, or to awaken the feelings of religious respect and +wonder. The "Descent from the Cross" is vast, gloomy, and awful; but the +awe inspired by it is, as I take it, altogether material. He might have +painted a picture of any criminal broken on the wheel, and the sensation +inspired by it would have been precisely similar. Nor in a religious +picture do you want the savoir-faire of the master to be always +protruding itself; it detracts from the feeling of reverence, just as +the thumping of cushion and the spouting of tawdry oratory does from +a sermon: meek religion disappears, shouldered out of the desk by +the pompous, stalwart, big-chested, fresh-colored, bushy-whiskered +pulpiteer. Rubens's piety has always struck us as of this sort. If he +takes a pious subject, it is to show you in what a fine way he, Peter +Paul Rubens, can treat it. He never seems to doubt but that he is doing +it a great honor. His "Descent from the Cross," and its accompanying +wings and cover, are a set of puns upon the word Christopher, of which +the taste is more odious than that of the hooped-petticoated Virgin +yonder, with her artificial flowers, and her rings and brooches. The +people who made an offering of that hooped petticoat did their best, at +any rate; they knew no better. There is humility in that simple, quaint +present; trustfulness and kind intention. Looking about at other altars, +you see (much to the horror of pious Protestants) all sorts of queer +little emblems hanging up under little pyramids of penny candles that +are sputtering and flaring there. Here you have a silver arm, or +a little gold toe, or a wax leg, or a gilt eye, signifying and +commemorating cures that have been performed by the supposed +intercession of the saint over whose chapel they hang. Well, although +they are abominable superstitions, yet these queer little offerings seem +to me to be a great deal more pious than Rubens's big pictures; just as +is the widow with her poor little mite compared to the swelling Pharisee +who flings his purse of gold into the plate. + +A couple of days of Rubens and his church pictures makes one thoroughly +and entirely sick of him. His very genius and splendor pails upon one, +even taking the pictures as worldly pictures. One grows weary of being +perpetually feasted with this rich, coarse, steaming food. Considering +them as church pictures, I don't want to go to church to hear, however +splendid, an organ play the "British Grenadiers." + + +The Antwerpians have set up a clumsy bronze statue of their divinity +in a square of the town; and those who have not enough of Rubens in the +churches may study him, and indeed to much greater advantage, in a good, +well-lighted museum. Here, there is one picture, a dying saint taking +the communion, a large piece ten or eleven feet high, and painted in an +incredibly short space of time, which is extremely curious indeed +for the painter's study. The picture is scarcely more than an immense +magnificent sketch; but it tells the secret of the artist's manner, +which, in the midst of its dash and splendor, is curiously methodical. +Where the shadows are warm the lights are cold, and vice versa; and the +picture has been so rapidly painted, that the tints lie raw by the side +of one another, the artist not having taken the trouble to blend them. + +There are two exquisite Vandykes (whatever Sir Joshua may say of them), +and in which the very management of the gray tones which the President +abuses forms the principal excellence and charm. Why, after all, are we +not to have our opinion? Sir Joshua is not the Pope. The color of one +of those Vandykes is as fine as FINE Paul Veronese, and the sentiment +beautifully tender and graceful. + +I saw, too, an exhibition of the modern Belgian artists (1843), the +remembrance of whose pictures after a month's absence has almost +entirely vanished. Wappers's hand, as I thought, seemed to have grown +old and feeble, Verboeckhoven's cattle-pieces are almost as good as +Paul Potter's, and Keyser has dwindled down into namby-pamby prettiness, +pitiful to see in the gallant young painter who astonished the Louvre +artists ten years ago by a hand almost as dashing and ready as that of +Rubens himself. There were besides many caricatures of the new German +school, which are in themselves caricatures of the masters before +Raphael. + + +An instance of honesty may be mentioned here with applause. The +writer lost a pocket-book containing a passport and a couple of modest +ten-pound notes. The person who found the portfolio ingeniously put it +into the box of the post-office, and it was faithfully restored to the +owner; but somehow the two ten-pound notes were absent. It was, however, +a great comfort to get the passport, and the pocket-book, which must be +worth about ninepence. + + +BRUSSELS. + +It was night when we arrived by the railroad from Antwerp at Brussels; +the route is very pretty and interesting, and the flat countries +through which the road passes in the highest state of peaceful, smiling +cultivation. The fields by the roadside are enclosed by hedges as in +England, the harvest was in part down, and an English country gentleman +who was of our party pronounced the crops to be as fine as any he had +ever seen. Of this matter a Cockney cannot judge accurately, but any man +can see with what extraordinary neatness and care all these little plots +of ground are tilled, and admire the richness and brilliancy of the +vegetation. Outside of the moat of Antwerp, and at every village by +which we passed, it was pleasant to see the happy congregations of +well-clad people that basked in the evening sunshine, and soberly smoked +their pipes and drank their Flemish beer. Men who love this drink must, +as I fancy, have something essentially peaceful in their composition, +and must be more easily satisfied than folks on our side of the water. +The excitement of Flemish beer is, indeed, not great. I have tried both +the white beer and the brown; they are both of the kind which schoolboys +denominate "swipes," very sour and thin to the taste, but served, to be +sure, in quaint Flemish jugs that do not seem to have changed their +form since the days of Rubens, and must please the lovers of antiquarian +knick-knacks. Numbers of comfortable-looking women and children sat +beside the head of the family upon the tavern-benches, and it was +amusing to see one little fellow of eight years old smoking, with much +gravity, his father's cigar. How the worship of the sacred plant of +tobacco has spread through all Europe! I am sure that the persons who +cry out against the use of it are guilty of superstition and unreason, +and that it would be a proper and easy task for scientific persons +to write an encomium upon the weed. In solitude it is the pleasantest +companion possible, and in company never de trop. To a student it +suggests all sorts of agreeable thoughts, it refreshes the brain when +weary, and every sedentary cigar-smoker will tell you how much good he +has had from it, and how he has been able to return to his labor, after +a quarter of an hour's mild interval of the delightful leaf of Havana. +Drinking has gone from among us since smoking came in. It is a wicked +error to say that smokers are drunkards; drink they do, but of gentle +diluents mostly, for fierce stimulants of wine or strong liquors are +abhorrent to the real lover of the Indian weed. Ah! my Juliana, join +not in the vulgar cry that is raised against us. Cigars and cool drinks +beget quiet conversations, good-humor, meditation; not hot blood such as +mounts into the head of drinkers of apoplectic port or dangerous claret. +Are we not more moral and reasonable than our forefathers? Indeed I +think so somewhat; and many improvements of social life and converse +must date with the introduction of the pipe. + +We were a dozen tobacco-consumers in the wagon of the train that brought +us from Antwerp; nor did the women of the party (sensible women!) make a +single objection to the fumigation. But enough of this; only let me add, +in conclusion, that an excellent Israelitish gentleman, Mr. Hartog +of Antwerp, supplies cigars for a penny apiece, such as are not to be +procured in London for four times the sum. + +Through smiling corn-fields, then, and by little woods from which rose +here and there the quaint peaked towers of some old-fashioned chateaux, +our train went smoking along at thirty miles an hour. We caught a +glimpse of Mechlin steeple, at first dark against the sunset, and +afterwards bright as we came to the other side of it, and admired long +glistening canals or moats that surrounded the queer old town, and were +lighted up in that wonderful way which the sun only understands, and +not even Mr. Turner, with all his vermilion and gamboge, can put down +on canvas. The verdure was everywhere astonishing, and we fancied we saw +many golden Cuyps as we passed by these quiet pastures. + +Steam-engines and their accompaniments, blazing forges, gaunt +manufactories, with numberless windows and long black chimneys, of +course take away from the romance of the place but, as we whirled into +Brussels, even these engines had a fine appearance. Three or four of the +snorting, galloping monsters had just finished their journey, and there +was a quantity of flaming ashes lying under the brazen bellies of each +that looked properly lurid and demoniacal. The men at the station came +out with flaming torches--awful-looking fellows indeed! Presently the +different baggage was handed out, and in the very worst vehicle I ever +entered, and at the very slowest pace, we were borne to the "Hotel de +Suede," from which house of entertainment this letter is written. + +We strolled into the town, but, though the night was excessively fine +and it was not yet eleven o'clock, the streets of the little capital +were deserted, and the handsome blazing cafes round about the theatres +contained no inmates. Ah, what a pretty sight is the Parisian Boulevard +on a night like this! how many pleasant hours has one passed in watching +the lights, and the hum, and the stir, and the laughter of those happy, +idle people! There was none of this gayety here; nor was there a person +to be found, except a skulking commissioner or two (whose real name +in French is that of a fish that is eaten with fennel-sauce), and who +offered to conduct us to certain curiosities in the town. What must we +English not have done, that in every town in Europe we are to be fixed +upon by scoundrels of this sort; and what a pretty reflection it is on +our country that such rascals find the means of living on us! + + +Early the next morning we walked through a number of streets in the +place, and saw certain sights. The Park is very pretty, and all the +buildings round about it have an air of neatness--almost of stateliness. +The houses are tall, the streets spacious, and the roads extremely +clean. In the Park is a little theatre, a cafe somewhat ruinous, a +little palace for the king of this little kingdom, some smart public +buildings (with S. P. Q. B. emblazoned on them, at which pompous +inscription one cannot help laughing), and other rows of houses somewhat +resembling a little Rue de Rivoli. Whether from my own natural greatness +and magnanimity, or from that handsome share of national conceit that +every Englishman possesses, my impressions of this city are certainly +anything but respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput look with it. +There are soldiers, just as in Paris, better dressed, and doing a vast +deal of drumming and bustle; and yet, somehow, far from being frightened +at them, I feel inclined to laugh in their faces. There are little +Ministers, who work at their little bureaux; and to read the journals, +how fierce they are! A great thundering Times could hardly talk more +big. One reads about the rascally Ministers, the miserable Opposition, +the designs of tyrants, the eyes of Europe, &c., just as one would +in real journals. The Moniteur of Ghent belabors the Independent of +Brussels; the Independent falls foul of the Lynx; and really it is +difficult not to suppose sometimes that these worthy people are in +earnest. And yet how happy were they sua si bona norint! Think what a +comfort it would be to belong to a little state like this; not to abuse +their privilege, but philosophically to use it. If I were a Belgian, +I would not care one single fig about politics. I would not read +thundering leading-articles. I would not have an opinion. What's the use +of an opinion here? Happy fellows! do not the French, the English, and +the Prussians, spare them the trouble of thinking, and make all their +opinions for them? Think of living in a country free, easy, respectable, +wealthy, and with the nuisance of talking politics removed from out of +it. All this might the Belgians have, and a part do they enjoy, but not +the best part; no, these people will be brawling and by the ears, and +parties run as high here as at Stoke Pogis or little Pedlington. + +These sentiments were elicited by the reading of a paper at the cafe in +the Park, where we sat under the trees for a while and sipped our cool +lemonade. Numbers of statues decorate the place, the very worst I +ever saw. These Cupids must have been erected in the time of the Dutch +dynasty, as I judge from the immense posterior developments. Indeed the +arts of the country are very low. The statues here, and the lions before +the Prince of Orange's palace, would disgrace almost the figurehead of a +ship. + +Of course we paid our visit to this little lion of Brussels (the +Prince's palace, I mean). The architecture of the building is admirably +simple and firm; and you remark about it, and all other works here, a +high finish in doors, wood-works, paintings, &c., that one does not see +in France, where the buildings are often rather sketched than completed, +and the artist seems to neglect the limbs, as it were, and extremities +of his figures. + +The finish of this little place is exquisite. We went through some dozen +of state-rooms, paddling along over the slippery floors of inlaid woods +in great slippers, without which we must have come to the ground. How +did his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange manage when he lived here, +and her Imperial Highness the Princess, and their excellencies the +chamberlains and the footmen? They must have been on their tails many +times a day, that's certain, and must have cut queer figures. + +The ball-room is beautiful--all marble, and yet with a comfortable, +cheerful look; the other apartments are not less agreeable, and the +people looked with intense satisfaction at some great lapis-lazuli +tables, which the guide informed us were worth four millions, more or +less; adding with a very knowing look, that they were un peu plus cher +que l'or. This speech has a tremendous effect on visitors, and when we +met some of our steamboat companions in the Park or elsewhere--in so +small a place as this one falls in with them a dozen times a day--"Have +you seen the tables?" was the general question. Prodigious tables are +they, indeed! Fancy a table, my dear--a table four feet wide--a table +with legs. Ye heavens! the mind can hardly picture to itself anything so +beautiful and so tremendous! + +There are some good pictures in the palace, too, but not so +extraordinarily good as the guide-books and the guide would have us +to think. The latter, like most men of his class, is an ignoramus, +who showed us an Andrea del Sarto (copy or original), and called it a +Correggio, and made other blunders of a like nature. As is the case in +England, you are hurried through the rooms without being allowed time +to look at the pictures, and, consequently, to pronounce a satisfactory +judgment on them. + +In the Museum more time was granted me, and I spent some hours with +pleasure there. It is an absurd little gallery, absurdly imitating the +Louvre, with just such compartments and pillars as you see in the noble +Paris gallery; only here the pillars and capitals are stucco and +white in place of marble and gold, and plaster-of-paris busts of great +Belgians are placed between the pillars. An artist of the country +has made a picture containing them, and you will be ashamed of your +ignorance when you hear many of their names. Old Tilly of Magdeburg +figures in one corner; Rubens, the endless Rubens, stands in the +midst. What a noble countenance it is, and what a manly, swaggering +consciousness of power! + +The picture to see here is a portrait, by the great Peter Paul, of one +of the governesses of the Netherlands. It is just the finest portrait +that ever was seen. Only a half-length, but such a majesty, such a +force, such a splendor, such a simplicity about it! The woman is in a +stiff black dress, with a ruff and a few pearls; a yellow curtain is +behind her--the simplest arrangement that can be conceived; but this +great man knew how to rise to his occasion; and no better proof can +be shown of what a fine gentleman he was than this his homage to the +vice-Queen. A common bungler would have painted her in her best clothes, +with crown and sceptre, just as our Queen has been painted by--but +comparisons are odious. Here stands this majestic woman in her every-day +working-dress of black satin, LOOKING YOUR HAT OFF, as it were. Another +portrait of the same personage hangs elsewhere in the gallery, and it is +curious to observe the difference between the two, and see how a man of +genius paints a portrait, and how a common limner executes it. + +Many more pictures are there here by Rubens, or rather from Rubens's +manufactory,--odious and vulgar most of them are; fat Magdalens, coarse +Saints, vulgar Virgins, with the scene-painter's tricks far too evident +upon the canvas. By the side of one of the most astonishing color-pieces +in the world, the "Worshipping of the Magi," is a famous picture of Paul +Veronese that cannot be too much admired. As Rubens sought in the first +picture to dazzle and astonish by gorgeous variety, Paul in his seems +to wish to get his effect by simplicity, and has produced the most noble +harmony that can be conceived. Many more works are there that merit +notice,--a singularly clever, brilliant, and odious Jordaens, for +example; some curious costume-pieces; one or two works by the Belgian +Raphael, who was a very Belgian Raphael, indeed; and a long gallery +of pictures of the very oldest school, that, doubtless, afford much +pleasure to the amateurs of ancient art. I confess that I am inclined +to believe in very little that existed before the time of Raphael. +There is, for instance, the Prince of Orange's picture by Perugino, very +pretty indeed, up to a certain point, but all the heads are