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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4582446 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68961 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68961) diff --git a/old/68961-0.txt b/old/68961-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 81e330e..0000000 --- a/old/68961-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9522 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Portraits of places, by Henry James - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Portraits of places - -Author: Henry James - -Release Date: September 10, 2022 [eBook #68961] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by - Hathi Trust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORTRAITS OF PLACES *** - - - HENRY JAMES - - - - - PORTRAITS OF PLACES - - - - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - - The Riverside Press, Cambridge - - - - -NOTE - -The following papers originally appeared in the _Century_, the _Atlantic -Monthly_, the _Galaxy_ Magazine, in that of Lippincott, and in the _New -York Tribune_ and _The Nation_. The four last chapters in the book, -which were the earliest published, can now have (in some slight degree) -only the value of history. The lapse of thirteen years will have brought -many changes to Saratoga, Newport, Quebec, and Niagara. - - - - -CONTENTS - -I. Venice - -II. Italy Revisited - -III. Occasional Paris - -IV. Rheims and Laon: A Little Tour - -V. Chartres - -VI. Rouen - -VII. Etretat - -VIII. From Normandy to the Pyrenees - -IX. An English Easter - -X. London at Midsummer - -XI. Two Excursions - -XII. In Warwickshire - -XIII. Abbeys and Castles - -XIV. English Vignettes - -XV. An English New Year - -XVI. An English Winter Watering-Place - -XVII. Saratoga - -XVIII. Newport - -XIX. Quebec - -XX. Niagara - - - - - -I - -VENICE - -1882 - - -It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is not -a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has been -painted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities of -the world it is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the first -book and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the first -picture-dealer's and you will find three or four high-coloured "views" -of it. There is nothing more to be said about it. Every one has been -there, and every one has brought back a collection of photographs. There -is as little mystery about the Grand Canal as about our local -thoroughfare; and the name of St. Mark is as familiar as the postman's -ring. It is not forbidden, however, to speak of familiar things, and I -believe that, for the true Venice-lover, Venice is always in order. -There is nothing new to be said about it certainly, but the old is -better than any novelty. It would be a sad day, indeed, when there -should be something new to say. I write these lines with the full -consciousness of having no information whatever to offer. I do not -pretend to enlighten the reader; I pretend only to give a fillip to his -memory; and I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in -love with his topic. - - - - -I - - -Mr. Ruskin has given it up, that is very true; but it is only after -extracting half a life-time of pleasure and an immeasurable quantity of -fame from it. We all may do the same, after it has served our turn, -which it probably will not cease to do for many a year to come. -Meantime, it is Mr. Ruskin who, beyond any one, helps us to enjoy. He -has, indeed, lately produced several aids to depression in the shape of -certain little humorous--ill-humorous--pamphlets (the series of _St. -Mark's Rest_), which embody his latest reflections on the subject of -Venice and describe the latest atrocities that have been perpetrated -there. These latter are numerous and deeply to be deplored; but to admit -that they have spoiled Venice would be to admit that Venice may be -spoiled--an admission pregnant, as it seems to us, with disloyalty. -Fortunately, one reacts against the Ruskinian contagion, and one hour of -the lagoon is worth a hundred pages of demoralised prose. This queer, -late-coming prose of Mr. Ruskin (including the revised and condensed -issue of the _Stones of Venice_, only one little volume of which has -appeared or, perhaps, will ever appear) is all to be read, though much -of it seems to be addressed to children of tender age. It is pitched in -the nursery-key, and might be supposed to emanate from an angry -governess. It is, however, all suggestive, and much of it is -delightfully just. There is an inconceivable want of form in it, though -the author has spent his life in laying down the principles of form, and -scolding people for departing from them; but it throbs and flashes with -the love of his subject--a love disconcerted and abjured, but which has -still some of the force of inspiration. Among the many strange things -that have befallen Venice, she has had the good fortune to become the -object of a passion to a man of splendid genius, who has made her his -own, and, in doing so, has made her the world's. There is no better -reading at Venice, therefore, as I say, than Ruskin, for every true -Venice-lover can separate the wheat from the chaff. The narrow -theological spirit, the moralism _à tout propos_, the queer -provincialities and pruderies, are mere wild weeds in a mountain of -flowers. One may doubtless be very happy in Venice without reading at -all--without criticising or analysing or thinking a strenuous thought. -It is a city in which, I suspect, there is very little strenuous -thinking, and yet it is a city in which there must be almost as much -happiness as misery. The misery of Venice stands there for all the world -to see; it is part of the spectacle--a thorough-going devotee of local -colour might consistently say it is part of the pleasure. The Venetian -people have little to call their own--little more than the bare -privilege of leading their lives in the most beautiful of towns. Their -habitations are decayed; their taxes heavy; their pockets light; their -opportunities few. One receives an impression, however, that life -presents itself to them with attractions not accounted for in this -meagre train of advantages, and that they are on better terms with it -than many people who have made a better bargain. They lie in the -sunshine; they dabble in the sea; they wear bright rags; they fall into -attitudes and harmonies; they assist at an eternal _conversazione_. It -is not easy to say that one would have them other than they are, and it -certainly would make an immense difference should they be better fed. -The number of persons in Venice who evidently never have enough to eat -is painfully large; but it would be more painful if we did not equally -perceive that the rich Venetian temperament may bloom upon a dog's -allowance. Nature has been kind to it, and sunshine and leisure and -conversation and beautiful views form the greater part of its -sustenance. It takes a great deal to make a successful American; but to -make a happy Venetian takes only a handful of quick sensibility. The -Italian people have, at once, the good and evil fortune to be conscious -of few wants; so that if the civilisation of a society is measured by -the number of its needs, as seems to be the common opinion to-day, it is -to be feared that the children of the lagoon would make but a poor -figure in a set of comparative tables. Not their misery, doubtless, but -the way they elude their misery, is what pleases the sentimental -tourist, who is gratified by the sight of a beautiful race that lives by -the aid of its imagination. The way to enjoy Venice is to follow the -example of these people and make the most of simple pleasures. Almost -all the pleasures of the place are simple; this may be maintained even -under the imputation of ingenious paradox. There is no simpler pleasure -than looking at a fine Titian--unless it be looking at a fine Tintoret, -or strolling into St. Mark's--it is abominable, the way one falls into -the habit--and resting one's light-wearied eyes upon the windowless -gloom; or than floating in a gondola, or hanging over a balcony, or -taking one's coffee at Florian's. It is of these superficial pastimes -that a Venetian day is composed, and the pleasure of the matter is in -the emotions to which they minister. These, fortunately, are of the -finest; otherwise, Venice would be insufferably dull. Reading Ruskin is -good; reading the old records is, perhaps, better; but the best thing of -all is simply staying on. The only way to care for Venice as she -deserves it, is to give her a chance to touch you often--to linger and -remain and return. - - - - -II - - -The danger is that you will not linger enough--a danger of which the -author of these lines had known something. It is possible to dislike -Venice, and to entertain the sentiment in a responsible and intelligent -manner. There are travellers who think the place odious, and those who -are not of this opinion often find themselves wishing that the others -were only more numerous. The sentimental tourist's only quarrel with his -Venice is that he has too many competitors there. He likes to be alone; -to be original; to have (to himself, at least) the air of making -discoveries. The Venice of to-day is a vast museum where the little -wicket that admits you is perpetually turning and creaking, and you -march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers. There is -nothing left to discover or describe, and originality of attitude is -completely impossible. This is often very annoying; you can only turn -your back on your impertinent playfellow and curse his want of delicacy. -But this is not the fault of Venice; it is the fault of the rest of the -world. The fault of Venice is that, though it is easy to admire it, it -is not so easy to live in it. After you have been there a week, and the -bloom of novelty has rubbed off, you wonder whether you can accommodate -yourself to the peculiar conditions. Your old habits become -impracticable, and you find yourself obliged to form new ones of an -undesirable and unprofitable character. You are tired of your gondola -(or you think you are), and you have seen all the principal pictures and -heard the names of the palaces announced a dozen times by your -gondolier, who brings them out almost as impressively as if he were an -English butler bawling titles into a drawing-room. You have walked -several hundred times round the Piazza, and bought several bushels of -photographs. You have visited the antiquity-mongers whose horrible -sign-boards dishonour some of the grandest vistas in the Grand -Canal; you have tried the opera and found it very bad; you have -bathed at the Lido and found the water flat. You have begun to have a -shipboard-feeling--to regard the Piazza as an enormous saloon and the -Riva degli Schiavoni as a promenade-deck. You are obstructed and -encaged; your desire for space is unsatisfied; you miss your usual -exercise. You try to take a walk, and you fail, and meantime, as I say, -you have come to regard your gondola as a sort of magnified baby's -cradle. You have no desire to be rocked to sleep, though you are -sufficiently kept awake by the irritation produced, as you gaze across -the shallow lagoon, by the attitude of the perpetual gondolier, with his -turned-out toes, his protruded chin, his absurdly unscientific stroke. -The canals have, a horrible smell, and the everlasting Piazza, where you -have looked repeatedly at every article in every shop-window and found -them all rubbish, where the young Venetians who sell bead-bracelets and -"panoramas" are perpetually thrusting their wares at you, where the same -tightly-buttoned officers are for ever sucking the same black weeds, at -the same empty tables, in front of the same _caffès_--the Piazza, as I -say, has resolved itself into a sort of magnificent tread-mill. This is -the state of mind of those shallow inquirers who find Venice all very -well for a week; and if in such a state of mind you take your departure, -you act with fatal rashness. The loss is your own, moreover; it is -not--with all deference to your personal attractions--that of your -companions who remain behind; for though there are some disagreeable -things in Venice, there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors. The -conditions are peculiar, but your intolerance of them evaporates before -it has had time to become a prejudice. When you have called for the bill -to go, pay it and remain, and you will find on the morrow that you are -deeply attached to Venice. It is by living there from day to day that -you feel the fulness of its charm; that you invite its exquisite -influence to sink into your spirit. The place is as changeable as a -nervous woman, and you know it only when you know all the aspects of its -beauty. It has high spirits or low, it is pale or red, gray or pink, -cold or warm, fresh or wan, according to the weather or the hour. It is -always interesting and almost always sad; but it has a thousand -occasional graces and is always liable to happy accidents. You become -extraordinarily fond of these things; you count upon them; they make -part of your life. Tenderly fond you become; there is something -indefinable in those depths of personal acquaintance that gradually -establish themselves. The place seems to personify itself, to become -human and sentient, and conscious of your affection. You desire to -embrace it, to caress it, to possess it; and finally, a soft sense of -possession grows up, and your visit becomes a perpetual love-affair. It -is very true that if you go there, like the author of these lines, about -the middle of March, a certain amount of disappointment is possible. He -had not been there for several years, and in the interval the beautiful -and helpless city had suffered an increase of injury. The barbarians are -in full possession, and you tremble for what they may do. You are -reminded, from the moment of your arrival, that Venice scarcely exists -any more as a city at all; that it exists only as a battered peep-show -and bazaar. There was a horde of savage Germans encamped in the Piazza, -and they filled the Ducal Palace and the Academy with their uproar. The -English and Americans came a little later. They came in good time, with -a great many French, who were discreet enough to make very long repasts -at the Caffè Quadri, during which they were out of the way. The months -of April and May of the year 1881 were not, as a general thing, a -favourable season for visiting the Ducal Palace and the Academy. The -valet-de-place had marked them for his own, and held triumphant -possession of them. He celebrates his triumphs in a terrible brassy -voice, which resounds all over the place, and has, whatever language he -be speaking, the accent of some other idiom. During all the spring -months in Venice these gentry abound in the great resorts, and they lead -their helpless captives through churches and galleries in dense -irresponsible groups. They infest the Piazza; they pursue you along the -Riva; they hang about the bridges and the doors of the _caffès_. In -saying just now that I was disappointed at first, I had chiefly in mind -the impression that assails me to-day in the whole precinct of St. -Mark's. The condition of this ancient sanctuary is surely a great -scandal The pedlars and commissioners ply their trade--often a very -unclean one--at the very door of the temple; they follow you across the -threshold, into the sacred dusk, and pull your sleeve, and hiss into -your ear, scuffling with each other for customers. There is a great deal -of dishonour about St. Mark's altogether, and if Venice, as I say, has -become a great bazaar, this exquisite edifice is now the biggest booth. - - - - -III - - -It is treated as a booth in all ways, and if it had not, somehow, a -great spirit of solemnity within it, the traveller would soon have -little warrant for regarding it as a religious affair. The restoration -of the outer walls, which has lately been so much attacked and defended, -is certainly a great shock. Of the necessity of the work only an expert -is, I suppose, in a position to judge; but there is no doubt that, if a -necessity it be, it is one that is deeply to be regretted. To no more -distressing necessity have people of taste lately had to resign -themselves. Wherever the hand of the restorer has been laid all -semblance of beauty has vanished; which is a sad fact, considering that -the external loveliness of St. Mark's has been for ages less impressive -only than that of the still comparatively uninjured interior. I know not -what is the measure of necessity in such a case, and it appears indeed -to be a very delicate question. To-day, at any rate, that admirable -harmony of faded mosaic and marble, which, to the eye of the traveller -emerging from the narrow streets that lead to the Piazza, filled all the -farther end of it with a sort of dazzling, silvery presence--to-day this -lovely vision is in a way to be completely reformed and, indeed, -well-nigh abolished. The old softness and mellowness of colour--the work -of the quiet centuries and of the breath of the salt sea--is giving way -to large crude patches of new material, which have the effect of a -monstrous malady rather than of a restoration to health. They look like -blotches of red and white paint and dishonourable smears of chalk on the -cheeks of a noble matron. The face toward the Piazzetta is in especial -the newest-looking thing conceivable--as new as a new pair of boots, or -as the morning's paper. We do not profess, however, to undertake a -scientific quarrel with these changes; we admit that our complaint is a -purely sentimental one. The march of industry in united Italy must -doubtless be looked at as a whole, and one must endeavour to believe -that it is through innumerable lapses of taste that this deeply -interesting country is groping her way to her place among the nations. -For the present, it is not to be denied, certain odd phases of the -process are more visible than the result, to arrive at which it seems -necessary that, as she was of old a passionate votary of the beautiful, -she should to-day burn everything that she has adored. It is, doubtless, -too soon to judge her, and there are moments when one is willing to -forgive her even the restoration of St. Mark's. Inside, as well, there -has been a considerable attempt to make the place more tidy; but the -general effect, as yet, has not seriously suffered. What I chiefly -remember is the straightening out of that dark and rugged old -pavement--those deep undulations of primitive mosaic, in which the -wondering tourist was thought to perceive an intended resemblance to the -waves of the ocean. Whether intended or not, the analogy was an image -the more in a treasure-house of images; but from a considerable portion -of the church it has now disappeared. Throughout the greater part, -indeed, the pavement remains as recent generations have known it--dark, -rich, cracked, uneven, spotted with porphyry and time-blackened -malachite, and polished by the knees of innumerable worshippers; but in -other large sections the idea imitated by the restorers is that of the -ocean in a dead calm, and the model they have taken, the floor of a -London clubhouse or of a New York hotel. I think no Venetian and -scarcely any Italian cares much for such differences; and when, a year -ago, people in England were writing to the _Times_ about the whole -business, and holding meetings to protest against it, the dear children -of the lagoon (so far as they heard, or heeded, the rumour) thought them -partly busy-bodies and partly asses. Busy-bodies they doubtless were, -but they took a good deal of disinterested trouble. It never occurs to -the Venetian mind of to-day that such trouble may be worth taking; the -Venetian mind vainly endeavours to conceive a state of existence in -which personal questions are so insipid that people have to look for -grievances in the wrongs of brick and marble. I must not, however, speak -of St. Mark's as if I had the pretension of giving a description of it, -or as if the reader desired one. The reader has been too well served -already. It is surely the best-described building in the world. Open the -_Stones of Venice_, open Théophile Gautier's _Italia_, and you will -see. These writers take it very seriously, and it is only because there -is another way of taking it that I venture to speak of it; the way that -offers itself after you have been in Venice a couple of months, and the -light is hot in the great Square, and you pass in under the pictured -porticoes with a feeling of habit and friendliness, and a desire for -something cool and dark. There are moments, after all, when the church -is comparatively quiet and empty, when you may sit there with an easy -consciousness of its beauty. From the moment, of course, that you go -into any Italian church for any purpose but to say your prayers or look -at the ladies, you rank yourself among the trooping barbarians I just -spoke of; you treat the place like an orifice in the peep-show. Still, -it is almost a spiritual function--or, at the worst, an amorous one--to -feed one's eyes on the moulten colour that drops from the hollow vaults -and thickens the air with its richness. It is all so quiet and sad and -faded; and yet it is all so brilliant and living. The strange figures in -the mosaic pictures, bending with the curve of niche and vault, stare -down through the glowing dimness; and the burnished gold that stands -behind them catches the light on its little uneven cubes. St. Mark's -owes nothing of its character to the beauty of proportion or -perspective; there is nothing grandly balanced or far-arching; there are -no long lines nor triumphs of the perpendicular. The church arches -indeed; but it arches like a dusky cavern. Beauty of surface, of tone, -of detail, of things near enough to touch and kneel upon and lean -against--it is from this the effect proceeds. In this sort of beauty the -place is incredibly rich, and you may go there every day and find afresh -some lurking pictorial nook. It is a treasury of bits, as the painters -say; and there are usually three or four painters, with their easels set -up in uncertain equilibrium on the undulating floor. It is not easy to -catch the real complexion of St. Mark's, and these laudable attempts at -portraiture are apt to look either lurid or livid. But, if you cannot -paint the old loose-looking marble slabs, the great panels of basalt and -jasper, the crucifixes, of which the lonely anguish looks deeper in the -vertical light, the tabernacles whose open doors disclose a dark -Byzantine image, spotted with dull, crooked gems--if you cannot paint -these things you can, at least, grow fond of them. You grow fond even of -the old benches of red marble, partly worn away by the breeches of many -generations, and attached to the base of those wide pilasters, of which -the precious plating, delightful in its faded brownness, with a faint -gray bloom upon it, bulges and yawns a little with honourable age. - - - - -IV - - -Even at first, when the vexatious sense of the city of the Doges having -been reduced to earning its living as a curiosity-shop was in its -keenness, there was a great deal of entertainment to be got from lodging -on the Riva degli Schiavoni and looking out at the far-shimmering -lagoon. There was entertainment indeed in simply getting into the place -and observing the queer incidents of a Venetian installation. A great -many persons contribute indirectly to this undertaking, and it is -surprising how they spring out at you during your novitiate to remind -you that they are bound up in some mysterious manner with the -constitution of your little establishment. It was an interesting -problem, for instance, to trace the subtle connection existing between -the niece of the landlady and the occupancy of the fourth floor. -Superficially, it was not easily visible, as the young lady in question -was a dancer at the Fenice theatre--or, when that was closed, at the -Rossini--and might have been supposed to be absorbed by her professional -duties. It proved to be necessary, however, that she should hover about -the premises in a velvet jacket and a pair of black kid gloves, with one -little white button; as also, that she should apply a thick coating of -powder to her face, which had a charming oval and a sweet, weak -expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens, who, as a general -thing (it was not a peculiarity of the landlady's niece), are fond of -besmearing themselves with flour. It soon became plain that it is not -only the many-twinkling lagoon that you behold from a habitation on the -Riva; you see a little of everything Venetian. Straight across, before -my windows, rose the great pink mass of San Giorgio Maggiore, which, for -an ugly Palladian church, has a success beyond all reason. It is a -success of position, of colour, of the immense detached Campanile, -tipped with a tall gold angel. I know not whether it is because San -Giorgio is so grandly conspicuous, and because it has a great deal of -worn, faded-looking brickwork; but for many persons the whole place has -a kind of suffusion of rosiness. If we were asked what is the leading -colour at Venice we should say pink, and yet, after all, we cannot -remember that this elegant tint occurs very often. It is a faint, -shimmering, airy, watery pink; the bright sea-light seems to flush with -it, and the pale whitish-green of lagoon and canal to drink it in. There -is, indeed, in Venice a great deal of very evident brickwork, which is -never fresh or loud in colour, but always burnt out, as it were, always -exquisitely mild. There are certain little mental pictures that rise -before the sentimental tourist at the simple mention, written or spoken, -of the places he has loved. When I hear, when I see, the magical name I -have written above these pages, it is not of the great Square that I -think, with its strange basilica and its high arcades, nor of the wide -mouth of the Grand Canal, with the stately steps and the well-poised -dome of the Salute; it is not of the low lagoon, nor the sweet -Piazzetta, nor the dark chambers of St. Mark's. I simply see a narrow -canal in the heart of the city--a patch of green water and a surface of -pink wall. The gondola moves slowly; it gives a great, smooth swerve, -passes under a bridge, and the gondolier's cry, carried over the quiet -water, makes a kind of splash in the stillness. A girl is passing over -the little bridge, which has an arch like a camel's back, with an old -shawl on her head, which makes her look charming; you see her against -the sky as you float beneath. The pink of the old wall seems to fill the -whole place; it sinks even into the opaque water. Behind the wall is a -garden, out of which the long arm of a white June rose--the roses of -Venice are splendid--has flung itself by way of spontaneous ornament. On -the other side of this small water-way is a great shabby façade of -Gothic windows and balconies--balconies on which dirty clothes are hung -and under which a cavernous-looking doorway opens from a low flight of -slimy water-steps. It is very hot and still, the canal has a queer -smell, and the whole place is enchanting. It is poor work, however, -talking about the colour of things in Venice. The sentimental tourist is -perpetually looking at it from his window, when he is not floating about -with that delightful sense of being for the moment a part of it, which -any gentleman in a gondola is free to entertain. Venetian windows and -balconies are a dreadful lure, and while you rest your elbows on these -cushioned ledges the precious hours fly away. But, in truth, Venice is -not, in fair weather, a place for concentration of mind. The effort -required for sitting down to a writing-table is heroic, and the -brightest page of MS. looks dull beside the brilliancy of your _milieu_. -All nature beckons you forth, and murmurs to you sophistically that such -hours should be devoted to collecting impressions. Afterward, in ugly -places, at unprivileged times, you can convert your impressions into -prose. Fortunately for the present proser, the weather was not always -fine; the first month was wet and windy, and it was better to look at -the lagoon from an open casement than to respond to the advances of -persuasive gondoliers. Even then, however, there was a constant -entertainment in the view. It was all cold colour, and the steel-gray -floor of the lagoon was stroked the wrong way by the wind. Then there -were charming cool intervals, when the churches, the houses, the -anchored fishing-boats, the whole gently-curving line of the Riva, -seemed to be washed with a pearly white. Later it all turned warm--warm -to the eye as well as to other senses. After the middle of May the whole -place was in a glow. The sea took on a thousand shades, but they were -only infinite variations of blue, and those rosy walls I just spoke of -began to flush in the thick sunshine. Every patch of colour, every yard -of weather-stained stucco, every glimpse of nestling garden or daub, of -sky above a _calle_, began to shine and sparkle--began, as the painters -say, to "compose." The lagoon was streaked with odd currents, which -played across it like huge, smooth finger-marks. The gondolas multiplied -and spotted it all over; every gondola and every gondolier looking, at a -distance, precisely like every other. There is something strange and -fascinating in this mysterious impersonality of the gondola. It has an -identity when you are in it, but, thanks to their all being of the same -size, shape, and colour, and of the same deportment and gait, it has -none, or as little as possible, as you see it pass before you. From my -windows on the Riva there was always the same silhouette--the long, -black, slender skiff, lifting its head and throwing it back a little, -moving yet seeming not to move, with the grotesquely-graceful figure on -the poop. This figure inclines, as may be, more to the graceful or to -the grotesque--standing in the "second position" of the dancing-master, -but indulging, from the waist upward, in a freedom of movement which -that functionary would deprecate. One may say, as a general thing, that -there is something rather awkward in the movement of even the most -graceful gondolier, and something graceful in the movement of the most -awkward. In the graceful men of course the grace predominates, and -nothing can be finer than the large firm way in which, from their point -of vantage, they throw themselves over their tremendous oar. It has the -boldness of a plunging bird, and the regularity of a pendulum. -Sometimes, as you see this movement in profile, in a gondola that passes -you--see, as you recline on your own low cushions, the arching body of -the gondolier lifted up against the sky--it has a kind of nobleness -which suggests an image on a Greek frieze. The gondolier at Venice is -your very good friend--if you choose him happily--and on the quality of -the personage depends a good deal that of your impressions. He is a part -of your daily life, your double, your shadow, your complement. Most -people, I think, either like their gondolier or hate him; and if they -like him, like him very much. In this case they take an interest in him -after his departure; wish him to be sure of employment, speak of him as -the gem of gondoliers, and tell their friends to be certain to "secure" -him. There is usually no difficulty in securing him; there is nothing -elusive or reluctant about a gondolier. They are, for the most part, -excellent fellows, and the sentimental tourist must always have a -kindness for them. More than the rest of the population, of course, they -are the children of Venice; they are associated with its idiosyncrasy, -with its essence, with its silence, with its melancholy. When I say they -are associated with its silence, I should immediately add that they are -associated also with its sound. Among themselves they are an -extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the _traghetti_, -where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl -across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy -each other from afar. If you happen to have a _traghetto_ under your -window, you are well aware that they are a vocal race. I should go even -farther than I went just now, and say that the voice of the gondolier -is, in fact, the sound of Venice. There is scarcely any other, and that, -indeed, is part of the interest of the place. There is no noise there -save distinctly human noise; no rumbling, no vague uproar, nor rattle of -wheels and hoofs. It is all articulate, personal sound. One may say, -indeed, that Venice is, emphatically, the city of conversation; people -talk all over the place, because there is nothing to interfere with -their being heard. Among the populace it is a kind of family party. The -still water carries the voice, and good Venetians exchange confidences -at a distance of half a mile. It saves a world of trouble, and they -don't like trouble. Their delightful garrulous language helps them to -make Venetian life a long _conversazione_. This language, with its soft -elisions, its odd transpositions, its kindly contempt for consonants and -other disagreeables, has in it something peculiarly human and -accommodating. If your gondolier had no other merit, he would have the -merit that he speaks Venetian. This may rank as a merit, even--some -people perhaps would say especially--when you don't understand what he -says. But he adds to it other graces which make him an agreeable feature -in your life. The price he sets on his services is touchingly small, and -he has a happy art of being obsequious, without being, or, at least, -without seeming, abject. For occasional liberalities he evinces an -almost lyrical gratitude. In short, he has delightfully good manners, a -merit which he shares, for the most part, with Venetians at large. One -grows very fond of these people, and the reason of one's fondness is the -frankness and sweetness of their address. That of the Italian people, in -general, has much to recommend it; but in the Venetian manner there is -something peculiarly ingratiating. One feels that the race is old, that -it has a long and rich civilisation in its blood, and that if it has not -been blessed by fortune, it has at least been polished by time. It has -not a genius for morality, and indeed makes few pretensions in that -direction. It scruples not to represent the false as the true, and is -liable to confusion in the attribution of property. It is peculiarly -susceptible to the tender sentiment, which it cultivates with a graceful -disregard of the more rigid formalities. I am not sure that it is very -brave, and was not struck with its being very industrious. But it has an -unfailing sense of the amenities of life; the poorest Venetian is a -natural man of the world. He is better company than persons of his class -are apt to be among the nations of industry and virtue--where people are -also, sometimes, perceived to lie and steal. He has a great desire to -please and to be pleased. - - - - -V - - -In this latter point the cold-blooded stranger begins at last to imitate -him; he begins to lead a life that is, before all things, good-humoured: -unless, indeed, he allow himself, like Mr. Ruskin, to be put out of his -good-humour by Titian and Tiepolo. The hours he spends among the -pictures are his best hours in Venice, and I am ashamed of myself to -have written so much of common things when I might have been making -festoons of the names of the masters. But, when we have covered our page -with such festoons, what more is left to say? When one has said -Carpaccio and Bellini, the Tintoret and the Veronese, one has struck a -note that must be left to resound at will. Everything has been said -about the mighty painters, and it is of little importance to record that -one traveller the more has found them to his taste. "Went this morning -to the Academy; was very much pleased with Titian's 'Assumption.'" That -honest phrase has doubtless been written in many a traveller's diary, -and was not indiscreet on the part of its author. But it appeals little -to the general reader, and we must, moreover, not expose our deepest -feelings. Since I have mentioned Titian's "Assumption," I must say that -there are some people who have been less pleased with it than the -gentleman we have just imagined. It is one of the possible -disappointments of Venice, and you may, if you like, take advantage of -your privilege of not caring for it. It imparts a look of great richness -to the side of the beautiful room of the Academy on which it hangs; but -the same room contains two or three works less known to fame which are -equally capable of inspiring a passion. "The 'Annunciation' struck me as -coarse and superficial": that was once written in a simple-minded -traveller's note-book. At Venice, strange to say, Titian is altogether a -disappointment; the city of his adoption is far from containing the best -of him. Madrid, Paris, London, Florence, Dresden, Munich--these are the -homes of his greatness. There are other painters who have but a single -home, and the greatest of these is the Tintoret. Close beside him sit -Carpaccio and Bellini, who make with him the dazzling Venetian trio. The -Veronese may be seen and measured in other places; he is most splendid -in Venice, but he shines in Paris and in Dresden. You may walk out of -the noon-day dusk of Trafalgar Square in November, and in one of the -chambers of the National Gallery see the family of Darius rustling and -pleading and weeping at the feet of Alexander. Alexander is a beautiful -young Venetian in crimson pantaloons, and the picture sends a glow into -the cold London twilight. You may sit before it for an hour, and dream -you are floating to the water-gate of the Ducal Palace, where a certain -old beggar, with one of the handsomest heads in the world--he has sat to -a hundred painters for Doges, and for personages more sacred--has a -prescriptive right to pretend to pull your gondola to the steps and to -hold out a greasy, immemorial cap. But you must go to Venice, in fact, -to see the other masters, who form part of your life while you are -there, and illuminate your view of the universe. It is difficult to -express one's relation to them; for the whole Venetian art-world is so -near, so familiar, so much an extension and adjunct of the actual world, -that it seems almost invidious to say one owes more to one of them than -to another. Nowhere (not even in Holland, where the correspondence -between the real aspects and the little polished canvases is so constant -and so exquisite) do art and life seem so interfused and, as it were, so -consanguineous. All the splendour of light and colour, all the Venetian -air and the Venetian history, are on the walls and ceilings of the -palaces; and all the genius of the masters, all the images and visions -they have left upon canvas, seem to tremble in the sunbeams and dance -upon the waves. That is the perpetual interest of the place--that you -live in a certain sort of knowledge as in a rosy cloud. You don't go -into the churches and galleries by way of a change from the streets; you -go into them because they offer you an exquisite reproduction of the -things that surround you. All Venice was both model and painter, and -life was so pictorial that art could not help becoming so. With all -diminutions life is pictorial still, and this fact gives an -extraordinary freshness to one's perception of the great Venetian works. -You judge of them not as a connoisseur, but as a man of the world, and -you enjoy them because they are so social and so actual. Perhaps, of all -works of art that are equally great, they demand least reflection on the -part of the spectator--they make least of a mystery of being enjoyed. -Reflection only confirms your admiration, but it is almost ashamed to -show its head. These things speak so frankly and benignantly to the -sense that we feel there is reason as well in such an address. But it is -hard, as I say, to express all this, and it is painful as well to -attempt it--painful, because in the memory of vanished hours so filled -with beauty the sense of present loss is overwhelming. Exquisite hours, -enveloped in light and silence, to have known them once is to have -always a terrible standard of enjoyment. Certain lovely mornings of May -and June come back with an ineffaceable fairness. Venice is not -smothered in flowers at this season, in the manner of Florence and Rome; -but the sea and sky themselves seem to blossom and rustle. The gondola -waits at the wave-washed steps, and if you are wise you will take your -place beside a discriminating companion. Such a companion, in Venice, -should, of course, be of the sex that discriminates most finely. An -intelligent woman who knows her Venice seems doubly intelligent, and it -makes no woman's perceptions less keen to be aware that she cannot help -looking graceful as she glides over the waves. The handsome Pasquale, -with uplifted oar, awaits your command, knowing, in a general way, from -observation of your habits, that your intention is to go to see a -picture or two. It perhaps does not immensely matter what picture you -choose: the whole affair is so charming. It is charming to wander -through the light and shade of intricate canals, with perpetual -architecture above you and perpetual fluidity beneath. It is charming to -disembark at the polished steps of a little empty _campo_--a sunny, -shabby square, with an old well in the middle, an old church on one -side, and tall Venetian windows looking down. Sometimes the windows are -tenantless; sometimes a lady in a faded dressing-gown is leaning vaguely -on the sill. There is always an old man holding out his hat for coppers; -there are always three or four small boys dodging possible -umbrella-pokes while they precede you, in the manner of custodians, to -the door of the church. - - - - -VI - - -The churches of Venice are rich in pictures, and many a masterpiece -lurks in the unaccommodating gloom of side-chapels and sacristies. Many -a noble work is perched behind the dusty candles and muslin roses of a -scantily-visited altar; some of them, indeed, are hidden behind the -altar, in a darkness that can never be explored. The facilities offered -you for approaching the picture, in such cases, are a kind of mockery of -your irritated desire. You stand on tip-toe on a three-legged stool, you -climb a rickety ladder, you almost mount upon the shoulders of the -_custode_. You do everything but see the picture. You see just enough to -perceive that it is beautiful. You catch a glimpse of a divine head, of -a fig-tree against a mellow sky; but the rest is impenetrable mystery. -You renounce all hope, for instance, of approaching the magnificent Cima -da Conegliano in San Giovanni in Bragora; and bethinking yourself of the -immaculate purity that dwells in the works of this master, you renounce -it with chagrin and pain. Behind the high altar, in that church, there -hangs a Baptism of Christ, by Cima, which, I believe, has been more or -less repainted. You can make the thing out in spots; you can see that it -has a fulness of perfection. But you turn away from it with a stiff -neck, and promise yourself consolation in the Academy and at the Madonna -dell' Orto, where two noble pictures, by the same hand--pictures as -clear as a summer twilight--present themselves in better circumstances. -It may be said, as a general thing, that you never see the Tintoret. You -admire him, you adore him, you think him the greatest of painters, but, -in the great majority of cases, you don't see him. This is partly his -own fault; so many of his works have turned to blackness and are -positively rotting in their frames. At the Scuola di San Rocco, where -there are acres of the Tintoret, there is scarcely anything at all -adequately visible save the immense "Crucifixion" in the upper story. It -is true that in looking at this huge composition you look at many -pictures; it has not only a multitude of figures, but a wealth of -episodes; and you pass from one of these to the other as if you were -"doing" a gallery. Surely, no single picture in the world contains more -of human life; there is everything in it, including the most exquisite -beauty. It is one of the greatest things of art; it is always -interesting. There are pictures by the Tintoret which contain touches -more exquisite, revelations of beauty more radiant, but there is no -other vision of so intense a reality and execution so splendid. The -interest, the impressiveness, of that whole corner of Venice, however -melancholy the effect of its gorgeous and ill-lighted chambers, gives a -strange importance to a visit to the Scuola. Nothing that all travellers -go to see appears to suffer less from the incursions of travellers. It -is one of the loneliest booths of the bazaar, and the author of these -lines has always had the good fortune, which he wishes to every other -traveller, of having it to himself. I think most visitors find the place -rather alarming and wicked-looking. They walk about a while among the -fitful figures that gleam here and there out of the great tapestry (as -it were) with which the painter has hung all the walls, and then, -depressed and bewildered by the portentous solemnity of these objects, -by strange glimpses of unnatural scenes, by the echo of their lonely -footsteps on the vast stone floors, they take a hasty departure, and -find themselves again, with a sense of release from danger, and of the -_genius loci_ having been a sort of mad white-washer, who worked with a -bad mixture, in the bright light of the _campo_, among the beggars, the -orange-vendors, and the passing gondolas. Solemn, indeed, is the place, -solemn and strangely suggestive, for the simple reason that we shall -scarcely find four walls elsewhere that inclose within a like area an -equal quantity of genius. The air is thick with it, and dense and -difficult to breathe; for it was genius that was not happy, inasmuch as -it lacked the art to fix itself for ever. It is not immortality that we -breathe at the Scuola di San Rocco, but conscious, reluctant mortality. -Fortunately, however, we have the Ducal Palace, where everything is so -brilliant and splendid that the poor dusky Tintoret is lifted in spite -of himself into the concert. This deeply original building is, of -course, the loveliest thing in Venice, and a morning's stroll there is a -wonderful illumination. Cunningly select your hour--half the enjoyment -of Venice is a question of dodging--and go at about one o'clock, when -the tourists have gone to lunch and the echoes of the charming chambers -have gone to sleep among the sunbeams. There is no brighter place in -Venice; by which I mean that, on the whole, there is none half so -bright. The reflected sunshine plays up through the great windows from -the glittering lagoon, and shimmers and twinkles over gilded walls and -ceilings. All the history of Venice, all its splendid, stately past, -glows around you in a strong sea-light. Every one here is magnificent, -but the great Veronese is the most magnificent of all. He swims before -you in a silver cloud; he thrones in an eternal morning. The deep blue -sky burns behind him, streaked across with milky bars; the white -colonnades sustain the richest canopies, under which the first gentlemen -and ladies in the world both render homage and receive it. Their -glorious garments rustle in the air of the sea, and their sun-lighted -faces are the very complexion of Venice. The mixture of pride and piety, -of politics and religion, of art and patriotism, gives a magnificent -dignity to every scene. Never was a painter more nobly joyous, never did -an artist take a greater delight in life, seeing it all as a kind of -breezy festival and feeling it through the medium of perpetual success. -He revels in the gold-framed ovals of the ceilings, with the fluttering -movement of an embroidered banner that tosses itself into the blue. He -was the happiest of painters, and he produced the happiest picture in -the world. The "Rape of Europa" surely deserves this title; it is -impossible to look at it without aching with envy. Nowhere else in art -is such a temperament revealed; never did inclination and opportunity -combine to express such enjoyment. The mixture of flowers and gems and -brocade, of blooming flesh and shining sea and waving groves, of youth, -health, movement, desire--all this is the brightest vision that ever -descended upon the soul of a painter. Happy the artist who could -entertain such a vision; happy the artist who could paint it as the -"Rape of Europa" is painted. The Tintoret's visions were not so bright -as that; but he had several that were radiant enough. In the room that -contains the "Rape of Europa" are several smaller canvases by the -greatly more complex genius of the Scuola di San Rocco, which are almost -simple in their loveliness, almost happy in their simplicity. They have -kept their brightness through the centuries, and they shine with their -neighbours in those golden rooms. There is a piece of painting in one of -them which is one of the sweetest things in Venice, and which reminds -one afresh of those wild flowers of execution that bloom so profusely -and so unheeded in the dark corners of all of the Tintoret's work. -"Pallas chasing away Mars" is, I believe, the name that is given to the -picture; and it represents in fact a young woman of noble appearance -administering a gentle push to a fine young man in armour, as if to tell -him to keep his distance. It is of the gentleness of this push that I -speak, the charming way in which she puts out her arm, with a single -bracelet on it, and rests her young hand, with its rosy fingers parted, -upon his dark breastplate. She bends her enchanting head with the -effort--a head which has all the strange fairness that the Tintoret -always sees in women--and the soft, living, flesh-like glow of all these -members, over which the brush has scarcely paused in its course, is as -pretty an example of genius as all Venice can show. But why speak of the -Tintoret when I can say nothing of the great "Paradise," which unfolds -its somewhat smoky splendour, and the wonder of its multitudinous -circles, in one of the other chambers? If it were not one of the first -pictures in the world, it would be about the biggest, and it must be -confessed that at first the spectator gets from it chiefly an impression -of quantity. Then he sees that this quantity is really wealth; that the -dim confusion of faces is a magnificent composition, and that some of -the details of this composition are supremely beautiful. It is -impossible, however, in a retrospect of Venice, to specify one's -happiest hours, though, as one looks backward, certain ineffaceable -moments start here and there into vividness. How is it possible to -forget one's visits to the sacristy of the Frari, however frequent they -may have been, and the great work of John Bellini which forms the -treasure of that apartment? - - - - -VII - - -Nothing in Venice is more perfect than this, and we know of no work of -art more complete. The picture is in three compartments: the Virgin sits -in the central division with her child; two venerable saints, standing -close together, occupy each of the others. It is impossible to imagine -anything more finished or more ripe. It is one of those things that sum -up the genius of a painter, the experience of a life, the teaching of a -school. It seems painted with molten gems, which have only been -clarified by time, and it is as solemn as it is gorgeous, and as simple -as it is deep. John Bellini is, more or less, everywhere in Venice, and -wherever he is, he is almost certain to be first--first, I mean, in his -own line; he paints little else than the Madonna and the saints; he has -not Carpaccio's care for human life at large, nor the Tintoret's, nor -that of the Veronese. Some of his greater pictures, however, where -several figures are clustered together, have a richness of sanctity that -is almost profane. There is one of them on the dark side of the room at -the Academy, containing Titian's "Assumption," which, if we could only -see it--its position is an inconceivable scandal--would evidently be one -of the mightiest of so-called sacred pictures. So, too, is the Madonna -of San Zaccaria, hung in a cold, dim, dreary place, ever so much too -high, but so mild and serene, and so grandly disposed and accompanied, -that the proper attitude for even the most critical amateur, as he looks -at it, seems to be the bended knee. There is another noble John Bellini, -one of the very few in which there is no Virgin, at San Giovanni -Crisostomo--a St Jerome, in a red dress, sitting aloft upon the rocks, -with a landscape of extraordinary purity behind him. The absence of the -peculiarly erect Madonna makes it an interesting surprise among the -works of the painter, and gives it a somewhat less strenuous air. But it -has brilliant beauty, and the St. Jerome is a delightful old personage. -The same church contains another great picture, for which he must find a -shrine apart in his memory; one of the most interesting things he will -have seen, if not the most brilliant. Nothing appeals more to him than -three figures of Venetian ladies which occupy the foreground of a -smallish canvas of Sebastian del Piombo, placed above the high altar of -San Giovanni Crisostomo. Sebastian was a Venetian by birth, but few of -his productions are to be seen in his native place; few, indeed, are to -be seen anywhere. The picture represents the patron-saint of the church, -accompanied by other saints, and by the worldly votaries I have -mentioned. These ladies stand together on the left, holding in their -hands little white caskets; two of them are in profile, but the foremost -turns her face to the spectator. This face and figure are almost unique -among the beautiful things of Venice, and they leave the susceptible -observer with the impression of having made, or rather having missed, a -strange, a dangerous, but a most valuable, acquaintance. The lady, who -is superbly handsome, is the typical Venetian of the sixteenth century, -and she remains in the mind as the perfect flower of that society. Never -was there a greater air of breeding, a deeper expression of tranquil -superiority. She walks like a goddess--as if she trod, without sinking, -the waves of the Adriatic. It is impossible to conceive a more perfect -expression of the aristocratic spirit, either in its pride or in its -benignity. This magnificent creature is so strong and secure that she is -gentle, and so quiet that, in comparison, all minor assumptions of -calmness suggest only a vulgar alarm. But for all this, there are depths -of possible disorder in her light-coloured eye. I had meant, however, to -say nothing about her, for it is not right to speak of Sebastian when -one has not found room for Carpaccio. These visions come to one, and one -can neither hold them nor brush them aside. Memories of Carpaccio, the -magnificent, the delightful--it is not for want of such visitations, but -only for want of space, that I have not said of him what I would. There -is little enough need of it for Carpaccio's sake, his fame being -brighter to-day--thanks to the generous lamp Mr. Ruskin has held up to -it--than it has ever been. Yet there is something ridiculous in talking -of Venice without making him, almost, the refrain. He and the Tintoret -are the two great realists, and it is hard to say which is the more -human, the more various. The Tintoret had the mightier temperament, but -Carpaccio, who had the advantage of more newness and more -responsibility, sailed nearer to perfection. Here and there he quite -touches it, as in the enchanting picture, at the Academy, of St. Ursula -asleep in her little white bed, in her high, clean room, where the angel -visits her at dawn; or in the noble St. Jerome in his study, at S. -Giorgio degli Schiavoni. This latter work is a pearl of sentiment, and I -may add, without being fantastic, a ruby of colour. It unites the most -masterly finish with a kind of universal largeness of feeling, and he -who has it well in his memory will never hear the name of Carpaccio -without a throb of almost