repeated, +all the drawing is bad and affected; and this very badness and +affectation, is what the so-called Catholic school is always anxious to +imitate. Nothing can be more juvenile or paltry than the works of the +native Belgians here exhibited. Tin crowns are suspended over many +of them, showing that the pictures are prize compositions: and pretty +things, indeed, they are! Have you ever read an Oxford prize-poem! Well, +these pictures are worse even than the Oxford poems--an awful assertion +to make. + +In the matter of eating, dear sir, which is the next subject of the fine +arts, a subject that, after many hours' walking, attracts a gentleman +very much, let me attempt to recall the transactions of this very day at +the table-d'-hote. 1, green pea-soup; 2, boiled salmon; 3, mussels; 4, +crimped skate; 5, roast-meat; 6, patties; 7, melons; 8, carp, stewed +with mushrooms and onions; 9, roast-turkey; 10, cauliflower and butter; +11, fillets of venison piques, with asafoetida sauce; 12, stewed +calf's-ear; 13, roast-veal; 14, roast-lamb; 15, stewed cherries; +16, rice-pudding; 17, Gruyere cheese, and about twenty-four cakes of +different kinds. Except 5, 13, and 14, I give you my word I ate of all +written down here, with three rolls of bread and a score of potatoes. +What is the meaning of it? How is the stomach of man to be brought to +desire and to receive all this quantity? Do not gastronomists complain +of heaviness in London after eating a couple of mutton-chops? Do not +respectable gentlemen fall asleep in their arm-chairs? Are they fit for +mental labor? Far from it. But look at the difference here: after dinner +here one is as light as a gossamer. One walks with pleasure, reads with +pleasure, writes with pleasure--nay, there is the supper-bell going at +ten o'clock, and plenty of eaters, too. Let lord mayors and aldermen +look to it, this fact of the extraordinary increase of appetite in +Belgium, and, instead of steaming to Blackwall, come a little further to +Antwerp. + +Of ancient architectures in the place, there is a fine old Port de +Halle, which has a tall, gloomy, bastille look; a most magnificent +town-hall, that has been sketched a thousand of times, and opposite +it, a building that I think would be the very model for a Conservative +club-house in London. Oh! how charming it would be to be a great +painter, and give the character of the building, and the numberless +groups round about it. The booths lighted up by the sun, the +market-women in their gowns of brilliant hue, each group having a +character and telling its little story, the troops of men lolling in all +sorts of admirable attitudes of ease round the great lamp. Half a dozen +light-blue dragoons are lounging about, and peeping over the artist as +the drawing is made, and the sky is more bright and blue than one sees +it in a hundred years in London. + +The priests of the country are a remarkably well-fed and respectable +race, without that scowling, hang-dog look which one has remarked +among reverend gentlemen in the neighboring country of France. Their +reverences wear buckles to their shoes, light-blue neck-cloths, and +huge three-cornered hats in good condition. To-day, strolling by the +cathedral, I heard the tinkling of a bell in the street, and beheld +certain persons, male and female, suddenly plump down on their knees +before a little procession that was passing. Two men in black held a +tawdry red canopy, a priest walked beneath it holding the sacrament +covered with a cloth, and before him marched a couple of little +altar-boys in short white surplices, such as you see in Rubens, and +holding lacquered lamps. A small train of street-boys followed the +procession, cap in hand, and the clergyman finally entered a hospital +for old women, near the church, the canopy and the lamp-bearers +remaining without. + +It was a touching scene, and as I stayed to watch it, I could not but +think of the poor old soul who was dying within, listening to the last +words of prayer, led by the hand of the priest to the brink of the black +fathomless grave. How bright the sun was shining without all the time, +and how happy and careless every thing around us looked! + + +The Duke d'Arenberg has a picture-gallery worthy of his princely house. +It does not contain great pieces, but tit-bits of pictures, such as suit +an aristocratic epicure. For such persons a great huge canvas is too +much, it is like sitting down alone to a roasted ox; and they do wisely, +I think, to patronize small, high-flavored, delicate morceaux, such as +the Duke has here. + +Among them may be mentioned, with special praise, a magnificent small +Rembrandt, a Paul Potter of exceeding minuteness and beauty, an Ostade, +which reminds one of Wilkie's early performances, and a Dusart quite +as good as Ostade. There is a Berghem, much more unaffected than that +artist's works generally are; and, what is more, precious in the eyes of +many ladies as an object of art, there is, in one of the grand saloons, +some needlework done by the Duke's own grandmother, which is looked at +with awe by those admitted to see the palace. + +The chief curiosity, if not the chief ornament of a very elegant +library, filled with vases and bronzes, is a marble head, supposed to +be the original head of the Laocoon. It is, unquestionably a finer head +than that which at present figures upon the shoulders of the famous +statue. The expression of woe is more manly and intense; in the group as +we know it, the head of the principal figure has always seemed to me to +be a grimace of grief, as are the two accompanying young gentlemen +with their pretty attitudes, and their little silly, open-mouthed +despondency. It has always had upon me the effect of a trick, that +statue, and not of a piece of true art. It would look well in the vista +of a garden; it is not august enough for a temple, with all its jerks +and twirls, and polite convulsions. But who knows what susceptibilities +such a confession may offend? Let us say no more about the Laocoon, nor +its head, nor its tail. The Duke was offered its weight in gold, they +say, for this head, and refused. It would be a shame to speak ill of +such a treasure, but I have my opinion of the man who made the offer. + +In the matter of sculpture almost all the Brussels churches are +decorated with the most laborious wooden pulpits, which may be worth +their weight in gold, too, for what I know, including his reverence +preaching inside. At St. Gudule the preacher mounts into no less a place +than the garden of Eden, being supported by Adam and Eve, by Sin and +Death, and numberless other animals; he walks up to his desk by a +rustic railing of flowers, fruits, and vegetables, with wooden peacocks, +paroquets, monkeys biting apples, and many more of the birds and +beasts of the field. In another church the clergyman speaks from out a +hermitage; in a third from a carved palm-tree, which supports a set of +oak clouds that form the canopy of the pulpit, and are, indeed, not much +heavier in appearance than so many huge sponges. A priest, however tall +or stout, must be lost in the midst of all these queer gimcracks; in +order to be consistent, they ought to dress him up, too, in some odd +fantastical suit. I can fancy the Cure of Meudon preaching out of such a +place, or the Rev. Sydney Smith, or that famous clergyman of the time of +the League, who brought all Paris to laugh and listen to him. + + +But let us not be too supercilious and ready to sneer. It is only bad +taste. It may have been very true devotion which erected these strange +edifices. + + + + +II.--GHENT--BRUGES. + + +GHENT. (1840.) + + +The Beguine College or Village is one of the most extraordinary sights +that all Europe can show. On the confines of the town of Ghent you come +upon an old-fashioned brick gate, that seems as if it were one of the +city barriers; but, on passing it, one of the prettiest sights possible +meets the eye: At the porter's lodge you see an old lady, in black and +a white hood, occupied over her book; before you is a red church with a +tall roof and fantastical Dutch pinnacles, and all around it rows upon +rows of small houses, the queerest, neatest, nicest that ever were seen +(a doll's house is hardly smaller or prettier). Right and left, on each +side of little alleys, these little mansions rise; they have a courtlet +before them, in which some green plants or hollyhocks are growing; +and to each house is a gate, that has mostly a picture or queer-carved +ornament upon or about it, and bears the name, not of the Beguine who +inhabits it, but of the saint to whom she may have devoted it--the house +of St. Stephen, the house of St. Donatus, the English or Angel Convent, +and so on. Old ladies in black are pacing in the quiet alleys here and +there, and drop the stranger a curtsy as he passes them and takes off +his hat. Never were such patterns of neatness seen as these old ladies +and their houses. I peeped into one or two of the chambers, of which the +windows were open to the pleasant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously +plain, a quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite saints +decorating the spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a quick, +cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of their little +domiciles; and with a great deal of artifice, and lurking behind walls, +and looking at the church as if I intended to design that, I managed to +get a sketch of a couple of them. + + +But what white paper can render the whiteness of their linen; what black +ink can do justice to the lustre of their gowns and shoes? Both of the +ladies had a neat ankle and a tight stocking; and I fancy that heaven +is quite as well served in this costume as in the dress of a scowling, +stockingless friar, whom I had seen passing just before. The look and +dress of the man made me shudder. His great red feet were bound up in +a shoe open at the toes, a kind of compromise for a sandal. I had just +seen him and his brethren at the Dominican Church, where a mass of music +was sung, and orange-trees, flags, and banners decked the aisle of the +church. + +One begins to grow sick of these churches, and the hideous exhibitions +of bodily agonies that are depicted on the sides of all the chapels. +Into one wherein we went this morning was what they called a Calvary: a +horrible, ghastly image of a Christ in a tomb, the figure of the natural +size, and of the livid color of death; gaping red wounds on the body and +round the brows: the whole piece enough to turn one sick, and fit only +to brutalize the beholder of it. The Virgin is commonly represented with +a dozen swords stuck in her heart; bleeding throats of headless John +Baptists are perpetually thrust before your eyes. At the Cathedral +gate was a papier-mache church-ornament shop--most of the carvings and +reliefs of the same dismal character: one, for instance, represented +a heart with a great gash in it, and a double row of large blood-drops +dribbling from it; nails and a knife were thrust into the heart; round +the whole was a crown of thorns. Such things are dreadful to think of. +The same gloomy spirit which made a religion of them, and worked upon +the people by the grossest of all means, terror, distracted the natural +feelings of man to maintain its power--shut gentle women into +lonely, pitiless convents--frightened poor peasants with tales +of torment--taught that the end and labor of life was silence, +wretchedness, and the scourge--murdered those by fagot and prison +who thought otherwise. How has the blind and furious bigotry of man +perverted that which God gave us as our greatest boon, and bid us hate +where God bade us love! Thank heaven that monk has gone out of sight! It +is pleasant to look at the smiling, cheerful old Beguine, and think no +more of yonder livid face. + +One of the many convents in this little religious city seems to be the +specimen-house, which is shown to strangers, for all the guides conduct +you thither, and I saw in a book kept for the purpose the names of +innumerable Smiths and Joneses registered. + +A very kind, sweet-voiced, smiling nun (I wonder, do they always choose +the most agreeable and best-humored sister of the house to show it to +strangers?) came tripping down the steps and across the flags of the +little garden-court, and welcomed us with much courtesy into the neat +little old-fashioned, red-bricked, gable-ended, shining-windowed Convent +of the Angels. First she showed us a whitewashed parlor, decorated with +a grim picture or two and some crucifixes and other religious emblems, +where, upon stiff old chairs, the sisters sit and work. Three or four of +them were still there, pattering over their laces and bobbins; but the +chief part of the sisterhood were engaged in an apartment hard by, from +which issued a certain odor which I must say resembled onions: it was in +fact the kitchen of the establishment. + +Every Beguine cooks her own little dinner in her own little pipkin; and +there was half a score of them, sure enough, busy over their pots and +crockery, cooking a repast which, when ready, was carried off to a +neighboring room, the refectory, where, at a ledge-table which is drawn +out from under her own particular cupboard, each nun sits down and +eats her meal in silence. More religious emblems ornamented the carved +cupboard-doors, and within, everything was as neat as neat could be: +shining pewter-ewers and glasses, snug baskets of eggs and pats of +butter, and little bowls with about a farthing's-worth of green tea in +them--for some great day of fete, doubtless. The old ladies sat round +as we examined these things, each eating soberly at her ledge and never +looking round. There was a bell ringing in the chapel hard by. "Hark!" +said our guide, "that is one of the sisters dying. Will you come up and +see the cells?" + +The cells, it need not be said, are the snuggest little nests in the +world, with serge-curtained beds and snowy linen, and saints and martyrs +pinned against the wall. "We may sit up till twelve o'clock, if we +like," said the nun; "but we have no fire and candle, and so what's the +use of sitting up? When we have said our prayers we are glad enough to +go to sleep." + +I forget, although the good soul told us, how many times in the day, +in public and in private, these devotions are made, but fancy that the +morning service in the chapel takes place at too early an hour for most +easy travellers. We did not fail to attend in the evening, when likewise +is a general muster of the seven hundred, minus the absent and sick, and +the sight is not a little curious and striking to a stranger. + +The chapel is a very big whitewashed place of worship, supported by half +a dozen columns on either side, over each of which stands the statue +of an Apostle, with his emblem of martyrdom. Nobody was as yet at the +distant altar, which was too far off to see very distinctly; but I could +perceive two statues over it, one of which (St. Laurence, no doubt) was +leaning upon a huge gilt gridiron that the sun lighted up in a blaze--a +painful but not a romantic instrument of death. A couple of old ladies +in white hoods were tugging and swaying about at two bell-ropes that +came down into the middle of the church, and at least five hundred +others in white veils were seated all round about us in mute +contemplation until the service began, looking very solemn, and white, +and ghastly, like an army of tombstones by moonlight. + +The service commenced as the clock finished striking seven: the organ +pealed out, a very cracked and old one, and presently some weak old +voice from the choir overhead quavered out a canticle; which done, +a thin old voice of a priest at the altar far off (and which had now +become quite gloomy in the sunset) chanted feebly another part of the +service; then the nuns warbled once more overhead; and it was curious to +hear, in the intervals of the most lugubrious chants, how the organ went +off with some extremely cheerful military or profane air. At one time +was a march, at another a quick tune; which ceasing, the old nuns began +again, and so sung until the service was ended. + +In the midst of it one of the white-veiled sisters approached us with a +very mysterious air, and put down her white veil close to our ears and +whispered. Were we doing anything wrong, I wondered? Were they come to +that part of the service where heretics and infidels ought to quit the +church? What have you to ask, O sacred, white-veiled maid? + +All she said was, "Deux centiemes pour les suisses," which sum was paid; +and presently the old ladies, rising from their chairs one by one, came +in face of the altar, where they knelt down and said a short prayer; +then, rising, unpinned their veils, and folded them up all exactly in +the same folds and fashion, and laid them square like napkins on their +heads, and tucked up their long black outer dresses, and trudged off to +their convents. + +The novices wear black veils, under one of which I saw a young, sad, +handsome face; it was the only thing in the establishment that was +the least romantic or gloomy: and, for the sake of any reader of a +sentimental turn, let us hope that the poor soul has been crossed in +love, and that over some soul-stirring tragedy that black curtain has +fallen. + +Ghent has, I believe, been called a vulgar Venice. It contains dirty +canals and old houses that must satisfy the most eager antiquary, though +the buildings are not quite in so good preservation as others that may +be seen in the Netherlands. The commercial bustle of the place seems +considerable, and it contains more beer-shops than any city I ever saw. + +These beer-shops seem the only amusement of the inhabitants, until, +at least, the theatre shall be built, of which the elevation is now +complete, a very handsome and extensive pile. There are beer-shops in +the cellars of the houses, which are frequented, it is to be presumed, +by the lower sort; there are beer-shops at the barriers, where the +citizens and their families repair; and beer-shops in the town, glaring +with gas, with long gauze blinds, however, to hide what I hear is a +rather questionable reputation. + +Our inn, the "Hotel of the Post," a spacious and comfortable residence, +is on a little place planted round with trees, and that seems to be the +Palais Royal of the town. Three clubs, which look from without to +be very comfortable, ornament this square with their gas-lamps. Here +stands, too, the theatre that is to be; there is a cafe, and on evenings +a military band plays the very worst music I ever remember to have +heard. I went out to-night to take a quiet walk upon this place, and the +horrid brazen discord of these trumpeters set me half mad. + +I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a subterraneous +beer-shop, where men and women were drinking to the sweet music of a +cracked barrel-organ. They take in a couple of French papers at this +cafe, and the same number of Belgian journals. You may imagine how well +the latter are informed, when you hear that the battle of Boulogne, +fought by the immortal Louis Napoleon, was not known here until some +gentlemen out of Norfolk brought the news from London, and until it had +travelled to Paris, and from Paris to Brussels. For a whole hour I could +not get a newspaper at the cafe. The horrible brass band in the meantime +had quitted the place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of +little boys came to the cafe and set up a small concert: one played ill +on the guitar, but sang, very sweetly, plaintive French ballads; the +other was the comic singer; he carried about with him a queer, long, +damp-looking, mouldy white hat, with no brim. "Ecoutez," said the waiter +to me, "il va faire l'Anglais; c'est tres drole!" The little rogue +mounted his immense brimless hat, and, thrusting his thumbs into the +armholes of his waistcoat, began to faire l'Anglais, with a song in +which swearing was the principal joke. We all laughed at this, and +indeed the little rascal seemed to have a good deal of humor. + +How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as much as in France! +What lies they tell of us; how gladly they would see us humiliated! +Honest folks at home over their port-wine say, "Ay, ay, and very good +reason they have too. National vanity, sir, wounded--we have beaten them +so often." My dear sir, there is not a greater error in the world +than this. They hate you because you are stupid, hard to please, +and intolerably insolent and air-giving. I walked with an Englishman +yesterday, who asked the way to a street of which he pronounced the name +very badly to a little Flemish boy: the Flemish boy did not answer; and +there was my Englishman quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear +as if he must answer. He seemed to think that it was the duty of "the +snob," as he called him, to obey the gentleman. This is why we are +hated--for pride. In our free country a tradesman, a lackey, or a +waiter will submit to almost any given insult from a gentleman: in these +benighted lands one man is as good as another; and pray God it may soon +be so with us! Of all European people, which is the nation that has the +most haughtiness, the strongest prejudices, the greatest reserve, the +greatest dulness? I say an Englishman of the genteel classes. An honest +groom jokes and hobs-and-nobs and makes his way with the kitchen-maids, +for there is good social nature in the man; his master dare not unbend. +Look at him, how he scowls at you on your entering an inn-room; think +how you scowl yourself to meet his scowl. To-day, as we were walking and +staring about the place, a worthy old gentleman in a carriage, seeing a +pair of strangers, took off his hat and bowed very gravely with his +old powdered head out of the window: I am sorry to say that our first +impulse was to burst out laughing--it seemed so supremely ridiculous +that a stranger should notice and welcome another. + +As for the notion that foreigners hate us because we have beaten them +so often, my dear sir, this is the greatest error in the world: +well-educated Frenchmen DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE BEATEN THEM. A man +was once ready to call me out in Paris because I said that we had beaten +the French in Spain; and here before me is a French paper, with a +London correspondent discoursing about Louis Buonaparte and his jackass +expedition to Boulogne. "He was received at Eglintoun, it is true," says +the correspondent, "but what do you think was the reason? Because the +English nobility were anxious to revenge upon his person (with some +coups de lance) the checks which the 'grand homme' his uncle had +inflicted on us in Spain." + +This opinion is so general among the French, that they would laugh at +you with scornful incredulity if you ventured to assert any other. Foy's +history of the Spanish War does not, unluckily, go far enough. I have +read a French history which hardly mentions the war in Spain, and calls +the battle of Salamanca a French victory. You know how the other day, +and in the teeth of all evidence, the French swore to their victory of +Toulouse: and so it is with the rest; and you may set it down as pretty +certain, 1st, That only a few people know the real state of things in +France, as to the matter in dispute between us; 2nd, That those who do, +keep the truth to themselves, and so it is as if it had never been. + +These Belgians have caught up, and quite naturally, the French tone. +We are perfide Albion with them still. Here is the Ghent paper, which +declares that it is beyond a doubt that Louis Napoleon was sent by the +English and Lord Palmerston; and though it states in another part of +the journal (from English authority) that the Prince had never seen Lord +Palmerston, yet the lie will remain uppermost--the people and the editor +will believe it to the end of time. . . . See to what a digression +yonder little fellow in the tall hat has given rise! Let us make his +picture, and have done with him. + + +I could not understand, in my walks about this place, which is certainly +picturesque enough, and contains extraordinary charms in the shape of +old gables, quaint spires, and broad shining canals--I could not at +first comprehend why, for all this, the town was especially disagreeable +to me, and have only just hit on the reason why. Sweetest Juliana, you +will never guess it: it is simply this, that I have not seen a single +decent-looking woman in the whole place; they look all ugly, with coarse +mouths, vulgar figures, mean mercantile faces; and so the traveller +walking among them finds the pleasure of his walk excessively damped, +and the impressions made upon him disagreeable. + +In the Academy there are no pictures of merit; but sometimes a +second-rate picture is as pleasing as the best, and one may pass an hour +here very pleasantly. There is a room appropriated to Belgian artists, +of which I never saw the like: they are, like all the rest of the things +in this country, miserable imitations of the French school--great nude +Venuses, and Junos a la David, with the drawing left out. + + +BRUGES. + +The change from vulgar Ghent, with its ugly women and coarse bustle, +to this quiet, old, half-deserted, cleanly Bruges, was very pleasant. I +have seen old men at Versailles, with shabby coats and pigtails, sunning +themselves on the benches in the walls; they had seen better days, to be +sure, but they were gentlemen still: and so we found, this morning, old +dowager Bruges basking in the pleasant August sun, and looking if not +prosperous, at least cheerful and well-bred. It is the quaintest and +prettiest of all the quaint and pretty towns I have seen. A painter +might spend months here, and wander from church to church, and admire +old towers and pinnacles, tall gables, bright canals, and pretty little +patches of green garden and moss-grown wall, that reflect in the clear +quiet water. Before the inn-window is a garden, from which in the early +morning issues a most wonderful odor of stocks and wallflowers; next +comes a road with trees of admirable green; numbers of little children +are playing in this road (the place is so clean that they may roll in it +all day without soiling their pinafores), and on the other side of the +trees are little old-fashioned, dumpy, whitewashed, red-tiled houses. A +poorer landscape to draw never was known, nor a pleasanter to see--the +children especially, who are inordinately fat and rosy. Let it be +remembered, too, that here we are out of the country of ugly women: the +expression of the face is almost uniformly gentle and pleasing, and the +figures of the women, wrapped in long black monk-like cloaks and hoods, +very picturesque. No wonder there are so many children: the "Guide-book" +(omniscient Mr. Murray!) says there are fifteen thousand paupers in the +town, and we know how such multiply. How the deuce do their children +look so fat and rosy? By eating dirt-pies, I suppose. I saw a couple +making a very nice savory one, and another employed in gravely sticking +strips of stick betwixt the pebbles at the house-door, and so making for +herself a stately garden. The men and women don't seem to have much more +to do. There are a couple of tall chimneys at either suburb of the town, +where no doubt manufactories are at work, but within the walls everybody +seems decently idle. + +We have been, of course, abroad to visit the lions. The tower in the +Grand Place is very fine, and the bricks of which it is built do not +yield a whit in color to the best stone. The great building round this +tower is very like the pictures of the Ducal Palace at Venice; and there +is a long market area, with columns down the middle, from which hung +shreds of rather lean-looking meat, that would do wonders under the +hands of Cattermole or Haghe. In the tower there is a chime of bells +that keep ringing perpetually. They not only play tunes of themselves, +and every quarter of an hour, but an individual performs selections from +popular operas on them at certain periods of the morning, afternoon, and +evening. I have heard to-day "Suoni la Tromba," "Son Vergin Vezzosa," +from the "Puritani," and other airs, and very badly they were played +too; for such a great monster as a tower-bell cannot be expected to +imitate Madame Grisi or even Signor Lablache. Other churches indulge in +the same amusement, so that one may come here and live in melody all day +or night, like the young woman in Moore's "Lalla Rookh." + +In the matter of art, the chief attractions of Bruges are the pictures +of Hemling, that are to be seen in the churches, the hospital, and the +picture-gallery of the place. There are no more pictures of Rubens to +be seen, and, indeed, in the course of a fortnight, one has had quite +enough of the great man and his magnificent, swaggering canvases. What +a difference is here with simple Hemling and the extraordinary creations +of his pencil! The hospital is particularly rich in them; and the legend +there is that the painter, who had served Charles the Bold in his war +against the Swiss, and his last battle and defeat, wandered back wounded +and penniless to Bruges, and here found cure and shelter. + +This hospital is a noble and curious sight. The great hall is almost +as it was in the twelfth century; it is spanned by Saxon arches, and +lighted by a multiplicity of Gothic windows of all sizes; it is very +lofty, clean, and perfectly well ventilated; a screen runs across the +middle of the room, to divide the male from the female patients, and we +were taken to examine each ward, where the poor people seemed happier +than possibly they would have been in health and starvation without it. +Great yellow blankets were on the iron beds, the linen was scrupulously +clean, glittering pewter-jugs and goblets stood by the side of each +patient, and they were provided with godly books (to judge from +the binding), in which several were reading at leisure. Honest old +comfortable nuns, in queer dresses of blue, black, white, and flannel, +were bustling through the room, attending to the wants of the sick. I +saw about a dozen of these kind women's faces: one was young--all were +healthy and cheerful. One came with bare blue arms and a great pile of +linen from an outhouse--such a grange as Cedric the Saxon might have +given to a guest for the night. A couple were in a laboratory, a tall, +bright, clean room, 500 years old at least. "We saw you were not +very religious," said one of the old ladies, with a red, wrinkled, +good-humored face, "by your behavior yesterday in chapel." And yet +we did not laugh and talk as we used at college, but were profoundly +affected by the scene that we saw there. It was a fete-day: a mass of +Mozart was sung in the evening--not well sung, and yet so exquisitely +tender and melodious, that it brought tears into our eyes. There were +not above twenty people in the church: all, save three or four, were +women in long black cloaks. I took them for nuns at first. They were, +however, the common people of the town, very poor indeed, doubtless, +for the priest's box that was brought round was not added to by most of +them, and their contributions were but two-cent pieces,--five of these +go to a penny; but we know the value of such, and can tell the exact +worth of a poor woman's mite! The box-bearer did not seem at first +willing to accept our donation--we were strangers and heretics; however, +I held out my hand, and he came perforce as it were. Indeed it had only +a franc in it: but que voulez-vous? I had been drinking a bottle of +Rhine wine that day, and how was I to afford more? The Rhine wine is +dear in this country, and costs four francs a bottle. + +Well, the service proceeded. Twenty poor women, two Englishmen, four +ragged beggars, cowering on the steps; and there was the priest at the +altar, in a great robe of gold and damask, two little boys in white +surplices serving him, holding his robe as he rose and bowed, and the +money-gatherer swinging his censer, and filling the little chapel with +smoke. The music pealed with wonderful sweetness; you could see the prim +white heads of the nuns in their gallery. The evening light streamed +down upon old statues of saints and carved brown stalls, and lighted up +the head of the golden-haired Magdalen in a picture of the entombment +of Christ. Over the gallery, and, as it were, a kind protectress to the +poor below, stood the statue of the Virgin. + + + + +III.--WATERLOO. + + +It is, my dear, the happy privilege of your sex in England to quit the +dinner-table after the wine-bottles have once or twice gone round it, +and you are thereby saved (though, to be sure, I can't tell what the +ladies do up stairs)--you are saved two or three hours' excessive +dulness, which the men are obliged to go through. + +I ask any gentleman who reads this--the letters to my Juliana being +written with an eye to publication--to remember especially how many +times, how many hundred times, how many thousand times, in his hearing, +the battle of Waterloo has been discussed after dinner, and to call to +mind how cruelly he has been bored by the discussion. "Ah, it was lucky +for us that the Prussians came up!" says one little gentleman, looking +particularly wise and ominous. "Hang the Prussians!" (or, perhaps, +something stronger "the Prussians!") says a stout old major on half-pay. +"We beat the French without them, sir, as beaten them we always have! +We were thundering down the hill of Belle Alliance, sir, at the backs +of them, and the French were crying 'Sauve qui peut' long before the +Prussians ever touched them!" And so the battle opens, and for many +mortal hours, amid rounds of claret, rages over and over again. + +I thought to myself considering the above things, what a fine thing it +will be in after-days to say that I have been to Brussels and never seen +the field of Waterloo; indeed, that I am such a philosopher as not to +care a fig about the battle--nay, to regret, rather, that when Napoleon +came back, the British Government had not spared their men and left him +alone. + +But this pitch of philosophy was unattainable. This morning, after +having seen the Park, the fashionable boulevard, the pictures, the +cafes--having sipped, I say, the sweets of every flower that grows in +this paradise of Brussels, quite weary of the place, we mounted on a +Namur diligence, and jingled off at four miles an hour for Waterloo. + +The road is very neat and agreeable: the Forest of Soignies here and +there interposes pleasantly, to give your vehicle a shade; the country, +as usual, is vastly fertile and well cultivated. A farmer and the +conducteur were my companions in the imperial, and could I have +understood their conversation, my dear, you should have had certainly a +report of it. The jargon which they talked was, indeed, most queer and +puzzling--French, I believe, strangely hashed up and pronounced, for +here and there one could catch a few words of it. Now and anon, however, +they condescended to speak in the purest French they could muster; and, +indeed, nothing is more curious than to hear the French of the country. +You can't understand why all the people insist upon speaking it so +badly. I asked the conductor if he had been at the battle; he burst out +laughing like a philosopher, as he was, and said "Pas si bete." I asked +the farmer whether his contributions were lighter now than in King +William's time, and lighter than those in the time of the Emperor? He +vowed that in war-time he had not more to pay than in time of peace (and +this strange fact is vouched for by every person of every nation), +and being asked wherefore the King of Holland had been ousted from +his throne, replied at once, "Parceque c'etoit un voleur:" for which +accusation I believe there is some show of reason, his Majesty having +laid hands on much Belgian property before the lamented outbreak which +cost him his crown. A vast deal of laughing and roaring passed between +these two worldly people and the postilion, whom they called "baron," +and I thought no doubt that this talk was one of the many jokes that my +companions were in the habit of making. But not so: the postilion was an +actual baron, the bearer of an ancient name, the descendant of gallant +gentlemen. Good heavens! what would Mrs. Trollope say to see his +lordship here? His father the old baron had dissipated the family +fortune, and here was this young nobleman, at about five-and-forty, +compelled to bestride a clattering Flemish stallion, and bump over dusty +pavements at the rate of five miles an hour. But see the beauty of high +blood: with what a calm grace the man of family accommodates himself to +fortune. Far from being cast down, his lordship met his fate like a man: +he swore and laughed the whole of the journey, and as we changed horses, +condescended to partake of half a pint of Louvain beer, to which the +farmer treated him--indeed the worthy rustic treated me to a glass too. + +Much delight and instruction have I had in the course of the journey +from my guide, philosopher, and friend, the author of "Murray's +Handbook." He has gathered together, indeed, a store of information, +and must, to make his single volume, have gutted many hundreds of +guide-books. How the Continental ciceroni must hate him, whoever he is! +Every English party I saw had this infallible red book in their hands, +and gained a vast deal