personal affection. This, indeed, is the -feeling that descends upon you in that wonderful little chapel of St. -George of the Slaves, where this most personal and sociable of artists -has expressed all the sweetness of his imagination. The place is small -and incommodious, the pictures are out of sight and ill-lighted, the -custodian is rapacious, the visitors are mutually intolerable, but the -shabby little chapel is a palace of art. Mr. Ruskin has written a -pamphlet about it which is a real aid to enjoyment, though I cannot but -think the generous artist, with his keen senses and his just feeling, -would have suffered at hearing his eulogist declare that one of his -other productions--in the Museo Civico in Palazzo Correr, a delightful -portrait of two Venetian ladies, with pet animals--is the "finest -picture in the world." It has no need of that to be thought admirable; -and what more can a painter desire? - - - - -VIII - - -May in Venice is better than April, but June is best of all. Then the -days are hot, but not too hot, and the nights are more beautiful than -the days. Then Venice is rosier than ever in the morning, and more -golden than ever as the day descends. It seems to expand and evaporate, -to multiply all its reflections and iridescences. Then the life of its -people and the strangeness of its constitution become a perpetual -comedy, or, at least, a perpetual drama. Then the gondola is your sole -habitation, and you spend days between sea and sky. You go to the Lido, -though the Lido has been spoiled. When I was first in Venice, in 1869, -it was a very natural place, and there was only a rough lane across the -little island from the landing-place to the beach. There was a -bathing-place in those days, and a restaurant, which was very bad, but -where, in the warm evenings, your dinner did not much matter as you sat -letting it cool upon the wooden terrace that stretched out into the sea. -To-day the Lido is a part of united Italy, and has been made the victim -of villainous improvements. A little cockney village has sprung up on -its rural bosom, and a third-rate boulevard leads from Santa Elisabetta -to the Adriatic. There are bitumen walls and gas-lamps, lodging-houses, -shops, and a _teatro diurno_. The bathing-establishment is bigger than -before, and the restaurant as well; but it is a compensation, perhaps, -that the cuisine is no better. Such as it is, however, you will not -scorn occasionally to partake of it on the breezy platform under which -bathers dart and splash, and which looks out to where the fishing-boats, -with sails of orange and crimson, wander along the darkening horizon. -The beach at the Lido is still lonely and beautiful, and you can easily -walk away from the cockney village. The return to Venice in the sunset -is classical and indispensable, and those who, at that glowing hour, -have floated toward the towers that rise out of the lagoon, will not -easily part with the impression. But you indulge in larger -excursions--you go to Burano and Torcello, to Malamocco and Chioggia. -Torcello, like the Lido, has been improved; the deeply interesting -little cathedral of the eighth century, which stood there on the edge of -the sea, as touching in its ruin, with its grassy threshold and its -primitive mosaics, as the bleached bones of a human skeleton washed -ashore by the tide, has now been restored and made cheerful, and the -charm of the place, its strange and suggestive desolation, has well-nigh -departed. It will still serve you as a pretext, however, for a day on -the lagoon, especially as you will disembark at Burano and admire the -wonderful fisher-folk, whose good looks--and bad manners, I am sorry to -say--can scarcely be exaggerated. Burano is celebrated for the beauty of -its women and the rapacity of its children, and it is a fact that though -some of the ladies are rather bold about it, every one of them shows you -a handsome face. The children assail you for coppers, and, in their -desire to be satisfied, pursue your gondola into the sea. Chioggia is a -larger Burano, and you carry away from either place a half-sad, -half-cynical, but altogether pictorial impression; the impression of -bright-coloured hovels, of bathing in stagnant canals, of young girls -with faces of a delicate shape and a susceptible expression, with -splendid heads of hair and complexions smeared with powder, faded yellow -shawls that hang like old Greek draperies, and little wooden shoes that -click as they go up and down the steps of the convex bridges; of -brown-cheeked matrons with lustrous tresses and high tempers, massive -throats encased with gold beads, and eyes that meet your own with a -certain traditional defiance. The men throughout the islands of Venice -are almost as handsome as the women; I have never seen so many -good-looking fellows. At Burano and Chioggia they sit mending their -nets, or lounge at the street corners, where conversation is always -high-pitched, or clamour to you to take a boat; and everywhere they -decorate the scene with their splendid colour--cheeks and throats as -richly brown as the sails of their fishing-smacks--their sea-faded -tatters which are always a "costume"--their soft Venetian jargon, and -the gallantry with which they wear their hats--an article that nowhere -sits so well as on a mass of dense Venetian curls. If you are happy, you -will find yourself, after a June day in Venice (about ten o'clock), on a -balcony that overhangs the Grand Canal, with your elbows on the broad -ledge, a cigarette in your teeth, and a little good company beside you. -The gondolas pass beneath, the watery surface gleams here and there from -their lamps, some of which are coloured lanterns that move mysteriously -in the darkness. There are some evenings in June when there are too many -gondolas, too many lanterns, too many serenades in front of the hotels. -The serenading (in particular) is overdone; but on such a balcony as I -speak of you needn't suffer from it, for in the apartment behind you--an -accessible refuge--there is more good company, there are more -cigarettes. If you are wise you will step back there presently. - - - - -II - -ITALY REVISITED - -1877 - -I - - -I waited in Paris until after the elections for the new Chamber (they -took place on the 14th of October); for only after one had learned that -the celebrated attempt of Marshal MacMahon and his ministers to drive -the French nation to the polls like a flock of huddling sheep, each with -the white ticket of an official candidate round his neck, had not -achieved the success which the energy of the process might have -promised--only then was it possible to draw a long breath and deprive -the republican party of such support as might have been conveyed in -one's sympathetic presence. Seriously speaking, too, the weather had -been enchanting, and there were Italian sensations to be encountered -without leaving the banks of the Seine. Day after day the air was filled -with golden light, and even those chalkish vistas of the Parisian _beaux -quartiers_ assumed the iridescent tints of autumn. Autumn-weather in -Europe is often such a very sorry affair that a fair-minded American -will have it on his conscience to call attention to a rainless and -radiant October. - -The echoes of the electoral strife kept me company for a while after -starting upon that abbreviated journey to Turin, which, as you leave -Paris at night, in a train unprovided with encouragements to slumber, is -a singular mixture of the odious and the charming. The charming, -however, I think, prevails; for the dark half of the journey is, in -fact, the least interesting. The morning light ushers you into the -romantic gorges of the Jura, and after a big bowl of _café au lait_ at -Culoz you may compose yourself comfortably for the climax of your -spectacle. The day before leaving Paris I met a French friend who had -just returned from a visit to a Tuscan country-seat, where he had been -watching the vintage. "Italy," he said, "is more lovely than words can -tell, and France, steeped in this electoral turmoil, seems no better -than a bear-garden." That part of the bear-garden through which you -travel as you approach the Mont-Cenis seemed to me that day very -beautiful. The autumn colouring, thanks to the absence of rain, had been -vivid and crisp, and the vines that swung their low garlands between the -mulberries, in the neighbourhood of Chambéry, looked like long festoons -of coral and amber. The frontier station of Modane, on the farther side -of the Mont-Cenis tunnel, is a very ill-regulated place; but even the -most irritable of tourists, meeting it on his way southward, will be -disposed to consider it good-naturedly. There is far too much bustling -and scrambling, and the facilities afforded you for the obligatory -process of ripping open your luggage before the officers of the Italian -custom-house are much scantier than should be; but, for myself, there is -something that deprecates irritation in the shabby green and gray -uniforms of all the Italian officials who stand loafing about and -watching the northern invaders scramble back into marching order. -Wearing an administrative uniform does not necessarily spoil a man's -temper, as in France one is sometimes led to believe; for these -excellent under-paid Italians carry theirs as lightly as possible, and -their answers to your inquiries do not in the least bristle with -rapiers, buttons, and cockades. After leaving Modane you slide straight -downhill into the Italy of your desire; and there is something very -impressive in the way the road edges along those great precipices which -stand shoulder to shoulder, in a long perpendicular file, until they -finally admit you to a distant glimpse of the ancient capital of -Piedmont. - -Turin is not a city to make, in vulgar parlance, a fuss about, and I pay -an extravagant tribute to subjective emotion in speaking of it as -ancient. But if the place is not so peninsular as Florence and Rome, at -least it is more so than New York and Paris; and while the traveller -walks about the great arcades and looks at the fourth-rate shop windows, -he does not scruple to cultivate a shameless optimism. Relatively -speaking, Turin is diverting; but there is, after all, no reason in a -large collection of shabbily-stuccoed houses, disposed in a rigidly -rectangular manner, for passing a day of deep, still gaiety. The only -reason, I am afraid, is the old superstition of Italy--that property in -the very look of the written word, the evocation of a myriad images, -that makes any lover of the arts take Italian satisfactions upon easier -terms than any other. Italy is an idea to conjure with, and we play -tricks upon our credulity even with such inferior apparatus as is -offered to our hand at Turin. I walked about all the morning under the -tall porticoes, thinking it sufficient entertainment to take note of the -soft, warm air, of that colouring of things in Italy that is at once -broken and harmonious, and of the comings and goings, the physiognomy -and manners, of the excellent Turinese. I had opened the old book again; -the old charm was in the style; I was in a more delightful world. I saw -nothing surpassingly beautiful or curious; but the appreciative -traveller finds a vividness in nameless details. And I must add that on -the threshold of Italy he tastes of one solid and perfectly definable -pleasure, in finding himself among the traditions of the grand style in -architecture. It must be said that we have still to come to Italy to see -great houses. (I am speaking more particularly of town-architecture.) In -northern cities there are beautiful houses, picturesque and curious -houses; sculptured gables that hang over the street, charming -bay-windows, hooded doorways, elegant proportions, and a profusion of -delicate ornament; but a good specimen of an old Italian palazzo has a -nobleness that is all its own. We laugh at Italian "palaces," at their -peeling paint, their nudity, their dreariness; but they have the great -palatial quality--elevation and extent. They make smaller houses seem -beggarly; they round their great arches and interspace their huge -windows with a noble indifference to the cost of materials. These grand -proportions--the colossal basements, the doorways that seem meant for -cathedrals, the far-away cornices--impart by contrast a humble and -_bourgeois_ expression to those less exalted dwellings in which the air -of grandeur depends largely upon the help of the upholsterer. At Turin -my first feeling was really one of shame for the architectural manners -of our northern lands. I have heard people who know the Italians well -say that at bottom they despise all the rest of mankind and regard them -as barbarians. I doubt of it, for the Italians strike me as having less -national vanity than any other people in Europe; but if the charge had -its truth there would be some ground for the feeling in the fact that -they live in palaces. - -An impression which, on coming back to Italy, I find even stronger than -when it was first received is that of the contrast between the fecundity -of the great artistic period and the vulgarity of the Italian genius of -to-day. The first few hours spent on Italian soil are sufficient to -renew it, and the phenomenon that I allude to is surely one of the most -singular in human history. That the people who but three hundred years -ago had the best taste in the world should now have the worst; that -having produced the noblest, loveliest, costliest works, they should now -be given up to the manufacture of objects at once ugly and paltry; that -the race of which Michael Angelo and Raphael, Leonardo and Titian were -characteristic should have no other title to distinction than third-rate -_genre_ pictures and catchpenny statues--all this is a frequent -perplexity to the observer of actual Italian life. The flower of art in -these latter years has ceased to bloom very powerfully anywhere; but -nowhere does it seem so drooping and withered as in the shadow of the -immortal embodiments of the old Italian genius. You go into a church or -a gallery and feast your fancy upon a splendid picture or an exquisite -piece of sculpture, and on issuing from the door that has admitted you -to the beautiful past you are confronted with something that has all the -effect of a very bad joke. The aspect of your lodging (the carpets, the -curtains, the upholstery in general, with their crude and violent -colouring and their vulgar material), the third-rate look of the shops, -the extreme bad taste of the dress of the women, the cheapness and -baseness of every attempt at decoration in the cafés and railway -stations, the hopeless frivolity of everything that pretends to be a -work of art--all this modern crudity runs riot over the relics of the -great period. - -We can do a thing for the first time but once; it is but once for all -that we can have a pleasure in its freshness. This is a law which is not -on the whole, I think, to be regretted, for we sometimes learn to know -things better by not enjoying them too much. It is certain, however, at -the same time, that a traveller who has worked off the primal -fermentation of his relish for this inexhaustibly interesting country -has by no means entirely drained the cup. After thinking of Italy as -historical and artistic, it will do him no great harm to think of her, -for a while, as modern, an idea supposed (as a general thing correctly) -to be fatally at variance with the Byronic, the Ruskinian, the artistic, -poetic, æsthetic manner of considering this fascinating peninsula. He -may grant--I don't say it is absolutely necessary--that modern Italy is -ugly, prosaic, provokingly out of relation to the diary and the album; -it is nevertheless true that, at the point things have come to, modern -Italy in a manner imposes herself! I had not been many hours in the -country before I became conscious of this circumstance; and I may add -that, the first irritation past, I found myself able to accept it. And -if we think of it, nothing is more easy to understand than a certain -displeasure on the part of the young Italy of to-day at being looked at -by all the world as a kind of soluble pigment. Young Italy, preoccupied -with its economical and political future, must be heartily tired of -being admired for its eyelashes and its pose. In one of Thackeray's -novels there is mention of a young artist who sent to the Royal Academy -a picture representing "A Contadino dancing with a Trasteverina at the -door of a Locanda, to the music of a Pifferaro." It is in this attitude -and with these conventional accessories that the world has hitherto seen -fit to represent young Italy, and I do not wonder that, if the youth has -any spirit, he should at last begin to resent our insufferable æsthetic -patronage. He has established a line of tram-cars in Rome, from the -Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, and it is on one of these -democratic vehicles that I seem to see him taking his triumphant course -down the vista of the future. I will not pretend to rejoice with him any -more than I really do; I will not pretend, as the sentimental tourists -say about it all, as if it were the setting of an intaglio or the border -of a Roman scarf, to "like" it. Like it or not, as we may, it is -evidently destined to be; I see a new Italy in the future which in many -important respects will equal, if not surpass, the most enterprising -sections of our native land. Perhaps by that time Chicago and San -Francisco will have acquired a pose, and their sons and daughters will -dance at the doors of _locande_. However this may be, a vivid impression -of an accomplished schism between the old Italy and the new is, as the -French say, _le plus clair_ of a new visit to this ever-suggestive part -of the world. The old Italy has become more and more of a museum, -preserved and perpetuated in the midst of the new, but without any -further relation to it--it must be admitted, indeed, that such a -relation is considerable--than that of the stock on his shelves to the -shopkeeper, or of the Siren of the South to the showman who stands -before his booth. More than once, as we move about nowadays in the -Italian cities, there seems to pass before our eyes a vision of the -coming years. It represents to our satisfaction an Italy united and -prosperous, but altogether commercial. The Italy, indeed, that we -sentimentalise and romance about was an ardently mercantile country; -though I suppose it loved not its ledgers less, but its frescoes and -altar-pieces more. Scattered through this brilliantly economical -community--this country of a thousand ports--we see a large number of -beautiful buildings, in which an endless series of dusky pictures are -darkening, dampening, fading, failing, through the years. At the doors -of the beautiful buildings are little turnstiles, at which there sit a -great many men in uniform, to whom the visitor pays a ten-penny fee. -Inside, in the vaulted and frescoed chambers, the art of Italy lies -buried, as in a thousand mausoleums. It is well taken care of; it is -constantly copied; sometimes it is "restored"--as in the case of that -beautiful boy-figure of Andrea del Sarto, at Florence, which may be seen -at the gallery of the Uffizi, with its honourable duskiness quite peeled -off and heaven knows what raw, bleeding cuticle laid bare. One evening -lately, in Florence, in the soft twilight, I took a stroll among those -encircling hills on which the massive villas are mingled with the -vaporous olives. Presently I arrived where three roads met at a wayside -shrine, in which, before some pious daub of an old-time Madonna, a -little votive lamp glimmered through the evening air. The hour, the -lovely evening, the place, the twinkling taper, the sentiment of the -observer, the thought that some one had been rescued here from an -assassin, or from some other peril, and had set up a little grateful -altar in consequence, in the yellow-plastered wall of a tangled -_podere_; all this led me to approach the shrine with a reverent, an -emotional step. I drew near it, but after a few steps I paused. I became -conscious of an incongruous odour; it seemed to me that the evening air -was charged with a perfume which, although to a certain extent familiar, -had not hitherto associated itself with rustic frescoes and wayside -altars. I gently interrogated the atmosphere, and the operation left me -no doubts. The odour was that of petroleum; the votive taper was -nourished with the national fluid of Pennsylvania. I confess that I -burst out laughing, and a picturesque contadino, wending his homeward -way in the dusk, stared at me as if I were an iconoclast. If he noticed -the petroleum, it was only, I imagine, to sniff it gratefully; but to me -the thing served as a symbol of the Italy of the future. There is a -horse-car from the Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, and the Tuscan -shrines are fed with kerosene. - - - - -II - - -If it is very well to come to Turin first, it is still better to go to -Genoa afterwards. Genoa is the queerest place in the world, and even a -second visit helps you little to straighten it out. In the wonderful -crooked, twisting, climbing, soaring, burrowing Genoese alleys the -traveller is really up to his neck in the old Italian sketchability. -Genoa is, I believe, a port of great capacity, and the bequest of the -late Duke of Galliera, who left four millions of dollars for the purpose -of improving and enlarging it, will doubtless do much toward converting -it into one of the great commercial stations of Europe. But as, after -leaving my hotel the afternoon I arrived, I wandered for a long time at -hazard through the tortuous byways of the city, I said to myself, not -without an accent of private triumph, that here was something it would -be almost impossible to modernise. I had found my hotel, in the first -place, extremely entertaining--the Croce di Malta, as it was called, -established in a gigantic palace on the edge of the swarming and not -over-clean harbour. It was the biggest house I had ever entered, and the -basement alone would have contained a dozen American caravansaries. I -met an American gentleman in the vestibule who (as he had indeed a -perfect right to be) was annoyed by its troublesome dimensions--one was -a quarter of an hour ascending out of the basement--and desired to know -whether it was a "fair sample" of the Genoese inns. It appeared to be an -excellent specimen of Genoese architecture generally; so far as I -observed, there were few houses perceptibly smaller than this Titanic -tavern. I lunched in a dusky ballroom, whose ceiling was vaulted, -frescoed and gilded with the fatal facility of a couple of centuries -ago, and which looked out upon another ancient house-front, equally huge -and equally battered, from which it was separated only by a little wedge -of dusky space (one of the principal streets, I believe, of Genoa), out -of the bottom of which the Genoese populace sent up to the windows--I -had to crane out very far to see it--a perpetual clattering, shuffling, -chaffering sound. Issuing forth, presently, into this crevice of a -street, I found an abundance of that soft local colour for the love of -which one revisits Italy. It offered itself, indeed, in a variety of -tints, some of which were not remarkable for their freshness or purity. -But their combined effect was highly pictorial, and the picture was a -very rich and various representation of southern low-life. Genoa is the -crookedest and most incoherent of cities; tossed about on the sides and -crests of a dozen hills, it is seamed with gullies and ravines that -bristle with those innumerable palaces for which we have heard from our -earliest years that the place is celebrated. These great edifices, with -their mottled and faded complexions, lift their big ornamental cornices -to a tremendous height in the air, where, in a certain indescribably -forlorn and desolate fashion, over-topping each other, they seem to -reflect the twinkle and glitter of the warm Mediterranean. Down about -the basements, in the little dim, close alleys, the people are for ever -moving to and fro, or standing in their cavernous doorways and their -dusky, crowded shops, calling, chattering, laughing, scrambling, living -their lives in the conversational Italian fashion. For a long time I had -not received such an impression of the human agglomeration. I had not -for a long time seen people elbowing each other so closely, or swarming -so thickly out of populous hives. A traveller is very often disposed to -ask himself whether it has been worth while to leave his home--whatever -his home may have been--only to see new forms of human suffering, only -to be reminded that toil and privation, hunger and sorrow and sordid -effort, are the portion of the great majority of his fellow-men. To -travel is, as it were, to go to the play, to attend a spectacle; and -there is something heartless in stepping forth into the streets of a -foreign town to feast upon novelty when the novelty consists simply of -the slightly different costume in which hunger and labour present -themselves. These reflections were forced upon me as I strolled about in -those crepuscular, stale-smelling alleys of Genoa; but after a time they -ceased to bear me company. The reason of this, I think, is because (at -least to foreign eyes) the sum of Italian misery is, on the whole, less -than the sum of the Italian knowledge of life. That people should thank -you, with a smile of striking sweetness, for the gift of twopence is a -proof, certainly, of an extreme and constant destitution; but (keeping -in mind the sweetness) it is also a proof of an enviable ability not to -be depressed by circumstances. I know that this may possibly be great -nonsense; that half the time that we are admiring the brightness of the -Italian smile the romantic natives may be, in reality, in a sullen -frenzy of impatience and pain. Our observation in any foreign land is -extremely superficial, and our remarks are happily not addressed to the -inhabitants themselves, who would be sure to exclaim upon the impudence -of the fancy-picture. The other day I visited a very picturesque old -city upon a mountain-top, where, in the course of my wanderings, I -arrived at an old disused gate in the ancient town-wall. The gate had -not been absolutely forfeited; but the recent completion of a modern -road down the mountain led most vehicles away to another egress. The -grass-grown pavement, which wound into the plain by a hundred graceful -twists and plunges, was now given up to ragged contadini and their -donkeys, and to such wayfarers as were not alarmed at the disrepair into -which it had fallen. I stood in the shadow of the tall old gateway -admiring the scene, looking to right and left at the wonderful walls of -the little town, perched on the edge of a shaggy precipice; at the -circling mountains over against them; at the road dipping downward among -the chestnuts and olives. There was no one within sight but a young man, -who was slowly trudging upward, with his coat slung over his shoulder -and his hat upon his ear, like a cavalier in an opera. Like an operatic -performer, too, he was singing as he came; the spectacle, generally, was -operatic, and as his vocal flourishes reached my ear I said to myself -that in Italy accident was always picturesque, and that such a figure -had been exactly what was wanted to set off the landscape. It suggested -in a high degree that knowledge of life for which I just now commended -the Italians. I was turning back, under the old gateway, into the town, -when the young man overtook me, and, suspending his song, asked me if I -could favour him with a match to light the hoarded remnant of a cigar. -This request led, as I walked back to the inn, to my having some -conversation with him. He was a native of the ancient city, and answered -freely all my inquiries as to its manners and customs and the state of -public opinion there. But the point of my anecdote is that he presently -proved to be a brooding young radical and communist, filled with hatred -of the present Italian government, raging with discontent and crude -political passion, professing a ridiculous hope that Italy would soon -have, as France had had, her "'89," and declaring that he, for his part, -would willingly lend a hand to chop off the heads of the king and the -royal family. He was an unhappy, underfed, unemployed young man, who -took a hard, grim view of everything, and was operatic only quite in -spite of himself. This made it very absurd of me to have looked at him -simply as a graceful ornament to the prospect, an harmonious little -figure in the middle distance. "Damn the prospect, damn the middle -distance!" would have been all his philosophy. Yet, but for the accident -of my having a little talk with him, I should have made him do service, -in memory, as an example of sensuous optimism! - -I am bound to say, however, that I believe that a great deal of the -sensuous optimism that I noticed in the Genoese alleys and beneath the -low, crowded arcades along the port was very real. Here every one was -magnificently sunburnt, and there were plenty of those queer types, -mahogany-coloured, bare-chested mariners, with earrings and crimson -girdles, that make a southern seaport entertaining. But it is not fair -to speak as if at Genoa there were nothing but low-life to be seen, for -the place is the residence of some of the grandest people in the world. -Nor are all the palaces ranged upon dusky alleys; the handsomest and -most impressive form a splendid series on each side of a couple of very -proper streets, in which there is plenty of room for a coach-and-four to -approach the big doorways. Many of these doorways are open, revealing -great marble staircases, with couchant lions for balustrades, and -ceremonious courts surrounded by walls of sun-softened yellow. One of -the palaces is coloured a goodly red, and contains, in particular, the -grand people I just now spoke of. They live, indeed, in the third story; -but here they have suites of wonderful painted and gilded chambers, in -which there are many foreshortened frescoes in the vaulted ceilings, and -the walls are embossed with the most florid mouldings. These -distinguished tenants bear the name of Vandyke, though they are members -of the noble family of Brignole-Sale, one of whose children (the Duchess -of Galliera) has lately given proof of nobleness in presenting the -gallery of the Red Palace to the city of Genoa. - - - - -III - - -On leaving Genoa I repaired to Spezia, chiefly with a view of -accomplishing a sentimental pilgrimage, which I, in fact, achieved, in -the most agreeable conditions. The Gulf of Spezia is now the -headquarters of the Italian fleet, and there were several big -iron-plated frigates riding at anchor in front of the town. The streets -were filled with lads in blue flannel, who were receiving instruction at -a school-ship in the harbour, and in the evening--there was a brilliant -moon--the little breakwater which stretched out into the Mediterranean -offered a promenade to the naval functionaries. But this fact is, from -the tourist's point of view, of little account, for since it has become -prosperous Spezia has grown ugly. The place is filled with long, dull -stretches of dead wall and great raw expanses of artificial land. It -wears that look of monstrous, of more than Occidental, newness which -distinguishes all the creations of the young Italian state. Nor did I -find any great compensation in an immense new inn, which has lately been -deposited by the edge of the sea, in anticipation of a _passeggiata_ -which is to come that way some five years hence, the region being in the -meantime of the most primitive formation. The inn was filled with grave -English people, who looked respectable and bored, and there was of -course a Church of England service in the gaudily-frescoed parlour. -Neither was it the drive to Porto Venere that chiefly pleased me--a -drive among vines and olives--over the hills and beside the sea, to a -queer little crumbling village on a headland, as sweetly desolate and -superannuated as the name it bears. There is a ruined church near the -village, which occupies the site (according to tradition) of an ancient -temple of Venus; and if Venus ever revisits her desecrated shrines she -must sometimes pause a moment in that sunny stillness, and listen to the -murmur of the tideless sea at the base of the narrow promontory. If -Venus sometimes comes there, Apollo surely does as much; for close to -the temple is a gateway, surmounted by an inscription in Italian and -English, which admits you to a curious (and it must be confessed rather -cockneyfied) cave among the rocks. It was here, says the inscription, -that the great Byron, swimmer and poet, "defied the waves of the -Ligurian sea." The fact is interesting, though not supremely so; for -Byron was always defying something, and if a slab had been put up -whenever this performance came off, these commemorative tablets would -be, in many parts of Europe, as thick as milestones. No; the great merit -of Spezia, to my eye, is that I engaged a boat there of a lovely October -afternoon, and had myself rowed across the gulf--it took about an hour -and a half--to the little bay of Lerici, which opens out of it. This bay -of Lerici is charming; the bosky gray-green hills close it in, and on -either side of the entrance, perched upon a bold headland, a wonderful -old crumbling castle keeps ineffectual guard. The place is classic for -all English travellers, for in the middle of the curving shore is the -now desolate little villa in which Shelley spent the last months of his -short life. He was living at Lerici when he started on that short -southern cruise from which he never returned. The house he occupied is -strangely shabby, and as sad as you may choose to find it. It stands -directly upon the beach, with scarred and battered walls, and a loggia -of several arches opening upon a little terrace with a rugged parapet, -which, when the wind blows, must be drenched with the salt spray. The -place is very lonely--all overwearied with sun and breeze and -brine--very close to nature, as it was Shelley's passion to be. I can -fancy a great lyric poet sitting on the terrace, of a warm evening, far -from England, in the early years of the century. In that place, and with -his genius, he would, as a matter of course, have heard in the voice of -nature a sweetness which only the lyric movement could translate. It is -a place where an English-speaking traveller may very honestly be -sentimental and feel moved, himself, to lyric utterance. But I must -content myself with saying in halting prose that I remember few episodes -of Italian travel more sympathetic, as they have it here, than that -perfect autumn afternoon; the half-hour's station on the little battered -terrace of the villa; the climb to the singularly picturesque old castle -that hangs above Lerici; the meditative lounge, in the fading light, on -the vine-decked platform that looked out toward the sunset and the -darkening mountains, and, far below, upon the quiet sea, beyond which -the pale-faced villa stared up at the brightening moon. - - - - -IV - - -I had never known Florence more charming than I found her for a week in -that brilliant October. She sat in the sunshine beside her yellow river -like the little treasure-city that she has always seemed, without -commerce, without other industry than the manufacture of mosaic -paper-weights and alabaster Cupids, without actuality, or energy, or -earnestness, or any of those rugged virtues which in most cases are -deemed indispensable for civic robustness; with nothing but the little -unaugmented stock of her mediæval memories, her tender-coloured -mountains, her churches and palaces, pictures and statues. There were -very few strangers; one's detested fellow sight-seer was infrequent; the -native population itself seemed scanty; the sound of wheels in the -streets was but occasional; by eight o'clock at night, apparently, every -one had gone to bed, and the wandering tourist, still wandering, had the -place to himself--had the thick shadow-masses of the great palaces, and -the shafts of moonlight striking the polygonal paving-stones, and the -empty bridges, and the silvered yellow of the Arno, and the stillness -broken only by a homeward step, accompanied by a snatch of song from a -warm Italian voice. My room at the inn looked out on the river, and was -flooded all day with sunshine. There was an absurd orange-coloured paper -on the walls; the Arno, of a hue not altogether different, flowed -beneath; and on the other side of it rose a line of sallow houses, of -extreme antiquity, crumbling and mouldering, bulging and protruding over -the stream. (I seem to speak of their fronts; but what I saw was their -shabby backs, which were exposed to the cheerful flicker of the river, -while the fronts stood for ever in the deep, damp shadow of a narrow -mediæval street.) All this brightness and yellowness was a perpetual -delight; it was a part of that indefinably charming colour which -Florence always seems to wear as you look up and down at it from the -river, from the bridges and quays. This is a kind of grave brilliancy--a -harmony of high tints--which I know not how to describe. There are -yellow walls and green blinds and red roofs, and intervals of brilliant -brown and natural-looking blue; but the picture is not spotty nor gaudy, -thanks to the colours being distributed in large and comfortable masses, -and to its being washed over, as it were, by some happy softness of -sunshine. The river-front of Florence is, in short, a delightful -composition. Part of its charm comes, of course, from the generous -aspect of those high-based Tuscan palaces which a renewal of -acquaintance with them has again commended to me as the most dignified -dwellings in the world. Nothing can be finer than that look of giving up -the whole immense ground-floor to simple purposes of vestibule and -staircase, of court and high-arched entrance; as if this were all but a -massive pedestal for the real habitation, and people were not properly -housed unless, to begin with, they should be lifted fifty feet above the -pavement. The great blocks of the basement; the great intervals, -horizontally and vertically, from window to window (telling of the -height and breadth of the rooms within); the armorial shield hung -forward at one of the angles; the wide-brimmed roof, overshadowing the -narrow street; the rich old browns and yellows of the walls--these -definite elements are put together with admirable art. - -Take one of these noble structures out of its oblique situation in the -town; call it no longer a palace, but a villa; set it down upon a -terrace, on one of the hills that encircle Florence, with a row of -high-waisted cypresses beside it, a grassy courtyard, and a view of the -Florentine towers and the valley of the Arno, and you will think it -perhaps even more worthy of your esteem. It was a Sunday noon, and -brilliantly warm, when I arrived in Florence; and after I had looked -from my windows a while at that quietly-basking river-front I have -spoken of, I took my way across one of the bridges and then out of one -of the gates--that immensely tall Roman Gate, in which the space from -the top of the arch to the cornice (except that there is scarcely a -cornice, it is all a plain, massive piece of wall) is as great (or seems -to be) as that from the ground to the former point. Then I climbed a -steep and winding way--much of it a little dull, if one likes, being -bounded by mottled, mossy garden-walls--to a villa on a hill-top, where -I found various things that touched me with almost too fine a point. -Seeing them again, often, for a week, both by sunlight and moonshine, I -never quite learned not to covet them; not to feel that not being a part -of them was somehow to miss an exquisite chance. What a tranquil, -contented life it seemed, with romantic beauty as a part of its daily -texture!--the sunny terrace, with its tangled _podere_ beneath it; the -bright gray olives against the bright blue sky; the long, serene, -horizontal lines of other villas, flanked by their upward cypresses, -disposed upon the neighbouring hills; the richest little city in the -world in a softly-scooped hollow at one's feet, and beyond it the most -appealing of views, the most majestic, yet the most familiar. Within the -villa was a great love of art and a painting-room full of successful -work, so that if human life there seemed very tranquil, the tranquillity -meant simply contentment and devoted occupation. A beautiful occupation -in that beautiful position, what could possibly be better? That is what -I spoke just now of envying--a way of life that is not afraid of a -little isolation and tolerably quiet days. When such a life presents -itself in a dull or an ugly place, we esteem it, we admire it, but we do -not feel it to be the ideal of good fortune. When, however, the people -who lead it move as figures in an ancient, noble landscape, and their -walks and contemplations are like a turning of the leaves of history, we -seem to have before us an admirable case of virtue made easy; meaning -here by virtue, contentment and concentration, the love of privacy and -study. One need not be exacting if one lives among local conditions that -are of themselves constantly suggestive. It is true, indeed, that I -might, after a certain time, grow weary of a regular afternoon stroll -among the Florentine lanes; of sitting on low parapets, in intervals of -flower-topped wall, and looking across at Fiesole, or down the rich-hued -valley of the Arno; of pausing at the open gates of villas and wondering -at the height of cypresses and the depth of loggias; of walking home in -the fading light and noting on a dozen westward-looking surfaces the -glow of the opposite sunset. But for a week or so all this was -delightful. The villas are innumerable, and if one is a stranger half -the talk is about villas. This one has a story; that one has another; -they all look as if they had stories. Most of them are offered to rent -(many of them for sale) at prices unnaturally low; you may have a tower -and a garden, a chapel and an expanse of thirty windows, for five -hundred dollars a year. In imagination, you hire three or four; you take -possession, and settle, and live there. About the finest there is -something very grave and stately; about two or three of the best there -is something even solemn and tragic. From what does this latter -impression come? You gather it as you stand there in the early dusk, -looking at the long, pale-brown façade, the enormous windows, the iron -cages fastened upon the lower ones. Part of the brooding expression of -these great houses comes, even when they have not fallen into decay, -from their look of having outlived their original use. Their -extraordinary largeness and massiveness are a satire upon their present -fate. They were not built with such a thickness of wall and depth of -embrasure, such a solidity of staircase and superfluity of stone, simply -to afford an economical winter residence to English and American -families. I know not whether it was the appearance of these stony old -villas, which seemed so dumbly conscious of a change of manners, that -threw a tinge of melancholy over the general prospect; certain it is -that, having always found this plaintive note in the view of Florence, -it seemed to me now particularly distinct. "Lovely, lovely, but it makes -me blue," the fanciful stranger could not but murmur to himself as, in -the late afternoon, he looked at the landscape from over one of the low -parapets, and then, with his hands in his pockets, turned away indoors -to candles and dinner. - - - - -V - - -Below, in the city, in wandering about in the streets and churches and -museums, it was impossible not to have a good deal of the same feeling; -but here the impression was more easy to analyse. It came from a sense -of the perfect separateness of all the great productions of the -Renaissance from the present and the future of the place, from the -actual life and manners, the native ideal I have already spoken of the -way in which the great aggregation of beautiful works of art in the -Italian cities strikes the visitor nowadays (so far as present Italy is -concerned) as the mere stock-in-trade of an impecunious but thrifty -people. It is this metaphysical desertedness and loneliness of the great -works of architecture and sculpture that deposits a certain weight upon -the heart; when we see a great tradition broken we feel something of the -pain with which we hear a stifled cry. But regret is one thing and -resentment is another. Seeing one morning, in a shop-window, the series -of _Mornings in Florence_, published a few years since by Mr. Ruskin, I -made haste to enter and purchase these amusing little books, some -passages of which I remembered formerly to have read. I could not turn -over many pages without observing that the "separateness" of the new and -old which I just mentioned had produced in their author the liveliest -irritation. With the more acute phases of this sentiment it was -difficult to sympathise, for the simple reason, it seems to me, that it -savours of arrogance to demand of any people, as a right of one's own, -that they shall be artistic. "Be artistic yourselves!" is the very -natural reply that young Italy has at hand for English critics and -censors. When a people produces beautiful statues and pictures it gives -us something more than is set down in the bond, and we must thank it for -its generosity; and when it stops producing them or caring for them we -may cease thanking, but we hardly have a right to begin and abuse it. -The wreck of Florence, says Mr. Ruskin, "is now too ghastly and -heart-breaking to any human soul that remembers the days of old;" and -these desperate words are an allusion to the fact that the little square -in front of the cathedral, at the foot of Giotto's Tower, with the grand -Baptistery on the other side, is now the resort of a number of -hackney-coaches and omnibuses. This fact is doubtless lamentable, and it -would be a hundred times more agreeable to see among people who have -been made the heirs of so priceless a work of art as the sublime -campanile some such feeling about it as would keep it free even from the -danger of defilement. A cab-stand is a very ugly and dirty thing, and -Giotto's Tower should have nothing in common with such conveniences. But -there is more than one way of taking such things, and a quiet traveller, -who has been walking about for a week with his mind full of the -sweetness and suggestiveness of a hundred Florentine places, may feel at -last, in looking into Mr. Ruskin's little tracts that, discord for -discord, there is not much to choose between the importunity of the -author's personal ill-humour and the incongruity of horse-pails and -bundles of hay. And one may say this without being at all a partisan of -the doctrine of the inevitableness of new desecrations. For my own part, -I believe there are few things in this line that the new Italian spirit -is not capable of, and not many, indeed, that we are not destined to -see. Pictures and buildings will not be completely destroyed, because in -that case foreigners with full pockets would cease to visit the country, -and the turn-stiles at the doors of the old palaces and convents, with -the little patented slit for absorbing your half-franc, would grow quite -rusty, and creak with disuse. But it is safe to say that the new Italy, -growing into an old Italy again, will continue to take her elbow-room -wherever she finds it. - -I am almost ashamed to say what I did with Mr. Ruskin's little books. I -put them into my pocket and betook myself to Santa Maria Novella. There -I sat down, and after I had looked about for a while at the beautiful -church, I drew them forth one by one, and read the greater part of them. -Occupying one's self with light literature in a great religious edifice -is perhaps as bad a piece of profanation as any of those rude dealings -which Mr. Ruskin justly deplores; but a traveller has to make the most -of odd moments, and I was waiting for a friend in whose company I was to -go and look at Giotto's beautiful frescoes in the cloister of the -church. My friend was a long time coming, so that I had an hour with Mr. -Ruskin, whom I called just now a light _littérateur_, because in these -little Mornings in Florence he is for ever making his readers laugh. I -remembered, of course, where I was; and, in spite of my latent hilarity, -I felt that I had rarely got such a snubbing. I had really been enjoying -the good old city of Florence; but I now learned from Mr. Ruskin that -this was a scandalous waste of charity. I should have gone about with an -imprecation on my lips, I should have worn a face three yards long. I -had taken great pleasure in certain frescoes by Ghirlandaio, in the -choir of that very church; but it appeared from one of the little books -that these frescoes were as naught. I had much admired Santa Croce, and -I had thought the Duomo a very noble affair; but I had now the most -positive assurance I knew nothing about it. After a while, if it was -only ill-humour that was needed for doing honour to the city of the -Medici, I felt that I had risen to a proper level; only now it was Mr. -Ruskin himself I had lost patience with, and not the stupid Brunelleschi -and the vulgar Ghirlandaio. Indeed, I lost patience altogether, and -asked myself by what right this informal votary of form pretended to run -riot through a quiet traveller's relish for the noblest of -pleasures--his wholesome enjoyment of the loveliest of cities. The -little books seemed invidious and insane, and it was only when I -remembered that I had been under no obligation to buy them that I -checked myself in repenting of having done so. Then, at last, my friend -arrived, and we passed together out of the church, and through the first -cloister beside it, into a smaller enclosure, where we stood a while to -look at the tomb of the Marchesa Strozzi-Ridolfi, upon which the great -Giotto has painted four superb little pictures. It was easy to see the -pictures were superb; but I drew forth one of my little books again, for -I had observed that Mr. Ruskin spoke of them. Hereupon I recovered my -tolerance; for what could be better in this case, I asked myself, than -Mr. Ruskin's remarks? They are, in fact, excellent and charming, and -full of appreciation of the deep and simple beauty of the great -painter's work. I read them aloud to my companion; but my companion was -rather, as the phrase is, "put off" by them. One of the frescoes (it is -a picture of the birth of the Virgin) contains a figure coming through a -door. "Of ornament," I quote, "there is only the entirely simple outline -of the vase which the servant carries; of colour two or three masses of -sober red and pure white, with brown and gray. That is all," Mr. Ruskin -continues. "And if you are pleased with this you can see Florence. But -if not, by all means amuse yourself there, if you find it amusing, as -long as you like; you can never see it." _You can never see it_. This -seemed to my friend insufferable, and I had to shuffle away the book -again, so that we might look at the fresco with the unruffled geniality -it deserves. We agreed afterwards, when in a more convenient place I -read aloud a good many more passages from Mr. Ruskin's tracts, that -there are a great many ways of seeing Florence, as there are of seeing -most beautiful and interesting things, and that it is very dry and -pedantic to say that the happy vision depends upon our squaring our toes -with a certain particular chalk-mark. We see Florence wherever and -whenever we enjoy it, and for enjoying it we find a great many more -pretexts than Mr. Ruskin seems inclined to allow. My friend and I agreed -also, however, that the little books were an excellent purchase, on -account of the great charm and felicity of much of their incidental -criticism; to say nothing, as I hinted just now, of their being -extremely amusing. Nothing, in fact, is more comical than the familiar -asperity of the author's style and the pedagogic fashion in which he -pushes and pulls his unhappy pupils about, jerking their heads toward -this, rapping their knuckles for that, sending them to stand in corners, -and giving them Scripture texts to copy. But it is neither the -felicities nor the aberrations of detail, in Mr. Ruskin's writings, that -are the main affair for most readers; it is the general tone that, as I -have said, puts them off or draws them on. For many persons he will -never bear the test of being read in this rich old Italy, where art, so -long as it really lived at all, was spontaneous, joyous, irresponsible. -If the reader is in daily contact with those beautiful Florentine works -which do still, in a way, force themselves into notice through the -vulgarity and cruelty of modern profanation, it will seem to him that -Mr. Ruskin's little books are pitched in the strangest falsetto key. -"One may read a hundred pages of this sort of thing," said my friend, -"without ever dreaming that he is talking about _art_. You can say -nothing worse about it than that." And that is very true. Art is the one -corner of human life in which we may take our ease. To justify our -presence there the only thing that is demanded of us is that we shall -have a passion for representation. In other places our passions are -conditioned and embarrassed; we are allowed to have only so many as are -consistent with those of our neighbours; with their convenience and -well-being, with their convictions and prejudices, their rules and -regulations. Art means an escape from all this. Wherever her brilliant -standard floats the need for apologies and exonerations is over; there -it is enough simply that we please or that we are pleased. There the -tree is judged only by its fruits. If these are sweet, one is welcome to -pluck them. - -One may read a great many pages of Mr. Ruskin without getting a hint of -this delightful truth; a hint of the not unimportant fact that art, -after all, is made for us, and not we for art. This idea of the value of -a work of art being the amount of illusion it yields is conspicuous by -its absence. And as for Mr. Ruskin's world of art being a place where we -may take life easily, woe to the luckless mortal who enters it with any -such disposition. Instead of a garden of delight, he finds a sort of -assize-court, in perpetual session. Instead of a place in which human -responsibilities are lightened and suspended, he finds a region governed -by a kind of Draconic legislation. His responsibilities, indeed, are -tenfold increased; the gulf between truth and error is for ever yawning -at his feet; the pains and penalties of this same error are advertised, -in apocalyptic terminology, upon a thousand sign-posts; and the poor -wanderer soon begins to look back with infinite longing to the lost -paradise of the artless. There can be no greater want of tact in dealing -with those things with which men attempt to ornament life than to be -perpetually talking about "error." A truce to all rigidities is the law -of the place; the only thing that is absolute there is sensible charm. -The grim old bearer of the scales excuses herself; she feels that this -is not her province. Differences here are not iniquity and -righteousness; they are simply variations of temperament and of point of -view. We are not under theological government. - - - - -VI - - -It was very charming, in the bright, warm days, to wander from one -corner of Florence to another, paying one's respects again to remembered -masterpieces. It was pleasant also to find that memory had played no -tricks, and that the beautiful things of an earlier year were as -beautiful as ever. To enumerate these beautiful things would take a -great deal of space; for I never had been more struck with the mere -quantity of brilliant Florentine work. Even giving up the Duomo and -Santa Croce to Mr. Ruskin as very ill-arranged edifices, the list of the -Florentine treasures is almost inexhaustible. Those long outer galleries -of the Uffizi had never seemed to me more delectable; sometimes there -were not more than two or three figures standing there, Baedeker in -hand, to break the charming perspective. One side of this -upstairs-portico, it will be remembered, is entirely composed of glass; -a continuity of old-fashioned windows, draped with white curtains of -rather primitive fashion, which hang there till they acquire a -perceptible "tone." The light, passing through them, is softly filtered -and diffused; it rests mildly upon the old marbles--chiefly antique -Roman busts--which stand in the narrow intervals of the casements. It is -projected upon the numerous pictures that cover the opposite wall, and -that are not by any means, as a general thing, the gems of the great -collection; it imparts a faded brightness to the old ornamental -arabesques upon the painted wooden ceiling, and it makes a great soft -shining upon the marble floor, in which, as you look up and down, you -see the strolling tourists and the motionless copyists almost reflected. -I don't know why I should find all this very pleasant, but, in fact, I -have seldom gone into the Uffizi without walking the length of this -third-story cloister, between the (for the most part) third-rate -pictures and the faded cotton curtains. Why is it that in Italy we see a -charm in things in regard to which in other countries we always take -vulgarity for granted? If in the city of New York a great museum of the -arts were to be provided, by way of decoration, with a species of -verandah inclosed on one side by a series of small-paned windows, draped -in dirty linen, and furnished on the other with an array of pictorial -feebleness, the place being surmounted by a thinly-painted wooden roof, -strongly suggestive of summer heat, of winter cold, of frequent leakage, -those amateurs who had had the advantage of foreign travel would be at -small pains to conceal their contempt. Contemptible or respectable, to -the judicial mind, this quaint old loggia of the Uffizi admitted me into -twenty chambers where I found as great a number of ancient favourites. I -do not know that I had a warmer greeting for any old friend than for -Andrea del Sarto, that most touching of painters who is not one of the -first. But it was on the other side of the Arno that I found him in -force, in those dusky drawing-rooms of the Pitti Palace, to which you -take your way along the tortuous tunnel that wanders through the houses -of Florence, and is supported by the little goldsmiths' booths on the -Ponte Vecchio. In the rich, insufficient light of these beautiful rooms, -where, to look at the pictures, you sit in damask chairs and rest your -elbows on tables of malachite, Andrea del Sarto becomes peculiarly -effective. Before long you feel a real affection for him. But the great -pleasure, after all, was to revisit the earlier masters, in those -specimens of them chiefly that bloom so unfadingly on the big, plain -walls of the Academy. Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and -Lorenzo di Credi are the sweetest and best of all painters; as I sat for -an hour in their company, in the cold great hall of the institution I -have mentioned--there are shabby rafters above and an immense expanse of -brick tiles below, and many bad pictures as well as good ones--it seemed -to me more than ever that if one really had to choose one could not do -better than choose here. You may sit very quietly and comfortably at the -Academy, in this big first room--at the upper end, especially, on the -left--because more than many other places it savours of old Florence. -More for instance, in reality, than the Bargello, though the Bargello -makes great pretensions. Beautiful and picturesque as the Bargello is, -it smells too strongly of restoration, and, much of old Italy as still -lurks in its furbished and renovated chambers, it speaks even more -distinctly of the ill-mannered young kingdom that has (as unavoidably as -you please) lifted down a hundred delicate works of sculpture from the -convent-walls where their pious authors placed them. If the early Tuscan -painters are exquisite, I can think of no praise generous enough for the -sculptors of the same period, Donatello and Luca della Robbia, Matteo -Civitale and Mino da Fiesole, who, as I refreshed my memory of them, -seemed to me to leave absolutely nothing to be desired in the way of -purity of inspiration and grace of invention. The Bargello is full of -early Tuscan sculpture, most of the pieces of which have come from -suppressed convents; and even if the visitor be an ardent liberal, he is -uncomfortably conscious of the rather brutal process by which it has -been collected. One can hardly envy young Italy the number of -disagreeable things she has had to do. - -The railway journey from Florence to Rome has been altered both for the -better and for the worse; for the better, in that it has been shortened -by a couple of hours; for the worse, inasmuch as, when about half the -distance has been traversed, the train deflects to the west, and leaves -the beautiful old cities of Assisi, Perugia, Terni, Narni, unvisited. Of -old, it was possible to visit these places, in a manner, from the window -of the train; even if you did not stop, as you probably could not, every -time you passed, the picturesque fashion in which, like a loosened belt -on an aged and shrunken person, their old red walls held them easily -together was something well worth noting. Now, however, by way of -compensation, the express-train to Rome stops at Orvieto, and in -consequence... In consequence what? What is the consequence of an -express train stopping at Orvieto? As I glibly wrote that sentence I -suddenly paused, with a sense of the queer stuff I was uttering. That an -express train would graze the base of the horrid purple mountain from -the apex of which this dark old Catholic city uplifts the glittering -front of its cathedral--that might have been foretold by a keen observer -of contemporary manners. But that it would really have the grossness to -stop there, this is a fact over which, as he records it, a sentimental -chronicler may well make what is vulgarly called an ado. The train does -stop at Orvieto, not very long, it is true, but long enough to let you -out. The same phenomenon takes place on the following day, when, having -visited the city, you get in again. I availed myself of both of these -occasions, having formerly neglected to drive to Orvieto in a -post-chaise. And really, the railway-station being in the plain, and the -town on the summit of an extraordinary hill, you have time to forget all -about the triumphs of steam, while you wind upwards to the city-gate. -The position of Orvieto is superb; it is worthy of the "middle distance" -of a last-century landscape. But, as every one knows, the beautiful -cathedral is the proper attraction of the place, which, indeed, save for -this fine monument, and for its craggy and crumbling ramparts, is a -meanly arranged and, as Italian cities go, not particularly impressive -little town. I spent a beautiful Sunday there, and I looked at the -charming church. I looked at it a great deal--a great deal considering -that on the whole I found it inferior to its fame. Intensely brilliant, -however, is the densely carved front; densely covered with the -freshest-looking mosaics. The old white marble of the sculptured -portions is as softly yellow as ancient ivory; the large, exceedingly -bright pictures above them flashed and twinkled in the splendid weather. -Very beautiful and interesting are the theological frescoes of Luca -Signorelli, though I have seen pictures that struck me as more -attaching. Very enchanting, finally, are the clear-faced saints and -seraphs, in robes of pink and azure, whom Fra Angelico has painted upon -the ceiling of the great chapel, along with a noble sitting figure--more -expressive of movement than most of the creations of this pictorial -peace-maker--of Christ in judgment. But the interest of the cathedral of -Orvieto is mainly not the visible result, but the historical process -that lies behind it; those three hundred years of devoted popular labour -of which an American scholar has written an admirable account.[1] - - -[Footnote 1: Charles Eliot Norton: _Study and Travel in Italy._] - - - - -III - -OCCASIONAL PARIS - -1877 - - -It is hard to say exactly what is the profit of comparing one race with -another, and weighing in opposed groups the manners and customs of -neighbouring countries; but it is certain that as we move about the -world we constantly indulge in this exercise. This is especially the -case if we happen to be infected with the baleful spirit of the -cosmopolite--that uncomfortable consequence of seeing many lands and -feeling at home in none. To be a cosmopolite is not, I think, an ideal; -the ideal should be to be a concentrated patriot. Being a cosmopolite is -an accident, but one must make the best of it. If you have lived about, -as the phrase is, you have lost that sense of the absoluteness and the -sanctity of the habits of your fellow-patriots which once made you so -happy in the midst of them. You have seen that there are a great many -_patriæ_ in the world, and that each of these is filled with excellent -people for whom the local idiosyncrasies are the only thing that is not -rather barbarous. There comes a time when one set of customs, wherever -it may be found, grows to seem to you about as provincial as another; -and then I suppose it may be said of you that you have become a -cosmopolite. You have formed the habit of comparing, of looking for -points of difference and of resemblance, for present and absent -advantages, for the virtues that go with certain defects, and the -defects that go with certain virtues. If this is poor work compared with -the active practice, in the sphere to which a discriminating Providence -has assigned you, of the duties of a tax-payer, an elector, a juryman or -a diner-out, there is nevertheless something to be said for it. It is -good to think well of mankind, and this, on the whole, a cosmopolite -does. If you limit your generalisations to the sphere I mentioned just -now, there is a danger that your occasional fits of pessimism may be too -sweeping. When you are out of humour the whole country suffers, because -at such moments one is never discriminating, and it costs you very -little bad logic to lump your fellow-citizens together. But if you are -living about, as I say, certain differences impose themselves. The worst -you can say of the human race is, for instance, that the Germans are a -detestable people. They do not represent the human race for you, as in -your native town your fellow-citizens do, and your unflattering judgment -has a flattering reverse. If the Germans are detestable, you are -mentally saying, there are those admirable French, or those charming -Americans, or those interesting English. (Of course it is simply by -accident that I couple the German name here with the unfavourable -adjective. The epithets may be transposed at will.) Nothing can well be -more different from anything else than the English from the French, so -that, if you are acquainted with both nations, it may be said that on -any special point your agreeable impression of the one implies a -censorious attitude toward the other, and _vice versa_. This has rather -a shocking sound; it makes the cosmopolite appear invidious and -narrow-minded. But I hasten to add that there seems no real reason why -even the most delicate conscience should take alarm. The consequence of -the cosmopolite spirit is to initiate you into the merits of all -peoples; to convince you that national virtues are numerous, though they -may be very different, and to make downright preference really very -hard. I have, for instance, every disposition to think better of the -English race than of any other except my own. There are things which -make it natural I should; there are inducements, provocations, -temptations, almost bribes. There have been moments when I have almost -burned my ships behind me, and declared that, as it simplified matters -greatly to pin one's faith to a chosen people, I would henceforth cease -to trouble my head about the lights and shades of the foreign character. -I am convinced that if I had taken this reckless engagement, I should -greatly have regretted it. You may find a room very comfortable to sit -in with the window open, and not like it at all when the window has been -shut. If one were, to give up the privilege of comparing the English -with other people, one would very soon, in a moment of reaction, make -once for all (and most unjustly) such a comparison as would leave the -English nowhere. Compare then, I say, as often as the occasion presents -itself. The result as regards any particular people, and as regards the -human race at large, may be pronounced agreeable, and the process is -both instructive and entertaining. - -So the author of these observations finds it on returning to Paris after -living for upwards of a year in London. He finds himself comparing, and -the results of comparison are several disjointed reflections, of which -it may be profitable to make a note. Certainly Paris is a very old -story, and London is a still older one; and there is no great reason why -a journey across the channel and back should quicken one's perspicacity -to an unprecedented degree. I therefore will not pretend to have been -looking at Paris with new eyes, or to have gathered on the banks of the -Seine a harvest of extraordinary impressions. I will only pretend that a -good many old impressions have recovered their freshness, and that there -is a sort of renovated entertainment in looking at the most brilliant -city in the world with eyes attuned to a different pitch. Never, in -fact, have those qualities of brightness and gaiety that are half the -stock-in-trade of the city by the Seine seemed to me more uncontestable. -The autumn is but half over, and Paris is, in common parlance, empty. -The private houses are closed, the lions have returned to the jungle, -the Champs Elysées are not at all "mondains." But I have never seen -Paris more Parisian, in the pleasantest sense of the word; better -humoured, more open-windowed, more naturally entertaining. A radiant -September helps the case; but doubtless the matter is, as I hinted -above, in a large degree "subjective." For when one comes to the point -there is nothing very particular just now for Paris to rub her hands -about. The Exhibition of 1878 is looming up as large as a mighty mass of -buildings on the Trocadéro can make it. These buildings are very -magnificent and fantastical; they hang over the Seine, in their sudden -immensity and glittering newness, like a palace in a fairy-tale. But the -trouble is that most people appear to regard the Exhibition as in fact a -fairy-tale. They speak of the wonderful structures on the Champ de Mars -and the Trocadéro as a predestined monument to the folly of a group of -gentlemen destitute of a sense of the opportune. The moment certainly -does not seem very well chosen for inviting the world to come to Paris -to amuse itself. The world is too much occupied with graver cares--with -reciprocal cannonading and chopping, with cutting of throats and burning -of homes, with murder of infants and mutilation of mothers, with warding -off famine and civil war, with lamenting the failure of its resources, -the dulness of trade, the emptiness of its pockets. Rome is burning -altogether too fast for even its most irresponsible spirits to find any -great satisfaction in fiddling. But even if there is (as there very well -may be) a certain scepticism at headquarters as to the accomplishment of -this graceful design, there is no apparent hesitation, and everything is -going forward as rapidly as if mankind were breathless with expectation. -That familiar figure, the Parisian _ouvrier_, with his white, chalky -blouse, his attenuated person, his clever face, is more familiar than -ever, and I suppose, finding plenty of work to his hand, is for the time -in a comparatively rational state of mind. He swarms in thousands, not -only in the region of the Exhibition, but along the great -thoroughfare--the Avenue de l'Opéra--which has just been opened in the -interior of Paris. - -This is an extremely Parisian creation, and as it is really a great -convenience--it will save a great many steps and twists and turns--I -suppose it should be spoken of with gratitude and admiration. But I -confess that to my sense it belongs primarily to that order of benefits -which during the twenty years of the Empire gradually deprived the -streets of Paris of nine-tenths of their ancient individuality. The -deadly monotony of the Paris that M. Haussmann called into being--its -huge, blank, pompous, featureless sameness--sometimes comes over the -wandering stranger with a force that leads him to devote the author of -these miles of architectural commonplace to execration. The new street -is quite on the imperial system; it must make the late Napoleon III. -smile with beatific satisfaction as he looks down upon it from the -Bonapartist corner of Paradise. It stretches straight away from the -pompous façade of the Opera to the doors of the Théâtre Français, -and it must be admitted that there is something fine in the vista that -is closed at one end by the great sculptured and gilded mass of the -former building. But it smells of the modern asphalt; it is lined with -great white houses that are adorned with machine-made arabesques, and -each of which is so exact a copy of all the rest that even the little -white porcelain number on a blue ground, which looks exactly like all -the other numbers, hardly constitutes an identity. Presently there will -be a long succession of milliners' and chocolate-makers' shops in the -basement of this homogeneous row, and the pretty bonnets and -bonbonnières in the shining windows will have their ribbons knotted -with a _chic_ that you must come to Paris to see. Then there will be -little glazed sentry-boxes at regular intervals along the curbstone, in -which churlish old women will sit selling half a dozen copies of each of -the newspapers; and over the hardened bitumen the young Parisian of our -day will constantly circulate, looking rather pallid and wearing very -large shirt-cuffs. And the new avenue will be a great success, for it -will place in symmetrical communication two of the most important -establishments in France--the temple of French music and the temple of -French comedy. - -I said just now that no two things could well be more unlike than -England and France; and though the remark is not original, I uttered it -with the spontaneity that it must have on the lips of a traveller who, -having left either country, has just disembarked in the other. It is of -course by this time a very trite observation, but it will continue to be -made so long as Boulogne remains the same lively antithesis of -Folkestone. An American, conscious of the family-likeness diffused over -his own huge continent, never quite unlearns his surprise at finding -that so little of either of these two almost contiguous towns has rubbed -off upon the other. He is surprised at certain English people feeling so -far away from France, and at all French people feeling so far away from -England. I travelled from Boulogne the other day in the same -railway-carriage with a couple of amiable and ingenuous young Britons, -who had come over to spend ten days in Paris. It was their first landing -in France; they had never yet quitted their native island; and in the -course of a little conversation that I had with them I was struck with -the scantiness of their information in regard to French manners and -customs. They were very intelligent lads; they were apparently fresh -from a university; but in respect to the interesting country they were -about to enter, their minds were almost a blank. If the conductor, -appearing at the carriage door to ask for our tickets, had had the leg -of a frog sticking out of his pocket, I think their only very definite -preconception would have been confirmed. I parted with them at the Paris -station, and I have no doubt that they very soon began to make precious -discoveries; and I have alluded to them not in the least to throw -ridicule upon their "insularity"--which indeed, being accompanied with -great modesty, I thought a very pretty spectacle--but because having -become, since my last visit to France, a little insular myself, I was -more conscious of the emotions that attend on an arrival. - -The brightness always seems to begin while you are still out in the -channel, when you fairly begin to see the French coast. You pass into a -region of intenser light--a zone of clearness and colour. These -properties brighten and deepen as you approach the land, and when you -fairly stand upon that good Boulognese quay, among the blue and red -douaniers and soldiers, the small ugly men in cerulean blouses, the -charming fishwives, with their folded kerchiefs and their crisp -cap-frills, their short striped petticoats, their tightly-drawn -stockings, and their little clicking sabots--when you look about you at -the smokeless air, at the pink and yellow houses, at the white-fronted -café, close at hand, with its bright blue letters, its mirrors and -marble-topped tables, its white-aproned, alert, undignified waiter, -grasping a huge coffee-pot by a long handle--when you perceive all these -things you feel the additional savour that foreignness gives to the -picturesque; or feel rather, I should say, that simple foreignness may -itself make the picturesque; for certainly the elements in the picture I -have just sketched are not especially exquisite. No matter; you are -amused, and your amusement continues--being sensibly stimulated by a -visit to the buffet at the railway station, which is better than the -refreshment-room at Folkestone. It is a pleasure to have people offering -you soup again, of their own movement; it is a pleasure to find a little -pint of Bordeaux standing naturally before your plate; it is a pleasure -to have a napkin; it is a pleasure, above all, to take up one of the -good long sticks of French bread--as bread is called the staff of life, -the French bake it literally in the shape of staves--and break off a -loose, crisp, crusty morsel. - -There are impressions, certainly, that imperil your good-humour. No -honest Anglo-Saxon can like a French railway-station; and I was on the -point of adding that no honest Anglo-Saxon can like a French -railway-official. But I will not go so far as that; for after all I -cannot remember any great harm that such a functionary has ever done -me--except in locking me up as a malefactor. It is necessary to say, -however, that the honest Anglo-Saxon, in a French railway-station, is in -a state of chronic irritation--an irritation arising from his sense of -the injurious effect upon the genial French nature of the possession of -an administrative uniform. I believe that the consciousness of brass -buttons on his coat and stripes on his trousers has spoiled many a -modest and amiable Frenchman, and the sight of these aggressive insignia -always stirs within me a moral protest. I repeat that my aversion to -them is partly theoretic, for I have found, as a general thing, that an -inquiry civilly made extracts a civil answer from even the most -official-looking personage. But I have also found that such a -personage's measure of the civility due to him is inordinately large; if -he places himself in any degree at your service, it is apparently from -the sense that true greatness can afford to unbend. You are constantly -reminded that you must not presume. In England these intimations never -proceed from one's "inferiors." In France the "administration" is the -first thing that touches you; in a little while you get used to it, but -you feel somehow that, in the process, you have lost the flower of your -self-respect. Of course you are under some obligation to it. It has -taken you off the steamer at Folkestone; made you tell your name to a -gentleman with a sword, stationed at the farther end of the plank--not a -drawn sword, it is true, but still, at the best, a very nasty weapon; -marshalled you into the railway-station; assigned you to a carriage--I -was going to say to a seat; transported you to Paris, marshalled you -again out of the train, and under a sort of military surveillance, into -an enclosure containing a number of human sheep-pens, in one of which it -has imprisoned you for some half-hour. I am always on the point, in -these places, of asking one of my gaolers if I may not be allowed to -walk about on parole. The administration at any rate has finally taken -you out of your pen, and, through the medium of a functionary who -"inscribes" you in a little book, transferred you to a cab selected by a -logic of its own. In doing all this it has certainly done a great deal -for you; but somehow its good offices have made you feel sombre and -resentful. The other day, on arriving from London, while I was waiting -for my luggage, I saw several of the porters who convey travellers' -impedimenta to the cab come up and deliver over the coin they had just -received for this service to a functionary posted _ad hoc_ in a corner, -and armed with a little book in which he noted down these remittances. -The _pour-boires_ are apparently thrown into a common fund and divided -among the guild of porters. The system is doubtless an excellent one, -excellently carried out; but the sight of the poor round-shouldered man -of burdens dropping his coin into the hand of the official arithmetician -was to my fancy but another reminder that the individual, as an -individual, loses by all that the administration assumes. - -After living a while in England you observe the individual in Paris with -quickened attention; and I think it must be said that at first he makes -an indifferent figure. You are struck with the race being physically and -personally a poorer one than that great family of largely-modelled, -fresh-coloured people you have left upon the other side of the channel. -I remember that in going to England a year ago and disembarking of a -dismal, sleety Sunday evening at Folkestone, the first thing that struck -me was the good looks of the railway porters--their broad shoulders, -their big brown beards, their well-cut features. In like manner, landing -lately at Boulogne of a brilliant Sunday morning, it was impossible not -to think the little men in numbered caps who were gesticulating and -chattering in one's path, rather ugly fellows. In arriving from other -countries one is struck with a certain want of dignity in the French -face. I do not know, however, whether this is anything worse than the -fact that the French face is expressive; for it may be said that, in a -certain sense, to express anything is to compromise with one's dignity, -which likes to be understood without taking trouble. As regards the -lower classes, at any rate, the impression I speak of always passes -away; you perceive that the good looks of the French working-people are -to be found in their look of intelligence. These people, in Paris, -strike me afresh as the cleverest, the most perceptive, and, -intellectually speaking, the most human of their kind. The Paris -_ouvrier_, with his democratic blouse, his expressive, demonstrative, -agreeable eye, his meagre limbs, his irregular, pointed features, his -sallow complexion, his face at once fatigued and animated, his light, -nervous organisation, is a figure that I always encounter again with -pleasure. In some cases he looks depraved and perverted, but at his -worst he looks refined; he is full of vivacity of perception, of -something that one can appeal to. - -It takes some courage to say this, perhaps, after reading _L'Assommoir_; -but in M. Emile Zola's extraordinary novel one must make the part, as -the French say, of the horrible uncleanness of the author's imagination. -_L'Assommoir_, I have been told, has had great success in the lower -walks of Parisian life; and if this fact is not creditable to the -delicacy of M. Zola's humble readers, it proves a good deal in favour of -their intelligence. With all its grossness the book in question is -essentially a literary performance; you must be tolerably clever to -appreciate it. It is highly appreciated, I believe, by the young ladies -who live in the region of the Latin Quarter--those young ladies who -thirty years ago were called grisettes, and now are called I don't know -what. They know long passages by heart; they repeat them with infinite -gusto. "Ce louchon d'Augustine"--the horrible little girl with a squint, -who is always playing nasty tricks and dodging slaps and projectiles in -Gervaise's shop, is their particular favourite; and it must be admitted -that "ce louchon d'Augustine" is, as regards reality, a wonderful -creation. - -If Parisians, both small and great, have more of the intellectual stamp -than the people one sees in London, it is striking, on the other hand, -that the people of the better sort in Paris look very much less -"respectable." I did not know till I came back to Paris how used I had -grown to the English _cachet_; but I immediately found myself missing -it. You miss it in the men much more than in the women; for the -well-to-do Frenchwoman of the lower orders, as one sees her in public, -in the streets and in shops, is always a delightfully comfortable and -creditable person. I must confess to the highest admiration for her, an -admiration that increases with acquaintance. She, at least, is -essentially respectable; the neatness, compactness, and sobriety of her -dress, the decision of her movement and accent suggest the civic and -domestic virtues--order, thrift, frugality, the moral necessity of -making a good appearance. It is, I think, an old story that to the -stranger in France the women seem greatly superior to the men. Their -superiority, in fact, appears to be conceded; for wherever you turn you -meet them in the forefront of action. You meet them, indeed, too often; -you pronounce them at times obtrusive. It is annoying when you go to -order your boots or your shirts, to have to make known your desires to -even the most neat-waisted female attendant; for the limitations to the -feminine intellect are, though few in number, distinct, and women are -not able to understand certain masculine needs. Mr. Worth makes ladies' -dresses; but I am sure there will never be a fashionable tailoress. -There are, however, points at which, from the commercial point of view, -feminine assistance is invaluable. For insisting upon the merits of an -article that has failed to satisfy you, talking you over, and making you -take it; for defending a disputed bill, for paying the necessary -compliments or supplying the necessary impertinence--for all these -things the neat-waisted sex has peculiar and precious faculties. In the -commercial class in Paris the man always appeals to the woman; the woman -always steps forward. The woman always proposes the conditions of a -bargain. Go about and look for furnished rooms, you always encounter a -concierge and his wife. When you ask the price of the rooms, the woman -takes the words out of her husband's mouth, if indeed he have not first -turned to her with a questioning look. She takes you in hand; she -proposes conditions; she thinks of things he would not have thought of. - -What I meant just now by my allusion to the absence of the "respectable" -in the appearance of the Parisian population was that the men do not -look like gentlemen, as so many Englishmen do. The average Frenchman -that one encounters in public is of so different a type from the average -Englishman that you can easily believe that to the end of time the two -will not understand each other. The Frenchman has always, comparatively -speaking a Bohemian, empirical look; the expression of his face, its -colouring, its movement, have not been toned down to the neutral -complexion of that breeding for which in English speech we reserve the -epithet of "good." He is at once more artificial and more natural; the -former where the Englishman is positive, the latter where the Englishman -is negative. He takes off his hat with a flourish to a friend, but the -Englishman never bows. He ties a knot in the end of a napkin and thrusts -it into his shirt-collar, so that, as he sits at breakfast, the napkin -may serve the office of a pinafore. Such an operation as that seems to -the Englishman as _naïf_ as the flourishing of one's hat is -pretentious. - -I sometimes go to breakfast at a café on the Boulevard, which I -formerly used to frequent with considerable regularity. Coming back -there the other day, I found exactly the same group of habitués at -their little tables, and I mentally exclaimed as I looked at them over -my newspaper, upon their unlikeness to the gentlemen who confront you in -the same attitude at a London club. Who are they? what are they? On -these points I have no information; but the stranger's imagination does -not seem to see a majestic social order massing itself behind them as it -usually does in London. He goes so far as to suspect that what is behind -them is not adapted for exhibition; whereas your Englishmen, whatever -may be the defects of their personal character, or the irregularities of -their conduct, are pressed upon from the rear by an immense body of -private proprieties and comforts, of domestic conventions and -theological observances. But it is agreeable all the same to come back -to a café of which you have formerly been an habitué. Adolphe or -Edouard, in his long white apron and his large patent-leather slippers, -has a perfect recollection of "les habitudes de Monsieur." He remembers -the table you preferred, the wine you drank, the newspaper you read. He -greets you with the friendliest of smiles, and remarks that it is a long -time since he has had the pleasure of seeing Monsieur. There is -something in this simple remark very touching to a heart that has -suffered from that incorruptible dumbness of the British domestic. But -in Paris such a heart finds consolation at every step; it is reminded of -that most classic quality of the French nature--its sociability; a -sociability which operates here as it never does in England, from below -upward. Your waiter utters a greeting because, after all, something -human within him prompts him; his instinct bids him say something, and -his taste recommends that it be agreeable. The obvious reflection is -that a waiter must not say too much, even for the sake of being human. -But in France the people always like to make the little extra remark, to -throw in something above the simply necessary. I stop before a little -man who is selling newspapers at a street-corner, and ask him for the -_Journal des Débats_. His answer deserves to be literally given: "Je ne -l'ai plus, Monsieur; mais je pourrai vous donner quelque chose à peu -près dans le même genre--_la République Française_." Even a person -of his humble condition must have had a lurking sense of the comicality -of offering anything as an equivalent for the "genre" of the venerable, -classic, academic _Débats_. But my friend could not bear to give me a -naked, monosyllabic refusal. - -There are two things that the returning observer is likely to do with as -little delay as possible. One is to dine at some _cabaret_ of which he -retains a friendly memory; another is to betake himself to the Théâtre -Français. It is early in the season; there are no new pieces; but I -have taken great pleasure in seeing some of the old ones. I lost no time -in going to see Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt in _Andromaque_. -_Andromaque_ is not a novelty, but Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt has a -perennial freshness. The play has been revived, to enable her to -represent not the great part, the injured and passionate Hermione, but -that of the doleful, funereal widow of Hector. This part is a poor one; -it is narrow and monotonous, and offers few brilliant opportunities. But -the actress knows how to make opportunities, and she has here a very -sufficient one for crossing her thin white arms over her nebulous black -robes, and sighing forth in silver accents her dolorous rhymes. Her -rendering of the part is one more proof of her singular intelligence--of -the fineness of her artistic nature. As there is not a great deal to be -done with it in the way of declamation, she has made the most of its -plastic side. She understands the art of motion and attitude as no one -else does, and her extraordinary personal grace never fails her. Her -Andromaque has postures of the most poetic picturesqueness--something -that suggests the broken stem and drooping head of a flower that had -been rudely plucked. She bends over her classic confidant like the -figure of Bereavement on a bas-relief, and she has a marvellous manner -of lifting and throwing back her delicate arms, locking them together, -and passing them behind her hanging head. - -The _Demi-Monde_ of M. Dumas _fils_ is not a novelty either; but I quite -agree with M. Francisque Sarcey that it is on the whole, in form, the -first comedy of our day. I have seen it several times, but I never see -it without being forcibly struck with its merits. For the drama of our -time it must always remain the model. The interest of the story, the -quiet art with which it is unfolded, the naturalness and soberness of -the means that are used, and by which great effects are produced, the -brilliancy and richness of the dialogue--all these things make it a -singularly perfect and interesting work. Of course it is admirably well -played at the Théâtre Français. Madame d'Ange was originally a part -of too great amplitude for Mademoiselle Croizette; but she is gradually -filling it out and taking possession of it; she begins to give a sense -of the "calme infernal," which George Sand somewhere mentions as the -leading attribute of the character. As for Delaunay, he does nothing -better, more vividly and gallantly, than Olivier de Jalin. When I say -gallantry I say it with qualification; for what a very queer fellow is -this same M. de Jalin! In seeing the _Demi-Monde_ again I was more than -ever struck with the oddity of its morality and with the way that the -ideal of fine conduct differs in different nations. The _Demi-Monde_ is -the history of the eager, the almost heroic, effort of a clever and -superior woman, who has been guilty of what the French call "faults," to -pass from the irregular and equivocal circle to which these faults have -consigned her into what is distinctively termed "good society." The only -way in which the passage can be effected is by her marrying an -honourable man; and to induce an honourable man to marry her, she must -suppress the more discreditable facts of her career. Taking her for an -honest woman, Raymond de Nanjac falls in love with her, and honestly -proposes to make her his wife. But Raymond de Nanjac has contracted an -intimate friendship with Olivier de Jalin, and the action of the play is -more especially De Jalin's attempt--a successful one--to rescue his -friend from the ignominy of a union with Suzanne d'Ange. Jalin knows a -great deal about her, for the simple reason that he has been her lover. -Their relations have been most harmonious, but from the moment that -Suzanne sets her cap at Nanjac, Olivier declares war. Suzanne struggles -hard to keep possession of her suitor, who is very much in love with -her, and Olivier spares no pains to detach him. It is the means that -Olivier uses that excite the wonderment of the Anglo-Saxon spectator. He -takes the ground that in such a cause all means are fair, and when, at -the climax of the play, he tells a thumping lie in order to make Madame -d'Ange compromise herself, expose herself, he is pronounced by the -author "le plus honnête homme que je connaisse." Madame d'Ange, as I -have said, is a superior woman; the interest of the play is in her being -a superior woman. Olivier has been her lover; he himself is one of the -reasons why she may not marry Nanjac; he has given her a push along the -downward path. But it is curious how little this is held by the author -to disqualify him from fighting the battle in which she is so much the -weaker combatant. An English-speaking audience is more "moral" than a -French, more easily scandalised; and yet it is a singular fact that if -the _Demi-Monde_ were represented before an English-speaking audience, -its sympathies would certainly not go with M. de Jalin. It would -pronounce him rather a coward. Is it because such an audience, although -it has not nearly such a pretty collection of pedestals to place under -the feet of the charming sex, has, after all, in default of this degree -of gallantry, a tenderness more fundamental? Madame d'Ange has stained -herself, and it is doubtless not at all proper that such ladies should -be led to the altar by honourable young men. The point is not that the -English-speaking audience would be disposed to condone Madame d'Ange's -irregularities, but that it would remain perfectly cold before the -spectacle of her ex-lover's masterly campaign against her, and quite -fail to think it positively admirable, or to regard the fib by which he -finally clenches his victory as a proof of exceptional honesty. The -ideal of our own audience would be expressed in some such words as, "I -say, that's not fair game. Can't you let the poor woman alone?" - - - - -IV - -RHEIMS AND LAON: A LITTLE TOUR - -1877 - - -It was a very little tour, but the charm of the three or four old towns -and monuments that it embraced, the beauty of the brilliant October, the -pleasure of reminding one's self how much of the interest, strength and -dignity of France is to be found outside of that huge pretentious -caravansary called Paris (a reminder often needed), these things deserve -to be noted. I went down to Rheims to see the famous cathedral, and to -reach Rheims I travelled through the early morning hours along the -charming valley of the Marne. The Marne is a pretty little green river, -the vegetation upon whose banks, otherwise unadorned, had begun to blush -with the early frosts in a manner that suggested the autumnal tints of -American scenery. The trees and bushes were scarlet and orange; the -light was splendid and a trifle harsh; I could have fancied myself -immersed in an American "fall," if at intervals some gray old -large-towered church had not lifted a sculptured front above a -railway-station, to dispel the fond illusion. One of these church-fronts -(I saw it only from the train) is particularly impressive; the little -cathedral of Meaux, of which the great Bossuet was bishop, and along -whose frigid nave he set his eloquence rolling with an impetus which it -has not wholly lost to this day. It was entertaining, moreover, to enter -the country of champagne; for Rheims is in the ancient province whose -later fame is syllabled the world over in popping corks. A land of -vineyards is not usually accounted sketchable; but the country about -Epernay seemed to me to have a charm of its own. It stretched away in -soft undulations that were pricked all over with little stakes muffled -in leaves. The effect at a distance was that of vast surfaces, long, -subdued billows, of pincushion; and yet it was very pretty. The deep -blue sky was over the scene; the undulations were half in sun and half -in shade; and here and there, among their myriad bristles, were groups -of vintagers, who, though they are in reality, doubtless, a prosaic and -mercenary body of labourers, yet assumed, to a fancy that glanced at -them in the cursory manner permitted by the passage of the train, the -appearance of joyous and disinterested votaries of Bacchus. The blouses -of the men, the white caps of the women, were gleaming in the sunshine; -they moved about crookedly among the tiny vine-poles. I thought them -full of a charming suggestiveness. Of all the delightful gifts of France -to the world, this was one of the most agreeable--the keen, living -liquid in which the finest flower of sociability is usually dipped. It -came from these sunny places; this little maze of curling-sticks -supplied the world with half the world's gaiety. I call it little only -in relation to the immense number of bottles with gilded necks in which -this gaiety is annually stored up. The acreage of the champagne seemed -to me, in fact, large; the bristling slopes went rolling away to new -horizons in a manner that was positively reassuring. Making the -handsomest allowance for the wine manufactured from baser elements, it -was apparent that this big corner of a province represents a very large -number of bottles. - -As you draw near to Rheims the vineyards become sparser, and finally -disappear, a fact not to be regretted, for there is something -incongruous in the juxtaposition of champagne and gothic architecture. -It may be said, too, that for the proper appreciation of a structure -like the cathedral of Rheims you have need of all your head. As, after -my arrival, I sat in my window at the inn, gazing up at the great -façade, I found something dizzying in the mere climbing and soaring of -one's astonished vision; and later, when I came to wander about in the -upper regions of the church, and to peep down through the rugged -lacework of the towers at the little streets and the small spots of -public places, I found myself musing upon the beauty of soberness. My -window at the Lion d'Or was like a proscenium-box at the play; to admire -the cathedral at my leisure I had only to perch myself in the casement -with a good opera-glass. I sat there for a long time watching the great -architectural drama. A drama I may call it, for no church-front that I -have seen is more animated, more richly figured. The density of the -sculptures, the immense scale of the images, detract, perhaps, at first, -in a certain sense, from the impressiveness of the cathedral of Rheims; -the absence of large surfaces, of ascending lines, deceives you as to -the elevation of the front, and the dimensions of some of the upper -statues bring them unduly near the eye. But little by little you -perceive that this great figured and storied screen has a mass -proportionate to its detail, and that it is the grandest part of a -structure which, as a whole, is one of the noblest works of man's hands. -Most people remember to have seen some print or some photograph of this -heavily-charged façade of Rheims, which is usually put forward as the -great example of the union of the purity and the possible richness of -gothic. I must first have seen some such print in my earliest years, for -I have always thought of Rheims as the typical gothic cathedral I had -vague associations with it; it seemed to me that I had already stood -there in the little overwhelmed _place_. One's literary associations -with Rheims are indeed very vivid and impressive; they begin with the -picture of the steel-clad Maid passing under the deeply-sculptured -portal, with a banner in her hand which she has no need to lower, and -while she stands amid the incense and the chants, the glitter of arms -and the glow of coloured lights, asking leave of the young king whom she -has crowned to turn away and tend her flocks. And after that there is -the sense of all the kings of France having travelled down to Rheims in -their splendour to be consecrated; the great groups on the front of the -church must have looked down on groups almost as stately--groups full of -colour and movement--assembled in the square. (The square of Rheims, it -must be confessed, is rather shabby. It is singular that the august -ceremony of the _sacre_ should not have left its mark upon the -disposition of the houses, should not have kept them at a respectful -distance. Louis XIV., smoothing his plumage before he entered the -church, can hardly have had space to swing the train of his -coronation-robe.) But when in driving into the town I reached the small -precinct, such as it is, and saw the cathedral lift its spireless towers -above the long rows of its carven saints, the huge wheel of its window, -the three great caverns of its portals, with the high acute pediments -above each arch, and the sides abutting outward like the beginning of a -pyramid; when I looked at all this I felt that I had carried it in my -mind from my earliest years, and that the stately vision had been -implanted there by some forgotten glimpse of an old-fashioned -water-colour sketch, in which the sky was washed in with expressive -splashes, the remoter parts of the church tinted with a fascinating -blueness, and the foundations represented as encumbered with little -gabled and cross-timbered houses, inhabited by women in red petticoats -and curious caps. - -I shall not attempt any regular enumeration of the great details of the -façade of Rheims; I cannot profess even to have fully apprehended them. -They are a glorious company, and here and there, on its high-hung -pedestal, one of the figures detaches itself with peculiar -effectiveness. Over the central portal sits the Virgin Mary, meekly -submitting her head to the ponderous crown which her Son prepares to -place upon it; the attitude and movement of Christ are full of a kind of -splendid politeness. The three great doorways are in themselves a museum -of imagery, disposed in each case in five close tiers, the statues in -each of the tiers packed perpendicularly against their comrades. The -effect of these great hollowed and chiselled recesses is extremely -striking; they are a proper vestibule to the dusky richness of the -interior. The cathedral of Rheims, more fortunate than many of its -companions, appears not to have suffered from the iconoclasts of the -Revolution; I noticed no absent heads nor broken noses. It is very true -that these members may have had adventures to which they do not, as it -were, allude. But, like many of its companions, it is so pressed upon by -neighbouring houses that it is not easy to get a general view of the -sides and the rear. You may walk round it, and note your walk as a long -one; you may observe that the choir of the church travels back almost -into another quarter of the city; you may see the far-spreading mass lose -itself for a while in parasitic obstructions, and then emerge again with -all its buttresses flying; but you miss that wide margin of space and -light which should enable it to present itself as a consistent picture. -Pictures have their frames, and poems have their margins; a great work -of art, such as a gothic cathedral, should at least have elbow-room. You -may, however, stroll beneath the walls of Rheims, along a narrow, dark -street, and look up at the mighty structure and see its higher parts -foreshortened into all kinds of delusive proportions. There is a grand -entertainment in the view of the church which you obtain from the -farthermost point to which you may recede from it in the rear, keeping -it still within sight I have never seen a cathedral so magnificently -buttressed. The buttresses of Rheims are all double; they have a -tremendous spring, and are supported upon pedestals surmounted by -immense crocketed canopies containing statues of wide-winged angels. A -great balustrade of gothic arches connects these canopies one with -another, and along this balustrade are perched strange figures of -sitting beasts, unicorns and mermaids, griffins and monstrous owls. -Huge, terrible gargoyles hang far over into the street, and doubtless -some of them have a detail which I afterwards noticed at Laon. The -gargoyle represents a grotesque beast--a creature partaking at once of -the shape of a bird, a fish, and a quadruped. At Laon, on either side of -the main entrance, a long-bellied monster cranes forth into the air with -the head of a hippopotamus; and under its belly crouches a little man, -hardly less grotesque, making up a rueful grimace and playing some -ineffectual trick upon his terrible companion. One of these little -figures has plunged a sword, up to the hilt, into the belly of the -monster above him, so that when he draws it forth there will be a leak -in the great stone gutter; another has suspended himself to a rope that -is knotted round the neck of the gargoyle, and is trying in the same -manner to interrupt its functions by pulling the cord as tight as -possible. There was sure to be a spirit of life in an architectural -conception that could range from the combination of clustering towers -and opposing fronts to this infinitely minute play of humour. - -There is no great play of humour in the interior of Rheims, but there is -a great deal of beauty and solemnity. This interior is a spectacle that -excites the sensibility, as our forefathers used to say; but it is not -an easy matter to describe. It is no description of it to say that it is -four hundred and sixty-six feet in length, and that the roof is one -hundred and twenty-four feet above the pavement; nor is there any very -vivid portraiture in the statement that if there is no coloured glass in -the lower windows, there is, _per contra_, a great deal of the most -gorgeous and most ancient in the upper ones. The long sweep of the nave, -from the threshold to the point where the coloured light-shafts of the -choir lose themselves in the gray distance, is a triumph of -perpendicular perspective. The white light in the lower part of Rheims -really contributes to the picturesqueness of the interior. It makes the -gloom above look richer still, and throws that part of the roof which -rests upon the gigantic piers of the transepts into mysterious -remoteness. I wandered about for a long time; I sat first in one place -and then in another; I attached myself to that most fascinating part of -every great church, the angle at which the nave and transept divide. It -was the better to observe this interesting point, I think, that I passed -into the side gate of the choir--the gate that stood ajar in the tall -gilded railing. I sat down on a stool near the threshold; I leaned back -against the side of one of the stalls; the church was empty, and I lost -myself in the large perfection of the place. I lost myself, but the -beadle found me; he stood before me, and with a silent, imperious -gesture, motioned me to depart. I risked an argumentative glance, -whereupon he signified his displeasure, repeated his gesture, and -pointed to an old gentleman with a red cape, who had come into the choir -softly, without my seeing him, and had seated himself in one of the -stalls. This old gentleman seemed plunged in pious thoughts; I was not, -after all, very near him, and he did not look as if I disturbed him. A -canon is at any time, I imagine, a more merciful man than a beadle. But -of course I obeyed the beadle, and eliminated myself from this -peculiarly sacred precinct. I found another chair, and I fell to -admiring the cathedral again. But this time I think it was with a -difference--a difference which may serve as an excuse for the triviality -of my anecdote. Sundry other old gentlemen in red capes emerged from the -sacristy and went into the choir; presently, when there were half a -dozen, they began to chant, and I perceived that the impending vespers -had been the reason of my expulsion. This was highly proper, and I -forgave the beadle; but I was not so happy as before, for my thoughts -had passed out of the architectural channel into--what shall I -say?