of historical and general information from it. +Thus I heard, in confidence, many remarkable anecdotes of Charles V., +the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, all of which I had before perceived, +with much satisfaction, not only in the "Handbook," but even in other +works. + +The Laureate is among the English poets evidently the great favorite of +our guide: the choice does honor to his head and heart. A man must have +a very strong bent for poetry, indeed, who carries Southey's works in +his portmanteau, and quotes them in proper time and occasion. Of course +at Waterloo a spirit like our guide's cannot fail to be deeply moved, +and to turn to his favorite poet for sympathy. Hark how the laureated +bard sings about the tombstones at Waterloo:-- + + "That temple to our hearts was hallow'd now, + For many a wounded Briton there was laid, + With such for help as time might then allow, + From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed. + And they whom human succor could not save, + Here, in its precincts, found a hasty grave. + And here, on marble tablets, set on high, + In English lines by foreign workmen traced, + The names familiar to an English eye, + Their brethren here the fit memorial placed; + Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell + THEIR GALLANT COMRADES' rank, and where they fell. + The stateliest monument of human pride, + Enriched with all magnificence of art, + To honor chieftains who in victory died, + Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart + Than these plain tablets by the soldier's hand + Raised to his comrades in a foreign land." + +There are lines for you! wonderful for justice, rich in thought and +novel ideas. The passage concerning their gallant comrades' rank should +be specially remarked. There indeed they lie, sure enough: the Honorable +Colonel This of the Guards, Captain That of the Hussars, Major So-and-So +of the Dragoons, brave men and good, who did their duty by their country +on that day, and died in the performance of it. + +Amen. But I confess fairly, that in looking at these tablets, I felt +very much disappointed at not seeing the names of the MEN as well as the +officers. Are they to be counted for nought? A few more inches of marble +to each monument would have given space for all the names of the men; +and the men of that day were the winners of the battle. We have a right +to be as grateful individually to any given private as to any given +officer; their duties were very much the same. Why should the country +reserve its gratitude for the genteel occupiers of the army-list, +and forget the gallant fellows whose humble names were written in the +regimental books? In reading of the Wellington wars, and the conduct +of the men engaged in them, I don't know whether to respect them or +to wonder at them most. They have death, wounds, and poverty in +contemplation; in possession, poverty, hard labor, hard fare, and +small thanks. If they do wrong, they are handed over to the inevitable +provost-marshal; if they are heroes, heroes they may be, but they +remain privates still, handling the old brown-bess, starving on the old +twopence a day. They grow gray in battle and victory, and after thirty +years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh from a +preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but yesterday with a +pinafore in to papa's dessert--such a young gentleman, I say, arrives +in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly takes the command over our +veteran, who obeys him as if God and nature had ordained that so +throughout time it should be. + +That privates should obey, and that they should be smartly punished if +they disobey, this one can understand very well. But to say obey for +ever and ever--to say that Private John Styles is, by some physical +disproportion, hopelessly inferior to Cornet Snooks--to say that Snooks +shall have honors, epaulets, and a marble tablet if he dies, and that +Styles shall fight his fight, and have his twopence a day, and when +shot down shall be shovelled into a hole with other Styleses, and so +forgotten; and to think that we had in the course of the last war +some 400,000 of these Styleses, and some 10,000, say, of the Snooks +sort--Styles being by nature exactly as honest, clever, and brave as +Snooks--and to think that the 400,000 should bear this, is the wonder! + +Suppose Snooks makes a speech. "Look at these Frenchmen, British +soldiers," says he, "and remember who they are. Two-and-twenty years +since they hurled their King from his throne and murdered him" (groans). +"They flung out of their country their ancient and famous nobility--they +published the audacious doctrine of equality--they made a cadet +of artillery, a beggarly lawyer's son, into an Emperor, and took +ignoramuses from the ranks--drummers and privates, by Jove!--of whom +they made kings, generals, and marshals! Is this to be borne?" (Cries of +"No! no!") "Upon them, my boys! down with these godless revolutionists, +and rally round the British lion!" + +So saying, Ensign Snooks (whose flag, which he can't carry, is held by +a huge grizzly color-sergeant,) draws a little sword, and pipes out a +feeble huzza. The men of his company, roaring curses at the Frenchmen, +prepare to receive and repel a thundering charge of French cuirassiers. +The men fight, and Snooks is knighted because the men fought so well. + +But live or die, win or lose, what do THEY get? English glory is too +genteel to meddle with those humble fellows. She does not condescend to +ask the names of the poor devils whom she kills in her service. Why was +not every private man's name written upon the stones in Waterloo Church +as well as every officer's? Five hundred pounds to the stone-cutters +would have served to carve the whole catalogue, and paid the poor +compliment of recognition to men who died in doing their duty. If the +officers deserved a stone, the men did. But come, let us away and drop a +tear over the Marquis of Anglesea's leg! + +As for Waterloo, has it not been talked of enough after dinner? Here are +some oats that were plucked before Hougoumont, where grow not only +oats, but flourishing crops of grape-shot, bayonets, and legion-of-honor +crosses, in amazing profusion. + +Well, though I made a vow not to talk about Waterloo either here or +after dinner, there is one little secret admission that one must make +after seeing it. Let an Englishman go and see that field, and he NEVER +FORGETS IT. The sight is an event in his life; and, though it has been +seen by millions of peaceable GENTS--grocers from Bond Street, meek +attorneys from Chancery Lane, and timid tailors from Piccadilly--I will +wager that there is not one of them but feels a glow as he looks at the +place, and remembers that he, too, is an Englishman. + +It is a wrong, egotistical, savage, unchristian feeling, and that's +the truth of it. A man of peace has no right to be dazzled by that +red-coated glory, and to intoxicate his vanity with those remembrances +of carnage and triumph. The same sentence which tells us that on earth +there ought to be peace and good-will amongst men, tells us to whom +GLORY belongs. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, by +William Makepeace Thackeray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE TRAVELS *** + +***** This file should be named 2843.txt or 2843.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/4/2843/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES + +by TITMARSH + +by William Makepeace Thackeray + + + + +I. FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM + +II. GHENT--BRUGES:-- + + Ghent (1840) + + Bruges + +III. WATERLOO + + + + +LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES + + + +I.--FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM + + +. . . I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" at Richmond, one of the +comfortablest, quietest, cheapest, neatest little inns in England, +and a thousand times preferable, in my opinion, to the "Star and +Garter," whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, with his hair +curled, frightens you off the premises; and where, if you are bold +enough to brave the sneering waiter, you have to pay ten shillings +for a bottle of claret; and whence, if you look out of the window, +you gaze on a view which is so rich that it seems to knock you down +with its splendor--a view that has its hair curled like the +swaggering waiter: I say, I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" with +deep regret, believing that I should see nothing so pleasant as its +gardens, and its veal cutlets, and its dear little bowling-green, +elsewhere. But the time comes when people must go out of town, and +so I got on the top of the omnibus, and the carpet-bag was put +inside. + + +If I were a great prince and rode outside of coaches (as I should +if I were a great prince), I would, whether I smoked or not, have a +case of the best Havanas in my pocket--not for my own smoking, but +to give them to the snobs on the coach, who smoke the vilest +cheroots. They poison the air with the odor of their filthy weeds. +A man at all easy in his circumstances would spare himself much +annoyance by taking the above simple precaution. + +A gentleman sitting behind me tapped me on the back and asked for a +light. He was a footman, or rather valet. He had no livery, but +the three friends who accompanied him were tall men in pepper-and- +salt undress jackets with a duke's coronet on their buttons. + +After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished his cheroot, +the gentleman produced another wind-instrument, which he called a +"kinopium," a sort of trumpet, on which he showed a great +inclination to play. He began puffing out of the "kinopium" a most +abominable air, which he said was the "Duke's March." It was +played by particular request of one of the pepper-and-salt gentry. + +The noise was so abominable that even the coachman objected +(although my friend's brother footmen were ravished with it), and +said that it was not allowed to play toons on HIS 'bus. "Very +well," said the valet, "WE'RE ONLY OF THE DUKE OF B----'S +ESTABLISHMENT, THAT'S ALL." The coachman could not resist that +appeal to his fashionable feelings. The valet was allowed to play +his infernal kinopium, and the poor fellow (the coachman), who had +lived in some private families, was quite anxious to conciliate the +footmen "of the Duke of B.'s establishment, that's all," and told +several stories of his having been groom in Captain Hoskins's +family, NEPHEW OF GOVERNOR HOSKINS; which stories the footmen +received with great contempt. + +The footmen were like the rest of the fashionable world in this +respect. I felt for my part that I respected them. They were in +daily communication with a duke! They were not the rose, but they +had lived beside it. There is an odor in the English aristocracy +which intoxicates plebeians. I am sure that any commoner in +England, though he would die rather than confess it, would have a +respect for those great big hulking Duke's footmen. + +The day before, her Grace the Duchess had passed us alone in a +chariot-and-four with two outriders. What better mark of innate +superiority could man want? Here was a slim lady who required +four--six horses to herself, and four servants (kinopium was, no +doubt, one of the number) to guard her. + +We were sixteen inside and out, and had consequently an eighth of a +horse apiece. + +A duchess = 6, a commoner = 1/8; that is to say, + +1 duchess = 48 commoners. + +If I were a duchess of the present day, I would say to the duke my +noble husband, "My dearest grace, I think, when I travel alone in +my chariot from Hammersmith to London, I will not care for the +outriders. In these days, when there is so much poverty and so +much disaffection in the country, we should not eclabousser the +canaille with the sight of our preposterous prosperity. + +But this is very likely only plebeian envy, and I dare say, if I +were a lovely duchess of the realm, I would ride in a coach-and- +six, with a coronet on the top of my bonnet and a robe of velvet +and ermine even in the dog-days. + +Alas! these are the dog-days. Many dogs are abroad--snarling dogs, +biting dogs, envious dogs, mad dogs; beware of exciting the fury of +such with your flaming red velvet and dazzling ermine. It makes +ragged Lazarus doubly hungry to see Dives feasting in cloth-of- +gold; and so if I were a beauteous duchess . . . Silence, vain +man! Can the Queen herself make you a duchess? Be content, then, +nor gibe at thy betters of "the Duke of B----'s establishment-- +that's all." + + +ON BOARD THE "ANTWERPEN," OFF EVERYWHERE. + +We have bidden adieu to Billingsgate, we have passed the Thames +Tunnel; it is one o'clock, and of course people are thinking of +being hungry. What a merry place a steamer is on a calm sunny +summer forenoon, and what an appetite every one seems to have! We +are, I assure you, no less than 170 noblemen and gentlemen +together, pacing up and down under the awning, or lolling on the +sofas in the cabin, and hardly have we passed Greenwich when the +feeding begins. The company was at the brandy and soda-water in +an instant (there is a sort of legend that the beverage is a +preservative against sea-sickness), and I admired the penetration +of gentlemen who partook of the drink. In the first place, the +steward WILL put so much brandy into the tumbler that it is fit to +choke you; and, secondly, the soda-water, being kept as near as +possible to the boiler of the engine, is of a fine wholesome heat +when presented to the hot and thirsty traveller. Thus he is +prevented from catching any sudden cold which might be dangerous to +him. + +The forepart of the vessel is crowded to the full as much as the +genteeler quarter. There are four carriages, each with piles of +imperials and aristocratic gimcracks of travel, under the wheels of +which those personages have to clamber who have a mind to look at +the bowsprit, and perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages +overcome, you find yourself confronted by a huge penful of Durham +oxen, lying on hay and surrounded by a barricade of oars. Fifteen +of these horned monsters maintain an incessant mooing and +bellowing. Beyond the cows come a heap of cotton-bags, beyond the +cotton-bags more carriages, more pyramids of travelling trunks, and +valets and couriers bustling and swearing round about them. And +already, and in various corners and niches, lying on coils of rope, +black tar-cloths, ragged cloaks, or hay, you see a score of those +dubious fore-cabin passengers, who are never shaved, who always +look unhappy, and appear getting ready to be sick. + +At one, dinner begins in the after-cabin--boiled salmon, boiled +beef, boiled mutton, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, and parboiled +wine for any gentlemen who like it, and two roast-ducks between +seventy. After this, knobs of cheese are handed round on a plate, +and there is a talk of a tart somewhere at some end of the table. +All this I saw peeping through a sort of meat-safe which ventilates +the top of the cabin, and very happy and hot did the people seem +below. + +"How the deuce CAN people dine at such an hour?" say several +genteel fellows who are watching the manoeuvres. "I can't touch a +morsel before seven." + +But somehow at half-past three o'clock we had dropped a long way +down the river. The air was delightfully fresh, the sky of a +faultless cobalt, the river shining and flashing like quicksilver, +and at this period steward runs against me bearing two great +smoking dishes covered by two great glistening hemispheres of tin. +"Fellow," says I, "what's that?" + +He lifted up the cover: it was ducks and green pease, by jingo! + +"What! haven't they done YET, the greedy creatures?" I asked. +"Have the people been feeding for three hours?" + +"Law bless you, sir, it's the second dinner. Make haste, or you +won't get a place." At which words a genteel party, with whom I +had been conversing, instantly tumbled down the hatchway, and I +find myself one of the second relay of seventy who are attacking +the boiled salmon, boiled beef, boiled cabbage, &c. As for the +ducks, I certainly had some pease, very fine yellow stiff pease, +that ought to have been split before they were boiled; but, with +regard to the ducks, I saw the animals gobbled up before my eyes by +an old widow lady and her party just as I was shrieking to the +steward to bring a knife and fork to carve them. The fellow! (I +mean the widow lady's whiskered companion)--I saw him eat pease +with the very knife with which he had dissected the duck! + +After dinner (as I need not tell the keen observer of human nature +who peruses this) the human mind, if the body be in a decent state, +expands into gayety and benevolence, and the intellect longs to +measure itself in friendly converse with the divers intelligences +around it. We ascend upon deck, and after eying each other for a +brief space and with a friendly modest hesitation, we begin anon to +converse about the weather and other profound and delightful themes +of English discourse. We confide to each other our respective +opinions of the ladies round about us. Look at that charming +creature in a pink bonnet and a dress of the pattern of a +Kilmarnock snuff-box: a stalwart Irish gentleman in a green coat +and bushy red whiskers is whispering something very agreeable into +her ear, as is the wont of gentlemen of his nation; for her dark +eyes kindle, her red lips open and give an opportunity to a dozen +beautiful pearly teeth to display themselves, and glance brightly +in the sun; while round the teeth and the lips a number of lovely +dimples make their appearance, and her whole countenance assumes a +look of perfect health and happiness. See her companion in shot +silk and a dove-colored parasol; in what a graceful Watteau-like +attitude she reclines. The tall courier who has been bouncing +about the deck in attendance upon these ladies (it is his first day +of service, and he is eager to make a favorable impression on them +and the lady's-maids too) has just brought them from the carriage a +small paper of sweet cakes (nothing is prettier than to see a +pretty woman eating sweet biscuits) and a bottle that evidently +contains Malmsey madeira. How daintily they sip it; how happy they +seem; how that lucky rogue of an Irishman prattles away! Yonder is +a noble group indeed: an English gentleman and his family. +Children, mother, grandmother, grown-up daughters, father, and +domestics, twenty-two in all. They have a table to themselves on +the deck, and the consumption of eatables among them is really +endless. The nurses have been bustling to and fro, and bringing, +first, slices of cake; then dinner; then tea with huge family jugs +of milk; and the little people have been playing hide-and-seek +round the deck, coquetting with the other children, and making +friends of every soul on board. I love to see the kind eyes of +women fondly watching them as they gambol about; a female face, be +it ever so plain, when occupied in regarding children, becomes +celestial almost, and a man can hardly fail to be good and happy +while he is looking on at such sights. "Ah, sir!" says a great big +man, whom you would not accuse of sentiment, "I have a couple of +those little things at home;" and he stops and heaves a great big +sigh and swallows down a half-tumbler of cold something and water. +We know what the honest fellow means well enough. He is saying to +himself, "God bless my girls and their mother!" but, being a +Briton, is too manly to speak out in a more intelligible way. +Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and not chatter and +gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, who are +chirping over a bottle of champagne. + +There is, as you may fancy, a number of such groups on the deck, +and a pleasant occupation it is for a lonely man to watch them and +build theories upon them, and examine those two personages seated +cheek by jowl. One is an English youth, travelling for the first +time, who has been hard at his Guidebook during the whole journey. +He has a "Manuel du Voyageur" in his pocket: a very pretty, amusing +little oblong work it is too, and might be very useful, if the +foreign people in three languages, among whom you travel, would but +give the answers set down in the book, or understand the questions +you put to them out of it. The other honest gentleman in the fur +cap, what can his occupation be? We know him at once for what he +is. "Sir," says he, in a fine German accent, "I am a brofessor of +languages, and will gif you lessons in Danish, Swedish, English, +Bortuguese, Spanish and Bersian." Thus occupied in meditations, +the rapid hours and the rapid steamer pass quickly on. The sun is +sinking, and, as he drops, the ingenious luminary sets the Thames +on fire: several worthy gentlemen, watch in hand, are eagerly +examining the phenomena attending his disappearance,--rich clouds +of purple and gold, that form the curtains of his bed,--little +barks that pass black across his disc, his disc every instant +dropping nearer and nearer into the water. "There he goes!" says +one sagacious observer. "No, he doesn't," cries another. Now he +is gone, and the steward is already threading the deck, asking the +passengers, right and left, if they will take a little supper. +What a grand object is a sunset, and what a wonder is an appetite +at sea! Lo! the horned moon shines pale over Margate, and the red +beacon is gleaming from distant Ramsgate pier. + + . . . . . . + +A great rush is speedily made for the mattresses that lie in the +boat at the ship's side; and as the night is delightfully calm, +many fair ladies and worthy men determine to couch on deck for the +night. The proceedings of the former, especially if they be young +and pretty, the philosopher watches with indescribable emotion and +interest. What a number of pretty coquetries do the ladies +perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they take care to fall! +All the little children have been gathered up by the nursery-maids, +and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals the eyes of +many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian +nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been +walking the deck for some time with a great mattress on his +shoulders, knowing full well that were he to relinquish it for an +instant, some other person would seize on it, now stretches his bed +upon the deck, wraps his cloak about his knees, draws his white +cotton nightcap tight over his head and ears; and, as the smoke of +his cigar rises calmly upwards to the deep sky and the cheerful +twinkling stars, he feels himself exquisitely happy, and thinks of +thee, my Juliana! + + . . . . . . + +Why people, because they are in a steamboat, should get up so +deucedly early I cannot understand. Gentlemen have been walking +over my legs ever since three o'clock this morning, and, no doubt, +have been indulging in personalities (which I hate) regarding my +appearance and manner of sleeping, lying, snoring. Let the wags +laugh on; but a far pleasanter occupation is to sleep until +breakfast-time, or near it. + +The tea, and ham and eggs, which, with a beefsteak or two, and +three or four rounds of toast, form the component parts of the +above-named elegant meal, are taken in the River Scheldt. Little +neat, plump-looking churches and villages are rising here and there +among tufts of trees and pastures that are wonderfully green. To +the right, as the "Guide-book" says, is Walcheren; and on the left +Cadsand, memorable for the English expedition of 1809, when Lord +Chatham, Sir Walter Manny, and Henry Earl of Derby, at the head of +the English, gained a great victory over the Flemish mercenaries in +the pay of Philippe of Valois. The cloth-yard shafts of the +English archers did great execution. Flushing was taken, and Lord +Chatham returned to England, where he distinguished himself greatly +in the debates on the American war, which he called the brightest +jewel of the British crown. You see, my love, that, though an +artist by profession, my education has by no means been neglected; +and what, indeed, would be the pleasure of travel, unless these +charming historical recollections were brought to bear upon it? + + +ANTWERP. + +As many hundreds of thousands of English visit this city (I have +met at least a hundred of them in this half-hour walking the +streets, "Guide-book" in hand), and as the ubiquitous Murray has +already depicted the place, there is no need to enter into a long +description of it, its neatness, its beauty, and its stiff antique +splendor. The tall pale houses have many of them crimped gables, +that look like Queen Elizabeth's ruffs. There are as many people +in the streets as in London at three o'clock in the morning; the +market-women wear bonnets of a flower-pot shape, and have shining +brazen milk-pots, which are delightful to the eyes of a painter. +Along the quays of the lazy Scheldt are innumerable good-natured +groups of beer-drinkers (small-beer is the most good-natured drink +in the world); along the barriers outside of the town, and by the +glistening canals, are more beer-shops and more beer-drinkers. The +city is defended by the queerest fat military. The chief traffic +is between the hotels and the railroad. The hotels give wonderful +good dinners, and especially at the "Grand Laboureur" may be +mentioned a peculiar tart, which is the best of all tarts that +ever a man ate since he was ten years old. A moonlight walk is +delightful. At ten o'clock the whole city is quiet; and so little +changed does it seem to be, that you may walk back three hundred +years into time, and fancy yourself a majestical Spaniard, or an +oppressed and patriotic Dutchman at your leisure. You enter the +inn, and the old Quentin Durward court-yard, on which the old +towers look down. There is a sound of singing--singing at +midnight. Is it Don Sombrero, who is singing an Andalusian +seguidilla under the window of the Flemish burgomaster's daughter? +Ah, no! it is a fat Englishman in a zephyr coat: he is drinking +cold gin-and-water in the moonlight, and warbling softly-- + + + "Nix my dolly, pals, fake away, + N-ix my dolly, pals, fake a--a--way."* + + +* In 1844. + + +I wish the good people would knock off the top part of Antwerp +Cathedral spire. Nothing can be more gracious and elegant than the +lines of the first two compartments; but near the top there bulges +out a little round, ugly, vulgar Dutch monstrosity (for which the +architects have, no doubt, a name) which offends the eye cruelly. +Take the Apollo, and set upon him a bob-wig and a little cocked +hat; imagine "God Save the King" ending with a jig; fancy a +polonaise, or procession of slim, stately, elegant court beauties, +headed by a buffoon dancing a hornpipe. Marshal Gerard should have +discharged a bombshell at that abomination, and have given the +noble steeple a chance to be finished in the grand style of the +early fifteenth century, in which it was begun. + +This style of criticism is base and mean, and quite contrary to the +orders of the immortal Goethe, who was only for allowing the eye to +recognize the beauties of a great work, but would have its defects +passed over. It is an unhappy, luckless organization which will be +perpetually fault-finding, and in the midst of a grand concert of +music will persist only in hearing that unfortunate fiddle out of +tune. + +Within--except where the rococo architects have introduced their +ornaments (here is the fiddle out of tune again)--the cathedral is +noble. A rich, tender sunshine is streaming in through the +windows, and gilding the stately edifice with the purest light. +The admirable stained-glass windows are not too brilliant in their +colors. The organ is playing a rich, solemn music; some two +hundred of people are listening to the service; and there is scarce +one of the women kneeling on her chair, enveloped in her full +majestic black drapery, that is not a fine study for a painter. +These large black mantles of heavy silk brought over the heads of +the women, and covering their persons, fall into such fine folds of +drapery, that they cannot help being picturesque and noble. See, +kneeling by the side of two of those fine devout-looking figures, +is a lady in a little twiddling Parisian hat and feather, in a +little lace mantelet, in a tight gown and a bustle. She is almost +as monstrous as yonder figure of the Virgin, in a hoop, and with a +huge crown and a ball and a sceptre; and a bambino dressed in a +little hoop, and in a little crown, round which are clustered +flowers and pots of orange-trees, and before which many of the +faithful are at prayer. Gentle clouds of incense come wafting +through the vast edifice; and in the lulls of the music you hear +the faint chant of the priest, and the silver tinkle of the bell. + +Six Englishmen, with the commissionaires, and the "Murray's Guide- +books" in their hands, are looking at the "Descent from the Cross." +Of this picture the "Guide-book" gives you orders how to judge. If +it is the end of religious painting to express the religious +sentiment, a hundred of inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. +Who was ever piously affected by any picture of the master? He can +depict a livid thief writhing upon the cross, sometimes a blond +Magdalen weeping below it; but it is a Magdalen a very short time +indeed after her repentance: her yellow brocades and flaring satins +are still those which she wore when she was of the world; her body +has not yet lost the marks of the feasting and voluptuousness in +which she used to indulge, according to the legend. Not one of the +Rubens's pictures among all the scores that decorate chapels and +churches here, has the least tendency to purify, to touch the +affections, or to awaken the feelings of religious respect and +wonder. The "Descent from the Cross" is vast, gloomy, and awful; +but the awe inspired by it is, as I take it, altogether material. +He might have painted a picture of any criminal broken on the +wheel, and the sensation inspired by it would have been precisely +similar. Nor in a religious picture do you want the savoir-faire +of the master to be always protruding itself; it detracts from the +feeling of reverence, just as the thumping of cushion and the +spouting of tawdry oratory does from a sermon: meek religion +disappears, shouldered out of the desk by the pompous, stalwart, +big-chested, fresh-colored, bushy-whiskered pulpiteer. Rubens's +piety has always struck us as of this sort. If he takes a pious +subject, it is to show you in what a fine way he, Peter Paul +Rubens, can treat it. He never seems to doubt but that he is doing +it a great honor. His "Descent from the Cross," and its +accompanying wings and cover, are a set of puns upon the word +Christopher, of which the taste is more odious than that of the +hooped-petticoated Virgin yonder, with her artificial flowers, and +her rings and brooches. The people who made an offering of that +hooped petticoat did their best, at any rate; they knew no better. +There is humility in that simple, quaint present; trustfulness and +kind intention. Looking about at other altars, you see (much to +the horror of pious Protestants) all sorts of queer little emblems +hanging up under little pyramids of penny candles that are +sputtering and flaring there. Here you have a silver arm, or a +little gold toe, or a wax leg, or a gilt eye, signifying and +commemorating cures that have been performed by the supposed +intercession of the saint over whose chapel they hang. Well, +although they are abominable superstitions, yet these queer little +offerings seem to me to be a great deal more pious than Rubens's +big pictures; just as is the widow with her poor little mite +compared to the swelling Pharisee who flings his purse of gold into +the plate. + +A couple of days of Rubens and his church pictures makes one +thoroughly and entirely sick of him. His very genius and splendor +pails upon one, even taking the pictures as worldly pictures. One +grows weary of being perpetually feasted with this rich, coarse, +steaming food. Considering them as church pictures, I don't want +to go to church to hear, however splendid, an organ play the +"British Grenadiers." + + +The Antwerpians have set up a clumsy bronze statue of their +divinity in a square of the town; and those who have not enough of +Rubens in the churches may study him, and indeed to much greater +advantage, in a good, well-lighted museum. Here, there is one +picture, a dying saint taking the communion, a large piece ten or +eleven feet high, and painted in an incredibly short space of time, +which is extremely curious indeed for the painter's study. The +picture is scarcely more than an immense magnificent sketch; but it +tells the secret of the artist's manner, which, in the midst of its +dash and splendor, is curiously methodical. Where the shadows are +warm the lights are cold, and vice versa; and the picture has been +so rapidly painted, that the tints lie raw by the side of one +another, the artist not having taken the trouble to blend them. + +There are two exquisite Vandykes (whatever Sir Joshua may say of +them), and in which the very management of the gray tones which the +President abuses forms the principal excellence and charm. Why, +after all, are we not to have our opinion? Sir Joshua is not the +Pope. The color of one of those Vandykes is as fine as FINE Paul +Veronese, and the sentiment beautifully tender and graceful. + +I saw, too, an exhibition of the modern Belgian artists (1843), the +remembrance of whose pictures after a month's absence has almost +entirely vanished. Wappers's hand, as I thought, seemed to have +grown old and feeble, Verboeckhoven's cattle-pieces are almost as +good as Paul Potter's, and Keyser has dwindled down into namby- +pamby prettiness, pitiful to see in the gallant young painter who +astonished the Louvre artists ten years ago by a hand almost as +dashing and ready as that of Rubens himself. There were besides +many caricatures of the new German school, which are in themselves +caricatures of the masters before Raphael. + + +An instance of honesty may be mentioned here with applause. The +writer lost a pocket-book containing a passport and a couple of +modest ten-pound notes. The person who found the portfolio +ingeniously put it into the box of the post-office, and it was +faithfully restored to the owner; but somehow the two ten-pound +notes were absent. It was, however, a great comfort to get the +passport, and the pocket-book, which must be worth about ninepence. + + +BRUSSELS. + +It was night when we arrived by the railroad from Antwerp at +Brussels; the route is very pretty and interesting, and the flat +countries through which the road passes in the highest state of +peaceful, smiling cultivation. The fields by the roadside are +enclosed by hedges as in England, the harvest was in part down, and +an English country gentleman who was of our party pronounced the +crops to be as fine as any he had ever seen. Of this matter a +Cockney cannot judge accurately, but any man can see with what +extraordinary neatness and care all these little plots of ground +are tilled, and admire the richness and brilliancy of the +vegetation. Outside of the moat of Antwerp, and at every village +by which we passed, it was pleasant to see the happy congregations +of well-clad people that basked in the evening sunshine, and +soberly smoked their pipes and drank their Flemish beer. Men who +love this drink must, as I fancy, have something essentially +peaceful in their composition, and must be more easily satisfied +than folks on our side of the water. The excitement of Flemish +beer is, indeed, not great. I have tried both the white beer and +the brown; they are both of the kind which schoolboys denominate +"swipes," very sour and thin to the taste, but served, to be sure, +in quaint Flemish jugs that do not seem to have changed their form +since the days of Rubens, and must please the lovers of antiquarian +knick-knacks. Numbers of comfortable-looking women and children +sat beside the head of the family upon the tavern-benches, and it +was amusing to see one little fellow of eight years old smoking, +with much gravity, his father's cigar. How the worship of the +sacred plant of tobacco has spread through all Europe! I am sure +that the persons who cry out against the use of it are guilty of +superstition and unreason, and that it would be a proper and easy +task for scientific persons to write an encomium upon the weed. In +solitude it is the pleasantest companion possible, and in company +never de trop. To a student it suggests all sorts of agreeable +thoughts, it refreshes the brain when weary, and every sedentary +cigar-smoker will tell you how much good he has had from it, and +how he has been able to return to his labor, after a quarter of an +hour's mild interval of the delightful leaf of Havana. Drinking +has gone from among us since smoking came in. It is a wicked error +to say that smokers are drunkards; drink they do, but of gentle +diluents mostly, for fierce stimulants of wine or strong liquors +are abhorrent to the real lover of the Indian weed. Ah! my +Juliana, join not in the vulgar cry that is raised against us. +Cigars and cool drinks beget quiet