--into the political. Here they found nothing so sweet to feed upon. -It was the 5th of October; ten days later the elections for the new -Chamber were to take place--the Chamber which was to replace the -Assembly dissolved on the 16th of May by Marshal MacMahon, on a charge -of "latent" radicalism. Stranger though one was, it was impossible not -to be much interested in the triumph of the republican cause; it was -impossible not to sympathise with this supreme effort of a brilliant and -generous people to learn the lesson of national self-control and -self-government. It was impossible by the same token, not to have noted -and detested the alacrity with which the Catholic party had rallied to -the reactionary cause, and the unction with which the clergy had -converted itself into the go-betweens of Bonapartism. The clergy was -giving daily evidence of its devotion to arbitrary rule and to every -iniquity that shelters itself behind the mask of "authority." These had -been frequent and irritating reflections; they lurked in the folds of -one's morning paper. They came back to me in the midst of that tranquil -grandeur of Rheims, as I listened to the droning of the old gentlemen in -the red capes. Some of the canons, it was painful to observe, had not -been punctual; they came hurrying gut of the sacristy after the service -had, begun. They looked like amiable and venerable men; their chanting -and droning, as it spread itself under the great arches, was not -disagreeable to listen to; I could certainly bear them no grudge. But -their presence there was distracting and vexatious; it had spoiled my -enjoyment of their church, in which I doubtless had no business. It had -set me thinking of the activity and vivacity of the great organisation -to which they belonged, and of all the odious things it would have done -before the 15th of October. To what base uses do we come at last! It was -this same organisation that had erected the magnificent structure around -and above me, and which had then seemed an image of generosity and -benignant power. Such an edifice might at times make one feel tenderly -sentimental toward the Catholic church--make one remember how many of -the great achievements of the past we owe to her. To lapse gently into -this state of mind seems indeed always, while one strolls about a great -cathedral, a proper recognition of its hospitality; but now I had lapsed -gently out of it, and it was one of the exasperating elements of the -situation that I felt, in a manner, called upon to decide how far such a -lapse was unbecoming. I found myself even extending the question a -little, and picturing to myself that conflict which must often occur at -such a moment as the present--which is actually going on, doubtless, in -many thousands of minds--between the actively; practically liberal -instinct and what one may call the historic, æsthetic sense, the sense -upon which old cathedrals lay a certain palpable obligation. How far -should a lover of old cathedrals let his hands be tied by the sanctity -of their traditions? How far should he let his imagination bribe him, as -it were, from action? This of course is a question for each man to -answer for himself; but as I sat listening to the drowsy old canons of -Rheims, I was visited, I scarcely know why, by a kind of revelation of -the anti-catholic passion, as it must bum to-day in the breasts of -certain radicals. I felt that such persons must be intent upon war to -the death; how that must seem the most sacred of all duties. Can -anything, in the line of action, for a votary of the radical creed, be -more sacred? I asked myself; and can any instruments be too trenchant? I -raised my eyes again to the dusky splendour of the upper aisles and -measured their enchanting perspective, and it was with a sense of doing -them full justice that I gave my fictive liberal my good wishes. - -This little operation restored my equanimity, so that I climbed several -hundred steps and wandered lightly over the roof of the cathedral. -Climbing into cathedral-towers and gaping at the size of the statues -that look small from the street has always seemed to me a rather brutal -pastime; it is not the proper way to treat a beautiful building; it is -like holding one's nose so close to a picture that one sees only the -grain of the canvas. But when once I had emerged into the upper -wilderness of Rheims the discourse of a very urbane and appreciative old -bell-ringer, whom I found lurking behind some gigantic excrescence, gave -an aesthetic complexion to what would otherwise have been a rather -vulgar feat of gymnastics. It was very well to see what a great -cathedral is made of, and in these high places of the immensity of -Rheims I found the matter very impressively illustrated. I wandered for -half an hour over endless expanses of roof, along the edge of sculptured -abysses, through hugely-timbered attics and chambers that were in -themselves as high as churches. I stood knee-high to strange images, of -unsuspected proportions, and I followed the topmost staircase of one of -the towers, which curls upward like the groove of a corkscrew, and gives -you at the summit a hint of how a sailor feels at the masthead. The -ascent was worth making to learn the fulness of beauty of the church, -the solidity and perfection, the mightiness of arch and buttress, the -latent ingenuity of detail. At the angles of the balustrade which -ornaments the roof of the choir are perched a series of huge sitting -eagles, which from below, as you look up at them, produce a great -effect. They are immense, grim-looking birds, and the sculptor has given -to each of them a pair of very neatly carved human legs, terminating in -talons. Why did he give them human legs? Why did he indulge in this -ridiculous conceit? I am unable to say, but the conceit afforded me -pleasure. It seemed to tell of an imagination always at play, fond of -the unexpected and delighting in its labour. - -Apart from its cathedral Rheims is not an interesting city. It has a -prosperous, modern, mercantile air. The streets look as if at one time -M. Haussmann, in person, may have taken a good deal of exercise in them; -they prove, however, that a French provincial town may be a wonderfully -fresh, clean, comfortable-looking place. Very different is the aspect of -the ancient city of Laon, to which you may, by the assistance of the -railway, transfer yourself from Rheims in a little more than an hour. -Laon is full of history, and the place, as you approach it, reminds you -of a quaint-woodcut in the text of an ancient folio. Out of the midst of -a smiling plain rises a goodly mountain, and on the top of the mountain -is perched the old feudal _commune_, from the centre of which springs, -with infinite majesty, the many-towered cathedral. At Laon you are in -the midst of old France; it is one of the most interesting chapters of -the past. Ever since reading in the pages of M. Thierry the story of the -fierce straggle for municipal independence waged by this ardent little -city against its feudal and ecclesiastical lords, I had had the -conviction that Laon was worthy of a visit. All the more so that her two -hundred years of civic fermentation had been vainly spent, and that in -the early part of the fourteenth century she had been disfranchised -without appeal. M. Thierry's readers will remember the really thrilling -interest of the story which he has selected as the most complete and -typical among those of which the records of the mediæval communities -are full; the complications and fluctuations of the action, its -brilliant episodes, its sombre, tragic _dénoûment_, I did not visit -Laon with the _Lettres sur l'Histoire de France_ in my pocket, nor had I -any other historic texts for reference; but a vague notion of the -vigorous manner in which for a couple of centuries the stubborn little -town had attested its individuality supplied my observations with an -harmonious background. Nothing can well be more picturesque than the -position of this interesting city. The tourist who has learned his trade -can tell a "good" place at a glance. The moment Laon became visible from -the window of the train I perceived that Laon was good. And then I had -the word for it of an extremely intelligent young officer of artillery, -who shared my railway-carriage in coming from Rheims, and who spoke with -an authority borrowed from three years of garrison-life on that windy -hill-top. He affirmed that the only recreation it afforded was a walk -round the ramparts which encircle the town; people went down the hill as -little as possible--it was such a dreadful bore to come up again. But he -declared, nevertheless, that, as an intelligent traveller, I should be -enchanted with the place; that the cathedral was magnificent, the view -of the surrounding country a perpetual entertainment, and the little -town full of originality. After I had spent a day there I thought of -this pleasant young officer and his familiar walk upon the city-wall; he -gave a point to my inevitable reflections upon the degree to which at -the present hour, in France, the front of the stage is occupied by the -army. Inevitable reflections, I say, because the net result of any -little tour that one may make just now is a vivid sense of red trousers -and cropped heads. Wherever you go you come upon a military quarter, you -stumble upon a group of young citizens in uniform. It is always a pretty -spectacle; they enliven the scene; they touch it here and there with an -effusion of colour. But this is not the whole of the matter, and when -you have admitted that it is pictorial to be always _sous les armes_, -you fall to wondering whether it is not very expensive. A million of -defenders take up a good deal of room, even for defenders. It must be -very uncomfortable to be always defending. How do the young men bear it; -how does France bear it; how long will she be able to keep it up? Every -young Frenchman, on reaching maturity, has to give up five years of his -life to this bristling Minotaur of military service. It is hard for a -nation of shameless civilians to understand how life is arranged among -people who come into the world with this heavy mortgage upon the -freshest years of their strength; it seems like drinking the wine of -life from a vessel with a great leak in the bottom. Is such a _régime_ -inspiring, or is it demoralising? Is the effect of it to quicken the -sentiment of patriotism, the sense of the daggers to which one's country -is exposed and of what one owes to the common cause, or to take the edge -from all ambition that is not purely military, to force young men to say -that there is no use trying, that nothing is worth beginning, and that a -young fellow condemned to pay such a tax as that has a right to refund -himself in any way that is open to him? Reminded as one is at every step -of the immensity of the military burden of France, the most interesting -point seems to me not its economical but its moral bearing. Its effect -upon the finances of the country may be accurately computed; its effect -upon the character of the young generation is more of a mystery. As the -analytic tourist wanders of an autumn afternoon upon the planted rampart -of an ancient town and meets young soldiers strolling in couples or -leaning against the parapet and looking off at the quiet country, he is -apt to take the more genial view of the dreadful trade of arms. He is -disposed to say that it teaches its votaries something that is worth -knowing and yet is not learned in several other trades--the hardware, -say, or the dry-goods business. Five years is a good deal to ask of a -young life as a sacrifice; but the sacrifice is in some ways a gain. -Certainly, apart from the question of material defence, it may be said -that no European nation, at present, can afford, morally, not to pass -her young men, the hope of the country, through the military mill. It -does for them something indispensable; it toughens, hardens, solidifies -them; gives them an ideal of honour, of some other possibility in life -than making a fortune. A country in which the other trades I spoke of -have it all their own way appears, in comparison, less educated. - -So I mused, as I strolled in the afternoon along the charming old -city-wall at Laon; and if my meditations seem pretentious or fallacious, -I must say in justice that I had been a good while coming to them. I had -done a great many things first. I had climbed up the long straight -staircase which has been dropped like a scaling-ladder from one of the -town-gates to the bottom of the hill. Laon still has her gates as she -still has her wall, and one of these, the old Porte d'Ardon, is a really -precious relic of mediæval architecture. I had repaired to the sign of -the _Hure_--a portrait of this inhospitable beast is swung from the -front of the inn--and bespoken a lodging; I had spent a long time in -the cathedral, in it and before it, beside it, behind it; I had walked -all over the town, from the citadel, at one end of the lofty plateau on -which it stands, to the artillery-barracks and the charming old church -of St. Martin at the other. The cathedral of Laon has not the elaborate -grandeur of that of Rheims; but it is a very noble and beautiful church. -Nothing can be finer than its position; it would set off any church to -stand on such a hill-crest. Laon has also a façade of many sculptures, -which, however, has suffered greater violence than that of Rheims, and -is now being carefully and delicately restored. Whole figures and -bas-reliefs have lately been replaced by exact imitations in that fresh -white French stone which looks at first like a superior sort of plaster. -They were far gone, and I suppose the restorer's hand was imperiously -called for. I do not know that it has been too freely used. But half the -charm of Laon is the magnificent colouring of brownish, weather-battered -gray which it owes to the great exposure of its position, and it will be -many a year before the chalky scars and patches will be wrought into -dusky harmony with the rest of the edifice. Fortunately, however, they -promise not to be very numerous; the principal restorations have taken -place inside. I know not what all this labour costs; but I was -interested in learning from the old bell-ringer at Rheims that the sum -voted by the Chamber for furbishing up his own church was two millions -of francs, to be expended during ten years. That is what it is to have -"national monuments" to keep up. One is apt to think of the fourteenth -century as a rather ill-appointed and comfortless period; but the fact -that at the present time the mere repair of one of its buildings costs -forty thousand dollars a year would indicate that the original builders -had a great deal of money to spend. The cathedral of Laon was intended -to be a wonderful cluster of towers, but only two of these -ornaments--the couple above the west front--have been carried to a great -altitude; the pedestals of the rest, however, detach themselves with -much vigour, and contribute to the complicated and somewhat fantastic -look which the church wears at a distance, and which makes its great -effectiveness. The finished towers are admirably light and graceful; -with the sky shining through their large interstices they suggest an -imitation of timber in masonry. They have one very quaint feature. From -their topmost portions, at each angle, certain carven heads of oxen peep -forward with a startling naturalness--a tribute to the patient, powerful -beasts who dragged the material of the building up the long zig-zags of -the mountain. We perhaps treat our dumb creatures better to-day than was -done five hundred years ago; but I doubt whether a modern architect, in -settling his accounts, would have "remembered," as they say, the oxen. - -The whole precinct of the cathedral of Laon is picturesque. There is a -charming Palais de Justice beside it, separated from it by a pleasant, -homely garden, in which, as you walk about, you have an excellent view -of the towering back and sides of the great church. The Palais de -Justice, which is an ancient building, has a fine old gothic arcade, and -on the other side, directly upon the city-wall, a picturesque, irregular -rear, with a row of painted windows, through which, from the _salle -d'audience_, the judge on the bench and the prisoner in the dock may -enjoy a prospect, admonitory, inspiring, or depressing, as the case may -be, of the expanded country. This great sea-like plain that lies beneath -the town on all sides constitutes, for Laon, a striking resemblance to -those Italian cities--Siena, Volterra, Perugia--which the traveller -remembers so fondly as a dark silhouette lifted high against a glowing -sunset. There is something Italian, too, in the mingling of rock and -rampart in the old foundations of the town, and in the generous verdure -in which these are muffled. At one end of the hill-top the plateau -becomes a narrow ridge; the slope makes a deep indentation, which -contributes to the effect of a thoroughly Italian picture. A line of -crooked little red-roofed houses stands on the edge of this indentation, -with their feet in the tangled verdure that blooms in it; and above them -rises a large, florid, deserted-looking church, which you may be sure -has a little empty, grass-grown, out-of-the-way _place_ before it. -Almost opposite, on another spur of the hill, the gray walls of a -suppressed convent peep from among the trees. I might have been at -Perugia. - -There came in the evening to the inn of the Hure a very worthy man who -had vehicles to hire. The Hure was decidedly a provincial hostelry, and -I compared it mentally with certain English establishments of a like -degree, of which I had lately had observation. In England I should have -had a waiter in an old evening-suit and a white cravat, who would have -treated me to cold meat and bread and cheese. There would have been a -musty little inn-parlour and probably a very good fire in the grate, and -the festally-attired waiter would have been my sole entertainer. At Laon -I was in perpetual intercourse with the landlord and his wife, and a -large body of easy-going, confidential domestics. Our intercourse was -carried on in an old darksome stone kitchen, with shining copper vessels -hanging all over the walls, in which I was free to wander about and take -down my key in one place and rummage out my candlestick in another, -while the domestics sat at table eating _pot-au-feu_. The landlord -cooked the dinner; he wore a white cap and apron; he brought in the -first dish at the table d'hôte. Of course there was a table d'hôte, -with several lamps and a long array of little dessert-dishes, for the -benefit of two commercial travellers, who tucked their napkins into -their necks, and the writer of these lines. Every country has its -manners. In England the benefits--whatever they are--represented by the -evening dress of the waiter would have been most apparent; in France one -was more sensible of the blessings of which the white cap and apron of -the host were a symbol. In England, certainly, one is treated more as a -gentleman. It is too often forgotten, however, that even a gentleman -partakes of nourishment. But I am forgetting my dispenser of vehicles, -concerning whom, however, and whose large red cheeks and crimson cravat, -I have left myself room to say no more than that they were witnesses of -a bargain that I should be driven early on the morrow morning, in an -"Américaine," to the Château de Coucy. The Américaine proved to be a -vehicle of which I should not have been eager to claim the credit for my -native land; but with the aid of a ragged but resolute little horse, and -a driver so susceptible as regards his beast's appearance that, -referring to the exclamation of dismay with which I had greeted it, he -turned to me at the end of each successive kilometre with a rancorous -"_Now_, do you say he can't go?"--with these accessories, I say, it -conveyed me more than twenty miles. It was entertaining to wind down the -hillside from Laon in the early morning of a splendid autumn day; to dip -into the glistening plain, all void of hedges and fences, and sprinkled -with light and dew; to jog along the straight white roads, between the -tall, thin poplars; to rattle through the half-waked villages and past -the orchards heavy with sour-looking crimson apples. The Château de -Coucy is a well-known monument; it is one of the most considerable ruins -in France, and it is in some respects the most extraordinary. As you -come from Laon a turn in the road suddenly, at last, reveals it to you. -It is still at a distance; you will not reach it for half an hour; but -its huge white donjon stands up like some gigantic lighthouse at sea. -Coucy is altogether on a grand scale, but this colossal, shining -cylinder is a wonder of bigness. As M. Viollet-le-Duc says, it seems to -have been built by giants for a race of giants. The very quaint little -town of Coucy-le-Château nestles at the foot of this strange, -half-substantial, half-spectral structure; it was, together with a -goodly part of the neighbouring country, the feudal appanage of those -terrible lords who erected the present indestructible edifice, and whose -"boastful motto" (I quote from Murray) was - - - "Roi je ne suis, - Prince ni comte aussi; - Je suis le Sire de Coucy." - - -Coucy is a sleepy little borough, still girdled with its ancient wall, -entered by its old gateways, and supported on the verdurous flanks of a -hill-top. I interviewed the host of the Golden Apple in his kitchen; I -breakfasted--_ma foi, fort bien_, as they would say in the indigenous -tongue--in his parlour; and then I visited the château, which is at -five minutes' walk. This very interesting ruin is the property of the -state, and the state is represented by a very civil and intelligent -woman, who divests the trade of custodian of almost all its grossness. -Any feudal ruin is a charming affair, and Coucy has much of the sweet -melancholy of its class. There are four great towers, connected by a -massive curtain and enclosing the tremendous donjon of which I just now -spoke. All this is very crumbling and silvery; the enclosure is a tangle -of wild verdure, and the pigeons perch upon the inaccessible battlements -exactly where the sketcher would wish them. But the place lacked, to my -sense, the peculiar softness and venerableness, the ivied mellowness, of -a great English ruin. At Coucy there is no ivy to speak of; the climate -has not caressed and embroidered the rugged masses of stone. This is -what I meant by speaking of the famous donjon as spectral; the term is -an odd one to apply to an edifice whose walls are thirty-four feet -thick. Its vast, pale surface has not a speck nor a stain, not a -clinging weed nor a creeping plant. It looks like a tower of ivory. - -I took my way from Coucy to the ancient town of Soissons, where I found -another cathedral, from which, I think, I extracted all the -entertainment it could legitimately yield. There is little other to be -had at Soissons, in spite of the suggestiveness of its name, which is -redolent of history and local colour. The truth is, I suppose, that -Soissons looks so new, precisely because she is so old. She is in her -second youth; she has renewed herself. The old city was worn out; it -could no longer serve; it has been succeeded by another. The new one is -a quiet, rather aristocratic-looking little _ville de province_--a -collection of well-conditioned, sober-faced abodes of gentility, with -high-walled gardens behind them and very carefully closed -portes-cochère in front. Occasionally a porte-cochère opens; an -elderly lady in black emerges and paces discreetly away. An old -gentleman has come to the door with her. He is comfortably corpulent; he -wears gold spectacles and embroidered slippers. He looks up and down the -dull street, and sees nothing at all; then he retires, closing the -porte-cochère very softly and firmly. But he has stood there long -enough to give an observant stranger the impression of a cautious -provincial bourgeoisie that has a solid fortune well invested, and that -marries its daughters only _à bon escient_. This latter ceremony, -however, whenever it occurs, probably takes place in the cathedral, and -though resting on a prosaic foundation must borrow a certain grace from -that charming building. The cathedral of Soissons has a statueless front -and only a single tower; but it is full of a certain natural elegance. - - - - -V - -CHARTRES - -1876 - - -The spring, in Paris, since it has fairly begun, has been enchanting. -The sun and the moon have been blazing in emulation, and the difference -between the blue sky of day and of night has been as slight as possible. -There are no clouds in the sky, but there are little thin green clouds, -little puffs of raw, tender verdure, entangled among the branches of the -trees. All the world is in the streets; the chairs and tables which have -stood empty all winter before the doors of the cafés are at a premium; -the theatres have become intolerably close; the puppet-shows in the -Champs Elysées are the only form of dramatic entertainment which seems -consistent with the season. By way of doing honour, at a small cost, to -this ethereal mildness, I went out the other day to the ancient town of -Chartres, where I spent several hours, which I cannot consent to pass -over as if nothing had happened. It is the experience of the writer of -these lines, who likes nothing so much as moving about to see the world, -that if one has been for a longer time than usual resident and -stationary, there is a kind of overgrown entertainment in taking the -train, even for a suburban goal; and that if one takes it on a charming -April day, when there is a sense, almost an odour, of change in the air, -the innocent pleasure is as nearly as possible complete. My -accessibility to emotions of this kind amounts to an infirmity, and the -effect of it was to send me down to Chartres in a shamelessly optimistic -state of mind. I was so prepared to be entertained and pleased with -everything that it is only a mercy that the cathedral happens really to -be a fine building. If it had not been, I should still have admired it -inordinately, at the risk of falling into heaven knows what æsthetic -heresy. But I am almost ashamed to say how soon my entertainment began. -It began, I think with my hailing a little open carriage on the -Boulevard and causing myself to be driven to the Gare de l'Ouest--far -away across the river, up the Rue Bonaparte, of art-student memories, -and along the big, straight Rue de Rennes to the Boulevard Montparnasse. -Of course, at this rate, by the time I reached Chartres--the journey is -of a couple of hours--I had almost drained the cup of pleasure. But it -was replenished at the station, at the buffet, from the pungent bottle -of wine I drank with my breakfast. Here, by the way, is another -excellent excuse for being delighted with any day's excursion in -France--that wherever you are, you may breakfast to your taste. There -may, indeed, if the station is very small, be no buffet; but if there is -a buffet, you may be sure that civilisation--in the persons of a -sympathetic young woman in a well-made black dress, and a rapid, -zealous, grateful waiter--presides at it. It was quite the least, as the -French say, that after my breakfast I should have thought the cathedral, -as I saw it from the top of the steep hill on which the town stands, -rising high above the clustered houses and seeming to make of their -red-roofed agglomeration a mere pedestal for its immense beauty, -promised remarkably well. You see it so as you emerge from the station, -and then, as you climb slowly into town, you lose sight of it. You -perceive Chartres to be a rather shabby little _ville de province_, with -a few sunny, empty open places, and crooked shady streets, in which two -or three times you lose your way, until at last, after more than once -catching a glimpse, high above some slit between the houses, of the -clear gray towers shining against the blue sky, you push forward again, -risk another short cut, turn another interposing corner, and stand -before the goal of your pilgrimage. - -I spent a long time looking at this monument. I revolved around it, like -a moth around a candle; I went away and I came back; I chose twenty -different standpoints; I observed it during the different hours of the -day, and saw it in the moonlight as well as the sunshine. I gained, in a -word, a certain sense of familiarity with it; and yet I despair of -giving any coherent account of it. Like most French cathedrals, it rises -straight out of the street, and is destitute of that setting of turf and -trees and deaneries and canonries which contribute so largely to the -impressiveness of the great English churches. Thirty years ago a row of -old houses was glued to its base and made their back walls of its -sculptured sides. These have been plucked away, and, relatively -speaking, the church is fairly isolated. But the little square that -surrounds it is deplorably narrow, and you flatten your back against the -opposite houses in the vain attempt to stand off and survey the towers. -The proper way to look at them would be to go up in a balloon and hang -poised, face to face with them, in the blue air. There is, however, -perhaps an advantage in being forced to stand so directly under them, -for this position gives you an overwhelming impression of their height. -I have seen, I suppose, churches as beautiful as this one, but I do not -remember ever to have been so fascinated by superpositions and vertical -effects. The endless upward reach of the great west front, the clear, -silvery tone of its surface, the way three or four magnificent features -are made to occupy its serene expanse, its simplicity, majesty, and -dignity--these things crowd upon one's sense with a force that makes the -act of vision seem for the moment almost all of life. The impressions -produced by architecture lend themselves as little to interpretation by -another medium as those produced by music. Certainly there is an -inexpressible harmony in the façade of Chartres. - -The doors are rather low, as those of the English cathedrals are apt to -be, but (standing three together) are set in a deep framework of -sculpture--rows of arching grooves, filled with admirable little images, -standing with their heels on each other's heads. The church, as it now -exists, except the northern tower, dates from the middle of the -thirteenth century, and these closely-packed figures are full of the -grotesqueness of the period. Above the triple portals is a vast -round-topped window, in three divisions, of the grandest dimensions and -the stateliest effect. Above this window is a circular aperture, of huge -circumference, with a double row of sculptured spokes radiating from its -centre and looking on its lofty field of stone, as expansive and -symbolic as if it were the wheel of Time itself. Higher still is a -little gallery with a delicate balustrade, supported on a beautiful -cornice and stretching across the front from tower to tower; and above -this is a range of niched statues of kings--fifteen, I believe, in -number. Above the statues is a gable, with an image of the Virgin and -Child on its front, and another of Christ on its apex. In the relation -of all these parts there is such a high felicity that while on the one -side the eye rests on a great many large blanks there is no approach on -the other to poverty. The little gallery that I have spoken of, beneath -the statues of the kings, had for me a peculiar charm. Useless, at its -tremendous altitude, for other purposes, it seemed intended for the -little images to step down and walk about upon. When the great façade -begins to glow in the late afternoon light, you can imagine them -strolling up and down their long balcony in couples, pausing with their -elbows on the balustrade, resting their stony chins in their hands, and -looking out, with their little blank eyes, on the great view of the old -French monarchy they once ruled, and which now has passed away. The two -great towers of the cathedral are among the noblest of their kind. They -rise in solid simplicity to a height as great as the eye often troubles -itself to travel, and then suddenly they begin to execute a magnificent -series of feats in architectural gymnastics. This is especially true of -the northern spire, which is a late creation, dating from the sixteenth -century. The other is relatively quiet; but its companion is a sort of -tapering bouquet of sculptured stone. Statues and buttresses, gargoyles, -arabesques and crockets pile themselves in successive stages, until the -eye loses the sense of everything but a sort of architectural lacework. -The pride of Chartres, after its front, is the two portals of its -transepts--great dusky porches, in three divisions, covered with more -images than I have time to talk about. Wherever you look, along the -sides of the church, a time-worn image is niched or perched. The face of -each flying buttress is garnished with one, with the features quite -melted away. - -The inside of the cathedral corresponds in vastness and grandeur to the -outside--it is the perfection of gothic in its prime. But I looked at it -rapidly, the place was so intolerably cold. It seemed to answer one's -query of what becomes of the winter when the spring chases it away. The -winter hereabouts has sought an asylum in Chartres cathedral, where it -has found plenty of room and may reside in a state of excellent -preservation until it can safely venture abroad again. I supposed I had -been in cold churches before, but the delusion had been an injustice to -the temperature of Chartres. The nave was full of the little padded -chairs of the local bourgeoisie, whose faith, I hope for their comfort, -is of the good old red-hot complexion. In a higher temperature I should -have done more justice to the magnificent old glass of the -windows--which glowed through the icy dusk like the purple and orange of -a winter sunset--and to the immense sculptured external casing of the -choir. This latter is an extraordinary piece of work. It is a high -gothic screen, shutting in the choir, and covered with elaborate -bas-reliefs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, representing -scenes from the life of Christ and of the Virgin. Some of the figures -are admirable, and the effect of the whole great semicircular wall, -chiselled like a silver bowl, is superb. There is also a crypt of high -antiquity and, I believe, great interest, to be seen; but my teeth -chattered a respectful negative to the sacristan who offered to guide me -to it It was so agreeable to stand in the warm outer air again, that I -spent the rest of the day in it. - -Although, besides its cathedral, Chartres has no very rare architectural -treasures, the place is pictorial, in a shabby, third-rate, -poverty-stricken degree, and my observations were not unremunerative. -There is a little church of Saint-Aignan, of the sixteenth century, with -an elegant, decayed façade, and a small tower beside it, lower than its -own roof, to which it is joined, in unequal twinship, by a single long -buttress. Standing there with its crumbling Renaissance doorway, in a -kind of grass-grown alcove, it reminded me of certain monuments that the -tourist encounters in small Italian towns. Most of the streets of -Chartres are crooked lanes, winding over the face of the steep hill, the -summit of the hill being occupied by half a dozen little open squares, -which seem like reservoirs of the dulness and stillness that flow -through the place. In the midst of one of them rises an old dirty brick -obelisk, commemorating the glories of the young General Marceau, of the -first Republic--"Soldier at 16, general at 23, he died at 27." Such -memorials, when one comes upon them unexpectedly, produce in the mind a -series of circular waves of feeling, like a splash in a quiet pond. -Chartres gives us an impression of extreme antiquity, but it is an -antiquity that has gone down in the world. I saw very few of those -stately little hôtels, with pilastered fronts, which look so well in -the silent streets of provincial towns. The houses are mostly low, -small, and of sordid aspect, and though many of them have overhanging -upper stories, and steep, battered gables, they are rather wanting in -character. I was struck, as an American always is in small French and -English towns, with the immense number of shops, and their brilliant -appearance, which seems so out of proportion to any visible body of -consumers. At Chartres the shopkeepers must all feed upon each other, -for, whoever buys, the whole population sells. This population appeared -to consist mainly of several hundred brown old peasant women, in the -seventies and eighties, with their faces cross-hatched with wrinkles and -their quaint white coifs drawn tightly over their weather-blasted -eye-brows. Labour-stricken grandams, all the world over, are the -opposite of lovely, for the toil that wrestles for its daily bread, -morsel by morsel, is not beautifying; but I thought I had never seen the -possibilities of female ugliness so variously embodied as in the crones -of Chartres. Some of them were leading small children by the -hand--little red-cheeked girls, in the close black caps and black -pinafores of humble French infancy--a costume which makes French -children always look like orphans. Others were guiding along the flinty -lanes the steps of small donkeys, some of them fastened into little -carts, some with well-laden backs. These were the only quadrupeds I -perceived at Chartres. Neither horse nor carriage did I behold, save at -the station the omnibuses of the rival inns--the "Grand Monarque" and -the "Duc de Chartres"--which glare at each other across the Grande -Place. A friend of mine told me that a few years ago, passing through -Chartres, he went by night to call upon a gentleman who lived there. -During his visit it came on to rain violently, and when the hour for his -departure arrived the rain had made the streets impassable. There was no -vehicle to be had, and my friend was resigning himself to a soaking. -"You can be taken of course in the sedan-chair," said his host with -dignity. The sedan-chair was produced, a couple of serving-men grasped -the handles, my friend stepped into it, and went swinging back--through -the last century--to the "Grand Monarque." This little anecdote, I -imagine, still paints Chartres socially. - -Before dinner I took a walk on the planted promenade which encircles the -town--the Tour-de-ville it is called--much of which is extremely -picturesque. Chartres has lost her walls as a whole, but here and there -they survive, and play a desultory part in holding the town together. In -one place the rampart is really magnificent--smooth, strong and lofty, -curtained with ivy, and supporting on its summit an old convent and its -garden. Only one of the city-gates remains--a narrow arch of the -fourteenth century, flanked by two admirable round towers, and preceded -by a fosse. If you stoop a little, as you stand outside, the arch of -this hoary old gate makes a capital setting for the picture of the -interior of the town, and, on the inner hill-top, against the sky, the -large gray mass of the cathedral. The ditch is full, and to right and to -left it flows along the base of the mouldering wall, through which the -shabby backs of houses extrude, and which is garnished with little -wooden galleries, lavatories of the town's soiled linen. These little -galleries are filled with washerwomen, who crane over and dip their -many-coloured rags into the yellow stream. The old patched and -interrupted wall, the ditch with its weedy edges, the spots of colour, -the white-capped laundresses in their little wooden cages--one lingers -to look at it all. - - - - -VI - -ROUEN - -1876 - - -It is quite in the nature of things that a Parisian correspondence -should have flagged during the last few weeks; for even the most -brilliant of capitals, when the summer has fairly begun to be summer, -affords few topics to the chronicler. To a chronicle of small beer such -a correspondence almost literally finds itself reduced. The -correspondent consumes a goodly number of those magnified thimblefuls of -this fluid, known in Paris as "bocks," and from the shadiest corner of -the coolest café he can discover watches the softened bitumen grow more -largely interspaced. There is little to do or to see, and therefore -little to write about. There is in fact only one thing to do, namely, to -get out of Paris. The lively imagination of the correspondent -anticipates his departure and takes flight to one of the innumerable -watering-places whose charms at this season are set forth in large -yellow and pink placards on all the empty walls. They order this matter, -like so many others, much better in France. Here you have not, as in -America, to hunt up the "summer retreat" about which you desire -information in a dense alphabetical list in the columns of a newspaper; -you are familiar with its merits for weeks before you start--you have -seen them half a dozen times a day emblazoned on the line of your -customary walk, over the hand and seal of the company that runs, as we -should say in America, the Casino. If you are detained in Paris, -however, after luckier mortals have departed--your reflections upon the -fate of the luckless mortals who do not depart at all are quite another -question, demanding another chapter--it does not perhaps make you much -happier to peruse these lyrical advertisements, which seem to flutter -with the breezes of Houlgate and Etretat. You must take your consolation -where you can find it, and it must be added that of all great cities -Paris is the most tolerable in hot weather. It is true that the asphalt -liquifies, and it is true that the brilliant limestone of which the city -is built reflects the sun with uncomfortable fierceness. It is also true -that of a summer evening you pay a penalty for living in the -best-lighted capital in the world. The inordinate amount of gas in the -streets makes the atmosphere hot and thick, so that even under the dim -constellations you feel of a July night as if you were in a big -music-hall If you look down at such a time upon the central portions of -Paris from a high window in a remoter quarter, you see them wrapped in a -lurid haze, of the devil's own brewing. But, on the other hand, there -are a hundred facilities for remaining out of doors. You are not obliged -to sit on a "stoop" or on a curbstone, as in New-York. The Boulevards -are a long chain of cafés, each one with its little promontory of -chairs and tables projecting into the sea of asphalt. These promontories -are doubtless not exactly islands of the blessed, peopled though some of -them may be with sirens addicted to beer, but they may help you to pass -a hot evening. Then you may dine in the Champs Elysées, at a table -spread under the trees, beside an ivied wall, and almost believe you are -in the country. This illusion, imperfect as it is, is a luxury, and must -be paid for accordingly; the dinner is not so good as at a restaurant on -the Boulevard, and is considerably dearer, and there is after all not -much difference in sitting with one's feet in dusty gravel or on a -sanded floor. But the whole situation is more idyllic. I indulged in a -cheap idyl the other day by taking the penny steamer down the Seine to -Auteuil (a very short sail), and dining at what is called in Parisian -parlance a _guingette_ on the bank of the stream. It was a very humble -style of entertainment, but the most ambitious pursuit of pleasure can -do no more than succeed, and this was a success. The Seine at Auteuil is -wide, and is spanned by a stately viaduct of two tiers of arches, which -stands up against the sky in a picturesque and monumental manner. Your -table is spread under a trellis which scratches your head--spread -chiefly with fried fish--and an old man who looks like a political exile -comes and stands before it and sings a doleful ditty on the respect due -to white hairs. You testify by the bestowal of copper coin the esteem -with which his own inspire you, and he is speedily replaced by a lad -with one arm, who treats you to something livelier: - - - "A la bonne heure; parlez-moi de ça!" - - -You eventually return to Paris on the top of a tramcar. It is a very -different affair to go out and dine at the Bois de Boulogne, at the -charming restaurant which is near the cascade and the Longchamp -racecourse. Here are no ballad-singers, but stately trees majestically -grouped and making long evening shadows on a lawn, and irreproachable -tables, and carriages rolling up behind high-stepping horses and -depositing all sorts of ladies. The drive back through the wood at night -is most charming, and the coolness of the air extreme, however hot you -may still be certain to find the city. - -The best thing, therefore, is not to go back. I write these lines at an -inn at Havre, before a window which frames the picture of the seaward -path of the transatlantic steamers. One of the great black ships is at -this moment painted on the canvas, very near, and beginning its outward -journey. I watch it to the right-hand ledge of the window, which is as -far as so poor a sailor need be expected to follow it. The hotel at -Havre is called, for mysterious reasons, "Frascati"--reasons which I -give up the attempt to fathom, so undiscoverable are its points of -analogy with the lovely village of the same name which nestles among the -olives of the Roman hills. The locality has its charms, however. It is -very agreeable, for instance, at the end of a hot journey, to sit down -to dinner in a great open cage, hung over the Atlantic, and, while the -sea-breeze cools your wine, watch the swiftly-moving ships pass before -you like the figures on the field of a magic lantern. It is pleasant -also to open your eyes in the early dawn, before the light is intense, -and without moving your head on the pillow, enjoy the same clear vision -of the ocean highway. In the vague dusk, with their rapid gliding, the -passing vessels look like the ghosts of wrecked ships. Most seaports are -picturesque, and Havre is not the least so; but my enjoyment has been -not of my goal, but of my journey. - -My head is full of the twenty-four hours I have just passed at Rouen, -and of the charming sail down the Seine to Honfleur. Rouen is a city of -very ancient renown, and yet I confess I was not prepared to find a -little town of so much expression. The traveller who treads the Rouen -streets at the present day sees but the shadow of their former -characteristics; for the besom of M. Haussmann has swept through the -city, and a train of "embellishments" has followed in its track. The -streets have been widened and straightened, and the old houses--gems of -mediæval domestic architecture--which formed the peculiar treasure of -the place, have been more than decimated. A great deal remains, however, -and American eyes are quick to make discoveries. The cathedral, the -churches, the Palais de Justice, are alone a splendid group of -monuments, and a stroll through the streets reveals a collection of -brown and sculptured façades, of quaintly-timbered gables, of curious -turrets and casements, of doorways which still may be called rich. Every -now and then a considerable stretch of duskiness and crookedness -delights the sentimental tourist who is to pass but a couple of nights -at Rouen, and who does not care if his favourite adjective happen to -imply another element which also is spelled with a _p_. It is nothing to -him that the picturesque is pestiferous. It is everything to him that -the great front of the cathedral is magnificently battered, heavy, -impressive. It has been defaced immensely, and is now hardly more than a -collection of empty niches. I do not mean, of course, that the wanton -tourist rejoices in the absence of the statues which once filled them, -but up to the present moment, at least, he is not sorry that the façade -has not been restored. It consists of a sort of screen, pierced in the -centre with a huge wheel-window, crowned with a pyramid of chiselled -needles and spires, flanked with two turrets capped with tall empty -canopies, and covered, generally, with sculptures--friezes, statues, -excrescences. On each side of it rises a great tower; one a rugged mass -of early Norman work, with little ornament save its hatcheted closed -arches, and its great naked base, as huge and white as the bottom of a -chalk-cliff; the other a specimen of sixteenth century gothic, extremely -flamboyant and confounding to the eye. The sides of the cathedral are as -yet more or less imbedded in certain black and dwarfish old houses, but -if you pass around them by a long détour, you arrive at two superb -lateral porches. The so-called Portail des Libraires, in especial, on -the northern side, is a magnificent affair, sculptured from summit to -base (it is now restored), and preceded by a long forecourt, in which -the guild of booksellers used to hold its musty traffic. From here you -see the immense central tower, perched above the junction of the -transepts and the nave, and crowned with a gigantic iron spire, lately -erected to replace one which was destroyed by lightning in the early -part of the century. This gaunt pyramid has the drawback, to American -eyes, of resembling too much the tall fire-towers which are seen in -transatlantic cities, and its dimensions are such that, viewed from a -distance, it fairly makes little Rouen look top-heavy. Behind the choir, -within, is a beautiful lady-chapel, and in this chapel are two -enchanting works of art. The larger and more striking of these is the -tomb of the two Cardinals d'Amboise, uncle and nephew--the elder, if I -mistake not, minister of Louis XII. It consists of a shallow, oblong -recess in the wall, lined with gilded and fretted marble, and corniced -with delicate little statues. Within the recess the figures of the two -cardinals are kneeling, with folded hands and ruggedly earnest faces, -their long robes spread out behind them with magnificent amplitude. They -are full of life, dignity, and piety; they look like portraits of -Holbein transferred into marble. The base of the monument is composed of -a series of admirable little images representing the cardinal and other -virtues, and the effect of the whole work is wonderfully grave and rich. -The discreet traveller will never miss an opportunity to come into a -great church at eventide--the hour when his fellow-travellers, less -discreet, are lingering over the table d'hôte, when the painted windows -glow with a deeper splendour, when the long wand of the beadle, slowly -tapping the pavement, or the shuffle of the old sacristan, has a ghostly -resonance along the empty nave, and three or four work-weary women, -before a dusky chapel, are mumbling for the remission of unimaginable -sins. At this hour, at Rouen, the tomb of the Duke of Brézé, husband -of Diana of Poitiers, placed opposite to the monument I have just -described, seemed to me the most beautiful thing in the world. It is -presumably the work of the delightful Jean Goujon, and it bears the -stamp of his graceful and inventive talent. The deceased is lying on his -back, almost naked, with a part of his shroud bound in a knot about his -head--a realistic but not a repulsive image of death. At his head kneels -the amiable Diana, in sober garments, all decency and devotion; at his -feet stands the Virgin, a charming young woman with a charming child. -Above, on another tier, the subject of the monument is represented in -the fulness of life, dressed as for a tournament, bestriding a -high-stepping war-horse, riding forth like a Roland or a Galahad. The -architecture of the tomb is exceedingly graceful and the subordinate -figures admirable, but the image of the dead Duke is altogether a -masterpiece. The other evening, in the solemn stillness and the fading -light of the great cathedral, it seemed irresistibly human and touching. -The spectator felt a sort of impulse to smooth out the shroud and -straighten the helpless hands. - -The second church of Rouen, Saint-Ouen, the beautiful and harmonious, -has no monuments of this value, but it offers within a higher interest -than the Cathedral. Without, it looks like an English abbey, scraped and -restored, disencumbered of huddling neighbours and surrounded on three -sides by a beautiful garden. Seen to this excellent advantage it is one -of the noblest of churches; but within, it is one of the most -fascinating. My taste in architecture greatly resembles my opinions in -fruit; the particular melon or pear or peach that I am eating appears to -me to place either peaches, pears, or melons, beyond all other succulent -things. In the same way, in a fine building the present impression is -the one that convinces me most. This is deplorable levity; yet I risk -the affirmation _à propos_ of Saint-Ouen. I can imagine no happier -combination of lightness and majesty. Its proportions bring tears to the -eyes. I have left myself space only to recommend the sail down the Seine -from Rouen to the mouth of the stream; but I recommend it in the highest -terms. The heat was extreme and the little steamer most primitive, but -the river is as entertaining as one could wish. It makes an infinite -number of bends and corners and angles, rounded off by a charming -vegetation. Abrupt and rocky hills go with it all the way--hills with -cornfields lying in their hollows and deep woods crowning their tops. -Out of the woodland peep old manors, and beneath, between the hills and -the stream, are high-thatched farmsteads, lying deep in their meadows -and orchards, cottages pallisaded with hollyhocks, gray old Norman -churches and villas flanked with big horse-chestnuts. It is a land of -peace and plenty, and remarkable to Anglo-Saxon eyes for the -English-looking details of its scenery. I noticed a hundred places where -one might have been in Kent as well as in Normandy. In fact it is almost -better than Kent, for Kent has no Seine. At the last the river becomes -unmistakably an arm of the sea, and as a river, therefore, less -interesting. But crooked little Honfleur, with its miniature port, -clinging to the side of a cliff as luxuriant as one of the headlands of -the Mediterranean, gratifies in a high degree the tourist with a -propensity for sketching. - - - - -VII - -ETRETAT - -1876 - - -The coast of Normandy and Picardy, from Trouville to Boulogne, is a -chain of _stations balnéaires_, each with its particular claim to -patronage. The grounds of the claim are in some cases not especially -obvious; but they are generally found to reside in the fact that if -one's spirits, on arriving, are low, so also are the prices. There are -the places that are dear and brilliant, like Trouville and Dieppe, and -places that are cheap and dreary, like Fécamp and Cabourg. Then there -are the places that are both cheap and pleasant. This delightful -combination of qualities may be found at the modest _plage_ from which I -write these lines. At Etretat you may enjoy some of the finest -cliff-scenery it has been my fortune to behold, and you may breakfast -and dine at the principal hotel for the sum of five and a half francs a -day. You may engage a room in the town over the butcher's, the baker's, -the cobbler's, at a rate that will depend upon your talent for driving a -bargain, but that in no case will be exorbitant. Add to this that there -are no other opportunities at Etretat to spend money. You wear old -clothes, you walk about in canvas shoes, you deck your head with a -fisherman's cap (when made of white flannel these articles may be -extolled for their coolness, convenience, and picturesqueness), you lie -on the pebbly strand most of the day, watching the cliffs, the waves, -and the bathers; in the evening you converse with your acquaintance on -the terrace of the Casino, and you keep monkish hours. Though Etretat -enjoys great and deserved popularity, I see no symptoms of the decline -of these simple fashions--no menace of the invasion of luxury. A little -more luxury, indeed, might be imported without doing any harm; though -after all we soon learn that it is an idle enough prejudice that has -hitherto prevented us from keeping our soap in a sugar-dish and -regarding a small rock, placed against a door, as an efficient -substitute for a key. From a Parisian point of view, Etretat is -certainly primitive, but it would be affectation on the part of an -American to pretend that he was not agreeably surprised to find a -"summer resort," in which he had been warned that he would have to rough -it, so elaborately appointed and organised. Etretat may be primitive, -but Etretat is French, and therefore Etretat is "administered." - -Like most of the French watering-places, the place has a limited past. -Twenty years ago it was but a cluster of fishing-huts. A group of -artists and literary people were its first colonists, and Alphonse Karr -became the mouthpiece of their enthusiasm. In vulgar phrase, he wrote up -Etretat, and he lives in legend, at the present hour, as the _genius -loci_. The main street is named after him; the gable of the chief -inn--the classic Hôtel Blanquet--is adorned with a coloured medallion -representing his cropped head and long beard; the shops are stocked with -his photographs and with pictures of his villa. Like the magician who -has evoked