conversations, good-humor, +meditation; not hot blood such as mounts into the head of drinkers +of apoplectic port or dangerous claret. Are we not more moral and +reasonable than our forefathers? Indeed I think so somewhat; and +many improvements of social life and converse must date with the +introduction of the pipe. + +We were a dozen tobacco-consumers in the wagon of the train that +brought us from Antwerp; nor did the women of the party (sensible +women!) make a single objection to the fumigation. But enough of +this; only let me add, in conclusion, that an excellent Israelitish +gentleman, Mr. Hartog of Antwerp, supplies cigars for a penny +apiece, such as are not to be procured in London for four times +the sum. + +Through smiling corn-fields, then, and by little woods from which +rose here and there the quaint peaked towers of some old-fashioned +chateaux, our train went smoking along at thirty miles an hour. We +caught a glimpse of Mechlin steeple, at first dark against the +sunset, and afterwards bright as we came to the other side of it, +and admired long glistening canals or moats that surrounded the +queer old town, and were lighted up in that wonderful way which the +sun only understands, and not even Mr. Turner, with all his +vermilion and gamboge, can put down on canvas. The verdure was +everywhere astonishing, and we fancied we saw many golden Cuyps as +we passed by these quiet pastures. + +Steam-engines and their accompaniments, blazing forges, gaunt +manufactories, with numberless windows and long black chimneys, of +course take away from the romance of the place but, as we whirled +into Brussels, even these engines had a fine appearance. Three or +four of the snorting, galloping monsters had just finished their +journey, and there was a quantity of flaming ashes lying under the +brazen bellies of each that looked properly lurid and demoniacal. +The men at the station came out with flaming torches--awful-looking +fellows indeed! Presently the different baggage was handed out, +and in the very worst vehicle I ever entered, and at the very +slowest pace, we were borne to the "Hotel de Suede," from which +house of entertainment this letter is written. + +We strolled into the town, but, though the night was excessively +fine and it was not yet eleven o'clock, the streets of the little +capital were deserted, and the handsome blazing cafes round about +the theatres contained no inmates. Ah, what a pretty sight is the +Parisian Boulevard on a night like this! how many pleasant hours +has one passed in watching the lights, and the hum, and the stir, +and the laughter of those happy, idle people! There was none of +this gayety here; nor was there a person to be found, except a +skulking commissioner or two (whose real name in French is that of +a fish that is eaten with fennel-sauce), and who offered to conduct +us to certain curiosities in the town. What must we English not +have done, that in every town in Europe we are to be fixed upon by +scoundrels of this sort; and what a pretty reflection it is on our +country that such rascals find the means of living on us! + + +Early the next morning we walked through a number of streets in the +place, and saw certain sights. The Park is very pretty, and all +the buildings round about it have an air of neatness--almost of +stateliness. The houses are tall, the streets spacious, and the +roads extremely clean. In the Park is a little theatre, a cafe +somewhat ruinous, a little palace for the king of this little +kingdom, some smart public buildings (with S. P. Q. B. emblazoned +on them, at which pompous inscription one cannot help laughing), +and other rows of houses somewhat resembling a little Rue de +Rivoli. Whether from my own natural greatness and magnanimity, or +from that handsome share of national conceit that every Englishman +possesses, my impressions of this city are certainly anything but +respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput look with it. There +are soldiers, just as in Paris, better dressed, and doing a vast +deal of drumming and bustle; and yet, somehow, far from being +frightened at them, I feel inclined to laugh in their faces. There +are little Ministers, who work at their little bureaux; and to read +the journals, how fierce they are! A great thundering Times could +hardly talk more big. One reads about the rascally Ministers, the +miserable Opposition, the designs of tyrants, the eyes of Europe, +&c., just as one would in real journals. The Moniteur of Ghent +belabors the Independent of Brussels; the Independent falls foul of +the Lynx; and really it is difficult not to suppose sometimes that +these worthy people are in earnest. And yet how happy were they +sua si bona norint! Think what a comfort it would be to belong to +a little state like this; not to abuse their privilege, but +philosophically to use it. If I were a Belgian, I would not care +one single fig about politics. I would not read thundering +leading-articles. I would not have an opinion. What's the use of +an opinion here? Happy fellows! do not the French, the English, +and the Prussians, spare them the trouble of thinking, and make all +their opinions for them? Think of living in a country free, easy, +respectable, wealthy, and with the nuisance of talking politics +removed from out of it. All this might the Belgians have, and a +part do they enjoy, but not the best part; no, these people will be +brawling and by the ears, and parties run as high here as at Stoke +Pogis or little Pedlington. + +These sentiments were elicited by the reading of a paper at the +cafe in the Park, where we sat under the trees for a while and +sipped our cool lemonade. Numbers of statues decorate the place, +the very worst I ever saw. These Cupids must have been erected in +the time of the Dutch dynasty, as I judge from the immense +posterior developments. Indeed the arts of the country are very +low. The statues here, and the lions before the Prince of Orange's +palace, would disgrace almost the figurehead of a ship. + +Of course we paid our visit to this little lion of Brussels (the +Prince's palace, I mean). The architecture of the building is +admirably simple and firm; and you remark about it, and all other +works here, a high finish in doors, wood-works, paintings, &c., +that one does not see in France, where the buildings are often +rather sketched than completed, and the artist seems to neglect the +limbs, as it were, and extremities of his figures. + +The finish of this little place is exquisite. We went through some +dozen of state-rooms, paddling along over the slippery floors of +inlaid woods in great slippers, without which we must have come to +the ground. How did his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange manage +when he lived here, and her Imperial Highness the Princess, and +their excellencies the chamberlains and the footmen? They must +have been on their tails many times a day, that's certain, and must +have cut queer figures. + +The ball-room is beautiful--all marble, and yet with a comfortable, +cheerful look; the other apartments are not less agreeable, and the +people looked with intense satisfaction at some great lapis-lazuli +tables, which the guide informed us were worth four millions, more +or less; adding with a very knowing look, that they were un peu +plus cher que l'or. This speech has a tremendous effect on +visitors, and when we met some of our steamboat companions in the +Park or elsewhere--in so small a place as this one falls in with +them a dozen times a day--"Have you seen the tables?" was the +general question. Prodigious tables are they, indeed! Fancy a +table, my dear--a table four feet wide--a table with legs. Ye +heavens! the mind can hardly picture to itself anything so +beautiful and so tremendous! + +There are some good pictures in the palace, too, but not so +extraordinarily good as the guide-books and the guide would have us +to think. The latter, like most men of his class, is an ignoramus, +who showed us an Andrea del Sarto (copy or original), and called it +a Correggio, and made other blunders of a like nature. As is the +case in England, you are hurried through the rooms without being +allowed time to look at the pictures, and, consequently, to +pronounce a satisfactory judgment on them. + +In the Museum more time was granted me, and I spent some hours with +pleasure there. It is an absurd little gallery, absurdly imitating +the Louvre, with just such compartments and pillars as you see in +the noble Paris gallery; only here the pillars and capitals are +stucco and white in place of marble and gold, and plaster-of-paris +busts of great Belgians are placed between the pillars. An artist +of the country has made a picture containing them, and you will be +ashamed of your ignorance when you hear many of their names. Old +Tilly of Magdeburg figures in one corner; Rubens, the endless +Rubens, stands in the midst. What a noble countenance it is, and +what a manly, swaggering consciousness of power! + +The picture to see here is a portrait, by the great Peter Paul, of +one of the governesses of the Netherlands. It is just the finest +portrait that ever was seen. Only a half-length, but such a +majesty, such a force, such a splendor, such a simplicity about it! +The woman is in a stiff black dress, with a ruff and a few pearls; +a yellow curtain is behind her--the simplest arrangement that can +be conceived; but this great man knew how to rise to his occasion; +and no better proof can be shown of what a fine gentleman he was +than this his homage to the vice-Queen. A common bungler would +have painted her in her best clothes, with crown and sceptre, just +as our Queen has been painted by--but comparisons are odious. Here +stands this majestic woman in her every-day working-dress of black +satin, LOOKING YOUR HAT OFF, as it were. Another portrait of the +same personage hangs elsewhere in the gallery, and it is curious to +observe the difference between the two, and see how a man of genius +paints a portrait, and how a common limner executes it. + +Many more pictures are there here by Rubens, or rather from +Rubens's manufactory,--odious and vulgar most of them are; fat +Magdalens, coarse Saints, vulgar Virgins, with the scene-painter's +tricks far too evident upon the canvas. By the side of one of the +most astonishing color-pieces in the world, the "Worshipping of the +Magi," is a famous picture of Paul Veronese that cannot be too much +admired. As Rubens sought in the first picture to dazzle and +astonish by gorgeous variety, Paul in his seems to wish to get his +effect by simplicity, and has produced the most noble harmony that +can be conceived. Many more works are there that merit notice,--a +singularly clever, brilliant, and odious Jordaens, for example; +some curious costume-pieces; one or two works by the Belgian +Raphael, who was a very Belgian Raphael, indeed; and a long gallery +of pictures of the very oldest school, that, doubtless, afford much +pleasure to the amateurs of ancient art. I confess that I am +inclined to believe in very little that existed before the time of +Raphael. There is, for instance, the Prince of Orange's picture by +Perugino, very pretty indeed, up to a certain point, but all the +heads are repeated, all the drawing is bad and affected; and this +very badness and affectation, is what the so-called Catholic school +is always anxious to imitate. Nothing can be more juvenile or +paltry than the works of the native Belgians here exhibited. Tin +crowns are suspended over many of them, showing that the pictures +are prize compositions: and pretty things, indeed, they are! Have +you ever read an Oxford prize-poem! Well, these pictures are worse +even than the Oxford poems--an awful assertion to make. + +In the matter of eating, dear sir, which is the next subject of the +fine arts, a subject that, after many hours' walking, attracts a +gentleman very much, let me attempt to recall the transactions of +this very day at the table-d'-hote. 1, green pea-soup; 2, boiled +salmon; 3, mussels; 4, crimped skate; 5, roast-meat; 6, patties; 7, +melons; 8, carp, stewed with mushrooms and onions; 9, roast-turkey; +10, cauliflower and butter; 11, fillets of venison piques, with +asafoetida sauce; 12, stewed calf's-ear; 13, roast-veal; 14, roast- +lamb; 15, stewed cherries; 16, rice-pudding; 17, Gruyere cheese, +and about twenty-four cakes of different kinds. Except 5, 13, and +14, I give you my word I ate of all written down here, with three +rolls of bread and a score of potatoes. What is the meaning of it? +How is the stomach of man to be brought to desire and to receive +all this quantity? Do not gastronomists complain of heaviness in +London after eating a couple of mutton-chops? Do not respectable +gentlemen fall asleep in their arm-chairs? Are they fit for mental +labor? Far from it. But look at the difference here: after dinner +here one is as light as a gossamer. One walks with pleasure, reads +with pleasure, writes with pleasure--nay, there is the supper-bell +going at ten o'clock, and plenty of eaters, too. Let lord mayors +and aldermen look to it, this fact of the extraordinary increase of +appetite in Belgium, and, instead of steaming to Blackwall, come a +little further to Antwerp. + +Of ancient architectures in the place, there is a fine old Port de +Halle, which has a tall, gloomy, bastille look; a most magnificent +town-hall, that has been sketched a thousand of times, and opposite +it, a building that I think would be the very model for a +Conservative club-house in London. Oh! how charming it would be to +be a great painter, and give the character of the building, and the +numberless groups round about it. The booths lighted up by the +sun, the market-women in their gowns of brilliant hue, each group +having a character and telling its little story, the troops of men +lolling in all sorts of admirable attitudes of ease round the great +lamp. Half a dozen light-blue dragoons are lounging about, and +peeping over the artist as the drawing is made, and the sky is more +bright and blue than one sees it in a hundred years in London. + +The priests of the country are a remarkably well-fed and +respectable race, without that scowling, hang-dog look which one +has remarked among reverend gentlemen in the neighboring country of +France. Their reverences wear buckles to their shoes, light-blue +neck-cloths, and huge three-cornered hats in good condition. To- +day, strolling by the cathedral, I heard the tinkling of a bell in +the street, and beheld certain persons, male and female, suddenly +plump down on their knees before a little procession that was +passing. Two men in black held a tawdry red canopy, a priest +walked beneath it holding the sacrament covered with a cloth, and +before him marched a couple of little altar-boys in short white +surplices, such as you see in Rubens, and holding lacquered lamps. +A small train of street-boys followed the procession, cap in hand, +and the clergyman finally entered a hospital for old women, near +the church, the canopy and the lamp-bearers remaining without. + +It was a touching scene, and as I stayed to watch it, I could not +but think of the poor old soul who was dying within, listening to +the last words of prayer, led by the hand of the priest to the +brink of the black fathomless grave. How bright the sun was +shining without all the time, and how happy and careless every +thing around us looked! + + +The Duke d'Arenberg has a picture-gallery worthy of his princely +house. It does not contain great pieces, but tit-bits of pictures, +such as suit an aristocratic epicure. For such persons a great +huge canvas is too much, it is like sitting down alone to a roasted +ox; and they do wisely, I think, to patronize small, high-flavored, +delicate morceaux, such as the Duke has here. + +Among them may be mentioned, with special praise, a magnificent +small Rembrandt, a Paul Potter of exceeding minuteness and beauty, +an Ostade, which reminds one of Wilkie's early performances, and a +Dusart quite as good as Ostade. There is a Berghem, much more +unaffected than that artist's works generally are; and, what is +more, precious in the eyes of many ladies as an object of art, +there is, in one of the grand saloons, some needlework done by the +Duke's own grandmother, which is looked at with awe by those +admitted to see the palace. + +The chief curiosity, if not the chief ornament of a very elegant +library, filled with vases and bronzes, is a marble head, supposed +to be the original head of the Laocoon. It is, unquestionably a +finer head than that which at present figures upon the shoulders of +the famous statue. The expression of woe is more manly and +intense; in the group as we know it, the head of the principal +figure has always seemed to me to be a grimace of grief, as are the +two accompanying young gentlemen with their pretty attitudes, and +their little silly, open-mouthed despondency. It has always had +upon me the effect of a trick, that statue, and not of a piece of +true art. It would look well in the vista of a garden; it is not +august enough for a temple, with all its jerks and twirls, and +polite convulsions. But who knows what susceptibilities such a +confession may offend? Let us say no more about the Laocoon, nor +its head, nor its tail. The Duke was offered its weight in gold, +they say, for this head, and refused. It would be a shame to speak +ill of such a treasure, but I have my opinion of the man who made +the offer. + +In the matter of sculpture almost all the Brussels churches are +decorated with the most laborious wooden pulpits, which may be +worth their weight in gold, too, for what I know, including his +reverence preaching inside. At St. Gudule the preacher mounts into +no less a place than the garden of Eden, being supported by Adam +and Eve, by Sin and Death, and numberless other animals; he walks +up to his desk by a rustic railing of flowers, fruits, and +vegetables, with wooden peacocks, paroquets, monkeys biting apples, +and many more of the birds and beasts of the field. In another +church the clergyman speaks from out a hermitage; in a third from a +carved palm-tree, which supports a set of oak clouds that form the +canopy of the pulpit, and are, indeed, not much heavier in +appearance than so many huge sponges. A priest, however tall or +stout, must be lost in the midst of all these queer gimcracks; in +order to be consistent, they ought to dress him up, too, in some +odd fantastical suit. I can fancy the Cure of Meudon preaching out +of such a place, or the Rev. Sydney Smith, or that famous clergyman +of the time of the League, who brought all Paris to laugh and +listen to him. + + +But let us not be too supercilious and ready to sneer. It is only +bad taste. It may have been very true devotion which erected these +strange edifices. + + + +II.--GHENT--BRUGES. + + +GHENT. (1840.) + + +The Beguine College or Village is one of the most extraordinary +sights that all Europe can show. On the confines of the town of +Ghent you come upon an old-fashioned brick gate, that seems as if +it were one of the city barriers; but, on passing it, one of the +prettiest sights possible meets the eye: At the porter's lodge you +see an old lady, in black and a white hood, occupied over her book; +before you is a red church with a tall roof and fantastical Dutch +pinnacles, and all around it rows upon rows of small houses, the +queerest, neatest, nicest that ever were seen (a doll's house is +hardly smaller or prettier). Right and left, on each side of +little alleys, these little mansions rise; they have a courtlet +before them, in which some green plants or hollyhocks are growing; +and to each house is a gate, that has mostly a picture or queer- +carved ornament upon or about it, and bears the name, not of the +Beguine who inhabits it, but of the saint to whom she may have +devoted it--the house of St. Stephen, the house of St. Donatus, the +English or Angel Convent, and so on. Old ladies in black are +pacing in the quiet alleys here and there, and drop the stranger a +curtsy as he passes them and takes off his hat. Never were such +patterns of neatness seen as these old ladies and their houses. I +peeped into one or two of the chambers, of which the windows were +open to the pleasant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously plain, +a quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite saints +decorating the spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a +quick, cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of +their little domiciles; and with a great deal of artifice, and +lurking behind walls, and looking at the church as if I intended to +design that, I managed to get a sketch of a couple of them. + + +But what white paper can render the whiteness of their linen; what +black ink can do justice to the lustre of their gowns and shoes? +Both of the ladies had a neat ankle and a tight stocking; and I +fancy that heaven is quite as well served in this costume as in the +dress of a scowling, stockingless friar, whom I had seen passing +just before. The look and dress of the man made me shudder. His +great red feet were bound up in a shoe open at the toes, a kind of +compromise for a sandal. I had just seen him and his brethren at +the Dominican Church, where a mass of music was sung, and orange- +trees, flags, and banners decked the aisle of the church. + +One begins to grow sick of these churches, and the hideous +exhibitions of bodily agonies that are depicted on the sides of all +the chapels. Into one wherein we went this morning was what they +called a Calvary: a horrible, ghastly image of a Christ in a tomb, +the figure of the natural size, and of the livid color of death; +gaping red wounds on the body and round the brows: the whole piece +enough to turn one sick, and fit only to brutalize the beholder of +it. The Virgin is commonly represented with a dozen swords stuck +in her heart; bleeding throats of headless John Baptists are +perpetually thrust before your eyes. At the Cathedral gate was a +papier-mache church-ornament shop--most of the carvings and reliefs +of the same dismal character: one, for instance, represented a +heart with a great gash in it, and a double row of large blood- +drops dribbling from it; nails and a knife were thrust into the +heart; round the whole was a crown of thorns. Such things are +dreadful to think of. The same gloomy spirit which made a religion +of them, and worked upon the people by the grossest of all means, +terror, distracted the natural feelings of man to maintain its +power--shut gentle women into lonely, pitiless convents--frightened +poor peasants with tales of torment--taught that the end and labor +of life was silence, wretchedness, and the scourge--murdered those +by fagot and prison who thought otherwise. How has the blind and +furious bigotry of man perverted that which God gave us as our +greatest boon, and bid us hate where God bade us love! Thank +heaven that monk has gone out of sight! It is pleasant to look at +the smiling, cheerful old Beguine, and think no more of yonder +livid face. + +One of the many convents in this little religious city seems to be +the specimen-house, which is shown to strangers, for all the guides +conduct you thither, and I saw in a book kept for the purpose the +names of innumerable Smiths and Joneses registered. + +A very kind, sweet-voiced, smiling nun (I wonder, do they always +choose the most agreeable and best-humored sister of the house to +show it to strangers?) came tripping down the steps and across the +flags of the little garden-court, and welcomed us with much +courtesy into the neat little old-fashioned, red-bricked, gable- +ended, shining-windowed Convent of the Angels. First she showed us +a whitewashed parlor, decorated with a grim picture or two and some +crucifixes and other religious emblems, where, upon stiff old +chairs, the sisters sit and work. Three or four of them were still +there, pattering over their laces and bobbins; but the chief part +of the sisterhood were engaged in an apartment hard by, from which +issued a certain odor which I must say resembled onions: it was in +fact the kitchen of the establishment. + +Every Beguine cooks her own little dinner in her own little pipkin; +and there was half a score of them, sure enough, busy over their +pots and crockery, cooking a repast which, when ready, was carried +off to a neighboring room, the refectory, where, at a ledge-table +which is drawn out from under her own particular cupboard, each nun +sits down and eats her meal in silence. More religious emblems +ornamented the carved cupboard-doors, and within, everything was +as neat as neat could be: shining pewter-ewers and glasses, snug +baskets of eggs and pats of butter, and little bowls with about a +farthing's-worth of green tea in them--for some great day of fete, +doubtless. The old ladies sat round as we examined these things, +each eating soberly at her ledge and never looking round. There +was a bell ringing in the chapel hard by. "Hark!" said our guide, +"that is one of the sisters dying. Will you come up and see the +cells?" + +The cells, it need not be said, are the snuggest little nests in +the world, with serge-curtained beds and snowy linen, and saints +and martyrs pinned against the wall. "We may sit up till twelve +o'clock, if we like," said the nun; "but we have no fire and +candle, and so what's the use of sitting up? When we have said our +prayers we are glad enough to go to sleep." + +I forget, although the good soul told us, how many times in the +day, in public and in private, these devotions are made, but fancy +that the morning service in the chapel takes place at too early an +hour for most easy travellers. We did not fail to attend in the +evening, when likewise is a general muster of the seven hundred, +minus the absent and sick, and the sight is not a little curious +and striking to a stranger. + +The chapel is a very big whitewashed place of worship, supported by +half a dozen columns on either side, over each of which stands the +statue of an Apostle, with his emblem of martyrdom. Nobody was as +yet at the distant altar, which was too far off to see very +distinctly; but I could perceive two statues over it, one of which +(St. Laurence, no doubt) was leaning upon a huge gilt gridiron that +the sun lighted up in a blaze--a painful but not a romantic +instrument of death. A couple of old ladies in white hoods were +tugging and swaying about at two bell-ropes that came down into the +middle of the church, and at least five hundred others in white +veils were seated all round about us in mute contemplation until +the service began, looking very solemn, and white, and ghastly, +like an army of tombstones by moonlight. + +The service commenced as the clock finished striking seven: the +organ pealed out, a very cracked and old one, and presently some +weak old voice from the choir overhead quavered out a canticle; +which done, a thin old voice of a priest at the altar far off (and +which had now become quite gloomy in the sunset) chanted feebly +another part of the service; then the nuns warbled once more +overhead; and it was curious to hear, in the intervals of the most +lugubrious chants, how the organ went off with some extremely +cheerful military or profane air. At one time was a march, at +another a quick tune; which ceasing, the old nuns began again, and +so sung until the service was ended. + +In the midst of it one of the white-veiled sisters approached us +with a very mysterious air, and put down her white veil close to +our ears and whispered. Were we doing anything wrong, I wondered? +Were they come to that part of the service where heretics and +infidels ought to quit the church? What have you to ask, O sacred, +white-veiled maid? + +All she said was, "Deux centiemes pour les suisses," which sum was +paid; and presently the old ladies, rising from their chairs one by +one, came in face of the altar, where they knelt down and said a +short prayer; then, rising, unpinned their veils, and folded them +up all exactly in the same folds and fashion, and laid them square +like napkins on their heads, and tucked up their long black outer +dresses, and trudged off to their convents. + +The novices wear black veils, under one of which I saw a young, +sad, handsome face; it was the only thing in the establishment that +was the least romantic or gloomy: and, for the sake of any reader +of a sentimental turn, let us hope that the poor soul has been +crossed in love, and that over some soul-stirring tragedy that +black curtain has fallen. + +Ghent has, I believe, been called a vulgar Venice. It contains +dirty canals and old houses that must satisfy the most eager +antiquary, though the buildings are not quite in so good +preservation as others that may be seen in the Netherlands. The +commercial bustle of the place seems considerable, and it contains +more beer-shops than any city I ever saw. + +These beer-shops seem the only amusement of the inhabitants, until, +at least, the theatre shall be built, of which the elevation is now +complete, a very handsome and extensive pile. There are beer-shops +in the cellars of the houses, which are frequented, it is to be +presumed, by the lower sort; there are beer-shops at the barriers, +where the citizens and their families repair; and beer-shops in the +town, glaring with gas, with long gauze blinds, however, to hide +what I hear is a rather questionable reputation. + +Our inn, the "Hotel of the Post," a spacious and comfortable +residence, is on a little place planted round with trees, and that +seems to be the Palais Royal of the town. Three clubs, which look +from without to be very comfortable, ornament this square with +their gas-lamps. Here stands, too, the theatre that is to be; +there is a cafe, and on evenings a military band plays the very +worst music I ever remember to have heard. I went out to-night to +take a quiet walk upon this place, and the horrid brazen discord of +these trumpeters set me half mad. + +I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a subterraneous +beer-shop, where men and women were drinking to the sweet music of +a cracked barrel-organ. They take in a couple of French papers at +this cafe, and the same number of Belgian journals. You may +imagine how well the latter are informed, when you hear that the +battle of Boulogne, fought by the immortal Louis Napoleon, was not +known here until some gentlemen out of Norfolk brought the news +from London, and until it had travelled to Paris, and from Paris to +Brussels. For a whole hour I could not get a newspaper at the +cafe. The horrible brass band in the meantime had quitted the +place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of little +boys came to the cafe and set up a small concert: one played ill on +the guitar, but sang, very sweetly, plaintive French ballads; the +other was the comic singer; he carried about with him a queer, +long, damp-looking, mouldy white hat, with no brim. "Ecoutez," +said the waiter to me, "il va faire l'Anglais; c'est tres drole!" +The little rogue mounted his immense brimless hat, and, thrusting +his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, began to faire +l'Anglais, with a song in which swearing was the principal joke. +We all laughed at this, and indeed the little rascal seemed to have +a good deal of humor. + +How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as much as in +France! What lies they tell of us; how gladly they would see us +humiliated! Honest folks at home over their port-wine say, "Ay, +ay, and very good reason they have too. National vanity, sir, +wounded--we have beaten them so often." My dear sir, there is not +a greater error in the world than this. They hate you because you +are stupid, hard to please, and intolerably insolent and air- +giving. I walked with an Englishman yesterday, who asked the way +to a street of which he pronounced the name very badly to a little +Flemish boy: the Flemish boy did not answer; and there was my +Englishman quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear as if he +must answer. He seemed to think that it was the duty of "the +snob," as he called him, to obey the gentleman. This is why we are +hated--for pride. In our free country a tradesman, a lackey, or a +waiter will submit to almost any given insult from a gentleman: in +these benighted lands one man is as good as another; and pray God +it may soon be so with us! Of all European people, which is the +nation that has the most haughtiness, the strongest prejudices, the +greatest reserve, the greatest dulness? I say an Englishman of the +genteel classes. An honest groom jokes and hobs-and-nobs and makes +his way with the kitchen-maids, for there is good social nature in +the man; his master dare not unbend. Look at him, how he scowls at +you on your entering an inn-room; think how you scowl yourself to +meet his scowl. To-day, as we were walking and staring about the +place, a worthy old gentleman in a carriage, seeing a pair of +strangers, took off his hat and bowed very gravely with his old +powdered head out of the window: I am sorry to say that our first +impulse was to burst out laughing--it seemed so supremely +ridiculous that a stranger should notice and welcome another. + +As for the notion that foreigners hate us because we have beaten +them so often, my dear sir, this is the greatest error in the +world: well-educated Frenchmen DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE BEATEN +THEM. A man was once ready to call me out in Paris because I said +that we had beaten the French in Spain; and here before me is a +French paper, with a London correspondent discoursing about Louis +Buonaparte and his jackass expedition to Boulogne. "He was +received at Eglintoun, it is true," says the correspondent, "but +what do you think was the reason? Because the English nobility +were anxious to revenge upon his person (with some coups de lance) +the checks which the 'grand homme' his uncle had inflicted on us in +Spain." + +This opinion is so general among the French, that they would laugh +at you with scornful incredulity if you ventured to assert any +other. Foy's history of the Spanish War does not, unluckily, go +far enough. I have read a French history which hardly mentions the +war in Spain, and calls the battle of Salamanca a French victory. +You know how the other day, and in the teeth of all evidence, the +French swore to their victory of Toulouse: and so it is with the +rest; and you may set it down as pretty certain, 1st, That only a +few people know the real state of things in France, as to the +matter in dispute between us; 2nd, That those who do, keep the +truth to themselves, and so it is as if it had never been. + +These Belgians have caught up, and quite naturally, the French +tone. We are perfide Albion with them still. Here is the Ghent +paper, which declares that it is beyond a doubt that Louis Napoleon +was sent by the English and Lord Palmerston; and though it states +in another part of the journal (from English authority) that the +Prince had never seen Lord Palmerston, yet the lie will remain +uppermost--the people and the editor will believe it to the end of +time. . . . See to what a digression yonder little fellow in the +tall hat has given rise! Let us make his picture, and have done +with him. + + +I could not understand, in my walks about this place, which is +certainly picturesque enough, and contains extraordinary charms in +the shape of old gables, quaint spires, and broad shining canals-- +I could not at first comprehend why, for all this, the town was +especially disagreeable to me, and have only just hit on the reason +why. Sweetest Juliana, you will never guess it: it is simply this, +that I have not seen a single decent-looking woman in the whole +place; they look all ugly, with coarse mouths, vulgar figures, mean +mercantile faces; and so the traveller walking among them finds the +pleasure of his walk excessively damped, and the impressions made +upon him disagreeable. + +In the Academy there are no pictures of merit; but sometimes a +second-rate picture is as pleasing as the best, and one may pass an +hour here very pleasantly. There is a room appropriated to Belgian +artists, of which I never saw the like: they are, like all the rest +of the things in this country, miserable imitations of the French +school--great nude Venuses, and Junos a la David, with the drawing +left out. + + +BRUGES. + +The change from vulgar Ghent, with its ugly women and coarse +bustle, to this quiet, old, half-deserted, cleanly Bruges, was very +pleasant. I have seen old men at Versailles, with shabby coats and +pigtails, sunning themselves on the benches in the walls; they had +seen better days, to be sure, but they were gentlemen still: and so +we found, this morning, old dowager Bruges basking in the pleasant +August sun, and looking if not prosperous, at least cheerful and +well-bred. It is the quaintest and prettiest of all the quaint and +pretty towns I have seen. A painter might spend months here, and +wander from church to church, and admire old towers and pinnacles, +tall gables, bright canals, and pretty little patches of green +garden and moss-grown wall, that reflect in the clear quiet water. +Before the inn-window is a garden, from which in the early morning +issues a most wonderful odor of stocks and wallflowers; next comes +a road with trees of admirable green; numbers of little children +are playing