the spirit, he has made his how and retired; but the artistic -fraternity, his disciples, still haunt the place, and it enjoys also the -favour of theatrical people, three or four of whom, having retired upon -their laurels, possess villas here. From my open window, as I write -these lines, I look out beyond a little cluster of clean housetops at -the long green flank of the down, as it slopes to the village from the -summit of the cliff. To the right is the top of an old storm-twisted -grove of oaks, in the heart of which stands a brown old farmhouse; then -comes the sharp, even outline of the down, with its side spotted with -little flat bushes and wrinkled with winding paths, along which here and -there I see a bright figure moving; on the left, above the edge of the -cliff, stands a bleak little chapel, dedicated to our Lady of the -fishing-folk. Just here a provoking chimney starts up and cuts off my -view of the downward plunge of the cliff, showing me, with a bar of blue -ocean beyond, but a glimpse of its white cheek--its fantastic profile is -to the left. But there is not far to go to see without impediments. -Three minutes' walk along the Rue Alphonse Karr, where every house is a -shop, and every shop has lodgers above it, who scramble bedward by a -ladder and trap-door, brings you to the little pebbly bay where the -cliffs are perpendicular and the foreign life of Etretat goes forward. -At one end are the small fishing-smacks, with their green sides and -their black sails, resting crookedly upon the stones; at the other is -the Casino, and the two or three tiers of bathing-houses on the slope of -the beach in front of it. This beach may be said to be Etretat. It is so -steep and stony as to make circulation impossible; one's only course is -to plant a camp-chair among the stones or to look for a soft spot in the -pebbles, and to abide in the position so chosen. And yet it is the spot -in Etretat most sacred to tranquil pleasure. - -The French do not treat their beaches as we do ours--as places for a -glance, a dip, or a trot, places animated simply during the balneary -hours, and wrapped in natural desolation for the rest of the -twenty-four. They love them, they adore them, they take possession of -them, they live upon them. The people here sit upon the beach from -morning to night; whole families come early and establish themselves, -with umbrellas and rugs, books and work. The ladies get sunburnt and -don't mind it; the gentlemen smoke interminably; the children roll over -on the pointed pebbles and stare at the sun like young eagles. (The -children's lot I rather commiserate; they have no wooden spades and -pails; they have no sand to delve and grub in; they can dig no trenches -and canals, nor see the creeping tide flood them.) The great occupation -and amusement is the bathing, which has many entertaining features (I -allude to it as a spectacle), especially for strangers who keep an eye -upon national idiosyncrasies. The French take their bathing very -seriously; supplemented by opéra-bouffe in the evening at the Casino, -it is their most preferred form of communion with nature. The spectators -and the bathers commingle in graceful promiscuity; it is the freedom of -the golden age. The whole beach becomes a large family party, in which -the sweetest familiarities prevail. There is more or less costume, but -the minimum rather than the maximum is found the more comfortable. -Bathers come out of their dressing-houses wrapped in short white sheets, -which they deposit on the stones, taking an air-bath for some minutes -before entering the water. Like everything in France, the bathing is -excellently managed, and you feel the firm hand of a paternal and -overlooking government the moment you issue from your hut. The -Government will on no consideration consent to your being rash. There -are six or eight worthy old sons of Neptune on the beach--perfect -amphibious creatures--who, if you are a new-comer, immediately accost -you and demand pledges that you know how to swim. If you do not, they -give you much excellent advice, and keep an eye on you while you are in -the water. They are moreover obliged to render you any service you may -demand--to pour buckets of water over your head, to fetch your -bathing-sheet and your slippers, to carry your wife and children into -the sea, to dip them, cheer them, sustain them, to teach them how to -swim and how to dive, to hover about, in short, like ministering and -trickling angels. At a short distance from the shore are two boats, -freighted with sundry other marine divinities, who remain there -perpetually, taking it as a personal offence if you venture out too far. - -The French themselves have every pretext for venturing, being in general -excellent swimmers. Every one swims, and swims indefatigably--men, -women, and children. I have been especially struck with the prowess of -the ladies, who take the neatest possible headers from the two long -plunging-boards which are rigged in the water upon high wheels. As you -recline upon the beach you may observe Mademoiselle X. issue from her -cabin--Mademoiselle X., the actress of the Palais Royal Theatre, whom -you have seen and applauded behind the footlights. She wears a -bathing-dress in which, as regards the trousers, even what I have called -the minimum has been appreciably scanted; but she trips down, surveying -her liberated limbs. "_C'est convenable, j'espère, hein_?" says -Mademoiselle, and trots up the spring-board which projects over the -waves with one end uppermost, like a great see-saw. She balances a -moment, and then gives a great aerial dive, executing on the way the -most graceful of somersaults. This performance the star of the Palais -Royal repeats during the ensuing hour, at intervals of five minutes, and -leaves you, as you lie tossing little stones into the water, to consider -the curious and delicate question why a lady may go so far as to put -herself into a single scant clinging garment and take a straight leap, -head downward, before three hundred spectators, without violation of -propriety--and why impropriety should begin only when she turns over in -the air in such a way that for five seconds her head is upwards. The -logic of the matter is mysterious; white and black are divided by a -hair. But the fact remains that virtue is on one side of the hair and -vice on the other. There are some days here so still and radiant, -however, that it seems as if vice itself, steeped in such an air and -such a sea, might be diluted into innocence. The sea is as blue as -melted sapphires, and the rugged white faces of the bordering cliffs -make a silver frame for the picture. Every one is idle, amused, -good-natured; the bathers take to the water as easily as mermen and -mermaids. The bathing-men in the two _bateaux de surveillance_ have in -their charge a freight of rosy children, more or less chubbily naked, -and they have nailed a gay streamer and a rude nosegay to their low -mastheads. The swimmers dip and rise, circling round the boats and -playing with the children. Every now and then they grasp the sides of -the boats and cling to them in a dozen harmonious attitudes, making one -fancy that Eugène Delacroix's great picture of Dante and Virgil on the -Styx, with the damned trying to scramble into Charon's bark, has been -repainted as a scene on one of the streams of Paradise. The swimmers are -not the damned, but the blessed, and the demonstrative French babies are -the cherubs. - -The Casino at Etretat is a modest but respectable establishment, with a -sufficiently capacious terrace, directly upon the beach, a café, a -billiard-room, a ballroom--which may also be used as a theatre, a -reading-room, and a _salon de conversation_. It is in very good taste, -without any attempt at gilding or mirrors; the ballroom, in fact, is -quite a masterpiece, with its charm of effect produced simply by -unpainted woods and happy proportions. Three evenings in the week a -blond young man in a white necktie plays waltzes on a grand piano; but -the effect is not that of an American "hop," owing to the young ladies -of France not being permitted to dance in public places. They may only -sit wistfully beside their mammas. Imagine a "hop" at which sweet -seventeen is condemned to immobility. The burden of the gaiety is -sustained by three or four rosy English maidens and as many of their -American sisters. On the other evenings a weak little operatic troupe -gives light specimens of the lyric drama, the privilege of enjoying -which is covered by your subscription to the Casino. The French hurry in -joyously (four times a week in July and August!) at the sound of the -bell, but I can give no report of the performances. Sometimes I look -through the lighted windows and see, on the diminutive stage, a -short-skirted young woman with one hand on her heart and the other -persuasively extended. Through the hot unpleasant air comes a little -ghost of a roulade. I turn away and walk on the terrace and listen to -the ocean vocalising to the stars. - -But there are (by daylight) other walks at Etretat than the terrace, and -no account of the place is complete without some commemoration of the -admirable cliffs. They are the finest I have seen; their fantastic -needles and buttresses, at either end of the little bay, give to -careless Etretat an extreme distinction. In spite of there being no -sands, a persistent admirer of nature will walk a long distance upon the -tiresome sea-margin of pebbles for the sake of being under them and -visiting some of their quiet caves and embrowned recesses, varnished by -the ocean into splendid tones. Seen in this way from directly below, -they look stupendous; they hold up their heads with attitudes quite -Alpine. They are marvellously white and straight and smooth; they have -the tint and something of the surface of time-yellowed marble, and here -and there, at their summits, they break into quaint little pinnacles and -turrets. But to be on the top of them is even better; here you may walk -over miles of grassy, breezy down, with the woods, contorted and -sea-stunted, of old farmsteads on your land-side (the farmhouses here -have all a charming way of being buried in a wood, like the castle of -the Sleeping Beauty), coming every little while upon a weather-blackened -old shepherd and his flock (their conversation--the shepherds'--is -delightful), or on some little seaward-plunging valley, holding in its -green hollow a diminutive agricultural village, curtained round from the -sea-winds by a dense stockade of trees. So you may go southward or -northward, without impediment, to Havre or to Dieppe. - - - - -VIII - -FROM NORMANDY TO THE PYRENEES - -1876 - - -The other day, before the first fire of winter, when the deepening dusk -had compelled me to close my book and wheel my chair closer, I indulged -in a retrospect. The objects of it were not far distant, and yet they -were already interfused with the mellow tints of the past. In the -crackling flame the last remnant of the summer appeared to shrink up and -vanish. But the flicker of its destruction made a sort of fantastic -imagery, and in the midst of the winter fire the summer sunshine seemed -to glow. It lit up a series of visible memories. - - - - -I - - -One of the first was that of a perfect day on the coast of Normandy--a -warm, still Sunday in the early part of August. From my pillow, on -waking, I could look at a strip of blue sea and a great cube of white -cliff. I observed that the sea had never been so brilliant, and that the -cliff was shining as if it had been painted in the night. I rose and -came forth with the sense that it was the finest day of summer, and that -one ought to do something uncommon by way of keeping it. At Etretat it -was uncommon to take a walk; the custom of the country is to lie all day -upon the pebbly strand, watching, as we should say in America, one's -fellow-boarders. Your leisurely stroll, in a scanty sheet, from your -bathing-cabin into the water, and your trickling progress from the water -back into your cabin, form, as a general thing, the sum total of your -pedestrianism. For the rest you remain horizontal, contemplating the -horizon. To mark the day with a white stone, therefore, it was quite -sufficient to stretch my legs. So I climbed the huge grassy cliff which -shuts in the little bay on the right (as you lie on the beach, head -upward), and gained the bleak white chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, -which a lady told me she was sure was the original of Matthew Arnold's -"little gray church on the windy shore." This is very likely; but the -little church to-day was not gray, neither was the shore windy. - -I had occasion, by the time I reached the summit, to wish it had been. -Deep, silent sunshine filled the air, and the long grass of the downs -stood up in the light without a tremor. The downs at Etretat are -magnificent, and the way they stretched off toward Dieppe, with their -shining levels and their faintly-shaded dells, was in itself an -irresistible invitation. On the land-side they have been somewhat -narrowed by cultivation; the woods, and farms, and grain-fields here and -there creep close enough to the edge of the cliff almost to see the -shifting of the tides at its base. But cultivation in Normandy is itself -picturesque, and the pedestrian rarely needs resent its encroachments. -Neither walls nor hedges nor fences are anywhere visible; the whole land -lies open to the breezes and to his curious footsteps. This universal -absence of barriers gives an air of vastness to the landscape, so that -really, in a little French province, you have more of the feeling of -being in a big country than on our own huge continent, which bristles so -incongruously with defensive palings and dykes. Norman farmhouses, too, -with their mossy roofs and their visible beams making all kinds of -triangles upon the ancient plaster of their walls, are very delightful -things. Hereabouts they have always a dark little wood dose beside them; -often a _chênaie_, as the term is--a fantastic little grove of -tempest-tossed oaks. The trees look as if, some night, when the -sea-blasts were howling their loudest and their boughs were tossing most -wildly, the tumult had suddenly been stilled and they had stopped short, -each in the attitude into which the storm was twisting it. The only -thing the storm can do with them now is to blow them straight. The long, -indented coast-line had never seemed to me so charming. It stretched -away into the light haze of the horizon, with such lovely violet spots -in its caves and hollows, and such soft white gleams on its short -headlands--such exquisite gradations of distance and such capricious -interruptions of perspective--that one could only say that the land was -really trying to smile as intensely as the sea. The smile of the sea was -a positive simper. Such a glittering and twinkling, such a softness and -blueness, such tiny little pin-points of foam, and such delicate little -wrinkles of waves--all this made the ocean look like a flattered -portrait. - -The day I speak of was a Sunday, and there were to be races at Fécamp, -ten miles away. The agreeable thing was, of course, to walk to Fécamp -over the grassy downs. I walked and walked, over the levels and the -dells, having land and ocean quite to myself. Here and there I met a -shepherd lying flat on his stomach in the sun, while his sheep, in -extreme dishabille (shearing-time being recent), went huddling in front -of me as I approached. Far below, on the blue ocean, like a fly on a -table of lapis, crawled a little steamer, carrying people from Etretat -to the races. I seemed to go much faster, yet the steamer got to Fécamp -before me. But I stopped to gossip with a shepherd on a grassy hillside, -and to admire certain little villages which are niched in small, -transverse, seaward-sloping valleys. The shepherd told me that he had -been farm-servant to the same master for five-and-thirty years--ever -since the age of ten; and that for thirty-five summers he had fed his -flock upon those downs. I don't know whether his sheep were tired of -their diet, but he professed himself very tired of his life. I remarked -that in fine weather it must be charming, and he observed, with humility, -that to thirty-five summers there went a certain number of rainy days. - -The walk to Fécamp would be quite satisfactory if it were not for the -_fonds_. The _fonds_ are the transverse valleys just mentioned--the -channels, for the most part, of small water-courses which discharge -themselves into the sea. The downs subside, precipitately, to the level -of the beach, and then slowly lift their grassy shoulders on the other -side of the gully. As the cliffs are of immense height, these -indentations are profound, and drain off a little of the exhilaration of -the too elastic pedestrian. The first _fond_ strikes him as delightfully -picturesque, and he is down the long slope on one side and up the -gigantic hump on the other before he has time to feel hot. But the -second is greeted with that tempered _empressement_ with which you bow -in the street to an acquaintance whom you have met half an hour before; -the third is a stale repetition; the fourth is decidedly one too many, -and the fifth is sensibly exasperating. The _fonds_, in a word, are very -tiresome. It was, if I remember rightly, in the bottom of the last and -widest of the series that I discovered the little town of Yport. Every -little fishing-village on the Norman coast has, within the last ten -years, set up in business as a watering-place; and, though one might -fancy that nature had condemned Yport to modest obscurity, it is plain -she has no idea of being out of the fashion. But she is a miniature -imitation of her rivals. She has a meagre little wood behind her and an -evil-smelling beach, on which bathing is possible only at the highest -tide. At the scorching midday hour at which I inspected her she seemed -absolutely empty, and the ocean, beyond acres of slippery seaweed, -looked very far away. She has everything that a properly appointed -_station de bains_ should have, but everything is on a Lilliputian -scale. The whole place looked like a huge Nüremburg toy. There is a -diminutive hotel, in which, properly, the head-waiter should be a pigmy -and the chambermaid a sprite, and beside it there is a Casino on the -smallest possible scale. Everything about the Casino is so consistently -microscopic, that it seems a matter of course that the newspapers in the -reading-room should be printed in the very finest type. Of course there -is a reading-room, and a dancing-room, and a café, and a billiard-room, -with a bagatelle-board instead of a table, and a little terrace on which -you may walk up and down with very short steps. I hope the prices are as -tiny as everything else, and I suspect, indeed, that Yport honestly -claims, not that she is attractive, but that she is cheap. - -I toiled up the perpendicular cliff again, and took my way over the -grass, for another hour, to Fécamp, where I found the peculiarities of -Yport directly reversed. The place is a huge, straggling village, seated -along a wide, shallow bay, and adorned, of course, with the classic -Casino and the row of hotels. But all this is on a very brave scale, -though it is not manifest that the bravery at Fécamp has won a victory; -and, indeed, the local attractions did not strike me as irresistible. A -pebbly beach of immense length, fenced off from the town by a grassy -embankment; a Casino of a bald and unsociable aspect; a principal inn, -with an interminable brown façade, suggestive somehow of an asylum or -an almshouse--such are the most striking features of this particular -watering-place. There are magnificent cliffs on each side of the bay, -but, as the French say, without impropriety, it is the devil to get to -them. There was no one in the hotel, in the Casino, or on the beach; the -whole town being in the act of climbing the farther cliff, to reach the -downs on which the races were to be held. The green hillside was black -with trudging spectators and the long sky-line was fretted with them. -When I say there was no one at the inn, I forget the gentleman at the -door, who informed me positively that he would give me no breakfast; he -seemed to have stayed at home from the races expressly to give himself -this pleasure. But I went farther and fared better, obtaining a meal of -homely succulence in an unfashionable tavern, in a back street, where -the wine was sound, the cutlets were tender, and the serving-maid was -rosy. Then I walked along--for a mile, it seemed--through a dreary, gray -_grand'-rue_, where the sunshine was hot, the odours were portentous, -and the doorsteps garnished with aged fishwives, retired from business, -whose plaited linen coifs gave a value, as the painters say, to the -brown umber of their cheeks. I inspected the harbour and its goodly -basin--with nothing in it--and certain pink and blue houses which -surround it, and then, joining the last stragglers, I clambered up the -side of the cliff to the downs. - -The races had already begun, and the ring of spectators was dense. I -picked out some of the smallest people, looked over their heads, and saw -several young farmers, in parti-coloured jackets and very red in the -face, bouncing up and down on handsome cart-horses. Satiated at last -with this diversion, I turned away and wandered down the hill again; and -after strolling through the streets of Fécamp, and gathering not a -little of the wayside entertainment that a seaport and fishing-town -always yields, I repaired to the Abbey-church, a monument of some -importance, and almost as great an object of pride in the town as the -Casino. The Abbey of Fécamp was once a very rich and powerful -establishment, but nothing remains of it now save its church and its -_trappistine_. The church, which is for the most part early gothic, is -very stately and interesting, and the _trappistine_, a distilled liquor -of the Chartreuse family, is much prized by people who take a little -glass after their coffee. By the time I had done with the Abbey the -townsfolk had slid _en masse_ down the cliff again, the yellow afternoon -had come, and the holiday-takers, before the wine-shops, made long and -lively shadows. I hired a sort of two-wheeled gig, without a hood, and -drove back to Etretat in the rosy stage of evening. The gig dandled me -up and down in a fashion of which I had been unconscious since I left -off baby-clothes; but the drive, through the charming Norman country, -over roads which lay among the peaceful meadows like paths across a -park, was altogether delightful. The sunset gave a deeper mellowness to -the standing crops, and in the grassiest corner of the wayside villages -the young men and maidens were dancing like the figures in -vignette-illustrations of classic poets. - - - - -II - - -It was another picked day--you see how freely I pick them--when I went -to breakfast at Saint-Jouin, chez la belle Ernestine. The beautiful -Ernestine is as hospitable as she is fair, and to contemplate her charms -you have only to order breakfast. They shine forth the more brilliantly -in proportion as your order is liberal, and Ernestine is beautiful -according as your bill is large. In this case she comes and smiles, -really very handsomely, round your table, and you feel some hesitation -in accusing so well-favoured a person of extortion. She keeps an inn at -the end of a lane which diverges from the high road between Etretat and -Havre, and it is an indispensable feature of your "station" at the -former place that you choose some fine morning and seek her hospitality. -She has been a celebrity these twenty years, and is no longer a simple -maiden in her flower; but twenty years, if they have diminished her -early bloom, have richly augmented her _musée_. This is a collection of -all the verses and sketches, the autographs, photographs, monographs, -trinkets, presented to the amiable hostess by admiring tourists. It -covers the walls of her sitting-room and fills half a dozen big albums -which you look at while breakfast is being prepared, just as if you were -awaiting dinner in genteel society. Most Frenchmen of the day whom one -has heard of appear to have called at Saint-Jouin, and to have left -their _homages_. Each of them has turned a compliment with pen or -pencil, and you may see in a glass case on the parlour wall what -Alexandre Dumas _fils_ thought of the landlady's nose, and how several -painters measured her ankles. - -Of course you must make this excursion in good company, and I affirm -that I was in the very best. The company prefers, equally of course, to -have its breakfast in the orchard in front of the house; which, if the -repast is good, will make it seem better still, and if it is poor, will -carry off its poorness. Clever innkeepers should always make their -victims (in tolerable weather) eat in the garden. I forget whether -Ernestine's breakfast was intrinsically good or bad, but I distinctly -remember enjoying it, and making everything welcome. Everything, that -is, save the party at the other table--the Paris actresses and the -American gentlemen. The combination of these two classes of persons, -individually so delightful, results in certain phenomena which seem less -in harmony with appleboughs and summer breezes than with the gas-lamps -and thick perfumes of a _cabinet particulier_; and yet it was -characteristic of this odd mixture of things that Mademoiselle -Ernestine, coming to chat with her customers, should bear a beautiful -infant on her arm, and smile with artless pride on being assured of its -filial resemblance to herself. She looked handsomer than ever as she -caressed this startling attribute of presumptive spinsterhood. - -Saint-Jouin is close to the sea and to the finest cliffs in the world. -One of my companions, who had laden the carriage with the implements of -a painter, went off into a sunny meadow to take the portrait of a -windmill, and I, choosing the better portion, wandered through a little -green valley with the other. Ten minutes brought us to the edge of the -cliffs, which at this point of the coast are simply sublime. I had -supposed the white sea-walls of Etretat the finest thing possible in -this way, but the huge red porphyritic-looking masses of Saint-Jouin -have an even grander character. I have rarely seen a landscape more -"plastic." They are strange, fantastic, out of keeping with the country, -and for some rather arbitrary reason suggested to me a Spanish or even -an African prospect. Certain sun-scorched precipices in Spanish sierras -must have very much the same warmth of tone and desolation of attitude. -The great distinction of the cliffs of Saint-Jouin is their -extraordinary doubleness. Falling to an immense depth, they encounter a -certain outward ledge, or terrace, where they pause and play a dozen -fantastic tricks, such as piling up rocks into the likeness of needles -and watch-towers; then they plunge again, and in another splendid sweep -descend to the beach. There was something very impressive in the way -their evil brows, looking as if they were stained with blood and rust, -were bent upon the indifferent--the sleeping--sea. - - - - -III - - -In a month of beautiful weather at Etretat, every day was not an -excursion, but every day seemed indeed a picked day. For that matter, as -I lay on the beach watching the procession of the easy-going hours, I -took a good many mental excursions. The one, perhaps, on which I -oftenest embarked, was a comparison between French manners, French, -habits, French types, and those of my native land. These comparisons are -not invidious; I do not conclude against one party and in favour of the -other; as the French say, _je constate_ simply. The French people about -me were "spending the summer," just as I had so often seen my -fellow-countrymen spend it, and it seemed to me, as it had seemed to me -at home, that this operation places men and women under a sort of -monstrous magnifying-glass. The human figure has a higher relief in the -country than in town, and I know of no place where psychological studies -prosper so much as at the seaside. I shall not pretend to relate my -observations in the order in which they occurred to me (or indeed to -relate them in full at all); but I may say that one of the foremost was -to this effect--that the summer-question, for every one, had been more -easily settled than it usually is in America. The solution of the -problem of where to go had not been a thin-petalled rose, plucked from -among particularly sharp-pointed thorns. People presented themselves -with a calmness and freshness very different from the haggardness of -aspect which announces that the American citizen and his family have -"secured accommodations." This impression, with me, rests perhaps on the -fact that most Frenchwomen turned of thirty--the average wives and -mothers--are so comfortably endowed with flesh. I have never seen such -richness of contour as among the mature _baigneuses_ of Etretat. The -lean and desiccated person into whom a dozen years of matrimony so often -converts the blooming American girl is not emulated in France. A -majestic plumpness flourished all around me--the plumpness of triple -chins and deeply dimpled hands. I mused upon it, and I discovered that -it was the result of the best breakfasts and dinners in the world. It -was the corpulence of ladies who are thoroughly well fed, and who never -walk a step that they can spare. The assiduity with which the women of -America measure the length of our democratic pavements is doubtless a -factor in their frequent absence of redundancy of outline. As a "regular -boarder" at the Hôtel Blanquet--pronounced by Anglo-Saxon visitors -Blanket--I found myself initiated into the mysteries of the French -dietary system. I assent to the common tradition that the French are a -temperate people, so long as it is understood in this sense--that they -eat no more than they want to. But their wants are very comprehensive. -Their capacity strikes me as enormous, and we ourselves, if we are less -regulated, are certainly much more slender consumers. - -The American breakfast has, I believe, long been a subject of irony to -the foreign observer; but the American breakfast is an ascetic meal -compared with the French _déjeûner-à-la-fourchette_. The latter, -indeed, is simply a dinner without soup; it differs neither generically -nor specifically from the evening-repast. If it excludes soup, it -includes eggs, prepared in a hundred forms; and if it proscribes -champagne, it admits beer in foaming pitchers, so that the balance is -fairly preserved. I think that an American will often suffer vicariously -from the reflection that a French family which sits down at half-past -eleven to fish and entries and roasts, to asparagus and beans, to salad -and dessert, and cheese and coffee, proposes to do exactly the same -thing at half-past six. But we may be sure at any rate that the dinner -will be as good as the breakfast, and that the breakfast has nothing to -fear from prospective comparison with the dinner; and we may further -reflect that in a country where the pleasures of the table are -thoroughly organised, it is natural that they should be prolonged and -reiterated. Nothing is more noticeable among the French than their -superior intelligence in dietary matters; every one seems naturally a -judge, a dilettante. They have analysed tastes and savours to a finer -point than we; they are aware of differences and relations of which we -take no heed. Observe a Frenchman of any age and of any condition (I -have been quite as much struck with it in the very young men as in the -old), as he orders his breakfast or his dinner at a Parisian restaurant, -and you will perceive that the operation is much more solemn than it is -apt to be in New York or in London. Monsieur has, in a word, a certain -ideal for a particular repast, and it will make a difference in his -happiness whether the kidneys, for instance, of a certain style, are -chopped to the ultimate or only to the penultimate smallness. His -directions and admonitions to the waiter are therefore minute and -exquisite, and eloquently accentuated by the pressure of thumb and -forefinger; and it must be added that the imagination of the waiter is -usually quite worthy of the refined communion opened to it. - -This subtler sense of quality is observable even among those classes in -which in other countries it is generally forestalled by a depressing -consciousness on the subject of quantity. Observe your concierge and his -wife at their mid-day meal, as you pass up and down stairs. They are not -satisfying nature upon green tea and potatoes; they are seated before a -repast which has been reasoned out, which, on its modest scale, is -served in courses, and has a beginning, a middle, an end. I will not say -that the French sense of comfort is confined to the philosophy of -nutrition, but it is certainly here that it is most highly evolved. -French people must have a good dinner and a good bed; but they are -willing that the bed should be stationed and the dinner be eaten in the -most insufferable corners. Your porter and his wife dine with a certain -distinction, and sleep soft in their lodge; but their lodge is in all -probability a fetid black hole, five feet square, in which, in England -or in America, people of their talents would never consent to live. The -French are willing to abide in the dark, to huddle together, to forego -privacy, to let bad smells grow great among them. They have an accursed -passion for coquettish furniture; for cold, brittle chairs, for tables -with scalloped edges, for ottomans without backs, for fireplaces muffled -in plush and fringe. A French bedroom is a bitter mockery--a ghastly -attempt to serve two masters which succeeds in being agreeable to -neither. It is a thing of traps and delusions, constructed on the -assumption that it is inelegant to be known to wash or to sleep, and yet -pervaded with suggestions of uncleanness compared with which the -matutinal "tub," well _en évidence_, is a delightful symbol of purity. -This comes of course from that supreme French quality, the source of -half the charm of the French mind as well as of all its dryness, the -genius for economy. It is wasting a room to let it be a bedroom alone; -so it must be tricked out ingeniously as a sitting-room, and ends by -being (in many cases) insufferable both by night and by day. But -allowing all weight to these latter reflections, it is still very -possible that the French have the better part. If you are well fed, you -can perhaps afford to be ill lodged; whereas enjoyment of the most -commodious apartments is incompatible with inanition and dyspepsia. - -If I had not cut short my mild retrospect by these possibly milder -generalisations, I should have touched lightly upon some of the social -phenomena of which the little beach at Etretat was the scene. I should -have narrated that the French, at the seaside, are not "sociable" as -Americans affect to be in a similar situation, and I should subjoin that -at Etretat it was very well on the whole that they should not have been. -The immeasurably greater simplicity of composition of American society -makes sociability with us a comparatively untaxed virtue; but anything -like an equal exercise of it in France would be attended with alarming -drawbacks. Sociability (in the American sense of the word) in any -aristocratic country would indeed be very much like an attempt to -establish visiting relations between birds and fishes. At Etretat no -making of acquaintance was to be perceived; people went about in -compact, cohesive groups, of natural formation, governed doubtless, -internally, by humane regulations, but presenting to the world an -impenetrable defensive front. The groups usually formed a solid phalanx -around two or three young girls, compressed into the centre, the -preservation of whose innocence was their chief solicitude. These groups -were doubtless wisely constituted, for with half a dozen _cocottes_, in -scarlet petticoats, scattered over the sunny, harmless-looking beach, -what were mammas and duennas to do? I used to pity the young ladies at -first, for this perpetual application of the leading-string; but a -little reflection showed me that the French have ordered this as well as -they have ordered everything else. The case is not nearly so hard as it -would be with us, for there is this immense difference between the lot -of the _jeune fille_ and her American sister, that the former may as a -general thing be said to be certain to marry. "Alas, to marry badly," -the Anglo-Saxon objector may reply. But the objection is precipitate; -for if French marriages are almost always arranged, it must be added -that they are in the majority of cases arranged successfully. Therefore, -if a _jeune fille_ is for three or four years tied with a very short -rope and compelled to browse exclusively upon the meagre herbage which -sprouts in the maternal shadow, she has at least the comfort of -reflecting that, according to the native phrase, _on s'occupe de la -marier_--that measures are being carefully taken to promote her to a -condition of unbounded liberty. Whatever, to her imagination, marriage -may fail to mean, it at least means freedom and consideration. It does -not mean, as it so often means in America, being socially shelved--and -it is not too much to say, in certain circles, degraded; it means being -socially launched and consecrated. It means becoming that exalted -personage, a _mère de famille_. To be a _mère de famille_ is to occupy -not simply (as is mostly the case with us) a sentimental, but really an -official position. The consideration, the authority, the domestic pomp -and circumstance allotted to a French mamma are in striking contrast -with the amiable tolerance which in our own social order is so often the -most liberal measure that the female parent may venture to expect at her -children's hands, and which, on the part of the young lady of eighteen -who represents the family in society, is not unfrequently tempered by a -conscientious severity. All this is worth waiting for, especially if you -have not to wait very long. Mademoiselle is married certainly, and -married early, and she is sufficiently well informed to know, and to be -sustained by the knowledge, that the sentimental expansion which may not -take place at present will have an open field after her marriage. That -it should precede her marriage seems to her as unnatural as that she -should put on her shoes before her stockings. And besides all this, to -browse in the maternal shadow is not considered in the least a hardship. -A young French girl who is _bien-élevée_--an expression which means so -much--will be sure to consider her mother's company the most delightful -in the world, and to think that the herbage which sprouts about this -lady's petticoats is peculiarly tender and succulent. It may be -fanciful, but it often seems to me that the tone with which such a young -girl says _Ma mère_ has a peculiar intensity of meaning. I am at least -not wrong in affirming that in the accent with which the -mamma--especially if she be of the well-rounded order alluded to -above--speaks of _Ma fille_ there is a kind of sacerdotal dignity. - - - - -IV - - -After this came two or three pictures of quite another -complexion--pictures of which a long green valley, almost in the centre -of France, makes the general setting. The valley itself, indeed, forms -one delightful picture, although the country which surrounds it is by no -means one of the regions that place themselves on exhibition. It is the -old territory of the Gâtinais, which has much history, but no renown of -beauty. It is very quiet, deliciously rural, immitigably French; the -typical, average, "pleasant" France of history, literature, and art--of -art, of landscape-art, perhaps, especially. Wherever I look I seem to -see one of the familiar pictures on a dealer's wall--a Lambinet, a -Troyon, a Daubigny, a Diaz. The Lambinets perhaps are in the majority; -the mood of the landscape usually expresses itself in silvery lights and -vivid greens. The history of this part of France is the history of the -monarchy, and its language is, I won't say absolutely the classic -tongue, but a nearer approach to it than any local patois. The peasants -deliver themselves with rather a drawl, but their French is as -consecutive as that of Ollendorf. - -Each side of the long valley is a continuous ridge, which offers it a -high, wooded horizon, and through the middle of it there flows a -charming stream, wandering, winding and doubling, smothered here and -there in rushes, and spreading into lily-coated reaches, beneath the -clear shadow of tall, straight, light-leaved trees. On each side of the -stream the meadows stretch away flat, clean, magnificent, lozenged -across with rows of lateral foliage, under which a cow-maiden sits on -the grass, hooting now and then, nasally, to the large-uddered browsers -in front of her. There are no hedges nor palings nor walls; it is all a -single estate. Occasionally in the meadows there rises a cluster of -red-roofed hovels--each a diminutive village. At other points, at about -half an hour's walk apart, are three charming old houses. The châteaux -are extremely different, but, both as pictures and as dwellings, each -has its points. They are very intimate with each other, so that these -points may be amicably discussed. The points in one case, however, are -remarkably strong. The little old _castel_ I mention stands directly in -the attenuated river, on an island just great enough to hold it, and the -garden-flowers grow upon the farther bank. This, of course, is a most -delightful affair. But I found something very agreeable in the aspect of -one of the others, when I made it the goal of certain of those walks -before breakfast, which of cool mornings, in the late summer, do not -fall into the category of ascetic pleasures. (In France, indeed, if one -did not do a great many things before breakfast, the work of life would -be but meagrely performed.) - -The dwelling in question stands on the top of the long ridge which -encloses the comfortable valley to the south, being by its position -quite in the midst of its appurtenant acres. It is not particularly -"kept up," but its quiet rustiness and untrimmedness only help it to be -familiar. A grassy plateau approaches it from the edge of the hill, -bordered on one side by a short avenue of horse-chestnuts, and on the -other by a dusky wood. Beyond the chestnuts are the steep-roofed, -yellow-walled farm-buildings, and under cover of the wood a stretch of -beaten turf, where, on Sundays and holidays, the farm-servants play at -bowls. Directly before the house is a little square garden, enclosed by -a low parapet, which is interrupted by a high gateway of mossy pillars -and iron arabesques, the whole of it muffled in creeping plants. The -house, with its yellow walls and russet roof, is ample and substantial; -it is a very proper _gentilhommière_. In a corner of the garden, at the -angle of the parapet, rises that classic emblem of rural gentility, the -_pigeonnier_, the old stone dovecot. It is a great round tower, as broad -of base as a lighthouse, with its roof shaped like an extinguisher, and -a big hole in its upper portion, in and out of which a dove is always -fluttering. - -You see all this from the windows of the drawing-room. Be sure that the -drawing-room is panelled in white and gray, with old rococo mouldings -over the doorways and mantelpiece. The open gateway of the garden, with -its tangled creepers, makes a frame for the picture that lies beyond the -grassy esplanade where the thistles have been suffered to grow round a -disused stone well, placed in odd remoteness from the house (if, indeed, -it be not a relic of an earlier habitation): a picture of a wide green -country, rising beyond the unseen valley and stretching away to a far -horizon in deep blue lines of wood. Behind, through other windows, you -look out on the gardens proper. There are places that take one's fancy -by some accident of expression, some mystery of accident. This one is -high and breezy, both genial and reserved, plain yet picturesque, -extremely cheerful and a little melancholy. It has what in the arts is -called "style," and so I have attempted to commemorate it. - -Going to call on the peasants was as charming an affair as a chapter in -one of George Sand's rural tales. I went one Sunday morning with my -hostess, who knew them well and enjoyed their most garrulous confidence. -I don't mean that they told her all their secrets, but they told her a -good many; if the French peasant is a simpleton, he is a very shrewd -simpleton. At any rate, of a Sunday morning in August, when he is -stopping at home from work and has put on his best jacket and trousers, -and is loafing at the door of his neighbour's cabin, he is a very -charming person. The peasantry in the region I speak of had admirably -good manners. The curé gave me a low account of their morals, by which -he meant, on the whole, I suspect, that they were moderate church-goers. -But they have the instinct of civility and a talent for conversation; -they know how to play the host and the entertainer. By "he," just now, I -meant she quite as much; it is rare that, in speaking superlatively of -the French, in any connection, one does not think of the women even more -than of the men. They constantly strike the foreigner as a stronger -expression of the qualities of the race. On the occasion I speak of the -first room in the very humble cabins I successively visited--in some -cases, evidently, it was the only room--had been set into irreproachable -order for the day. It had usually a fine brownness of tone, generated by -the high chimney-place, with its swinging pots, the important bed, in -its dusky niche, with its flowered curtains, the big-bellied earthenware -in the cupboard, the long-legged clock in the corner, the thick, quiet -light of the small, deeply-set window, the mixture, on all things, of -smoke-stain and the polish of horny hands. Into the midst of this "la -Rabillon" or "la mère Léger" brings forward her chairs and begs us to -be seated, and, seating herself, with crossed hands, smiles expressively -and answers abundantly every inquiry about her cow, her husband, her -bees, her eggs, her baby. The men linger half outside and half in, with -their shoulders against dressers and door-posts; every one smiles with -that simple, clear-eyed smile of the gratified peasant; they talk much -more like George Sand's Berrichons than might be supposed. And if they -receive us without gross awkwardness, they speed us on our way with -proportionate urbanity. I go to six or eight little hovels, all of them -dirty outside and clean within; I am entertained everywhere with the -bonhomie, the quaintness, the good faces and good manners of their -occupants, and I finish my tour with an esteem for my new acquaintance -which is not diminished by learning that several of them have thirty or -forty thousand francs carefully put away. - -And yet, as I say, M. le Curé thinks they are in a bad way, and he -knows something about them. M. le Curé, too, is not a dealer in -scandal; there is something delightfully quaint in the way in which he -deprecates an un-Christian construction of his words. There is more than -one curé in the valley whose charms I celebrate; but the worthy priest -of whom I speak is the pearl of the local priesthood. He has been -accused, I believe, of pretensions to _illuminisme_; but even in his most -illuminated moments it can never occur to him that he has been -chronicled in an American magazine, and therefore it is not indiscreet -to say that he is the curé, not of Gy, but of the village nearest to -Gy. I write this sentence half for the pleasure of putting down that -briefest of village-names and seeing how it looks in print. But it may -be elongated at will, and yet be only improved. If you wish to be very -specific, you may call it Gy-les-Nonnains--Gy of the Little Nuns. I went -with my hostess, another morning, to call upon M. le Curé, who himself -opened his garden door to us (there was a crooked little black cross -perched upon it), and, lifting his rusty _calotte_, stood there a moment -in the sunshine, smiling a greeting more benignant than his words. - -A rural _presbytère_ is not a very sumptuous dwelling, and M. le -Curé's little drawing-room reminded me of a Yankee parlour (_minus_ the -subscription-books from Hartford on the centre-table) in some -out-of-the-way corner of New England. But he took us into his very -diminutive garden, and showed us an ornament that would not have -flourished in the shadow of a Yankee parlour--a rude stone image of the -Virgin, which he had become possessed of I know not how, and for which -he was building a sort of niche in the wall. The work was going on -slowly, for he must take the labour as he could get it; but he appealed -to his visitors, with a smile of indulgent irony, for an assurance that -his little structure would not make too bad a figure. One of them told -him that she would send him some white flowers to set out round the -statue; whereupon he clasped his hands together over his snuff-box and -expressed cheerful views of the world we live in. A couple of days -afterward he came to breakfast, and of course arrived early, in his new -cassock and band. I found him in the billiard-room, walking up and down -alone and reading his breviary. The combination of the locality, the -personage and the occupation, made me smile; and I smiled again when, -after breakfast, I found him strolling about the garden, puffing a -cigarette. Of course he had an excellent appetite; but there is -something rather cruel in those alternations of diet to which the French -parish priest is subjected. At home he lives like a peasant--a fact -which, in itself, is not particularly cruel, inasmuch as he has -usually--or in many cases--been brought up to that life. But his -fellow-peasants don't breakfast at the château and gaze down the -savoury vistas opened by cutlets à la Soubise. They have not the acute -pain of relapsing into the stale atmosphere of bread and beans. Of -course it is by no means every day, or every week even, that M. le Curé -breakfasts at the château; but there must nevertheless be a certain -uncomfortable crookedness in his position. He lives like a labourer, yet -he is treated like a gentleman. The latter character must seem to him -sometimes to have rather a point of irony. But to the ideal curé, of -course, all characters are equal; he thinks neither too ill of his bad -breakfasts nor too well of his good ones. I won't say that the excellent -man I speak of is the ideal curé, but I suspect he is an approach to -it; he has a grain of the epicurean to an ounce of stoicism. In the -garden-path, beside the moat, while he puffed his cigarette, he told me -how he had held up his head to the Prussians; for, hard as it seemed to -believe it, that pastoral valley had been occupied by ravaging Teutons. -According to this recital, he had spoken his mind civilly, but very -distinctly, to the group of officers who had made themselves at home in -his dwelling--had informed them that it grieved him profoundly that he -was obliged to meet them standing there in his _soutane_, and not out in -the fields with a musket in his hands and a dozen congenial spirits at -his side. The scene must have been dramatic. The first of the officers -got up from table and asked for the privilege of shaking his hand. "M. -le Curé," he said, "j'estime hautement votre caractère." - -Six miles away--or nearer, by a charming shaded walk along a canal--was -an ancient town with a legend--a legend which, as a child, I read in my -lesson-book at school, marvelling at the woodcut above it, in which a -ferocious dog was tearing a strange man to pieces, while the king and -his courtiers sat by as if they were at the circus. I allude to it -chiefly in order to mention the name of one of its promenades, which is -the stateliest, beyond all comparison, in the world; the name, I mean, -not the street. The latter is called the Promenade des Belles Manières. -Could anything be finer than that? With what a sweep gentlemen must once -have taken off their hats there; how ladies must once have curtsied, -regardless of gutters, and how people must have turned out their toes as -they walked! - - - - -V - - -My next impressions were gathered on the margin of a southern sea--if -the Bay of Biscay indeed deserve so sympathetic a name. We generally -have a mental image beforehand of a place on which we may intend to -project ourself, and I supposed I had a tolerably vivid prevision of -Biarritz. I don't know why, but I had a singular sense of having been -there; the name always seemed to me expressive. I saw the way it lay -along its gleaming beach; I had taken in imagination long walks toward -Spain over the low cliffs, with the blue sea always to my right and the -blue Pyrenees always before me. My only fear was that my mental picture -had not been brilliant enough; but this could easily be touched up on -the spot. In truth, however, on the spot I was exclusively occupied in -toning it down. Biarritz seemed to be decidedly below its reputation; I -am at a loss to see how its reputation was made. There is a partial -explanation that is obvious enough. There is a low, square, bare brick -mansion seated on the sands, under shelter of a cliff; it is one of the -first objects to attract the attention of an arriving stranger. It is -not picturesque, it is not romantic, and even in the days of its -prosperity it never can have been impressive. It is called the Villa -Eugénie, and it explains in a great measure, as I say, the Biarritz -which the arriving stranger, with some dismay, perceives about him. It -has the aspect of one of the "cottages" of Newport during the winter -season, but is surrounded by a vegetation much less dense than the -prodigies of arborescence now so frequent at Newport. It was what the -newspapers call the "favourite resort" of the ex-Empress of the French, -who might have been seen at her imperial avocations with a good glass, -at any time, from the Casino. The Casino, I hasten to add, has quite the -air of an establishment frequented by gentlemen who look at ladies' -windows with telescopes. There are Casinos and Casinos, and that of -Biarritz is, in the summary French phrase, "impossible." Except for its -view, it is moreover very unattractive. Perched on the top of a cliff -which has just space enough to hold its immense brick foundations, it -has no garden, no promenade, no shade, no place of out-of-door -reunion--the most indispensable feature of a Casino. It turns its back -to the Pyrenees and to Spain, and looks out prettily enough over a blue -ocean to an arm of the low French coast. - -Biarritz, for the rest, scrambles over two or three steep hills, -directly above the sea, in a promiscuous, many-coloured, noisy fashion. -It is a watering-place pure and simple; every house has an expensive -little shop in the basement and a still more expensive set of rooms to -let above stairs. The houses are blue and pink and green; they stick to -the hillsides as they can, and being near Spain, you try to fancy they -look Spanish. You succeed, perhaps, even a little, and are rewarded for -your zeal by finding, when you cross the border a few days afterward, -that the houses at San Sebastian look strikingly French. Biarritz is -bright, crowded, irregular, filled with many sounds, and not without a -certain second-rate pictorial quality; but it struck me as common and -cockneyfied, and my vision travelled back to modest little Etretat, by -its northern sea, as to a very much more downy couch. The south-western -coast of France has little of the exquisite charm of the Mediterranean -shore. It has of course a southern expression which in itself is always -delightful. You see a brilliant, yellow sun, with a pink-faced, -red-tiled house staring up at it. You can see here and there a trellis -and an orange-tree, a peasant-woman in a gold necklace, driving a -donkey, a lame beggar adorned with earrings, a glimpse of blue sea -between white garden-walls. But the superabundant detail of the French -Riviera is wanting; the softness, luxuriousness, enchantment. - -The most pictorial thing at Biarritz is the Basque population, which -overflows from the adjacent Spanish provinces and swarms in the crooked -streets. It lounges all day in the public places, sprawls upon the -curbstones, clings to the face of the cliffs, and vociferates -continually a shrill, strange tongue, which has no discoverable affinity -with any other. The Basques look like hardier and thriftier Neapolitan -lazzaroni; if the superficial resemblance is striking, the difference is -very much in their favour. Although those specimens which I observed at -Biarritz appeared to enjoy an excess of leisure, they had nothing of a -shiftless or beggarly air, and seemed as little disposed to ask favours -as to confer them. The roads leading into Spain were dotted with them, -and here they were coming and going as if on important business--the -business of the abominable Don Carlos himself. They struck me as a very -handsome race. The men are invariably clean-shaven; smooth chins seem a -positively religious observance. They wear little round maroon-coloured -caps, like those of sailor-boys, dark stuff shirts, and curious white -shoes, made of strips of rope laid together--an article of toilet which -makes them look like honorary members of base-ball clubs. They sling -their jackets cavalier-fashion, over one shoulder, hold their heads very -high, swing their arms very bravely, step out very lightly, and, when -you meet them in the country at eventide, charging down a hillside in -companies of half a dozen, make altogether a most impressive appearance. -With their smooth chins and childish caps, they may be taken, in the -distance, for a lot of very naughty little boys; for they have always a -cigarette in their teeth. - -The best thing at Biarritz is your opportunity for driving over into -Spain. Coming speedily to a consciousness of this fact, I found a charm -in sitting in a landau and rolling away to San Sebastian behind a -coachman in a high glazed hat with long streamers, a jacket of scarlet -and silver and a pair of yellow breeches and jack-boots. If it has been -the desire of one's heart and the dream of one's life to visit the land -of Cervantes, even grazing it so lightly as by a day's excursion from -Biarritz is a matter to encourage visions. Everything helping--the -admirable scenery, the charming day, the operatic coachman, the -smooth-rolling carriage--I am afraid I became more visionary than it is -decent to tell of. You move toward the magnificent undulations of the -Pyrenees, as if you were going to plunge straight into them; but in -reality you travel beneath them and beside them, pass between their -expiring spurs and the sea. It is on proceeding beyond San Sebastian -that you seriously attack them. But they are already extremely -vivid--none the less so that in this region they abound in suggestions -of the recent Carlist war. Their far-away peaks and ridges are crowned -with lonely Spanish watch-towers, and their lower slopes are dotted with -demolished dwellings. It was hereabouts that the fighting was most -constant. But the healing powers of nature are as remarkable as the -destructive powers of man, and the rich September landscape appeared -already to have forgotten the injuries of yesterday. Everything seemed -to me a small foretaste of Spain; I discovered an unreasonable amount of -local colour. I discovered it at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the last French -town, in a great brown church, filled with galleries and boxes, like a -playhouse--the altar and choir, indeed, looked very much like a -proscenium; at Bohébie, on the Bidassoa, the small yellow stream which -divides France from Spain, and which at this point offers to view the -celebrated Isle of Pheasants, a little bushy strip of earth adorned with -a decayed commemorative monument, on which, in the seventeenth century, -the affairs of Louis XIV. and the Iberian monarch were discussed in -ornamental conference; at Fuentarabia (glorious name), a mouldering -relic of Spanish stateliness; at Hendaye, at Irun, at Benteria, and -finally at San Sebastian. At all of these wayside towns the houses show -marks of Alphonsist bullets (the region was strongly Carlist); but to be -riddled and battered seems to carry out the meaning of the pompous old -escutcheons carven above the doorways, some of them covering almost half -the house. It struck me, in fact, that the narrower and shabbier was the -poor little dusky dwelling, the grander and more elaborate was this -noble advertisement. But it represented knightly prowess, and pitiless -time had taken up the challenge. I found it a luxury to ramble through -the narrow single street of Irun and Benteria, between the -strange-coloured houses, the striped awnings, the universal balconies -and the heraldic doorways. - -San Sebastian is a lively watering-place, and is set down in the -guide-books as the Biarritz or the Brighton of Spain. It has of course a -new quarter in the provincial-elegant style (fresh stucco cafés, -barber-shops, and apartments to let), looking out upon a planted -promenade and a charming bay, locked in fortified heights, with a narrow -portal to the ocean. I walked about for two or three hours and devoted -most of my attention to the old quarter, the town proper, which has a -great frowning gate upon the harbour, through which you look along a -vista of gaudy house-fronts, balconies, awnings, surmounted by a narrow -strip of sky. Here the local colour was richer, the manners more naïf. -Here too was a church with a flamboyant Jesuit façade and an interior -redolent of Spanish Catholicism. There was a life-sized effigy of the -Virgin perched upon a table beside the great altar (she appeared to have -been walking abroad in a procession), which I looked at with extreme -interest. She seemed to me a heroine, a solid Spanish person, as perfect -a reality as Don Quixote or Saint Theresa. She was dressed in an -extraordinary splendour of laces, brocades and jewels, her coiffure and -complexion were of the finest, and she evidently would answer to her -name if you should speak to her. Mustering up the stateliest title I -could think of, I addressed her as Dona Maria of the Holy Office; -whereupon she looked round the great dusky, perfumed church, to see -whether we were alone, and then she dropped her fringed eyelids and held -out her hand to be kissed. She was the sentiment of Spanish Catholicism; -gloomy, yet bedizened, emotional as a woman and mechanical as a doll. -After a moment I grew afraid of her, and went slinking away. After this -I didn't really recover my spirits until I had the satisfaction of -hearing myself addressed as "Caballero." I was hailed with this epithet -by a ragged infant, with sickly eyes and a cigarette in his lips, who -invited me to cast a copper into the sea, that he might dive for it; and -even with these limitations, the sensation seemed worth the cost of my -excursion. It appeared kinder, to my gratitude, to make the infant dive -upon the pavement. - -A few days later I went back to San Sebastian, to be present at a -bull-fight; but I suppose my right to descant upon this entertainment -should be measured less by the gratification it afforded me than by the -question whether there is room in literature for another chapter on this -subject. I incline to think there is not; the national pastime of Spain -is the best-described thing in the world. Besides, there are other -reasons for not describing it. It is extremely disgusting, and one -should not describe disgusting things--except (according to the new -school) in novels, where they have not really occurred, and are invented -on purpose. Description apart, one has taken a certain sort of pleasure -in the bull-fight, and yet how is one to state gracefully that one has -taken pleasure in a disgusting thing? It is a hard case. If you record -your pleasure, you seem to exaggerate it and to calumniate your -delicacy; and if you record nothing but your displeasure, you feel as if -you were wanting in suppleness. Thus much I can say, at any rate, that -as there had been no bull-fights in that part of the country during the -Carlist war, the native dilettanti (and every man, woman, and child of -them comes under this denomination) returned to their precious pastime -with peculiar zest. The spectacle, therefore, had an unusual splendour. -Under these circumstances it is highly effective. The weather was -beautiful; the near mountains peeped over the top of the vast open -arena, as if they too were curious; weary of disembowelled horses and -posturing _espadas_, the spectator (in the boxes) might turn away and -look through an unglazed window at the empty town and the cloud-shadowed -sea. But few of the native spectators availed themselves of this -privilege. Beside me sat a blooming matron, in a white lace mantilla, -with three very juvenile daughters; and if these ladies sometimes yawned -they never shuddered. For myself, I confess that if I sometimes -shuddered I never yawned. A long list of bulls was sacrificed, each of -whom had pretensions to originality. The _banderillos_, in their silk -stockings and embroidered satin costumes, skipped about with a great -deal of attitude; the _espada_ folded his arms within six inches of the -bull's nose and stared him out of countenance; yet I thought the bull, -in any case, a finer fellow than any of his tormentors, and I thought -his tormentors finer fellows than the spectators. In truth, we were all, -for the time, rather sorry fellows together. A bull-fight will, to a -certain extent, bear looking at, but it will not bear thinking of. There -was a more innocent effect in what I saw afterward, when we all came -away, in the late afternoon, as the shadows were at their longest: the -bright-coloured southern crowd, spreading itself over the grass, and the -women, with mantillas and fans, and the Andalusian gait, strolling up -and down before the mountains and the sea. - - - - -IX - -AN ENGLISH EASTER - -1877 - -I - - -It may be said of the English, as is said of the council of war in -Sheridan's farce of _The Critic_ by one of the spectators of the -rehearsal, that when they do agree, their unanimity is wonderful. They -differ among themselves greatly just now as regards the machinations of -Russia, the derelictions of Turkey, the merits of the Reverend Arthur -Tooth, the genius of Mr. Henry Irving, and a good many other matters; -but neither just now nor at any other time do they fail to conform to -those social observances on which respectability has set her seal -England is a country of curious anomalies, and this has much to do with -her being so interesting to foreign observers. The English individual -character is very positive, very independent, very much made up -according to its own sentiment of things, very prone to startling -eccentricities; and yet at the same time it has beyond any other this -peculiar gift of squaring itself with fashion and custom. In no other -country, I imagine, are so many people to be found doing the same thing, -in the same way, at the same time--using the same slang, wearing the -same hats and neckties, collecting the same china-plates, playing the -same game of lawn-tennis or of polo, admiring the same professional -beauty. The monotony of such a spectacle would soon become oppressive if -the foreign observer were not conscious of this latent capacity in the -performers for great freedom of action; he finds a good deal of -entertainment in wondering how they reconcile the traditional insularity -of the individual with this perpetual tribute to usage. Of course, in -all civilised societies, the tribute to usage is constantly paid; if it -is less apparent in America than elsewhere the reason is not, I think, -because individual independence is greater, but because usage is more -sparsely established. Where custom can be ascertained people certainly -follow it; but for one definite precedent in American life there are -fifty in English. I am very far from having discovered the secret; I -have not in the least learned what becomes of that explosive personal -force in the English character which is compressed and corked down by -social conformity. I look with a certain awe at some of the -manifestations of the conforming spirit, but the fermenting -idiosyncrasies beneath it are hidden from my vision. The most striking -example, to foreign eyes, of the power of custom in England is, of -course, the universal church-going. In the sight of the English people -getting up from its tea and toast of a Sunday morning and brushing its -hat, and drawing on its gloves, and taking its wife on its arm, and -making its offspring march before, and so, for decency's, -respectability's, propriety's sake, taking its way to a place of worship -appointed by the State, in which it repeats the formulas of a creed to -which it attaches no positive sense, and listens to a sermon over the -length of which it explicitly haggles and grumbles--in this exhibition -there is something very striking to a stranger, something which he -hardly knows whether to regard as a great force or as a great infirmity. -He inclines, on the whole, to pronounce the spectacle sublime, because -it gives him the feeling that whenever it may become necessary for a -people trained in these manœuvres to move all together under a common -direction, they will have it in them to do so with tremendous weight and -cohesiveness. We hear a good deal about the effect of the Prussian -military system in consolidating the German people and making them -available for a particular purpose; but I really think it not fanciful -to say that the military punctuality which characterises the English -observance of Sunday ought to be appreciated in the same fashion. A -nation which has passed through the mill will certainly have been -stamped by it. And here, as in the German military service, it is really -the whole nation. When I spoke just now of paterfamilias and his -_entourage_ I did not mean to limit the statement to him. The young -unmarried men go to church, the gay bachelors, the irresponsible members -of society. (That last epithet must be taken with a grain of allowance. -No one in England is literally irresponsible, that perhaps is the -shortest way of describing the nation. Every one is free and every one -is responsible. To say what it is people are responsible to is of course -a great extension of the question: briefly, to social expectation, to -propriety, to morality, to "position," to the classic English -conscience, which is, after all, such a powerful factor. With us there -is infinitely less responsibility; but there is also, I think, less -freedom.) - -The way in which the example of the more luxurious classes imposes -itself upon the less luxurious may of course be noticed in smaller -matters than church-going; in a great many matters which it may seem -trivial to mention. If one is bent upon observation, nothing, however, -is trivial. So I may cite the practice of banishing the servants from -the room at breakfast. It is the fashion, and accordingly, through the -length and breadth of England, every one who has the slightest -pretension to standing high enough to feel the way the social breeze is -blowing conforms to it. It is awkward, unnatural, troublesome for those -at table, it involves a vast amount of leaning and stretching, of -waiting and perambulating, and it has just that vice against which, in -English history, all great movements have been made--it is arbitrary. -But it flourishes for all that, and all genteel people, looking into -each other's eyes with the desperation of gentility, agree to endure it -for gentility's sake. My instance may seem feeble, and I speak honestly -when I say I might give others, forming part of an immense body of -prescriptive usage, to which a society possessing in the largest manner, -both by temperament and education, the sense of the "inalienable" rights -and comforts of the individual, contrives to accommodate itself. I do -not mean to say that usage in England is always uncomfortable and -arbitrary. On the contrary, few strangers can be unfamiliar with that -sensation (a most agreeable one) which consists in perceiving in the -rigidity of a tradition which has struck one at first as mechanical, a -reason existing in the historic "good sense" of the English race. The -sensation is frequent, though in saying so I do not mean to imply that -even superficially the presumption is against the usages of English -society. It is not, for instance, necessarily against the custom of -which I had it more especially in mind to speak in writing these lines. -The stranger in London is forewarned that at Easter all the world goes -out of town, and that if he have no mind to be left as lonely as Marius -on the ruins of Carthage, he, too, had better make arrangements for a -temporary absence. It must be admitted that there is a sort of -unexpectedness in this prompt re-emigration of a body of people who, but -a week before, were apparently devoting much energy to settling down for -the season. Half of them have but lately come back from the country, -where they have been spending the winter, and they have just had time, -it may be supposed, to collect the scattered threads of town-life. -Presently, however, the threads are dropped and society is dispersed, as -if it had taken a false start. It departs as Holy Week draws to a close, -and remains absent for the following ten days. Where it goes is its own -affair; a good deal of it goes to Paris. Spending last winter in that -city, I remember how, when I woke up on Easter Monday and looked out of -my window, I found the street covered, overnight, with a sort of -snow-fall of disembarked Britons. They made, for other people, an -uncomfortable week of it. One's customary table at the restaurant, one's -habitual stall at the Théâtre Français, one's usual fiacre on the -cab-stand, were very apt to have suffered pre-emption. I believe that -the pilgrimage to Paris was this year of the usual proportions; and you -may be sure that people who did not cross the Channel were not without -invitations to quiet old places in the country, where the pale, fresh -primroses were beginning to light up the dark turf and the purple bloom -of the bare tree-masses to be freckled here and there with verdure. In -England country-life is the obverse of the medal, town-life the reverse, -and when an occasion comes for quitting London there are few members of -what the French call the "easy class" who have not a collection of dull, -moist, verdant resorts to choose from. Dull I call them, and I fancy not -without reason, though at the moment I speak of, their dulness must have -been mitigated by the unintermittent presence of the keenest and -liveliest of east winds. Even in mellow English country homes -Easter-tide is a period of rawness and atmospheric acridity--the moment -at which the frank hostility of winter, which has at last to give up the -game, turns to peevishness and spite. This is what makes it arbitrary, -as I said just now, for "easy" people to go forth to the wind-swept -lawns and the shivering parks. But nothing is more striking to an -American than the frequency of English holidays and the large way in -which occasions for "a little change" are made use of. All this speaks -to Americans of three things which they are accustomed to see allotted -in scantier measure. The English have more time than we, they have more -money, and they have a much higher relish for active leisure. Leisure, -fortune, and the love of sport--these things are implied in English -society at every turn. It was a very small number of weeks before Easter -that Parliament met, and yet a ten days' recess was already, from the -luxurious Parliamentary point of view, a necessity. A short time hence -we shall be having the Whitsuntide holidays, which I am told are even -more of a season of revelry than Easter, and from this point to -midsummer, when everything stops, it is an easy journey. The men of -business and the professional men partake in equal measure of these -agreeable diversions, and I was interested in hearing a lady whose -husband was an active member of the bar say that, though he was leaving -town with her for ten days, and though Easter was a very nice "little -break," they really amused themselves more during the later festival, -which would come on toward the end of May. I thought this highly -probable, and admired so dramatic an interfusion of work and play. If my -phrase has a slightly ironical sound, this is purely accidental. A large -appetite for holidays, the ability not only to take them but to know -what to do with them when taken, is the sign of a robust people, and -judged by this measure we Americans are rather incompetent. Such -holidays as we take are taken very often in Europe, where it is -sometimes noticeable that our privilege is rather heavy on our hands. -Acknowledgement made of English industry, however (our own stands in no -need of compliments), it must be added that for those same easy classes -I just spoke of things are very easy indeed. The number of persons -obtainable for purely social purposes at all times and seasons is -infinitely greater than among ourselves; and the ingenuity of the -arrangements permanently going forward to disembarrass them of their -superfluous leisure is as yet in America an undeveloped branch of -civilisation. The young men who are preparing for the stem realities of -life among the gray-green cloisters of Oxford are obliged to keep their -terms but half the year; and the rosy little cricketers of Eton and -Harrow are let loose upon the parental home for an embarrassing number -of months. Happily the parental home is apt to be an affair of gardens, -lawns, and parks. - - - - -II - - -Passion Week, in London, is distinctly an ascetic period; there is -really an approach to sackcloth and ashes. Private dissipation is -suspended; most of the theatres and music-halls are closed; the huge -dusky city seems to take on a still sadder colouring and a sort of hush -steals over its mighty uproar. At such a time, for a stranger, London is -not cheerful. Arriving there, during the past winter, about -Christmas-time, I encountered three British Sundays in a row--a -spectacle to strike terror into the stoutest heart. A Sunday and a -"bank-holiday," if I remember aright, had joined hands with a -Christmas-day, and produced the portentous phenomenon to which I allude. -I betrayed, I suppose, some apprehension of its oppressive character, -for I remember being told in a consolatory way that I needn't fear; it -would not come round again for another year. This information was given -me on the occasion of that surprising interruption of one's relations -with the laundress which is apparently characteristic of the period. I -was told that all the washerwomen were intoxicated, and that, as it -would take them some time to revive, I must not count upon a relay of -"fresh things." I shall not forget the impression made upon me by this -statement; I had just come from Paris and it almost sent me spinning -back. One of the incidental _agréments_ of life in the latter city had -been the knock at my door on Saturday evenings of a charming young woman -with a large basket covered with a snowy napkin on her arm, and on her -head a frilled and fluted muslin cap, which was an irresistible -advertisement of her art. To say that my admirable _blanchisseuse_ was -not in liquor is altogether too gross a compliment; but I was always -grateful to her for her russet cheek, her frank, expressive eye, her -talkative smile, for the way her charming cap was poised upon her crisp, -dense hair, and her well-made dress was fitted to her well-made waist. I -talked with her; I _could_ talk with her; and as she talked she moved -about and laid out her linen with a delightful modest ease. Then her -light step carried her off again, talking, to the door, and with a -brighter smile and an "Adieu, monsieur!" she closed it behind her, -leaving one to think how stupid is prejudice and how poetic a creature a -washerwoman may be. London, in December, was livid with sleet and fog, -and against this dismal background was offered me the vision of a -horrible old woman in a smoky bonnet, lying prone in a puddle of whisky! -She seemed to assume a kind of symbolic significance, and she almost -frightened me away. - -I mention this trifle, which is doubtless not creditable to my -fortitude, because I found that the information given me was not -strictly accurate, and that at the end of three months I had another -array of London Sundays to face. On this occasion, however, nothing -occurred to suggest again the dreadful image I have just sketched, -though I devoted a good deal of time to observing the manners of the -lower orders. From Good Friday to Easter Monday, inclusive, they were -very much _en évidence_, and it was an excellent occasion for getting -an impression of the British populace. Gentility had retired to the -background, and in the West End all the blinds were lowered; the streets -were void of carriages, and well-dressed pedestrians were rare; but the -"masses" were all abroad and making the most of their holiday, and I -strolled about and watched them at their gambols. The heavens were most -unfavourable, but in an English "outing" there is always a margin left -for a drenching, and throughout the vast smoky city, beneath the -shifting gloom of the sky, the grimy crowds trooped about with a kind of -weatherproof stolidity. The parks were full of them, the railway -stations overflowed, and the Thames embankment was covered. The -"masses," I think, are usually an entertaining spectacle, even when -observed through the distorting medium of London bad weather. There are -indeed few things in their way more impressive than a dusky London -holiday; it suggests a variety of reflections. Even looked at -superficially, the British capital is one of the most interesting of -cities, and it is perhaps on such occasions as this that I have most -felt its interest. London is ugly, dusky, dreary, more destitute than -any European city of graceful and decorative incident; and though on -festal days, like those I speak of, the populace is massed in large -numbers at certain points, many of the streets are empty enough of human -life to enable you to perceive their intrinsic want of charm. A -Christmas-day or a Good Friday uncovers the ugliness of London. As you -walk along the streets, having no fellow-pedestrians to look at, you -look up at the brown brick house-walls, corroded with soot and fog, -pierced with their straight stiff window-slits, and finished, by way of -a cornice, with a little black line resembling a slice of curbstone. -There is not an accessory, not a touch of architectural fancy, not the -narrowest concession to beauty. If I were a foreigner it would make me -rabid; being an Anglo-Saxon I find in it what Thackeray found in Baker -Street--a delightful proof of English domestic virtue, of the sanctity -of the British home. There are miles and miles of these edifying -monuments, and it would seem that a city made up of them should have no -claim to that larger effectiveness of which I just now spoke. London, -however, is not made up of them; there are architectural combinations of -a statelier kind, and the impression moreover does not rest on details. -London is pictorial in spite of details--from its dark-green, misty -parks, the way the light comes down leaking and filtering from its -cloud-ceiling, and the softness and richness of tone which objects put -on in such an atmosphere as soon as they begin to recede. Nowhere is -there such a play of light and shade, such a struggle of sun and smoke, -such aërial gradations and confusions. To eyes addicted to such -contemplations this is a constant diversion, and yet this is only part -of it. What completes the effect of the place is its appeal to the -feelings, made in so many ways, but made above all by agglomerated -immensity. At any given point London looks huge; even in narrow corners -you have a sense of its hugeness, and petty places acquire a certain -interest from their being parts of so mighty a whole. Nowhere else is so -much human life gathered together, and nowhere does it press upon you -with so many suggestions. These are not all of an exhilarating kind; far -from it. But they are of every possible kind, and that is the interest -of London. Those that were most forcible during the showery Easter -season were certain of the more perplexing and depressing ones; but even -with these was mingled a brighter strain. - -I walked down to Westminster Abbey on Good Friday afternoon--walked from -Piccadilly across the Green Park and through that of St. James. The -parks were densely filled with the populace--the elder people shuffling -about the walks and the poor little smutty-faced children sprawling over -the dark damp turf. When I reached the Abbey I found a dense group of -people about the entrance, but I squeezed my way through them and -succeeded in reaching the threshold. Beyond this it was impossible to -advance, and I may add that it was not desirable. I put my nose into the -church and promptly withdrew it. The crowd was terribly compact, and -beneath the gothic arches the odour was not that of incense. I slowly -eliminated myself, with that very modified sense of disappointment that -one feels in London at being crowded out of a place. This is a frequent -disappointment, for you very soon find out that there are, selfishly -speaking, too many people. Human life is cheap; your fellow-mortals are -too numerous. Wherever you go you make the observation. Go to the -theatre, to a concert, to an exhibition, to a reception; you always find -that, before you arrive, there are people enough in the field. You are a -tight fit in your place, wherever you find it; you have too many -companions and competitors. You feel yourself at times in danger of -thinking meanly of the human personality; numerosity, as it were, -swallows up quality, and perpetual association is rather irritating. -This is the reason why the perfection of luxury in England is to own a -"park"--an artificial solitude. To get one's self into the middle of a -few hundred acres of oak-studded turf and to keep off the crowd by the -breadth, at least, of this grassy cincture, is to enjoy a comfort which -circumstances make peculiarly precious. But I walked back through the -profane pleasure-grounds of London, in the midst of "superfluous herds," -and I found that entertainment which I never fail to derive from a great -English assemblage. The English are, to my eyes, so much the handsomest -people in Europe that it takes some effort of the imagination to believe -that the fact requires proof. I never see a large number of them without -feeling this impression confirmed; though I hasten to add that I have -sometimes felt it to be rather shaken in the presence of a limited -group. I suspect that a great English crowd would yield a larger -percentage of handsome faces and figures than any other. With regard to -the upper class I suppose this is generally granted; but I should extend -it to the whole people. Certainly, if the English populace strike the -observer by their good looks, they must be very good-looking indeed. -They are as ill-dressed as their betters are well-dressed, and their -garments have that sooty-looking surface which has nothing in common -with some of the more romantic forms of poverty. It is the hard prose of -misery--an ugly and hopeless imitation of respectable attire. This is -especially noticeable in the battered and bedraggled bonnets of the -women, which look as if their husbands had stamped on them in hobnailed -boots, as a hint of what is in store for their wearers. Then it is not -too much to say that two-thirds of the London faces, among the "masses," -bear in some degree or other the traces of alcoholic action. The -proportion of flushed, empurpled, eruptive countenances is very -striking; and the ugliness of the sight is not diminished by the fact -that many of the faces thus disfigured were evidently meant to please. A -very large allowance is to be made, too, for the people who bear the -distinctive stamp of that physical and mental degradation which comes -from the slums and purlieus of this dusky Babylon--the pallid, stunted, -misbegotten, and in every way miserable figures. These people swarm in -every London crowd, and I know of none in any other place that suggest -an equal degree of misery. But when these abatements are made, the -observer is still liable to be struck by the frequency of well-moulded -faces and bodies well put together; of strong, straight brows and -handsome mouths and noses, of rounded, finished chins and well-poised -heads, of admirable complexions and well-disposed limbs. - -The capacity of an Englishwoman for being handsome strikes me as -absolutely unlimited, and even if (I repeat) it is in the luxurious -class that it is most freely exercised, yet among the daughters of the -people one sees a great many fine points. Among the men fine points are -strikingly numerous--especially among the younger ones. Here the same -distinction is to be made--the gentlemen are certainly handsomer than -the vulgarians. But taking one young Englishman with another, they are -physically very well turned out. Their features are finished, composed, -as it were, more harmoniously than those of many of their nearer and -remoter neighbours, and their figures are apt to be both powerful and -compact. They present to view very much fewer accidental noses and -inexpressive mouths, fewer sloping shoulders and ill-planted heads of -hair, than their American kinsmen. Speaking always from the sidewalk, it -may be said that as the spring increases in London and the symptoms of -the season multiply, the beautiful young men who adorn the West End -pavements, and who advance before you in couples, arm-in-arm, -fair-haired, gray-eyed, athletic, slow-strolling, ambrosial, are among -the most brilliant features of the brilliant period. I have, it at heart -to add that if the English are handsomer than ourselves, they are also -very much uglier. Indeed I think that all the European peoples are -uglier than the American; we are far from producing those magnificent -types of facial eccentricity which flourish among older civilisations. -American ugliness is on the side of physical poverty and meanness; -English on that of redundancy and monstrosity. In America there are few -grotesques; in England there are many--and some of them have a high -pictorial value. - - - - -III - - -The element of the grotesque was very noticeable to me in the most -striking collection of the shabbier English types that I had seen since -I came to London. The occasion of my seeing them was the funeral of Mr. -George Odger, which befell some four or five weeks before the Easter -period. Mr. George Odger, it will be remembered, was an English radical -agitator of humble origin, who had distinguished himself by a perverse -desire to get into Parliament. He exercised, I believe, the useful -profession of shoemaker, and he knocked in vain at the door that opens -but to the refined. But he was a useful and honourable man, and his own -people gave him an honourable burial I emerged accidentally into -Piccadilly at the moment they were so engaged, and the spectacle was one -I should have been sorry to miss. The crowd was enormous, but I managed -to squeeze through it and to get into a hansom cab that was drawn up -beside the pavement, and here I looked on as from a box at the play. -Though it was a funeral that was going on I will not call it a tragedy; -but it was a very serious comedy. The day happened to be -magnificent--the finest of the year. The funeral had been taken in hand -by the classes who are socially unrepresented in Parliament, and it had -the character of a great popular "manifestation" The hearse was followed -by very few carriages, but the _cortège_, of pedestrians stretched away -in the sunshine, up and down the classic gentility of Piccadilly, on a -scale that was highly impressive. Here and there the line was broken by -a small brass band--apparently one of those bands of itinerant Germans -that play for coppers beneath lodging-house windows; but for the rest it -was compactly made up of what the newspapers call the dregs of the -population. It was the London rabble, the metropolitan mob, men and -women, boys and girls, the decent poor and the indecent, who had -scrambled into the ranks as they gathered them up on their passage, and -were making a sort of solemn "lark" of it. Very solemn it all -was--perfectly proper and undemonstrative. They shuffled along in an -interminable line, and as I looked at them out of the front of my hansom -I seemed to be having a sort of panoramic view of the under side, the -wrong side, of the London world. The procession was filled with figures -which seemed never to have "shown out," as the English say, before; of -strange, pale, mouldy paupers who blinked and stumbled in the Piccadilly -sunshine. I have no space to describe them more minutely, but I found -the whole affair rather suggestive. My impression rose not simply from -the radical, or, as I may say for the sake of colour, the revolutionary, -emanation of this dingy concourse, lighted up by the ironical sky; but -from the same causes that I had observed a short time before, on the day -the Queen went to open Parliament, when in Trafalgar Square, looking -straight down into Westminster and over the royal procession, were -gathered a group of banners and festoons inscribed in big staring -letters with mottoes and sentiments which a sensitive police department -might easily have found seditious. They were mostly in allusion to the -Tichborne claimant, whose release from his dungeon they peremptorily -demanded, and whose cruel fate was taken as a pretext for several -sweeping reflections on the social arrangements of the time and country. -These impertinent standards were allowed to sun themselves as freely as -if they had been the manifestoes of the Irish Giant or the Oriental -Dwarf at a fair. I had lately come from Paris, where the -police-department is more sensitive, and where revolutionary placards -are not observed to adorn the base of the obelisk in the Place de la -Concorde. I was, therefore, the more struck on both of the occasions I -speak of with the admirable English practice of letting people -alone--with the good sense and the good humour and even the good taste -of it. It was this that I found impressive, as I watched the -"manifestation" of Mr. Odger's underfed partisans--the fact that the -mighty mob could march along and do its errand, while the excellent -quiet policemen stood by simply to see that the channel was kept clear -and comfortable. - -When Easter Monday came it was obvious that every one (save Mr. Odger's -friends--three or four million or so) had gone out of town. There was -hardly a pair of shutters in the West End that was not closed; there was -not a bell that it was any use to pull. The weather was detestable, the -rain incessant, and the fact that all one's friends were away gave one -plenty of leisure to reflect that the country must be the reverse of -enlivening. But all one's friends had gone thither (this is the -unanimity I began by talking about), and to restrict as much as possible -the proportions of that game of hide-and-seek of which, at the best, so -much of London social life consists, it seemed wise to bring within the -limits of the dull season any such excursion as one might have projected -in commemoration of the first days of spring. After due cogitation I -paid a little visit to Canterbury and Dover, taking Rochester by the -way, and it was of this momentous journey that I proposed, in beginning -these remarks, to give an account. But I have dallied so much by the way -that I have come almost to my rope's end without reaching my first -stage. I should have begun, artistically, by relating that I put myself -in the humour for remote adventure by going down the Thames on a penny -steamboat to--the Tower. This was on the Saturday before Easter, and the -City was as silent as the grave. The Tower was a memory of my childhood, -and having a theory that from such memories the dust of the ages had -better not be shaken, I had not retraced my steps to its venerable -walls. But the Tower is very good--much less cockneyfied than I supposed -it would seem to my maturer vision; very gray and historical, with the -look that vivifies--rather lividly indeed--the past I could not get into -it, as it had been closed for Passion Week, but I was consequently -relieved from the obligation to march about with a dozen fellow-starers -in the train of a didactic beef-eater, and I strolled at will through -the courts and the garden, sharing them only with the lounging soldiers -of the garrison, who seemed to connect the place with important events. - - - - -IV - - -At Rochester I stopped for the sake of its castle, which I espied from -the railway-train, perched on a grassy bank beside the widening Medway. -There were other reasons as well; the place has a small cathedral, and -one has read about it in Dickens, whose house of Gadshill was a couple -of miles from the town. All this Kentish country, between London and -Dover, figures indeed repeatedly in Dickens; he is to a certain extent, -for our own time, the spirit of the land. I found this to be quite the -case at Rochester. I had occasion to go into a little shop kept by a -talkative old woman who had a photograph of Gadshill lying on her -counter. This led to my asking her whether the illustrious master of the -house often made his appearance in the town "Oh, bless you, sir," she -said, "we every one of us knew him to speak to. He was in this very shop -on the Tuesday with a party of foreigners--as he was dead in his bed on -the Friday." (I should remark that I probably do not repeat the days of -the week as she gave them.) "He 'ad on his black velvet suit, and it -always made him look so 'andsome. I said to my 'usband, 'I _do_ think -Charles Dickens looks so nice in that black velvet suit.' But he said he -couldn't see as he looked any way particular. He was in this very shop -on the Tuesday, with a party of foreigners." Rochester consists of -little more than one long street, stretching away from the castle and -the river toward neighbouring Chatham, and edged with low brick houses, -of intensely provincial aspect, most of which have some small, dull -quaintness of gable or window. Nearly opposite to the shop of the old -lady with the dissentient husband is a little dwelling with an inscribed -slab set into its face, which must often have provoked a smile in the -great master of laughter. The slab relates that in the year 1579 Richard -Watts here established a charity which should furnish "six poor -travellers, not rogues or proctors," one night's lodging and -entertainment gratis, and fourpence in the morning to go on their way -withal, and that in memory of his "munificence" the stone has lately -been renewed. The inn at Rochester was poor, and I felt strongly tempted -to knock at the door of Mr. Watts's asylum, under plea of being neither -a rogue nor a proctor. The poor traveller who avails himself of the -testamentary fourpence may easily resume his journey as far as Chatham -without breaking his treasure. Is not this the place where little Davy -Copperfield slept under a cannon on his journey from London to Dover to -join his aunt, Miss Trotwood? The two towns are really but one, which -forms an interminable crooked thoroughfare, lighted up in the dusk, as I -measured it up and down, with the red coats of the vespertinal soldier -quartered at the various barracks of Chatham. - -The cathedral of Rochester is small and plain, hidden away in rather an -awkward corner, without a verdant close to set it off. It is dwarfed and -effaced by the great square Norman keep of the adjacent castle. But -within it is very charming, especially beyond the detestable wall, the -vice of almost all the English cathedrals, which shuts in the choir and -breaks the sacred perspective of the aisle. Here, as at Canterbury, you -ascend a high range of steps, to pass through the small door in this -wall. When I speak slightingly, by the way, of the outside of Rochester -cathedral, I intend my faint praise in a relative sense. If we were so -happy as to possess this inferior edifice in America, we should go -barefoot to see it; but here it stands in the great shadow of -Canterbury, and that makes it humble. I remember, however, an old priory -gateway which leads you to the church, out of the main street; I -remember a kind of haunted-looking deanery, if that be the technical -name, at the base of the eastern walls; I remember a fluted tower that -took the afternoon light and let the rooks and the swallows come -circling and clamouring around it. Better than these things, however, I -remember the ivy-draped mass of the castle--a very noble and imposing -ruin. The old walled precinct has been converted into a little public -garden, with flowers and benches, and a pavilion for a band, and the -place was not empty, as such places in England never are. The result is -agreeable, but I believe the process was barbarous, involving the -destruction and dispersion of many interesting portions of the ruin. I -sat there for a long time, however, looking in the fading light at what -was left. This rugged pile of Norman masonry will be left when a great -many solid things have departed; it is a sort of satire on destruction -or decay. Its walls are fantastically thick; their great time-bleached -expanses and all their rounded roughnesses, their strange mixture of -softness and grimness, have an undefinable fascination for the eye. -English ruins always come out peculiarly when the day begins to fail. -Weather-bleached, as I say they are, they turn even paler in the -twilight and grow consciously solemn and spectral I have seen many a -mouldering castle, but I remember in no single mass of ruin more of the -helpless, amputated look. - -It is not the absence of a close that damages Canterbury; the cathedral -stands amid grass and trees, with a cultivated margin all round it, and -is placed in such a way that, as you pass out from under the gatehouse, -you appreciate immediately its grand feature--its extraordinary and -magnificent length. None of the English cathedrals seems more -beautifully isolated, more shut up to itself. It is a long walk, beneath -the walls, from the gateway of the close to the farther end of the last -chapel. Of all that there is to observe in this upward-gazing stroll I -can give no detailed account; I can speak only of the general -impression. This is altogether delightful. None of the rivals of -Canterbury has a more complicated and elaborate architecture, a more -perplexing intermixture of periods, a more charming jumble of Norman -arches and English points and perpendiculars. What makes the side-view -superb, moreover, is the double transepts, which produce a fine -agglomeration of gables and buttresses. It is as if two great churches -had joined forces toward the middle--one giving its nave and the other -its choir, and each keeping its own great cross-aisles. Astride of the -roof, between them, sits a huge gothic tower, which is one of the latest -portions of the building, though it looks like one of the earliest, so -crumbled and blunted and suffused is it by time and weather, like the -rest of the structure it has a magnificent colour--a sort of rich dull -yellow, a something that is neither brown nor gray. This is particularly -appreciable from the cloisters on the farther side of the church--the -side, I mean, away from the town and the open garden-sweep I spoke of; -the side that looks toward a damp old clerical house, lurking behind a -brown archway, through which you see young ladies in Gainsborough hats -playing something on a patch of velvet turf; the side, in short, that is -somehow intermingled with a green quadrangle--a quadrangle serving as a -playground to a King's School, and adorned externally with a very -precious and picturesque old fragment of Norman staircase. This -cloisters is not "kept up;" is very dusky and mouldy and dilapidated, -and of course very sketchable. The old black arches and capitals are -various and handsome, and in the centre are tumbled together a group of -crooked grave-stones, themselves almost buried in the deep soft grass. -Out of the cloisters opens the chapter-house, which is not kept up -either, but which is none the less a magnificent structure; a noble, -lofty hall, with a beautiful wooden roof, simply arched like that of a -tunnel, without columns or brackets. The place is now given up to dust -and echoes; but it looks more like a banqueting-hall than a council-room -of priests, and as you sit on the old wooden bench, which, raised on two -or three steps, runs round the base of the four walls, you may gaze up -and make out the faint ghostly traces of decorative paint and gold upon -the brown ceiling. A little patch of this has been restored, "to give an -idea." From one of the angles of the cloisters you are recommended by -the verger to take a view of the great tower, which indeed detaches -itself with tremendous effect. You see it base itself upon the roof as -broadly as if it were striking roots in earth, and then pile itself away -to a height which seems to make the very swallows dizzy, as they drop -from the topmost shelf. Within the cathedral you hear a great deal, of -course, about poor Thomas A'Becket, and the great sensation of the place -is to stand on the particular spot where he was murdered and look down -at a small fragmentary slab which the verger points out to you as a bit -of the pavement that caught the blood-drops of the struggle. It was late -in the afternoon when I first entered the church; there had been a -service in the choir, but that was well over, and I had the place to -myself. The verger, who had some pushing-about of benches to attend to, -turned me into the locked gates and left me to wander through the -side-aisles of the choir and into the great chapel beyond it. I say I -had the place to myself; but it would be more decent to affirm that I -shared it, in particular, with another gentleman. This personage was -stretched upon a couch of stone, beneath a quaint old canopy of wood; -his hands were crossed upon his breast, and his pointed toes rested upon -a little griffin or leopard. He was a very handsome fellow and the image -of a gallant knight His name was Edward Plantagenet, and his sobriquet -was the Black Prince. "_De la mort ne pensai-je mye_," he says in the -beautiful inscription embossed upon the bronze base of his image; and I -too, as I stood there, lost the sense of death in a momentary impression -of personal nearness to him. One had been farther off, after all, from -other famous knights. In this same chapel for many a year stood the -shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, one of the richest and most potent -in Christendom. The pavement which lay before it has kept its place, but -Henry VIII. swept away everything else in his famous short cut to -reform. Becket was originally buried in the crypt of the church; his -ashes lay there for fifty years, and it was only little by little that -his martyrdom was, as the French say, "exploited." Then he was -transplanted into the Lady Chapel; every grain of his dust became a -priceless relic, and the pavement was hollowed by the knees of pilgrims. -It was on this errand of course that Chaucer's story-telling cavalcade -came to Canterbury. I made my way down into the crypt, which is a -magnificent maze of low, dark arches and pillars, and groped about till -I found the place where the frightened monks had first shuffled the -inanimate victim of Moreville and Fitzurse out of the reach of further -desecration. While I stood there a violent thunderstorm broke over the -cathedral; great rumbling gusts and rain-drifts came sweeping through -the open sides of the crypt, and, mingling with the darkness which -seemed to deepen and flash in corners, and with the potent mouldy smell, -made me feel as if I had descended into the very bowels of history. I -emerged again, but the rain had settled down and spoiled the evening, -and I splashed back to my inn and sat in an uncomfortable chair by the -coffee-room fire, reading Dean Stanley's agreeable _Memorials of -Canterbury_, and wondering over the musty appointments and meagre -resources of English hostels. This establishment had entitled itself (in -compliment to the Black Prince, I suppose) the "Fleur-de-lis" The name -was very pretty (I had been foolish enough to let it attract me to the -inn), but the lily was sadly deflowered. - - - - -X - -LONDON AT MIDSUMMER - -1877 - - -I believe it is supposed to require a good deal of courage to confess -that one has spent the month of August in London; and I will therefore, -taking the bull by the horns, plead guilty at the very outset to this -dishonourable weakness. I might attempt some ingenious extenuation of -it. I might say that my remaining in town had been the most unexpected -necessity or the merest inadvertence; I might pretend I liked it--that I -had done it, in fact, for the love of the thing; I might claim that you -don't really know the charms of London until on one of the dog-days you -have imprinted your boot-sole in the slumbering dust of Belgravia, or, -gazing along the empty vista of the Drive, in Hyde Park, have beheld, -for almost the first time in England, a landscape without figures. But -little would remain of these specious apologies save the naked fact that -I had distinctly failed to retire from the metropolis--either on the -first of August with the ladies and children, or on the thirteenth with -the members of Parliament, or on the twelfth when the grouse-shooting -began. (I am not sure that I have got my dates right to a day, but these -were about the proper opportunities.) I have, in fact, survived the -departure of everything genteel, and the three millions of persons who -remained behind with me have been witnesses of my shame. - -I cannot pretend, on the other hand, that, having lingered in town, I -have found it a very odious or painful experience. Being a stranger, I -have not felt it necessary to incarcerate myself during the day and -steal abroad only under cover of the darkness--a line of conduct imposed -by public opinion, if I am to trust the social criticism of the weekly -papers (which I am far from doing), upon the native residents who allow -themselves to be overtaken by the unfashionable season. I have indeed -always had a theory that few things are pleasanter than during the hot -weather to have a great city, and a large house within it, quite to -one's self. - -These majestic conditions have not been combined in my own metropolitan -sojourn, and I have received an impression that in London it would be -rather difficult for a person not having the command of a good deal of -powerful machinery to find them united. English summer weather is rarely -hot enough to make it necessary to darken one's house and disrobe. The -present year has indeed in this respect been "exceptional," as any year -is, for that matter, that one spends anywhere. But the manners of the -people are, to American eyes, a sufficient indication that at the best -(or the worst) even the highest flights of the thermometer in the -British Islands betray a broken wing. People live with closed windows in -August, very much as they do in January, and there is to the eye no -appreciable difference in the character of their apparel. A "bath" in -England, for the most part all the year round, means a little portable -tin tub and a sponge. Peaches and pears, grapes and melons, are not a -more obvious ornament of the market at midsummer than at Christmas. This -matter of peaches and melons, by the way, offers one of the best -examples of that fact to which a foreign commentator on English manners -finds himself constantly recurring, and to which he grows at last almost -ashamed of alluding--the fact that the beauty and luxury of the -country--that elaborate system known and revered all over the world as -"English comfort"--is a limited and restricted, an essentially private, -affair. I am not one of those irreverent strangers who talk of English -fruit as a rather audacious _plaisanterie_, though I could see very well -what was meant a short time since by an anecdote related to me in a tone -of contemptuous generalisation by a couple of my fellow-countrywomen. -They had arrived in London in the dog-days, and, lunching at their -hotel, had asked to be served with some fruit. The hotel was of the -stateliest pattern, and they were waited upon by a functionary whose -grandeur was proportionate. This gentleman bowed and retired, and, after -a long delay reappearing, placed before them, with an inimitable -gesture, a dish of gooseberries and currants. It appeared upon -investigation that these acrid vegetables were the only things of -succulence that the establishment could undertake to supply; and it -seemed to increase the irony of the situation that the establishment was -as near as possible to Buckingham Palace. I say that the heroines of my -anecdote seemed disposed to generalise: this was sufficiently the case, -I mean, to give me a pretext for assuring them that on a thousand -charming estates the most beautiful peaches and melons were at that -moment ripening under glass. My auditors tossed their heads, of course, -at the beautiful estates and the glass; and indeed at their ascetic -hostelry close to Buckingham Palace such a piece of knowledge was but -scantily consoling. - -It is to a more public fund of entertainment that the desultory stranger -in any country chiefly appeals, especially in summer weather; and as I -have implied that there is little encouragement in England to such an -appeal, it may appear remarkable that I should not have found London, at -this season, at least as uncongenial as orthodoxy pronounces it. But -one's liking for London--a stranger's liking at least--is at the best an -anomalous and illogical sentiment, of which he may feel it hardly less -difficult to give a categorical account at one time than at another. I -am far from meaning by this that there are not in this mighty metropolis -a thousand sources of interest, entertainment, and delight: what I mean -is, that for one reason and another, with all its social resources, the -place lies heavy on the foreign consciousness. It seems grim and dusky, -fierce and unmerciful. And yet the foreign consciousness accepts it at -last with an active satisfaction, and finds something warm and -comfortable, something that if removed would be greatly missed, in its -tremendous pressure. It must be admitted, however, that, granting that -every one is out of town, your choice of pastimes is not embarrassing. -If it has been your fortune to spend a certain amount of time in foreign -cities, London will seem to you but slenderly provided with innocent -diversions. This, indeed, brings us back simply to that question of the -absence of a "public fund" of amusement to which reference was just now -made. You must give up the idea of going to sit somewhere in the open -air, to eat an ice and listen to a band of music. You will find neither -the seat, the ice, nor the band; but, on the other hand, faithful to -your profession of observant foreigner, you may supply the place of -these delights by a little private meditation upon the deep-lying causes -of the English indifference to them. In such reflections nothing is -idle--every grain of testimony counts; and one need therefore not be -accused of jumping too suddenly from small things to great if one traces -a connection between the absence of ices and music and the aristocratic -constitution of English society. This aristocratic constitution of -English society is the great and ever-present fact to the mind of a -stranger: there is hardly a detail of English life that does not appear -in some degree to point to it. It is really only in a country in which a -good deal of democratic feeling prevails that people of "refinement," as -we say in America, will be willing to sit at little round tables, on a -pavement or a gravel-walk, at the door of a café. The upper classes are -too refined, and the lower classes are too miserable. One must hasten to -add too, in justice, that the upper classes are, as a general thing, -quite too well furnished with entertainments of their own; they have -those special resources to which I alluded a moment since. They are -people of fortune, and are naturally independent of communistic -pleasures. If you can sit on a terrace in a high-walled garden and have -your _café noir_ handed to you in Pompadour cups by servants in powder -and plush, you have hardly a decent pretext for going to a public-house. -In France and Italy, in Germany and Spain, the count and countess will -sally forth and encamp for the evening, under a row of coloured lamps, -upon the paving-stones, but it is ten to one that the count and countess -live on a single floor, up several pair of stairs. They are, however, I -think, not appreciably affected by considerations which operate potently -in England. An Englishman who should propose to sit down at a café-door -would find himself remembering that he is exposing himself to the danger -of meeting his social inferiors. The danger is great, because his social -inferiors are so numerous; and I suspect that if we could look straight -into the English consciousness we should be interested to find how -serious a danger it appears, and how good--given the texture of English -life--are some of his reasons for wishing not to expose himself. - -The consideration of these reasons, however, would lead us very far from -the potential little tables for ices in--where shall I say?