in this road (the place is so clean that they may roll +in it all day without soiling their pinafores), and on the other +side of the trees are little old-fashioned, dumpy, whitewashed, +red-tiled houses. A poorer landscape to draw never was known, nor +a pleasanter to see--the children especially, who are inordinately +fat and rosy. Let it be remembered, too, that here we are out of +the country of ugly women: the expression of the face is almost +uniformly gentle and pleasing, and the figures of the women, +wrapped in long black monk-like cloaks and hoods, very picturesque. +No wonder there are so many children: the "Guide-book" (omniscient +Mr. Murray!) says there are fifteen thousand paupers in the town, +and we know how such multiply. How the deuce do their children +look so fat and rosy? By eating dirt-pies, I suppose. I saw a +couple making a very nice savory one, and another employed in +gravely sticking strips of stick betwixt the pebbles at the house- +door, and so making for herself a stately garden. The men and +women don't seem to have much more to do. There are a couple of +tall chimneys at either suburb of the town, where no doubt +manufactories are at work, but within the walls everybody seems +decently idle. + +We have been, of course, abroad to visit the lions. The tower in +the Grand Place is very fine, and the bricks of which it is built +do not yield a whit in color to the best stone. The great building +round this tower is very like the pictures of the Ducal Palace at +Venice; and there is a long market area, with columns down the +middle, from which hung shreds of rather lean-looking meat, that +would do wonders under the hands of Cattermole or Haghe. In the +tower there is a chime of bells that keep ringing perpetually. +They not only play tunes of themselves, and every quarter of an +hour, but an individual performs selections from popular operas on +them at certain periods of the morning, afternoon, and evening. I +have heard to-day "Suoni la Tromba," "Son Vergin Vezzosa," from the +"Puritani," and other airs, and very badly they were played too; +for such a great monster as a tower-bell cannot be expected to +imitate Madame Grisi or even Signor Lablache. Other churches +indulge in the same amusement, so that one may come here and live +in melody all day or night, like the young woman in Moore's "Lalla +Rookh." + +In the matter of art, the chief attractions of Bruges are the +pictures of Hemling, that are to be seen in the churches, the +hospital, and the picture-gallery of the place. There are no more +pictures of Rubens to be seen, and, indeed, in the course of a +fortnight, one has had quite enough of the great man and his +magnificent, swaggering canvases. What a difference is here with +simple Hemling and the extraordinary creations of his pencil! The +hospital is particularly rich in them; and the legend there is that +the painter, who had served Charles the Bold in his war against the +Swiss, and his last battle and defeat, wandered back wounded and +penniless to Bruges, and here found cure and shelter. + +This hospital is a noble and curious sight. The great hall is +almost as it was in the twelfth century; it is spanned by Saxon +arches, and lighted by a multiplicity of Gothic windows of all +sizes; it is very lofty, clean, and perfectly well ventilated; a +screen runs across the middle of the room, to divide the male from +the female patients, and we were taken to examine each ward, where +the poor people seemed happier than possibly they would have been +in health and starvation without it. Great yellow blankets were on +the iron beds, the linen was scrupulously clean, glittering pewter- +jugs and goblets stood by the side of each patient, and they were +provided with godly books (to judge from the binding), in which +several were reading at leisure. Honest old comfortable nuns, in +queer dresses of blue, black, white, and flannel, were bustling +through the room, attending to the wants of the sick. I saw about +a dozen of these kind women's faces: one was young--all were +healthy and cheerful. One came with bare blue arms and a great +pile of linen from an outhouse--such a grange as Cedric the Saxon +might have given to a guest for the night. A couple were in a +laboratory, a tall, bright, clean room, 500 years old at least. +"We saw you were not very religious," said one of the old ladies, +with a red, wrinkled, good-humored face, "by your behavior +yesterday in chapel." And yet we did not laugh and talk as we used +at college, but were profoundly affected by the scene that we saw +there. It was a fete-day: a mass of Mozart was sung in the +evening--not well sung, and yet so exquisitely tender and +melodious, that it brought tears into our eyes. There were not +above twenty people in the church: all, save three or four, were +women in long black cloaks. I took them for nuns at first. They +were, however, the common people of the town, very poor indeed, +doubtless, for the priest's box that was brought round was not +added to by most of them, and their contributions were but two-cent +pieces,--five of these go to a penny; but we know the value of +such, and can tell the exact worth of a poor woman's mite! The +box-bearer did not seem at first willing to accept our donation--we +were strangers and heretics; however, I held out my hand, and he +came perforce as it were. Indeed it had only a franc in it: but +que voulez-vous? I had been drinking a bottle of Rhine wine that +day, and how was I to afford more? The Rhine wine is dear in this +country, and costs four francs a bottle. + +Well, the service proceeded. Twenty poor women, two Englishmen, +four ragged beggars, cowering on the steps; and there was the +priest at the altar, in a great robe of gold and damask, two little +boys in white surplices serving him, holding his robe as he rose +and bowed, and the money-gatherer swinging his censer, and filling +the little chapel with smoke. The music pealed with wonderful +sweetness; you could see the prim white heads of the nuns in their +gallery. The evening light streamed down upon old statues of +saints and carved brown stalls, and lighted up the head of the +golden-haired Magdalen in a picture of the entombment of Christ. +Over the gallery, and, as it were, a kind protectress to the poor +below, stood the statue of the Virgin. + + + +III.--WATERLOO. + + +It is, my dear, the happy privilege of your sex in England to quit +the dinner-table after the wine-bottles have once or twice gone +round it, and you are thereby saved (though, to be sure, I can't +tell what the ladies do up stairs)--you are saved two or three +hours' excessive dulness, which the men are obliged to go through. + +I ask any gentleman who reads this--the letters to my Juliana being +written with an eye to publication--to remember especially how many +times, how many hundred times, how many thousand times, in his +hearing, the battle of Waterloo has been discussed after dinner, +and to call to mind how cruelly he has been bored by the +discussion. "Ah, it was lucky for us that the Prussians came up!" +says one little gentleman, looking particularly wise and ominous. +"Hang the Prussians!" (or, perhaps, something stronger "the +Prussians!") says a stout old major on half-pay. "We beat the +French without them, sir, as beaten them we always have! We were +thundering down the hill of Belle Alliance, sir, at the backs of +them, and the French were crying 'Sauve qui peut' long before the +Prussians ever touched them!" And so the battle opens, and for +many mortal hours, amid rounds of claret, rages over and over +again. + +I thought to myself considering the above things, what a fine thing +it will be in after-days to say that I have been to Brussels and +never seen the field of Waterloo; indeed, that I am such a +philosopher as not to care a fig about the battle--nay, to regret, +rather, that when Napoleon came back, the British Government had +not spared their men and left him alone. + +But this pitch of philosophy was unattainable. This morning, after +having seen the Park, the fashionable boulevard, the pictures, the +cafes--having sipped, I say, the sweets of every flower that grows +in this paradise of Brussels, quite weary of the place, we mounted +on a Namur diligence, and jingled off at four miles an hour for +Waterloo. + +The road is very neat and agreeable: the Forest of Soignies here +and there interposes pleasantly, to give your vehicle a shade; the +country, as usual, is vastly fertile and well cultivated. A farmer +and the conducteur were my companions in the imperial, and could I +have understood their conversation, my dear, you should have had +certainly a report of it. The jargon which they talked was, +indeed, most queer and puzzling--French, I believe, strangely +hashed up and pronounced, for here and there one could catch a few +words of it. Now and anon, however, they condescended to speak in +the purest French they could muster; and, indeed, nothing is more +curious than to hear the French of the country. You can't +understand why all the people insist upon speaking it so badly. I +asked the conductor if he had been at the battle; he burst out +laughing like a philosopher, as he was, and said "Pas si bete." I +asked the farmer whether his contributions were lighter now than in +King William's time, and lighter than those in the time of the +Emperor? He vowed that in war-time he had not more to pay than in +time of peace (and this strange fact is vouched for by every person +of every nation), and being asked wherefore the King of Holland had +been ousted from his throne, replied at once, "Parceque c'etoit un +voleur:" for which accusation I believe there is some show of +reason, his Majesty having laid hands on much Belgian property +before the lamented outbreak which cost him his crown. A vast deal +of laughing and roaring passed between these two worldly people and +the postilion, whom they called "baron," and I thought no doubt +that this talk was one of the many jokes that my companions were +in the habit of making. But not so: the postilion was an actual +baron, the bearer of an ancient name, the descendant of gallant +gentlemen. Good heavens! what would Mrs. Trollope say to see his +lordship here? His father the old baron had dissipated the family +fortune, and here was this young nobleman, at about five-and-forty, +compelled to bestride a clattering Flemish stallion, and bump over +dusty pavements at the rate of five miles an hour. But see the +beauty of high blood: with what a calm grace the man of family +accommodates himself to fortune. Far from being cast down, his +lordship met his fate like a man: he swore and laughed the whole of +the journey, and as we changed horses, condescended to partake of +half a pint of Louvain beer, to which the farmer treated him-- +indeed the worthy rustic treated me to a glass too. + +Much delight and instruction have I had in the course of the +journey from my guide, philosopher, and friend, the author of +"Murray's Handbook." He has gathered together, indeed, a store of +information, and must, to make his single volume, have gutted many +hundreds of guide-books. How the Continental ciceroni must hate +him, whoever he is! Every English party I saw had this infallible +red book in their hands, and gained a vast deal of historical and +general information from it. Thus I heard, in confidence, many +remarkable anecdotes of Charles V., the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, +all of which I had before perceived, with much satisfaction, not +only in the "Handbook," but even in other works. + +The Laureate is among the English poets evidently the great +favorite of our guide: the choice does honor to his head and heart. +A man must have a very strong bent for poetry, indeed, who carries +Southey's works in his portmanteau, and quotes them in proper time +and occasion. Of course at Waterloo a spirit like our guide's +cannot fail to be deeply moved, and to turn to his favorite poet +for sympathy. Hark how the laureated bard sings about the +tombstones at Waterloo:-- + + + "That temple to our hearts was hallow'd now, + For many a wounded Briton there was laid, + With such for help as time might then allow, + From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed. + And they whom human succor could not save, + Here, in its precincts, found a hasty grave. + And here, on marble tablets, set on high, + In English lines by foreign workmen traced, + The names familiar to an English eye, + Their brethren here the fit memorial placed; + Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell + THEIR GALLANT COMRADES' rank, and where they fell. + The stateliest monument of human pride, + Enriched with all magnificence of art, + To honor chieftains who in victory died, + Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart + Than these plain tablets by the soldier's hand + Raised to his comrades in a foreign land." + + +There are lines for you! wonderful for justice, rich in thought and +novel ideas. The passage concerning their gallant comrades' rank +should be specially remarked. There indeed they lie, sure enough: +the Honorable Colonel This of the Guards, Captain That of the +Hussars, Major So-and-So of the Dragoons, brave men and good, who +did their duty by their country on that day, and died in the +performance of it. + +Amen. But I confess fairly, that in looking at these tablets, I +felt very much disappointed at not seeing the names of the MEN as +well as the officers. Are they to be counted for nought? A few +more inches of marble to each monument would have given space for +all the names of the men; and the men of that day were the winners +of the battle. We have a right to be as grateful individually to +any given private as to any given officer; their duties were very +much the same. Why should the country reserve its gratitude for +the genteel occupiers of the army-list, and forget the gallant +fellows whose humble names were written in the regimental books? +In reading of the Wellington wars, and the conduct of the men +engaged in them, I don't know whether to respect them or to wonder +at them most. They have death, wounds, and poverty in contemplation; +in possession, poverty, hard labor, hard fare, and small thanks. +If they do wrong, they are handed over to the inevitable provost- +marshal; if they are heroes, heroes they may be, but they remain +privates still, handling the old brown-bess, starving on the old +twopence a day. They grow gray in battle and victory, and after +thirty years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh +from a preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but +yesterday with a pinafore in to papa's dessert--such a young +gentleman, I say, arrives in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly +takes the command over our veteran, who obeys him as if God and +nature had ordained that so throughout time it should be. + +That privates should obey, and that they should be smartly punished +if they disobey, this one can understand very well. But to say +obey for ever and ever--to say that Private John Styles is, by some +physical disproportion, hopelessly inferior to Cornet Snooks--to +say that Snooks shall have honors, epaulets, and a marble tablet +if he dies, and that Styles shall fight his fight, and have his +twopence a day, and when shot down shall be shovelled into a hole +with other Styleses, and so forgotten; and to think that we had in +the course of the last war some 400,000 of these Styleses, and some +10,000, say, of the Snooks sort--Styles being by nature exactly as +honest, clever, and brave as Snooks--and to think that the 400,000 +should bear this, is the wonder! + +Suppose Snooks makes a speech. "Look at these Frenchmen, British +soldiers," says he, "and remember who they are. Two-and-twenty +years since they hurled their King from his throne and murdered +him" (groans). "They flung out of their country their ancient and +famous nobility--they published the audacious doctrine of equality-- +they made a cadet of artillery, a beggarly lawyer's son, into an +Emperor, and took ignoramuses from the ranks--drummers and +privates, by Jove!--of whom they made kings, generals, and +marshals! Is this to be borne?" (Cries of "No! no!") "Upon them, +my boys! down with these godless revolutionists, and rally round +the British lion!" + +So saying, Ensign Snooks (whose flag, which he can't carry, is held +by a huge grizzly color-sergeant,) draws a little sword, and pipes +out a feeble huzza. The men of his company, roaring curses at the +Frenchmen, prepare to receive and repel a thundering charge of +French cuirassiers. The men fight, and Snooks is knighted because +the men fought so well. + +But live or die, win or lose, what do THEY get? English glory is +too genteel to meddle with those humble fellows. She does not +condescend to ask the names of the poor devils whom she kills in +her service. Why was not every private man's name written upon the +stones in Waterloo Church as well as every officer's? Five hundred +pounds to the stone-cutters would have served to carve the whole +catalogue, and paid the poor compliment of recognition to men who +died in doing their duty. If the officers deserved a stone, the +men did. But come, let us away and drop a tear over the Marquis of +Anglesea's leg! + +As for Waterloo, has it not been talked of enough after dinner? +Here are some oats that were plucked before Hougoumont, where grow +not only oats, but flourishing crops of grape-shot, bayonets, and +legion-of-honor crosses, in amazing profusion. + +Well, though I made a vow not to talk about Waterloo either here or +after dinner, there is one little secret admission that one must +make after seeing it. Let an Englishman go and see that field, and +he NEVER FORGETS IT. The sight is an event in his life; and, +though it has been seen by millions of peaceable GENTS--grocers +from Bond Street, meek attorneys from Chancery Lane, and timid +tailors from Piccadilly--I will wager that there is not one of them +but feels a glow as he looks at the place, and remembers that he, +too, is an Englishman. + +It is a wrong, egotistical, savage, unchristian feeling, and that's +the truth of it. A man of peace has no right to be dazzled by that +red-coated glory, and to intoxicate his vanity with those +remembrances of carnage and triumph. The same sentence which tells +us that on earth there ought to be peace and good-will amongst men, +tells us to whom GLORY belongs. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Little Travels and Roadside Sketches + diff --git a/old/ltars10.zip b/old/ltars10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7772fda --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ltars10.zip |