--in Oxford -Street; but, after all, there is no reason why our imagination should -hover about these articles of furniture. I am afraid they would not -strike us as happily situated. In such matters everything hangs -together, and I am certain that the customs of the Boulevard des -Italiens and the Piazza Colonna would not harmonise with the scenery of -the great London thoroughfare. A gin-palace right and left and a -detachment of the London rabble in an admiring semicircle--these, I -confess, strike me as some of the more obvious features of the affair. -Yet at the season of which I write, one's social studies must at the -least be studies of low life, for wherever one may go for a stroll or to -spend the summer afternoon, the unfashionable side of things is -uppermost. There is no one in the parks save the rough characters who -are lying on their faces in the sheep-polluted grass. These people are -always tolerably numerous in the Green Park, through which I frequently -pass, and I never fail to drop a wondering glance upon them. But your -wonder will go far if it begins to bestir itself on behalf of the -recumbent British tramp. You perceive among them some rich -possibilities. Their velveteen legs and their colossal high-lows, their -purple necks and ear-tips, their knotted sticks and little greasy hats, -make them look like stage-villains in a realistic melodrama. I may do -them great injustice, but I always assume that they have had a taste of -penal servitude--that they have paid the penalty of stamping on some -weaker human head with those huge square heels that are turned up to the -summer sky. But, actually, they are innocent enough, for they are -sleeping as peacefully as the most accomplished philanthropist, and it -is their look of having walked over half England, and of being -confoundedly hungry and thirsty, that constitutes their romantic -attractiveness. These six square feet of brown grass are their present -sufficiency; but how long will they sleep, whither will they go next, -and whence did they come last? You permit yourself to wish that they -might sleep for ever and go nowhere else at all. - -The month of August is so uncountenanced in London that going a few days -since to Greenwich, that famous resort, I found it possible to get but -half a dinner. The celebrated hotel had put out its stoves and locked up -its pantry. But for this discovery I should have mentioned the little -expedition to Greenwich as a charming relief to the monotony of a London -August. Greenwich and Richmond are, classically, the two suburban -dining-places. I know not how it may be at this time with Richmond, but -the Greenwich incident brings me back (I hope not once too often) to the -element of what has lately been called "particularism" in English -pleasures. It was in obedience to a perfectly logical argument that the -Greenwich hotel had, as I say, locked up its pantry. All well-bred -people leave London after the first week in August, _ergo_ those who -remain behind are not well-bred, and cannot therefore rise to the -conception of a "fish dinner." Why, then, should we have anything ready? -I had other impressions, fortunately, of this interesting suburb, and I -hasten to declare that during the period of good-breeding the dinner at -Greenwich is the most amusing of all dinners. It begins with fish and it -continues with fish: what it ends with--except songs and speeches and -affectionate partings--I hesitate to affirm. It is a kind of mermaid -reversed; for I do know, in a vague way, that the tail of the creature -is elaborately and interminably fleshy. If it were not grossly -indiscreet, I should risk an allusion to the particular banquet which -was the occasion of my becoming acquainted with the Greenwich cuisine. -I would affirm that it is very pleasant to sit in a company of clever -and distinguished men, before the large windows that look out upon the -broad brown Thames. The ships swim by confidently, as if they were part -of the entertainment and put down in the bill; the light of the -afternoon fades ever so slowly. We eat all the fish of the sea, and wash -them down with liquids that bear no resemblance to salt water. We -partake of any number of those sauces with which, according to the -French adage, one could swallow one's grandmother with a good -conscience. To speak of the particular merits of my companions would -indeed be indiscreet, but there is nothing indelicate in expressing a -high appreciation of the frankness and robustness of English -conviviality. The stranger--the American at least--who finds himself in -the company of a number of Englishmen assembled for a convivial purpose -becomes conscious of a certain indefinable and delectable something -which, for want of a better name, he will call their superior richness -of temperament. He takes note of the liberal share of the individual in -the magnificent temperament of the people. This seems to him one of the -finest things in the world, and his satisfaction will take a keener edge -from such an incident as the single one I may permit myself to mention. -It was one of those little incidents which can occur only in an old -society--a society in which every one that a newly-arrived observer -meets strikes him as having in some degree or other a sort of historic -identity, being connected with some one or something that he has heard -of. If they are not the rose, they have lived more or less near it. -There is an old English song-writer whom we all know and admire--whose -songs are sung wherever the language is spoken. Of course, according to -the law I just hinted at, one of the gentlemen sitting opposite must -needs be his great-grandson. After dinner there are songs, and the -gentleman trolls out one of his ancestral ditties with the most charming -voice and the most finished art. - -I have still other memories of Greenwich, where there is a charming old -park, on a summit of one of whose grassy undulations the famous -observatory is perched. To do the thing completely, you must take -passage upon one of the little grimy sixpenny steamers that ply upon the -Thames, perform the journey by water, and then, disembarking, take a -stroll in the park to get up an appetite for dinner. I find an -irresistible charm in any sort of river-navigation, but I am rather at a -loss how to speak of the little voyage from Westminster Bridge to -Greenwich. It is in truth the most prosaic possible form of being -afloat, and to be recommended rather to the inquiring than to the -fastidious mind. It initiates you into the duskiness, the blackness, the -crowdedness, the intensely commercial character of London. Few European -cities have a finer river than the Thames, but none certainly has -expended more ingenuity in producing an ugly river-front. For miles and -miles you see nothing but the sooty backs of warehouses, or perhaps they -are the sooty fronts: in buildings so very expressionless it is -impossible to distinguish. They stand massed together on the banks of -the wide, turbid stream, which is fortunately of too opaque a quality to -reflect the dismal image. A damp-looking, dirty blackness is the -universal tone. The river is almost black, and is covered with black -barges; above the black housetops, from among the far-stretching docks -and basins, rises a dusky wilderness of masts. The little puffing -steamer is dingy and gritty--it belches a sable cloud that keeps you -company as you go. In this carboniferous shower your companions, who -belong chiefly, indeed, to the less brilliant classes, assume an -harmonious grayness; and the whole picture, glazed over with the -glutinous London mist, becomes a masterly composition. But it is very -impressive in spite of its want of lightness and brightness, and though -it is ugly it is not insignificant. Like so many of the aspects of -English civilisation that are untouched by elegance or grace, it has the -merit of expressing something very serious. Viewed in this intellectual -light, the polluted river, the sprawling barges, the dead-faced -warehouses, the frowsy people, the atmospheric impurities, become richly -suggestive. It sounds rather absurd to say so, but all this sordid -detail reminds me of nothing less than the wealth and power of the -British empire at large; so that a kind of metaphysical magnificence -hovers over the scene, and supplies what may be literally wanting. I -don't exactly understand the association, but I know that when I look -off to the left at the East India Docks, or pass under the dark, -hugely-piled bridges, where the railway trains and the human processions -are for ever moving, I feel a kind of imaginative thrill. The tremendous -piers of the bridges, in especial, seem the very pillars of the British -empire aforesaid. - -It is doubtless owing to this habit of obtrusive and unprofitable -reverie that the sentimental tourist thinks it very fine to see the -Greenwich observatory lifting its two modest little brick towers. The -sight of this useful edifice gave me an amount of pleasure which may at -first seem unreasonable. The reason was, simply, that I used to see it -as a child, in woodcuts, in school-geographies, and in the corners of -large maps which had a glazed, sallow surface, and which were suspended -in unexpected places, in dark halls and behind doors. The maps were hung -so high that my eyes could reach only to the lower corners, and these -corners usually contained a print of a strange-looking house, standing -among trees upon a grassy bank that swept down before it with the most -engaging steepness. I used always to think that it must be an immense -pleasure to hurl one's self down this curving precipice. Close at hand -was usually something printed about something being at such and such a -number of degrees "east of Greenwich." Why east of Greenwich? The vague -wonder that the childish mind felt on this point gave the place a -mysterious importance, and seemed to put it into relation with the -difficult and fascinating parts of geography--the countries of -unintentional outline and the lonely-looking pages of the atlas. Yet -there it stood the other day, the precise point from which the great -globe is measured; there was the plain little façade, with the -old-fashioned cupolas; there was the bank on which it would be so -delightful not to be able to stop running. It made me feel terribly old -to find that I was not even tempted to begin. There are indeed a great -many steep banks in Greenwich Park, which tumbles up and down in the -most picturesque fashion. It is a charming place, rather shabby and -footworn, as befits a strictly popular resort, but with a character all -its own. It is filled with magnificent foreign-looking trees, of which I -know nothing but that they have a vain appearance of being chestnuts, -planted in long, convergent avenues, with trunks of extraordinary girth -and limbs that fling a dusky shadow far over the grass; there are plenty -of benches, and there are deer as tame as sleepy children; and from the -tops of the bosky hillocks there are views of the widening Thames, and -the moving ships, and the two classic inns by the water-side, and the -great pompous buildings, designed by Inigo Jones, of the old Hospital, -which have been despoiled of their ancient pensioners and converted into -a kind of naval academy. - -Taking note of all this, I arrived at a far-away angle in the wall of -the park, where a little postern door stood ajar. I pushed the door -open, and found myself, by a picturesque transition, upon Blackheath -Common. One had often heard of Blackheath: well, here it was--a great -green, breezy place, where various lads in corduroys were playing -cricket I always admire an English common; it may be curtailed and -cockneyfied, as this one was--which had lamp-posts stuck about on its -turf and a fresh-painted banister all around--but it is sure to be one -of the places that remind you vividly that you are in England. Even if -the turf is too much trodden, there is, to foreign eyes, an English -greenness about it, and there is something peculiarly insular in the way -the high-piled, weather-bearing clouds hang over it and drizzle down -their gray light. Still further to identify this spot, here was the -British soldier emerging from two or three of the roads, with his cap -upon his ear, his white gloves in one hand and his foppish little cane -in the other. He wore the uniform of the artillery, and I asked him -where he had come from. I learned that he had walked over from Woolwich, -and that this feat might be accomplished in half an hour. Inspired again -by vague associations, I proceeded to accomplish its equivalent. I bent -my steps to Woolwich, a place which I knew, in a general way, to be a -nursery of British valour. At the end of my half hour I emerged upon -another common, where local colour was still more intense. The scene was -very entertaining. The open grassy expanse was immense, and, the evening -being beautiful, it was dotted with strolling soldiers and townsfolk. -There were half a dozen cricket matches, both civil and military. At one -end of this peaceful _campus martius_, which stretches over a hill-top, -rises an interminable façade--one of the fronts of the artillery -barracks. It has a very honourable air, and more windows and doors, I -imagine, than any building in Britain. There is a great clean parade -before it, and there are many sentinels pacing in front of neatly-kept -places of ingress to officers' quarters. Everything it looks out upon is -military--the distinguished college (where the poor young man whom it -would perhaps be premature to call the last of the Bonapartes lately -studied the art of war) on one side; a sort of model camp--a collection -of the tidiest plank huts--on the other; a hospital, on a -well-ventilated site, at the remoter end. And then in the town below -there are a great many more military matters--barracks on an immense -scale; a dock-yard that presents an interminable dead wall to the street; -an arsenal which the gatekeeper (who refused to admit me) declared to be -"five miles" in circumference; and, lastly, grogshops enough to inflame -the most craven spirit. These latter institutions I glanced at on my way -to the railway station at the bottom of the hill; but before departing -I had spent half an hour in strolling about the common in vague -consciousness of certain emotions that are called into play (I speak but -for myself) by almost any glimpse of the imperial machinery of this -great country. The glimpse may be of the slightest; it stirs a peculiar -sentiment. I know not what to call this sentiment unless it be simply an -admiration for the greatness of England. The greatness of England; that -is a very off-hand phrase, and of course I don't pretend to use it -analytically. I use it sentimentally--as it sounds in the ears of any -American who finds in English history the sacred source of his own -national affection. I think of the great part that England has played in -human affairs, the great space she has occupied, her tremendous might, -her far-stretching sway. That these clumsily-general ideas should be -suggested by the sight of some infinitesimal fraction of the English -administrative system may seem to indicate a cast of fancy too -hysterical; but if so, I must plead guilty to the weakness. Why should a -sentry-box more or less set one thinking of the glory of this little -island, which has found in her bosom the means of so vast a dominion? -This is more than I can say; and all I shall attempt to say is, that in -the difficult days that are now elapsing a sympathetic stranger finds -his meditations singularly quickened. It is the dramatic element in -English history that he has chiefly cared for, sand he finds himself -wondering whether the dramatic epoch is completely closed. It is a -moment when all the nations of Europe seem to be doing something, and he -waits to see what England, who has done so much, will do. He has been -meeting of late a good many of his country-people--Americans who live on -the Continent and pretend to speak with assurance of continental ways of -feeling. These people have been passing through London, and many of them -are in that irritated condition of mind which appears to be the portion -of the American sojourner in the British metropolis when he is not given -up to the delights of the historic sentiment. They have affirmed with -emphasis that the continental nations have ceased to care a straw for -what England thinks, that her traditional prestige is completely -extinct, and that the affairs of Europe will be settled quite -independently of the power whose capital is on the Thames. England will -do nothing, will risk nothing; there is no cause bad enough for her not -to find a selfish interest in it--there is no cause good enough for her -to fight about it. Poor old England is exploded; it is about time she -should haul in her nets. To all this the sympathetic stranger replies -that, in the first place, he doesn't believe a word of it; and, in the -second place, he doesn't care a fig for it--care, that is, what the -continental nations think. If the greatness of England were really -waning, it would be to him as a personal grief; and as he strolls about -the breezy common of Woolwich, with all those mementoes of British -dominion around him, he is quite too keenly exhilarated to be distracted -by such vapours. - -He wishes, nevertheless, as I said before, that England would do -something--something striking and powerful, which should be at once -characteristic and unexpected. He asks himself what she can do, and he -remembers that this greatness of England which he so much admires was -formerly much exemplified in her "taking" something. Can't she "take" -something now? There is the _Spectator_, who wants her to occupy Egypt: -can't she occupy Egypt? The _Spectator_ considers this her moral -duty--inquires even whether she has a right not to bestow the blessings -of her beneficent rule upon the down-trodden Fellaheen, I found myself -in company with an acute young Frenchman a day or two after this -eloquent plea for a partial annexation of the Nile had appeared in the -most ingenious of journals. Some allusion was made to it, and my -companion proceeded to pronounce it a finished example of British -hypocrisy. I don't know how powerful a defence I made of it, but while I -read it I certainly had been carried away by it. I recalled it while I -pursued my contemplations, but I recalled at the same time that sadly -prosaic speech of Mr. Gladstone's to which it had been a reply. Mr. -Gladstone had said that England had much more urgent duties than the -occupation of Egypt: she had to attend to the great questions of----What -were the great questions? Those of local taxation and the liquor-laws! -Local taxation and the liquor-laws! The phrase, to my ears, just then -made a painful discord. These were not the things I had been thinking -of; it was not as she should bend anxiously over these doubtless -interesting subjects that the sympathetic stranger would seem to see -England in his favourite posture--that, as Macaulay says, of hurling -defiance at her foes. Of course, Mr. Gladstone was probably right, but -Mr. Gladstone was not a sympathetic stranger. - - - - -XI - -TWO EXCURSIONS - -1877 - -I - - -They differed greatly from each other, but each had an interest of its -own. There seemed (as regards the first) a general consensus of opinion -as to its being a great pity that a stranger in England should miss the -Derby day. Every one assured me that this was the great festival of the -English people, and the most characteristic of national holidays. So -much, since it had to do with horse-flesh, I could readily believe. Had -not the newspapers been filled for weeks with recurrent dissertations -upon the animals concerned in the ceremony? and was not the event, to -the nation at large, only imperceptibly less momentous than the other -great question of the day--the fate of empires and the reapportionment -of the East? The space allotted to sporting intelligence in a compact, -eclectic, "intellectual" journal like the _Pall Mall Gazette_, had -seemed to me for some time past a measure of the hold of such questions -upon the British mind. These things, however, are very natural in a -country in which in "society" you are liable to make the acquaintance of -some such syllogism as the following. You are seated at dinner next a -foreign lady, who has on her other hand a native gentleman, by whom she -is being instructed in the art of getting the light point-of-view for -looking at English life. I profit by their conversation, and I learn -that this point-of-view is apparently the saddle. "You see, English -life," says the gentleman, "is really English country life. It's the -country that is the basis of English society. And you see, country life -is--well, it's the _hunting_. It's the hunting that is at the bottom of -it all." In other words, "the hunting" is the basis of English society. -Duly initiated into this interpretation of things, the American observer -is prepared for the colossal proportions of the annual pilgrimage to -Epsom. This pilgrimage, however, I was assured, though still well worth -taking part in, is by no means so characteristic as in former days. It -is now performed in a large measure by rail, and the spectacle on the -road has lost its ancient brilliancy. The road has been given up more -and more to the populace and the strangers, and has ceased to be graced -by the presence of ladies. Nevertheless, as a man and a stranger, I was -strongly recommended to take it; for the return from the Derby is still, -with all its abatements, a classic spectacle. - -I mounted upon a four-horse coach, a charming coach, with a yellow body, -and handsome, clean-flanked leaders; placing myself beside the coachman, -as I had been told this was the point of vantage. The coach was one of -the vehicles of the new fashion--the fashion of public conveyances -driven, for the entertainment of themselves and of the public, by -gentlemen of leisure. On the Derby day all the coaches that start from -the classic headquarters--the "White Horse," in Piccadilly--and stretch -away from London toward a dozen different and well-selected goals, had -been dedicated to the Epsom road. The body of the vehicle is empty, as -no one thinks of occupying any but one of the thirteen places on the -top. On the Derby day, however, a properly laden coach carries a company -of hampers and champagne-baskets in its inside places. I must add that -on this occasion my companion was by exception a professional whip, who -proved an entertaining cicerone. Other companions there were, perched in -the twelve places behind me, whose social quality I made less of a point -of testing--though in the course of the expedition their various -characteristics, under the influence of champagne, expanded so freely as -greatly to facilitate the operation. We were a society of -exotics--Spaniards, Frenchmen, Germans. There were only two Britons, and -these, according to my theory, were Australians--an antipodal bride and -groom, on a centripetal wedding-tour. - -The drive to Epsom, when you get well out of London, is sufficiently -pretty; but the part of it which most took my fancy was a suburban -district--the classic neighbourhood of Clapham. The vision of Clapham -had been a part of the furniture of my imagination--the vision of its -respectable common, its evangelical society, and its goodly brick -mansions of the Georgian era. I now beheld these objects for the first -time, and I thought them very charming. This epithet, indeed, scarcely -applies to the evangelical society, which naturally, on the morning of -the Derby day, and during the desecrating progress of the Epsom -revellers, was not much in the foreground. But all around the verdant, -if cockneyfied common, are ranged commodious houses of a sober red -complexion, from under whose neoclassic pediments you expect to see a -mild-faced lady emerge--a lady in a cottage-bonnet and mittens, -distributing tracts from a little satchel. It would take an energetic -piety, however, to stem the current of heterogeneous vehicles which at -about this point takes up its metropolitan affluents and bears them in -its rumbling, rattling tide. The concourse of wheeled conveyances of -every possible order here becomes dense, and the spectacle from the top -of the coach proportionately absorbing. You begin to perceive that the -brilliancy of the road has in truth departed, and that well-appointed -elegance is not the prevailing characteristic. But when once you have -grasped this fact your entertainment is continuous. You perceive that -you are "in," as the phrase is, for something vulgar, something -colossally, unimaginably, heroically vulgar; all that is necessary is to -accept this situation and look out for illustrations. Beside you, before -you, behind you, is the mighty London populace, taking its _ébats_. You -get for the first time a notion of the London population at large. It -has piled itself into carts, into omnibuses, into every possible and -impossible species of "trap." A large proportion of it is of course on -foot, trudging along the perilous margin of the middle way, in such -comfort as may be gathered from fifteen miles' dodging of broken shins. -The smaller the vehicle, the more rat-like the animal that drags it, the -more numerous and ponderous its human freight; and as every one is -nursing in his lap a parcel of provender as big as himself, wrapped in -ragged newspapers, it is not surprising that roadside halts are -frequent, and that the taverns all the way to Epsom (it is wonderful how -many there are) are encompassed by dense groups of dusty pilgrims, -indulging liberally in refreshment for man and beast. And when I say man -I must by no means be understood to exclude woman. The female contingent -on the Derby day is not the least remarkable part of the London -multitude. Every one is prepared for an "outing," but the women are even -more brilliantly and resolutely prepared than the men; it is the best -possible chance to observe the various types of the British female of -the lower orders. The lady in question is usually not ornamental. She is -useful, robust, prolific, excellently fitted to play the somewhat -arduous part allotted to her in the great scheme of English -civilisation. But she has not those graces which enable her to become -easily and harmoniously festal. On smaller holidays--or on simple -working-days--in London crowds, I have often thought her handsome; -thought, that is, that she has handsome points, and that it was not -impossible to see how it is that she helps to make the English race, on -the whole, the comeliest in the world. But at Epsom she is too stout, -too hot, too red, too thirsty, too boisterous, too strangely accoutred. -And yet I wish to do her justice; so I must add that if there is -something to which an American cannot refuse a tribute of admiration in -the gross plebeian jollity of the Derby day, it is not evident why these -lusty she-revellers should not get part of the credit of it. The -striking thing, the interesting thing, both on the outward drive and on -the return, was that the holiday was so frankly, heartily, -good-humouredly taken. The people that of all peoples is habitually the -most governed by decencies, proprieties, rigidities of conduct, was, for -one happy day, unbuttoning its respectable straight-jacket and letting -its powerful, carnal, healthy temperament take the air. In such a -spectacle there was inevitably much that was unlucky and unprofitable; -these things came uppermost chiefly on the return, when demoralisation -was supreme, when the temperament in question had quite taken what the -French call the key of the fields, and seemed in no mood to come back -and give an account of itself. For the rest, to be dressed with a kind -of brutal gaudiness, to be very thirsty and violently flushed, to laugh -perpetually at everything and at nothing, thoroughly to enjoy, in short, -a momentous occasion--all this is not, in simple persons of the more -susceptible sex, an unpardonable crime. - -The course at Epsom is in itself very pretty, and disposed by nature -herself in sympathetic prevision of the sporting passion. It is -something like the crater of a volcano, without the mountain. The outer -rim is the course proper; the space within it is a vast, shallow, grassy -concavity in which vehicles are drawn up and beasts tethered, and in -which the greater part of the multitude--the mountebanks, the -betting-men, and the myriad hangers-on of the scene--are congregated. -The outer margin of the uplifted rim in question is occupied by the -grand stand, the small stands, the paddock. The day was exceptionally -beautiful; the charming sky was spotted over with little idle-looking, -loafing, irresponsible clouds; the Epsom Downs went swelling away as -greenly as in a coloured sporting-print, and the wooded uplands, in the -middle distance, looked as innocent and pastoral as if they had never -seen a policeman or a rowdy. The crowd that spread itself over this -immense expanse was the richest representation of human life that I have -ever looked upon. One's first fate after arriving, if one is perched -upon a coach, is to see the coach guided, by means best known to the -coachman himself, through the tremendous press of vehicles and -pedestrians, introduced into a precinct roped off and guarded from -intrusion save under payment of a fee, and then drawn up alongside of -the course, as nearly as possible opposite the grand stand and the -winning post. Here you have only to stand up in your place--on tiptoe, -it is true, and with a good deal of stretching--to see the race fairly -well. But I hasten to add that seeing the race is indifferent -entertainment. If I might be Irish on the occasion of a frolic, I would -say that in the first place you do not see it at all, and in the second -place you perceive it to be not much worth the seeing. It may be very -fine in quality, but in quantity it is inappreciable. The horses and -their jockeys first go dandling and cantering along the course to the -starting-point, looking as insubstantial as sifted sunbeams. Then there -is a long wait, during which, of the sixty thousand people present (my -figures are imaginary) thirty thousand affirm positively that they have -started, and thirty thousand as positively deny it. Then the whole sixty -thousand are suddenly resolved into unanimity by the sight of a dozen -small jockey-heads whizzing along a very distant sky-line. In a shorter -space of time than it takes me to write it, the whole thing is before -you, and for the instant it is anything but beautiful. A dozen furiously -revolving arms--pink, green, orange, scarlet, white--whacking the flanks -of as many straining steeds; a glimpse of this, and the spectacle is -over. The spectacle, however, is of course an infinitesimally small part -of the purpose of Epsom and the interest of the Derby. The interest is -in having money in the affair, and doubtless those most interested do -not trouble themselves particularly to watch the race. They learn soon -enough whether they are, in the English phrase, to the good or to the -bad. - -When the Derby stakes had been carried off by a horse of which I confess -I am barbarous enough to have forgotten the name, I turned my back to -the running, for all the world as if I too were largely "interested," -and sought entertainment in looking at the crowd. The crowd was very -animated; that is the most succinct description I can give of it. The -horses of course had been removed from the vehicles, so that the -pedestrians were free to surge against the wheels and even to a certain -extent to scale and overrun the carriages. This tendency became most -pronounced when, as the mid-period of the day was reached, the process -of lunching began to unfold itself and every coach-top to become the -scene of a picnic. From this moment, at the Derby, demoralisation -begins. I was in a position to observe it, all around me, in the most -characteristic forms. The whole affair, as regards the conventional -rigidities I spoke of a while since, becomes a real _dégringolade_. The -shabbier pedestrians bustle about the vehicles, staring up at the lucky -mortals who are perched in a kind of tormentingly near empyrean--a -region in which dishes of lobster-salad are passed about and -champagne-corks cleave the air like celestial meteors. There are -nigger-minstrels and beggars and mountebanks and spangled persons on -stilts, and gipsy matrons, as genuine as possible, with glowing Oriental -eyes and dropping their _h_'s; these last offer you for sixpence the -promise of everything genteel in life except the aspirate. On a coach -drawn up beside the one on which I had a place, a party of opulent young -men were passing from one stage of exhilaration to another with a -punctuality which excited my admiration. They were accompanied by two or -three young ladies of the kind that usually shares the choicest -pleasures of youthful British opulence--young ladies in whom nothing has -been neglected that can make a complexion Titianesque. The whole party -had been drinking deep, and one of the young men, a pretty lad of -twenty, had in an indiscreet moment staggered down as best he could to -the ground. Here his cups proved too many for him, and he collapsed and -rolled over. In plain English, he was beastly drunk. It was the scene -that followed that arrested my observation. His companions on the top of -the coach called down to the people herding under the wheels to pick him -up and put him away inside. These people were the grimiest of the -rabble, and a couple of men who looked like coal-heavers out of work -undertook to handle this hapless youth. But their task was difficult; it -was impossible to imagine a young man more drunk. He was a mere bag of -liquor--at once too ponderous and too flaccid to be lifted. He lay in a -helpless heap under the feet of the crowd--the best intoxicated young -man in England. His extemporised chamberlains took him first in one way -and then in another; but he was like water in a sieve. The crowd hustled -over him; every one wanted to see; he was pulled and shoved and fumbled. -The spectacle had a grotesque side, and this it was that seemed to -strike the fancy of the young man's comrades. They had not done -lunching, so they were unable to bestow upon the incident the whole of -that consideration which its high comicality deserved. But they did what -they could. They looked down very often, glass in hand, during the -half-hour that it went on, and they stinted neither their generous, -joyous laughter, nor their appreciative comments. Women are said to have -no sense of humour; but the Titianesque young ladies did liberal justice -to the pleasantry of the scene. Toward the last, indeed, their attention -rather flagged; for even the best joke suffers by reiteration, and when -you have seen a stupefied young man, infinitely bedusted, slip out of -the embrace of a couple of clumsy paupers for the twentieth time, you -may very properly suppose that you have arrived at the farthest limits -of the ludicrous. - -After the great race had been run I quitted my perch and spent the rest -of the afternoon in wandering about that grassy concave I have -mentioned. It was amusing and picturesque; it was like a huge Bohemian -encampment. Here also a great number of carriages were stationed, -freighted in like manner with free-handed youths and young ladies with -gilded tresses. These young ladies were almost the only representatives -of their sex with pretensions to elegance; they were often pretty and -always exhilarated. Gentlemen in pairs, mounted on stools, habited in -fantastic sporting garments, and offering bets to whomsoever listed, -were a conspicuous feature of the scene. It was equally striking that -they were not preaching in the desert and that they found plenty of -patrons among the baser sort. I returned to my place in time to assist -at the rather complicated operation of starting for the drive back to -London. Putting in horses and getting vehicles into line seemed in the -midst of the general crush and entanglement a process not to be -facilitated even by the most liberal swearing on the part of those -engaged in it. But little by little we came to the end of it; and as by -this time a kind of mellow cheerfulness pervaded the upper -atmosphere--the region of the perpendicular whip--even those -interruptions most trying to patience were somehow made to minister to -jollity. It was for people below to not get trampled to death or -crunched between opposing wheel-hubs, if they could manage it. Above, -the carnival of "chaff" had set in, and it deepened as the lock of -vehicles grew denser. As they were all locked together (with a -comfortable padding of pedestrians at points of acutest contact), they -contrived somehow to move together; so that we gradually got away and -into the road. The four or five hours consumed on the road were simply -as I say, a carnival of "chaff," the profusely good-humoured savour of -which, on the whole, was certainly striking. The chaff was not brilliant -nor subtle nor especially graceful; and here and there it was quite too -tipsy to be even articulate. But as an expression of that unbuttoning of -the popular straight-jacket of which I spoke awhile since, it had its -wholesome and even innocent side. It took, indeed, frequently an -importunate physical form; it sought emphasis in the use of pea-shooters -and water-squirts. At its best, too, it was extremely low and rowdyish. -But a stranger even of the most refined tastes might be glad to have a -glimpse of this popular revel, for it would make him feel that he was -learning something more about the English people. It would give a -meaning to the old words "merry England." It would remind him that the -natives of that country are subject to some of the most frolicsome of -the human passions, and that the decent, dusky vistas of the London -residential streets--those discreet creations of which Thackeray's -"Baker Street" is the type--are not a complete symbol of the complicated -race that erected them. - - - - -II - - -It seemed to me such a piece of good fortune to have been asked down to -Oxford at Commemoration by a gentleman implicated in the remarkable -ceremony which goes on under that name, who kindly offered me the -hospitality of his college, that I scarcely waited even to thank him, I -simply took the first train. I had had a glimpse of Oxford in former -years, but I had never slept in a low-browed room looking out on a -grassy quadrangle, opposite a mediæval clock-tower. This satisfaction -was vouchsafed me on the night of my arrival; I was inducted into the -rooms of an absent undergraduate. I sat in his deep arm-chairs; I burned -his candles and read his books. I hereby thank him as tenderly as -possible. Before going to bed I took a turn through the streets and -renewed in the silent darkness that impression of the charm imparted to -them by the quiet college-fronts, which I had gathered in former years. -The college-fronts were now quieter than ever, the streets were empty, -and the old scholastic city was sleeping in the warm starlight. The -undergraduates had retired in large numbers, encouraged in this impulse -by the collegiate authorities, who deprecate their presence at -Commemoration. However many young gownsmen may be sent away, there -always remain enough to make a noise. There can be no better indication -of the resources of Oxford in a spectacular way than this fact that the -first step toward preparing an impressive ceremony is to get rid of the -undergraduates. - -In the morning I breakfasted with a young American who, in common with a -number of his countrymen, had come hither to seek stimulus for a finer -quality of study. I know not whether he would have reckoned as such -stimulus the conversation of a couple of those ingenuous youths of -Britain whose society I always find charming; but it added, from my own -point of view, to the local colour of the entertainment. After this was -over I repaired, in company with a crowd of ladies and elderly people, -interspersed with gownsmen, to the hoary rotunda of the Sheldonian -theatre, which every visitor to Oxford will remember, with its curious -cincture of clumsily-carven heads of warriors and sages perched upon -stone posts. The interior of this edifice is the scene of the classic -hooting, stamping, and cat-calling by which the undergraduates confer -the last consecration upon the distinguished gentlemen who come up for -the honorary degree of D.C.L. It is with the design of attenuating as -much as possible this incongruous chorus, that the heads of colleges, on -the close of the term, a few days before Commemoration, speed their too -demonstrative disciples upon the homeward way. As I have already hinted, -however, the contingent of irreverent lads was on this occasion quite -large enough to produce a very handsome specimen of the traditional -rumpus. This made the scene a very singular one. An American of course, -with his fondness for antiquity, his relish for picturesqueness, his -"emotional" attitude at historic shrines, takes Oxford much more -seriously than its customary denizens can be expected to do. These -people are not always upon the high horse; they are not always in an -acutely sentient condition. Nevertheless, there is a certain maximum of -disaccord with their beautiful circumstances which the ecstatic -Occidental vaguely expects them not to transcend. No effort of the -intellect beforehand would enable him to imagine one of those -silver-gray temples of learning converted into a semblance of the Bowery -Theatre when the Bowery Theatre is being trifled with. - -The Sheldonian edifice, like everything at Oxford, is more or less -monumental. There is a double tier of galleries, with sculptured pulpits -protruding from them; there are full-length portraits of kings and -worthies; there is a general air of antiquity and dignity, which, on the -occasion of which I speak, was enhanced by the presence of certain -ancient scholars, seated in crimson robes in high-backed chairs. -Formerly, I believe, the undergraduates were placed apart--packed -together in a corner of one of the galleries. But now they are scattered -among the general spectators, a large number of whom are ladies. They -muster in especial force, however, on the floor of the theatre, which -has been cleared of its benches. Here the dense mass is at last severed -in twain by the entrance of the prospective D.C.L.'s walking in single -file, clad in crimson gowns, preceded by mace-bearers and accompanied by -the Regius professor of Civil Law, who presents them individually to the -Vice-Chancellor of the university, in a Latin speech which is of course -a glowing eulogy. The five gentlemen to whom this distinction had been -offered in 1877 were not among those whom fame has trumpeted most -loudly; but there was something very pretty in their standing in their -honourable robes, with heads modestly bent, while the orator, equally -brilliant in aspect, recited their titles sonorously to the venerable -dignitary in the high-backed chair. Each of them, when the little speech -is ended, ascends the steps leading to the chair; the Vice-Chancellor -bends forward and shakes his hand, and the new D.C.L. goes and sits in -the blushing row of his fellow-doctors. The impressiveness of all this -is much diminished by the boisterous conduct of the collegians, who -superabound in extravagant applause, in impertinent interrogation, and -in lively disparagement of the orator's Latinity. Of the scene that -precedes the episode I have just described I have given no account; -vivid portrayal of it is not easy. Like the return from the Derby, it is -a carnival of "chaff"; and it is a singular fact that the scholastic -festival should have forcibly reminded me of the great popular "lark." -In each case it is the same race enjoying a certain definitely chartered -license; in the young votaries of a liberal education and the London -rabble on the Epsom road it is the same perfect good-humour, the same -muscular jocosity. - -After the presentation of the doctors came a series of those collegiate -exercises which have a generic resemblance all the world over: a reading -of Latin verses and English essays, a spouting of prize poems and Greek -paraphrases. The prize poem alone was somewhat attentively listened to; -the other things were received with an infinite variety of critical -ejaculation. But after all, I reflected, as the ceremony drew to a dose, -this discordant racket is more characteristic than it seems; it is at -bottom only another expression of the venerable and historic side of -Oxford. It is tolerated because it is traditional; it is possible -because it is classical. Looking at it in this light, one might manage -at last to find it impressive and romantic. - -I was not obliged to find ingenious pretexts for thinking well of -another ceremony of which I was witness after we adjourned from the -Sheldonian theatre. This was a lunch-party at the particular college in -which I should find it the highest privilege to reside. I may not -further specify it. Perhaps, indeed, I may go so far as to say that the -reason for my dreaming of this privilege is that it is deemed by persons -of a reforming turn the best-appointed abuse in a nest of abuses. A -commission for the expurgation of the universities has lately been -appointed by Parliament to look into it--a commission armed with a -gigantic broom, which is to sweep away all the fine old ivied and -cobwebbed improprieties. Pending these righteous changes, one would like -while one is about it--about, that is, this business of admiring -Oxford--to attach one's self to the abuse, to bury one's nostrils in the -rose before it is plucked. At the college in question there are no -undergraduates. I found it agreeable to reflect that those gray-green -cloisters had sent no delegates to the slangy congregation I had just -quitted. This delightful spot exists for the satisfaction of a small -society of Fellows who, having no dreary instruction to administer, no -noisy hobbledehoys to govern, no obligations but toward their own -culture, no care save for learning as learning and truth as truth, are -presumably the happiest and most charming people in the world. The party -invited to lunch assembled first in the library of the college, a cool, -gray hall, of very great length and height, with vast wall-spaces of -rich-looking book-titles and statues of noble scholars set in the midst. -Had the charming Fellows ever anything more disagreeable to do than to -finger these precious volumes and then to stroll about together in the -grassy courts, in learned comradeship, discussing their precious -contents? Nothing, apparently, unless it were to give a lunch at -Commemoration in the dining-hall of the college. When lunch was ready -there was a very pretty procession to go to it. Learned gentlemen in -crimson gowns, ladies in brilliant toilets, paired slowly off and -marched in a stately diagonal across the fine, smooth lawn of the -quadrangle, in a corner of which they passed through a hospitable door. -But here we cross the threshold of privacy; I remained on the farther -side of it during the rest of the day. But I brought back with me -certain memories of which, if I were not at the end of my space, I -should attempt a discreet adumbration: memories of a fête champêtre in -the beautiful gardens of one of the other colleges--charming lawns and -spreading trees, music of Grenadier Guards, ices in striped marquees, -mild flirtation of youthful gownsmen and bemuslined maidens; memories, -too, of quiet dinner in common-room, a decorous, excellent repast; old -portraits on the walls and great windows open upon the ancient court, -where the afternoon light was fading in the stillness; superior talk -upon current topics, and over all the peculiar air of Oxford--the air of -liberty to care for intellectual things, assured and secured by -machinery which is in itself a satisfaction to sense. - - - - -XII - -IN WARWICKSHIRE - -1877 - - -There is no better way for the stranger who wishes to know something of -England, to plunge in _medias res_, than to spend a fortnight in -Warwickshire. It is the core and centre of the English world; midmost -England, unmitigated England. The place has taught me a great many -English secrets; I have interviewed the genius of pastoral Britain. From -a charming lawn--a lawn delicious to one's sentient boot-sole--I looked -without obstruction at a sombre, soft, romantic mass, whose outline was -blurred by mantling ivy. It made a perfect picture; and in the -foreground the great trees overarched their boughs from right and left, -so as to give it a majestic frame. This interesting object was the -castle of Kenilworth. It was within distance of an easy walk, but one -hardly thought of walking to it, any more than one would have thought of -walking to a purple-shadowed tower in the background of a Berghem or a -Claude. Here there were purple shadows, and slowly-shifting lights, and -a soft-hued, bosky country in the middle distance. - -Of course, however, I did walk over to the castle; and of course the -walk led me through leafy lanes, and beside the hedgerows that make a -tangled screen for lawn-like meadows. Of course too, I am bound to add, -there was a row of ancient pedlars outside the castle-wall, hawking -twopenny pamphlets and photographs. Of course, equally, at the foot of -the grassy mound on which the ruin stands, there were half a dozen -public houses; and, always of course, there were half a dozen beery -vagrants sprawling on the grass in the moist sunshine. There was the -usual respectable young woman to open the castle-gate and to receive the -usual sixpenny fee. And there were the usual squares of printed -cardboard, suspended upon venerable surfaces, with further enumeration -of twopence, threepence, fourpence. I do not allude to these things -querulously, for Kenilworth is a very tame lion--a lion that, in former -years, I had stroked more than once. I remember perfectly my first visit -to this romantic spot; how I chanced upon a picnic; how I stumbled over -beer-bottles; how the very echoes of the beautiful ruin seemed to have -dropped all their _h_'s. That was a sultry afternoon; I allowed my -spirits to sink, and I came away hanging my head. This was a beautiful -fresh morning, and in the interval I had grown philosophic. I had -learned that, with regard to most romantic sites in England, there is a -sort of average cockneyfication with which you must make your account. -There are always people on the field before you, and there is generally -something being drunk on the premises. - -I hoped, on the occasion of which I am now speaking, that the average -would be low; and indeed, for the first five minutes I flattered myself -that this was the case. In the beautiful grassy court of the castle, on -my entrance, there were not more than eight or ten fellow-intruders. -There were a couple of old ladies on a bench, eating something out of a -newspaper; there was a dissenting minister, also on a bench, reading the -guide-book aloud to his wife and sister-in-law; there were three or four -children pushing each other up and down the turfy hillocks. This was -sweet seclusion indeed; and I got a capital start with the various noble -square-windowed fragments of the stately pile. They are extremely -majestic, with their even, pale-red colour, their deep-green drapery, -their princely vastness of scale. But presently the tranquil ruin began -to swarm like a startled hive. There were plenty of people, if they -chose to show themselves. They emerged from crumbling doorways and -gaping chambers, with the best conscience in the world; but I know not, -after all, why I should bear them a grudge, for they gave me a pretext -for wandering about in search of a quiet point of view. I cannot say -that I found my point of view, but in looking for it I saw the castle, -which is certainly an admirable ruin. And when the respectable young -woman had let me out of the gate again, and I had shaken my head at the -civil-spoken pedlars who form a little avenue for the arriving and -departing visitor, I found it in my good-nature to linger a moment on -the trodden, grassy slope, and to think that in spite of the hawkers, -the paupers, and the beer-shops, there was still a good deal of old -England in the scene. I say in spite of these things, but it may have -been, in some degree, because of them. Who shall resolve into its -component parts any impression of this richly complex English world, -where the present is always seen, as it were, in profile, and the past -presents a full face? At all events the solid red castle rose behind me, -towering above its small old ladies and its investigating parsons; -before me, across the patch of common, was a row of ancient cottages, -black-timbered, red-gabled, pictorial, which evidently had a memory of -the castle in its better days. A quaintish village straggled away on the -right, and on the left the dark, fat meadows were lighted up with misty -sun-spots and browsing sheep. I looked about for the village stocks; I -was ready to take the modern vagrants for Shakespearean clowns; and I -was on the point of going into one of the ale-houses to ask Mrs. Quickly -for a cup of sack. - -I began these remarks, however, with no intention of talking about the -celebrated curiosities in which this region abounds, but with a design, -rather, of noting a few impressions of some of the shyer and more -elusive ornaments of the show. Stratford, of course, is a very sacred -place, but I prefer to say a word, for instance, about a charming old -rectory, a good many miles distant, and to mention the pleasant picture -it made of a summer afternoon, during a domestic festival. These are the -happiest of a stranger's memories of English life, and he feels that he -need make no apology for lifting the corner of the curtain. I drove -through the leafy lanes I spoke of just now, and peeped over the hedges -into fields where the yellow harvest stood waiting. In some places they -were already shorn, and while the light began to redden in the west and -to make a horizontal glow behind the dense wayside foliage, the -gleaners, here and there, came brushing through gaps in the hedges with -enormous sheaves upon their shoulders. The rectory was an ancient, -gabled building, of pale red brick, with facings of white stone and -creepers that wrapped it up. It dates, I imagine, from the early -Hanoverian time; and as it stood there upon its cushiony lawn, among its -ordered gardens, cheek to cheek with its little Norman church, it seemed -to me the model of a quiet, spacious, easy English home. The cushiony -lawn, as I have called it, stretched away to the edge of a brook, and -afforded to a number of very amiable people an opportunity of playing -lawn-tennis. There were half a dozen games going forward at once, and at -each of them a great many "nice girls," as they say in England, were -distinguishing themselves. These young ladies kept the ball going with -an agility worthy of the sisters and sweethearts of a race of -cricketers, and gave me a chance to admire their flexibility of figure -and their freedom of action. When they came back to the house, after the -games, flushed a little and a little dishevelled, they might have passed -for the attendant nymphs of Diana, flocking in from the chase. There -had, indeed, been a chance for them to wear the quiver, a target for -archery being erected on the lawn. I remembered George Eliot's -Gwendolen, and waited to see her step out of the muslin groups; but she -was not forthcoming, and it was plain that if lawn-tennis had been -invented in Gwendolen's day, this young lady would have captivated Mr. -Grandcourt by her exploits with the racket. She certainly would have -been a mistress of the game; and, if the suggestion is not too gross, -the alertness that she would have learned from it might have proved an -inducement to her boxing the ears of the insupportable Deronda. - -After a while it grew too dark for lawn-tennis; but while the twilight -was still mildly brilliant I wandered away, out of the grounds of the -charming parsonage, and turned into the little churchyard beside it. The -small weather-worn, rust-coloured church had an appearance of high -antiquity; there were some curious Norman windows in the apse. -Unfortunately I could not get inside; I could only glance into the open -door across the interval of an old-timbered, heavy-hooded, padlocked -porch. But the sweetest evening stillness hung over the place, and the -sunset was red behind a dark row of rook-haunted elms. The stillness -seemed the greater because three or four rustic children were playing, -with little soft cries, among the crooked, deep-buried grave-stones. One -poor little girl, who seemed deformed, had climbed some steps that -served as a pedestal for a tall, mediæval-looking cross. She sat -perched there, staring at me through the gloaming. This was the heart of -England, unmistakably; it might have been the very pivot of the wheel on -which her fortune revolves. One need not be a rabid Anglican to be -extremely sensible of the charm of an English country church--and indeed -of some of the features of an English rural Sunday. In London there is a -certain flatness in the observance of this festival; but in the country -some of the ceremonies that accompany it have an indefinable harmony -with an ancient, pastoral landscape. I made this reflection on an -occasion that is still very fresh in my memory. I said to myself that -the walk to church from a beautiful country-house, of a lovely summer -afternoon, may be the prettiest possible adventure. The house stands -perched upon a pedestal of rock, and looks down from its windows and -terraces upon a shadier spot in the wooded meadows, of which the blunted -tip of a spire explains the character. A little company of people, whose -costume denotes the highest pitch of civilisation, winds down through -the blooming gardens, passes out of a couple of small gates, and reaches -the footpath in the fields. This is especially what takes the fancy of -the sympathetic stranger; the level, deep-green meadows, studded here -and there with a sturdy oak; the denser grassiness of the footpath, the -lily-sheeted pool beside which it passes, the rustic stiles, where he -stops and looks back at the great house and its wooded background. It is -in the highest degree probable that he has the privilege of walking with -a very pretty girl, and it is morally certain that he thinks a pretty -English girl the prettiest creature in the world. He knows that she -doesn't know how lovely is this walk of theirs; she has been taking -it--or taking another quite as good--any time these twenty years. But -her quiet-eyed unsuspectingness only makes her the more a part of his -delicate entertainment. The latter continues unbroken while they reach -the little churchyard, and pass up to the ancient porch, round which the -rosy rustics are standing decently and deferentially, to watch the -arrival of the smarter contingent. This party takes its place in a great -square pew, as large as a small room, and with seats all round, and -while he listens to the respectable intonings the sympathetic stranger -reads over the inscriptions on the mural tablets before him, all to the -honour of the earlier bearers of a name which is, for himself, a symbol -of hospitality. - -When I came back to the parsonage the entertainment had been transferred -to the interior, and I had occasion to admire the maidenly vigour of -those charming young girls who, after playing lawn-tennis all the -afternoon, were modestly expecting to dance all the evening. And in -regard to this it is not impertinent to say that from almost any group -of English maidens--though preferably from such as have passed their -lives in quiet country homes--an American observer receives a delightful -impression of something that he can best describe as an intimate -salubrity. He notices face after face in which this rosy absence of a -morbid strain--this simple, natural, affectionate development--amounts -to positive beauty. If the young lady have no other beauty, the look I -speak of is a sufficient charm; but when it is united, as it so often -is, to real perfection of feature and colour, the result is the most -delightful thing in nature. It makes the highest type of English beauty, -and to my sense there is nothing so high as that. Not long since I heard -a clever foreigner indulge, in conversation with an English lady--a very -wise and liberal woman--in a little lightly restrictive criticism of her -countrywomen. "It is possible," she answered, in regard to one of his -objections; "but such as they are, they are inexpressibly dear to their -husbands." This is doubtless true of good wives all over the world; but -I felt, as I listened to these words of my friend, that there is often -something in an English girl-face which gives it an extra touch of -_justesse_. Such as the woman is, she has here, more than elsewhere, the -look of being completely and profoundly at the service of the man she -loves. This look, after one has been a while in England, comes to seem -so much a proper and indispensable part of a "nice" face, that the -absence of it appears a sign of irritability or of shallowness. Depth of -tenderness as regards a masculine counterpart--that is what it means; -and I confess that seems to me a very agreeable meaning. - -As for the prettiness, I cannot forbear, in the face of a fresh -reminiscence, to give it another word. And yet in regard to prettiness, -what do words avail? This was what I asked myself the other day as I -looked at a young girl who stood in an old oaken parlour, the rugged -panels of which made a background for her lovely head, in simple -conversation with a handsome lad. I said to myself that the faces of -English young people had often a singular charm, but that this same -charm is too soft and shy a thing to talk about. The face of this fair -creature had a pure oval, and her clear brown eyes a quiet warmth. Her -complexion was as bright as a sunbeam after rain, and she smiled in a -way that made any other way of smiling than that seem a shallow -grimace--a mere creaking of the facial muscles. The young man stood -facing her, slowly scratching his thigh and shifting from one foot to -the other. He was tall and very well made, and so sun-burned that his -fair hair was lighter than his complexion. He had honest, stupid blue -eyes, and a simple smile that showed his handsome teeth. He was very -well dressed. Presently I heard what they were saying. "I suppose it's -pretty big," said the beautiful young girl. "Yes; it's pretty big," said -the handsome young man. "It's nicer when they are big," said his -interlocutress. The young man looked at her, and at everything in -general, with his slowly-apprehending blue eye, and for some time no -further remark was made. "It draws ten feet of water," he at last went -on. "How much water is there?" said the young girl. She spoke in a -charming voice. "There are thirty feet of water," said the young man. -"Oh, that's enough," rejoined the damsel. I had had an idea they were -flirting, and perhaps indeed that is the way it is done. It was an -ancient room and extremely delightful; everything was polished over with -the brownness of centuries. The chimney-piece was carved a foot thick, -and the windows bore, in coloured glass, the quarterings of ancestral -couples. These had stopped two hundred years before; there was nothing -newer than that date. Outside the windows was a deep, broad moat, which -washed the base of gray walls--gray walls spotted over with the most -delicate yellow lichens. - -In such a region as this mellow, conservative Warwickshire an -appreciative American finds the small things quite as suggestive as the -great. Everything, indeed, is suggestive, and impressions are constantly -melting into each other and doing their work before he has had time to -ask them whence they came. He cannot go into a cottage muffled in -plants, to see a genial gentlewoman and a "nice girl," without being -reminded forsooth of "The Small House at Arlington" Why of "The Small -House at Arlington?" There is a larger house at which the ladies come up -to dine; but that is surely an insufficient reason. That the ladies are -charming--even that is not reason enough; for there have been other nice -girls in the world than lily Dale, and other mellow matrons than her -mamma. Reminded, however, he is--especially when he goes out upon the -lawn. Of course there is lawn-tennis, and it seems all ready for Mr. -Crosbie to come and play. This is a small example of the way in which in -the presence of English life the imagination must be constantly at play, -on the part of members of a race in whom it has necessarily been trained -to do extra service. In driving and walking, in looking and listening, -everything seemed to me in some degree or other characteristic of a -rich, powerful, old-fashioned society. One had no need of being told -that this is a conservative county; the fact seemed written in the -hedgerows and in the verdant acres behind them. Of course the owners of -these things were conservative; of course they were stubbornly unwilling -to see the harmonious edifice of Church and State the least bit shaken. -I had a feeling, as I went about, that I should find some very ancient -and curious opinions still comfortably domiciled in the fine old houses -whose clustered gables and chimneys appeared here and there, at a -distance, above their ornamental woods. Self-complacent British Toryism, -viewed in this vague and conjectural fashion--across the fields and -behind the oaks and beeches--is by no means a thing the irresponsible -stranger would wish away; it deepens the local colour; it may be said to -enhance the landscape. I got a sort of constructive sense of its -presence in the picturesque old towns of Coventry and Warwick, which -appear to be filled with those institutions--chiefly of an eleemosynary -order--that Toryism takes a genial comfort in. There are ancient -charities in these places--hospitals, almshouses, asylums, -infant-schools--so quaint and venerable that they almost make the -existence of poverty a delectable and satisfying thought. In Coventry in -especial, I believe, these pious foundations are so numerous as almost -to place a premium upon misery. Invidious reflections apart, however, -there are few things that speak more quaintly and suggestively of the -old England that an American loves than these clumsy little monuments of -ancient benevolence. Such an institution as Leicester's Hospital at -Warwick seems indeed to exist primarily for the sake of its spectacular -effect upon the American tourists, who, with the dozen rheumatic old -soldiers maintained in affluence there, constitute its principal -_clientèle_. - -The American tourist usually comes straight to this quarter of -England--chiefly for the purpose of paying his respects to the -birthplace of Shakespeare. Being here, he comes to Warwick to see the -castle; and being at Warwick, he comes to see the odd little -theatrical-looking refuge for superannuated warriors which lurks in the -shadow of one of the old gate-towers. Every one will remember -Hawthorne's account of the place, which has left no touch of charming -taste to be added to any reference to it. The hospital struck me as a -little museum kept up for the amusement and confusion of those inquiring -Occidentals who are used to seeing charity more dryly and practically -administered. The old hospitallers--I am not sure, after all, whether -they are necessarily soldiers, but some of them happen to be--are at -once the curiosities and the keepers. They sit on benches outside of -their door, at the receipt of custom, all neatly brushed and darned, and -ready, like Mr. Cook, to conduct you personally. They are only twelve in -number, but their picturesque dwelling, perched upon the old city -rampart, and full of dusky little courts, cross-timbered gable-ends and -deeply sunken lattices, seems a wonderfully elaborate piece of machinery -for its humble purpose. Each of the old gentlemen must be provided with -a wife or "housekeeper;" each of them has a dusky parlour of his own; -and they pass their latter days in their scoured and polished little -refuge as softly and honourably as a company of retired lawgivers or -pensioned soothsayers. - -At Coventry I went to see a couple of old charities of a similar -pattern--places with black-timbered fronts, little clean-swept courts -and Elizabethan windows. One of them was a romantic residence for a -handful of old women, who sat, each of them, in a cosy little bower, in -a sort of mediæval darkness; the other was a school for little boys of -humble origin, and this last establishment was charming. I found the -little boys playing at "top" in a gravelled court, in front of the -prettiest old building of tender-coloured stucco and painted timber, -ornamented with two delicate little galleries and a fantastic porch. -They were dressed in small blue tunics and odd caps, like those worn by -sailors, but, if I remember rightly, with little yellow tags affixed to -them. I was free, apparently, to wander all over the establishment; -there was no sign of pastor or master anywhere; nothing but the little -yellow-headed boys playing before the ancient house, and practising most -correctly the Warwickshire accent. I went indoors and looked at a fine -old oaken staircase; I even ascended it, and walked along a gallery and -peeped into a dormitory at a row of very short beds; and then I came -down and sat for five minutes on a bench hardly wider than the top rail -of a fence, in a little, cold, dim refectory, where there was not a -crumb to be seen, nor any lingering odour of bygone repasts to be -perceived. And yet I wondered how it was that the sense of many -generations of boyish feeders seemed to abide there. It came, I suppose, -from the very bareness and, if I may be allowed the expression, the -clean-licked aspect of the place, which wore the appearance of the -famous platter of Jack Sprat and his wife. - -Inevitably, of course, the sentimental tourist has a great deal to say -to himself about this being Shakespeare's county--about these densely -verdant meadows and parks having been, to his musing eyes, the normal -landscape. In Shakespeare's day, doubtless, the coat of nature was far -from being so prettily trimmed as it is now; but there is one place, -nevertheless, which, as he passes it in the summer twilight, the -traveller does his best to believe unaltered. I allude, of course, to -Charlecote park, whose venerable verdure seems a survival from an -earlier England, and whose innumerable acres, stretching away, in the -early evening, to vaguely seen Tudor walls, lie there like the backward -years receding to the age of Elizabeth. It was, however, no part of my -design in these remarks to pause before so thickly besieged a shrine as -this; and if I were to allude to Stratford, it would not be in -connection with the fact that Shakespeare came into the world there. It -would be rather to speak of a delightful old house near the Avon which -struck me as the ideal home for a Shakespearean scholar, or indeed for -any passionate lover of the poet. Here, with books, and memories, and -the recurring reflection that he had taken his daily walk across the -bridge, at which you look from your windows straight down an avenue of -fine old trees, with an ever-closed gate at the end of them and a carpet -of turf stretched over the decent drive--here, I say, with old brown -wainscotted chambers to live in, old polished doorsteps to lead you from -one to the other, deep window-seats to sit in, with a play in your -lap--here a person for whom the cares of life should have resolved -themselves into a care for the greatest genius who has represented and -ornamented life, might find a very congruous asylum. Or, speaking a -little wider of the mark, the charming, rambling, low-gabled, -many-staired, much-panelled mansion would be a very agreeable home for -any person of taste who should prefer an old house to a new. I find I am -talking about it quite like an auctioneer; but what I chiefly had at -heart was to commemorate the fact that I had lunched there, and while I -lunched kept saying to myself that there is nothing in the world so -delightful as the happy accidents of old English houses. - -And yet that same day, on the edge of the Avon, I found it in me to say -that a new house too may be a very charming affair. But I must add that -the new house I speak of had really such exceptional advantages that it -could not fairly be placed in the scale. Besides, was it new after all? -I suppose that it was, and yet one's impression there was all of a kind -of silvery antiquity. The place stood upon a decent Stratford street, -from which it looked usual enough; but when, after sitting a while in a -charming modern drawing-room, one stepped thoughtlessly through an open -window upon a verandah, one found that the horizon of the morning-call -had been wonderfully widened. I will not pretend to relate all that I -saw after I stepped off the verandah; suffice it that the spire and -chancel of the beautiful old church in which Shakespeare is buried, with -the Avon sweeping its base, were one of the elements of the vision. Then -there were the smoothest lawns in the world stretching down to the edge -of this lovely stream, and making, where the water touched them, a line -as even as the rim of a champagne-glass--a verge near which you -inevitably lingered to see the spire and the chancel--the church was -close at hand--among the well-grouped trees, and look for their -reflection in the river. The place was a garden of delight; it was a -stage set for one of Shakespeare's comedies--for _Twelfth Night_ or -_Much Ado_. Just across the river was a level meadow, which rivalled the -lawn on which I stood, and this meadow seemed only the more essentially -a part of the scene by reason of the voluminous sheep that were grazing -on it. These sheep were by no means mere edible mutton; they were -poetic, historic, romantic sheep; they were there to be picturesque, and -they knew it. And yet, knowing as they were, I doubt whether the wisest -old ram of the flock could have told me how to explain why it was that -this happy mixture of lawn and river and mirrored spire and blooming -garden seemed to me for a quarter of an hour the prettiest corner of -England. - -If Warwickshire is Shakespeare's country, I found myself remembering -that it is also George Eliot's. The author of _Adam Bede_ and -_Middlemarch_ has called the rural background of those admirable -fictions by another name, but I believe it long ago ceased to be a -secret that her native Warwickshire had been in her intention. The -stranger who wanders over its velvety surface recognises at every turn -the elements of George Eliot's novels--especially when he carries -himself back in imagination to the Warwickshire of forty years ago. He -says to himself that it would be impossible to conceive anything more -conservatively bucolic, more respectably pastoral. It was in one of the -old nestling farmhouses, beyond a hundred hedgerows, that Hetty Sorrel -smiled into her milk-pans, as if she were looking for a reflection of -her pretty face; it was at the end of one of the leafy-pillared avenues -that poor Mrs. Casaubon paced up and down in fervid disappointment. The -country suggests, in especial, both the social and the natural scenery -of _Middlemarch_. There must be many a genially perverse old Mr. Brooke -there yet, and whether there are many Dorotheas or not, there must be -many a well-featured and well-acred young country gentleman, of the -pattern of Sir James Chettam, who, as he rides along the leafy lanes, -softly cudgels his brain to know why a clever girl shouldn't wish to -marry him. But I doubt whether there are many Dorotheas, and I suspect -that the Sir James Chettams of the county are not often pushed to that -intensity of meditation. You feel, however, that George Eliot could not -have placed her heroine in a local medium better fitted to throw her -fine impatience into relief--a community more likely to be startled and -perplexed by a questioning attitude on the part of a well-housed and -well-fed young gentlewoman. - -Among the edifying days that I spent in these neighbourhoods there is -one in especial of which I should like to give a detailed account. But I -find on consulting my memory that the details have melted away into the -single deep impression of a perfect ripeness of civilisation. It was a -long excursion, by rail and by carriage, for the purpose of seeing three -extremely interesting old country-houses. Our errand led us, in the -first place, into Oxfordshire, through the ancient market-town of -Banbury, where of course we made a point of looking out for the Cross -referred to in the famous nursery-rhyme. It stood there in the most -natural manner--though I am afraid it has been "done up"--with various -antique gables around it, from one of whose exiguous windows the young -person appealed to in the rhyme may have looked at the old woman as she -rode and heard the music of her bells. The houses we went to see have -not a national reputation; they are simply interwoven figures in the -rich pattern of the Midlands. They have, indeed, a local renown, but -they are not thought to be very exceptionally curious or beautiful, and -the stranger has a feeling that his surprises and ecstasies are held to -betray a meagre bringing-up. Such places, to a Warwickshire mind of good -habits, must appear to be the pillars and props of a heaven-appointed -order of things; and accordingly, in a land on which heaven smiles, they -are as natural as the geology of the county or the supply of mutton. But -nothing could well give a stranger a stronger impression of the wealth -of England in such matters--of the interminable list of her territorial -homes--than this fact that the enchanting old mansions I speak of should -have but a limited fame--should not be lions of the first magnitude. Of -one of them, the finest in the group, one of my companions, who lived -but twenty miles away, had never even heard. Such a place was not -thought a matter to boast about. Its peers and its mates are scattered -all over the country; half of them are not even mentioned in the county -guide-books. You stumble upon them in a drive or a walk. You catch a -glimpse of an ivied front at the midmost point of a great estate, and -taking your way, by leave of a serious old woman at a lodge-gate, along -an overarching avenue, you find yourself introduced to an edifice so -human-looking in its beauty, that it seems for the occasion to reconcile -art and morality. - -To Broughton Castle, the first seen in this beautiful group, I must do -no more than allude; but this is not because I failed to think it, as I -think every house I see, the most delightful residence in England. It -lies rather low, and its woods and pastures slope down to it; it has a -deep, clear moat all around it, spanned by a bridge that passes under a -charming old gate-tower, and nothing can be prettier than to see its -clustered walls of yellow-brown stone so sharply islanded, while its -gardens bloom on the other side of the water. Like several other houses -in this part of the country, Broughton Castle played a part (on the -Parliamentary side) in the civil wars, and not the least interesting -features of its beautiful interior are the several mementoes of -Cromwell's station there. It was within a moderate drive of this place -that in 1642 the battle of Edgehill was fought--the first great battle -of the war--and gained by neither party. We went to see the battlefield, -where an ancient tower and an artificial ruin (of all things in the -world) have been erected for the entertainment of convivial visitors. -These ornaments are perched upon the edge of a slope which commands a -view of the exact scene of the contest, upwards of a mile away. I looked -in the direction indicated, and saw misty meadows, a little greener -perhaps than usual, and colonnades of elms, a trifle denser. After this -we paid our respects to another old house which is full of memories and -suggestions of that most dramatic period of English history. But of -Compton Wyniates (the name of this enchanting domicile), I despair of -giving any coherent or adequate account. It belongs to the Marquis of -Northampton, and it stands empty all the year round. It sits on the -grass at the bottom of a wooded hollow, and the glades of a superb old -park go wandering upward, away from it. When I came out in front of the -house from a short and steep but stately avenue, I said to myself that -here surely we had arrived at the farthest limits of what ivy-smothered -brickwork and weather-beaten gables, conscious old windows and -clustered mossy roofs, can accomplish for the eye. It is impossible to -imagine a more perfect picture. And its air of solitude and delicate -decay--of having been dropped into its grassy hollow as an ancient jewel -is deposited upon a cushion, and being shut in from the world and back -into the past by its circling woods--all this highly increased its -impressiveness. The house is not large, as great houses go, and it sits, -as I have said, upon the grass, without even a flagging or a footpath to -conduct you from the point where the avenue stops to the beautiful -sculptured doorway which admits you into the small, quaint, inner court. -From this court you are at liberty to pass through the crookedest series -of oaken halls and chambers, adorned with treasures of old wainscotting -and elaborate doors and chimney-pieces. Outside, you may walk all round -the house on a grassy bank, which is raised above the level on which it -stands, and find it from every point of view a more charming -composition. I should not omit to mention that Compton Wyniates is -supposed to have been in Scott's eye when he described the dwelling of -the old royalist knight in Woodstock. In this case he simply transferred -the house to the other side of the county. He has indeed given several -of the features of the place, but he has not given what one may call its -colour. I must add that if Sir Walter could not give the colour of -Compton Wyniates, it is useless for any other writer to attempt it It is -a matter for the brush and not for the pen. - -And what shall I say of the colour of Wroxton Abbey, which we visited -last in order, and which in the thickening twilight, as we approached -its great ivy-muffled face, made an ineffaceable impression on my fancy? -Wroxton Abbey, as it stands, is a house of about the same period as -Compton Wyniates--the latter years, I suppose, of the sixteenth century. -But it is quite another affair. The place is inhabited, "kept up," and -full of the most interesting and most splendid detail. Its happy -occupants, however, were fortunately not actually staying there (happy -occupants, in England, are almost always absent), and the house was -exhibited with a civility worthy of its merit. Everything that in the -material line can render life noble and charming has been gathered into -it with a profusion which makes the whole place a monument to past -opportunity. As I wandered from one rich room to another, looking at -these things, that ineffaceable impression upon my fancy which I just -mentioned was delightfully deepened. But who can tell the pleasures of -fancy when fancy takes her ease in an old English country-house, while -the twilight darkens the corners of expressive rooms, and the -appreciative intruder, pausing at the window, turns his glance from the -observing portrait of a handsome ancestral face and sees the great soft -billows of the lawn melt away into the park? - - - - -XIII - -ABBEYS AND CASTLES - -1877 - - -It is a frequent reflection with the stranger in England that the beauty -and interest of the country are private property, and that to get access -to them a key is always needed. The key may be large or it may be small, -but it must be something that will turn a lock. Of the things that -contribute to the happiness of an American observer in the country of -parks and castles, I can think of very few that do not come under this -definition of private property. When I have mentioned the hedgerows and -the churches I have almost exhausted the list. You can enjoy a hedgerow -from the public road, and I suppose that even if you are a Dissenter you -may enjoy a Norman abbey from the street. If, therefore, one talk of -anything beautiful in England, the presumption will be that it is -private; and indeed such is my admiration of this delightful country -that I feel inclined to say that if one talk of anything private the -presumption will be that it is beautiful. This is something of a -dilemma. If the observer permit himself to commemorate charming -impressions, he is in danger of giving to the world the fruits of -friendship and hospitality. If, on the other hand, he withhold his -impression, he lets something admirable slip away without having marked -its passage, without having done it proper honour. He ends by mingling -discretion with enthusiasm, and he says to himself that it is not -treating a country ill to talk of its treasures when the mention of each -has tacit reference to an act of private courtesy. - -The impressions I have in mind in writing these lines were gathered in a -part of England of which I had not before had even a traveller's -glimpse; but as to which, after a day or two, I found myself quite ready -to agree with a friend who lived there, and who knew and loved it well, -when he said very frankly, "I do believe it is the loveliest corner of -the world!" This was not a dictum to quarrel about, and while I was in -the neighbourhood I was quite of his opinion. I felt that it would not -take a great deal to make me care for it very much as he cared for it; I -had a glimpse of the peculiar tenderness with which such a country may -be loved. It is a capital example of the great characteristic of English -scenery--of what I should call density of feature. There are no waste -details; everything in the landscape is something particular--has a -history, has played a part, has a value to the imagination. It is a -region of hills and blue undulations, and, though none of the hills are -high, all of them are interesting--interesting as such things are -interesting in an old, small country, by a kind of exquisite modulation, -something suggesting that outline and colouring have been retouched and -refined by the hand of time. Independently of its castles and abbeys, -the definite relics of the ages, such a landscape seems historic. It has -human relations, and it is intimately conscious of them. That little -speech about the loveliness of his county, or of his own part of his -county, was made to me by my companion as we walked up the grassy slope -of a hill, or "edge," as it is called there, from the crest of which we -seemed in an instant to look away over most of the remainder of England. -Certainly I should have grown affectionate with regard to such a view as -that. The "edge" plunged down suddenly, as if the corresponding slope on -the other side had been excavated, and one might follow the long ridge -for the space of an afternoon's walk with this vast, charming prospect -before one's eyes. Looking across an English county into the next but -one is a very pretty entertainment, the county seeming by no means so -small as might be supposed. How can a county seem small in which, from -such a vantage-point as the one I speak of, you see, as a darker patch -across the lighter green, the great estate of one of their lordships? -Beyond these are blue undulations of varying tone, and then another -bosky-looking spot, which constitutes, as you are told, the residential -umbrage of another peer. And to right and left of these, in wooded -expanses, lie other domains of equal consequence. It was therefore not -the smallness but the vastness of the country that struck me, and I was -not at all in the mood of a certain American who once, in my hearing, -burst out laughing at an English answer to my inquiry as to whether my -interlocutor often saw Mr. B----. "Oh no," the answer had been, "we -never see him: he lives away off in the West." It was the western part -of his county our friend meant, and my American humorist found matter -for infinite jest in his meaning. "I should as soon think of saying my -western hand and my eastern," he declared. - -I do not think, even, that my disposition to form a sentimental -attachment for this delightful region--for its hillside prospect of old -red farmhouses lighting up the dark-green bottoms, of gables and -chimney-tops of great houses peeping above miles of woodland, and, in -the vague places of the horizon, of far away towns and sites that one -had always heard of--was conditioned upon having "property" in the -neighbourhood, so that the little girls in the town should suddenly drop -curtsies to me in the street; though that too would certainly have been -pleasant. At the same time, having a little property would without doubt -have made the sentiment stronger. People who wander about the world -without money in their pockets indulge in dreams--dreams of the things -they would buy if their pockets were complete. These dreams are very apt -to have relation to a good estate in any neighbourhood in which the -wanderer may happen to find himself. For myself, I have never been in a -country so unattractive that it did not seem a peculiar felicity to be -able to purchase the most considerable house it contained. In New -England and other portions of the United States I have coveted the large -mansion with Doric columns and a pediment of white-painted timber; in -Italy I have made imaginary proposals for the yellow-walled villa with -statues on the roof. In England I have rarely gone so far as to fancy -myself in treaty for the best house, but, failing this, I have rarely -failed to feel that ideal comfort for the time would be to call one's -self owner of what is denominated here a "good" place. Is it that -English country life seems to possess such irresistible charms? I have -not always thought so; I have sometimes suspected that it is dull; I -have remembered that there is a whole literature devoted to exposing it -(that of the English novel "of manners"); and that its recorded -occupations and conversations occasionally strike one as lacking a -certain indispensable salt. But, for all that, when, in the region to -which I allude, my companion spoke of this and that place being likely -sooner or later to come to the hammer, it seemed as if nothing could be -more delightful than to see the hammer hanging upon one's own -liberality. And this in spite of the fact that the owners of the places -in question would part with them because they could no longer afford to -keep them up. I found it interesting to learn, in so far as was -possible, what sort of income was implied by the possession of -country-seats such as are not in America a concomitant of even the -largest fortunes; and if in these revelations I sometimes heard of a -very long rent-roll, on the other hand I was frequently surprised at the -shortness of purse attributed to people living in the depths of an -oak-studded park. Then, certainly, English country-life seemed to me the -most advantageous thing in the world; on conditions such as these one -would gladly be dull; surrounded by luxury of so moderate a cost one -would joyfully stagnate. - -There was one place in particular of which I said to myself that if I -had the money to buy it, I would "move in" on the morrow. I saw this -place, unfortunately, to small advantage; I saw it in the rain. But I am -rather glad that fine weather did not meddle with the affair, for I -think that in this case the irritation of envy might have made me ill. -It was a long, wet Sunday, and the waters were deep. I had been in the -house all day, for the weather can best be described by my saying that -it had been deemed to exonerate me from church-going. But in the -afternoon, the prospective interval between lunch and tea assuming -formidable proportions, my host took me out to walk, and in the course -of our walk he led me into a park which he described as "the paradise of -a small English country-gentleman." It was indeed a modern Eden, and the -trees might have been trees of knowledge. They were of high antiquity -and magnificent girth and stature; they were strewn over the grassy -levels in extraordinary profusion, and scattered upon and down the -slopes in a fashion than which I have seen nothing more charming since I -last looked at the chestnuts on the Lake of Como. It appears that the -place was not very large, but I was unable to perceive its limits. -Shortly before we turned into the park the rain had renewed itself, so -that we were awkwardly wet and muddy; but, being near the house, my -companion proposed to leave his card in a neighbourly way. The house was -most agreeable; it stood on a kind of terrace, in the middle of a lawn -and garden, and the terrace overlooked one of the most copious rivers in -England, and across to those blue undulations of which I have already -spoken. On the terrace also was a piece of ornamental water, and there -was a small iron paling to divide the lawn from the park. All this I -beheld in the rain. My companion gave his card to the butler, with the -remark that we were too much bespattered to come in, and we turned away -to complete our circuit. As we turned away I became acutely conscious of -what I should have been tempted to call the cruelty of this proceeding. -My imagination gauged the whole position. It was a Sunday afternoon, and -it was raining. The house was charming, the terrace delightful, the oaks -magnificent, the view most interesting. But the whole thing was--not to -repeat the invidious epithet of which just now I made too gross a -use--the whole thing was quiet. In the house was a drawing-room, and in -the drawing-room was--by which I meant must be--a lady, a charming -English lady. It seemed to me that there was nothing fatuous in -believing that on this rainy Sunday afternoon it would not please her to -be told that two gentlemen had walked across the country to her door -only to go through the ceremony of leaving a card. Therefore, when, -before we had gone many yards, I heard the butler hurrying after us, I -felt how just my sentiment of the situation had been. Of course we went -back, and I carried my muddy boots into the drawing-room--just the -drawing-room I had imagined--where I found--I will not say just the lady -I had imagined, but a lady even more charming. Indeed, there were two -ladies, one of whom was staying in the house. In whatever company you -find yourself in England, you may always be sure that some one present -is "staying." I seldom hear this participle nowadays without remembering -an observation made to me in France by a lady who had seen much of -English manners. "Ah, that dreadful word _staying_! I think we are so -happy in France not to be able to translate it--not to have any word -that answers to it." The large windows of the drawing-room I speak of -looked away over the river to the blurred and blotted hills, where the -rain was drizzling and drifting. It was very quiet, as I say; there was -an air of large leisure. If one wanted to do something here, there was -evidently plenty of time--and indeed of every other appliance--to do it. -The two ladies talked about "town:" that is what people talk about in -the country. If I were disposed I might represent them as talking about -it with a certain air of yearning. At all events, I asked myself how it -was possible that one should live in this charming place and trouble -one's head about what was going on in London in July. Then we had -excellent tea. - -I returned to the habitation of my companion--for I too was guilty of -"staying"--through an old Norman portal, massively arched and quaintly -sculptured, across whose hollow threshold the eye of fancy might see the -ghosts of monks and the shadows of abbots pass noiselessly to and fro. -This aperture admits you to a beautiful ambulatory of the thirteenth -century--a long stone gallery or cloister, repeated in two stories, with -the interstices of its traceries now glazed, but with its long, low, -narrow, charming vista still perfect and picturesque--with its flags -worn away by monkish sandals, and with huge round-arched doorways -opening from its inner side into great rooms roofed like cathedrals. -These rooms are furnished with narrow windows, of almost defensive -aspect, set in embrasures three feet deep, and ornamented with little -grotesque mediæval faces. To see one of the small monkish masks -grinning at you while you dress and undress, or while you look up in the -intervals of inspiration from your letter writing, is a mere detail in -the entertainment of living in a _ci-devant_ priory. This entertainment -is inexhaustible; for every step you take in such a house confronts you -in one way or another with the remote past. You feast upon the -pictorial, you inhale the historic. Adjoining the house is a beautiful -ruin, part of the walls and windows and bases of the piers of the -magnificent church administered by the predecessor of your host, the -abbot. These relics are very desultory, but they are still abundant, and -they testify to the great scale and the stately beauty of the abbey. You -may lie upon the grass at the base of an ivied fragment, measure the -girth of the great stumps of the central columns, half smothered in soft -creepers, and think how strange it is that in this quiet hollow, in the -midst of lonely hills, so exquisite and elaborate a work of art should -have arisen. It is but an hour's walk to another great ruin, which has -held together more completely. There the central tower stands erect to -half its altitude, and the round arches and massive pillars of the nave -make a perfect vista on the unencumbered turf. You get an impression -that when catholic England was in her prime, great abbeys were as thick -as milestones. By native amateurs, even now, the region is called -"wild," though to American eyes it seems almost suburban in its -smoothness and finish. There is a noiseless little railway running -through the valley, and there is an ancient little town at the -abbey-gates--a town, indeed, with no great din of vehicles, but with -goodly brick houses, with a dozen "publics," with tidy, whitewashed -cottages, and with little girls, as I have said, bobbing curtsies in the -street. But even now, if one had wound one's way into the valley by the -railroad, it would be rather a surprise to find a small ornamental -cathedral in a spot on the whole so natural and pastoral. How impressive -then must the beautiful church have been in the days of its prosperity, -when the pilgrim came down to it from the grassy hillside and its bells -made the stillness sensible! The abbey was in those days a great affair; -as my companion said, it sprawled all over the place. As you walk away -from it you think you have got to the end of its geography, but you -encounter it still in the shape of a rugged outhouse enriched with an -early-English arch, or an ancient well, hidden in a kind of sculptured -cavern. It is noticeable that even if you are a traveller from a land -where there are no early-English--and indeed few late-English--arches, -and where the well-covers are, at their hoariest, of fresh-looking -shingles, you grow used with little delay to all this antiquity. -Anything very old seems extremely natural; there is nothing we accept so -implicitly as transmitted associations. It is not too much to say that -after spending twenty-four hours in a house that is six hundred years -old, you seem yourself to have lived in it for six hundred years. You -seem yourself to have hollowed the flags with your tread, and to have -polished the oak with your touch. You walk along the little stone -gallery where the monks used to pace, looking out of the gothic -window-places at their beautiful church, and you pause at the big round, -rugged doorway that admits you to what is now the drawing-room. The -massive step by which you ascend to the threshold is a trifle crooked, -as it should be; the lintels are cracked and worn by the myriad-fingered -years. This strikes your casual glance. You look up and down the -miniature cloister before you pass in; it seems wonderfully old and -queer. Then you turn into the drawing-room, where you find modern -conversation and late publications and the prospect of dinner. The new -life and the old have melted together; there is no dividing-line. In the -drawing-room wall is a queer funnel-shaped hole, with the broad end -inward, like a small casemate. You ask what it is, but people have -forgotten. It is something of the monks; it is a mere detail. After -dinner you are told that there is of course a ghost--a gray friar who is -seen in the dusky hours at the end of passages. Sometimes the servants -see him; they afterwards go surreptitiously to sleep in the village. -Then, when you take your chamber-candle and go wandering bedward by a -short cut through empty rooms, you are conscious of a peculiar sentiment -toward the gray friar which you hardly know whether to interpret as a -hope or a reluctance. - -A friend of mine, an American, who knew this country, had told me not to -fail, while I was in the neighbourhood, to go to S---- and two or three -other places. "Edward IV. and Elizabeth," he said, "are still hanging -about there." So admonished, I made a point of going at least to S----, -and I saw quite what my friend meant. Edward IV. and Elizabeth, indeed, -are still to be met almost anywhere in the county; as regards domestic -architecture, few parts of England are still more vividly old-English. -I have rarely had, for a couple of hours, the sensation of dropping back -personally into the past in a higher degree than while I lay on the -grass beside the well in the little sunny court of this small castle, -and lazily appreciated the still definite details of mediæval life. The -place is a capital example of what the French call a small -_gentilhommière_ of the thirteenth century. It has a good deep moat, -now filled with wild verdure, and a curious gatehouse of a much later -period--the period when the defensive attitude had been well-nigh -abandoned. This gatehouse, which is not in the least in the style of the -habitation, but gabled and heavily timbered, with quaint cross-beams -protruding from surfaces of coarse white plaster, is a very effective -anomaly in regard to the little gray fortress on the other side of the -court. I call this a fortress, but it is a fortress which might easily -have been taken, and it must have assumed its present shape at a time -when people had ceased to peer through narrow slits at possible -besiegers. There are slits in the outer walls for such peering, but they -are noticeably broad and not particularly oblique, and might easily have -been applied to the uses of a peaceful parley. This is part of the charm -of the place; human life there must have lost an earlier grimness; it -was lived in by people who were beginning to believe in good intentions. -They must have lived very much together; that is one of the most obvious -reflections in the court of a mediæval dwelling. The court was not -always grassy and empty, as it is now, with only a couple of gentlemen -in search of impressions lying at their length, one of whom has taken a -wine-flask out of his pocket and has coloured the clear water drawn for -them out of the well in a couple of tumblers by a decent, rosy, smiling, -talking old woman, who has come bustling out of the gatehouse, and who -has a large, dropsical, innocent husband standing about on crutches in -the sun, and making no sign when you ask after his health. This poor man -has reached that ultimate depth of human simplicity at which even a -chance to talk about one's ailments is not appreciated. But the civil -old woman talks for every one, even for an artist who has come out of -one of the rooms, where I see him afterward reproducing its mouldering -repose. The rooms are all unoccupied and in a state of extreme decay, -though the castle is, as yet, far from being a ruin. From one of the -windows I see a young lady sitting under a tree, across a meadow, with -her knees up, dipping something into her mouth. It is a camel's hair -paint-brush; the young lady is sketching. These are the only besiegers -to which the place is exposed now, and they can do no great harm, as I -doubt whether the young lady's aim is very good. We wandered about the -empty interior, thinking it a pity such things should fall to pieces. -There is a beautiful great hall--great, that is, for a small castle (it -would be extremely handsome in a modern house)--with tall, -ecclesiastical-looking windows, and a long staircase at one end, -climbing against the wall into a spacious bedroom. You may still -apprehend very well the main lines of that simpler life; and it must be -said that, simpler though it was, it was apparently by no means -destitute of many of our own conveniences. The chamber at the top of the -staircase ascending from the hall is charming still, with its irregular -shape, its low-browed ceiling, its cupboards in the walls, and its deep -bay window formed of a series of small lattices. You can fancy people -stepping out from it upon the platform of the staircase, whose rugged -wooden logs, by way of steps, and solid, deeply-guttered hand-rail, -still remain. They looked down into the hall, where, I take it, there -was always a congregation of retainers, much lounging and waiting and -passing to and fro, with a door open into the court. The court, as I -said just now, was not the grassy, aesthetic spot which you may find it -at present of a summer's day; there were beasts tethered in it, and -hustling men-at-arms, and the earth was trampled into puddles. But my -lord or my lady, looking down from the chamber-door, commanded the -position and, no doubt, issued their orders accordingly. The sight of -the groups on the floor beneath, the calling up and down, the oaken -tables spread, and the brazier in the middle--all this seemed present -again; and it was not difficult to pursue the historic vision through -the rest of the building--through the portion which connected the great -hall with the tower (here the confederate of the sketching young lady -without had set up the peaceful three-legged engine of his craft); -through the dusky, roughly circular rooms of the tower itself, and up -the corkscrew staircase of the same to that most charming part of every -old castle, where visions must leap away off the battlements to elude -you--the bright, dizzy platform at the tower-top, the place where the -castle-standard hung and the vigilant inmates surveyed the approaches. -Here, always, you really overtake the impression of the place--here, in -the sunny stillness, it seems to pause, panting a little, and give -itself up. - -It was not only at Stokesay--I have written the name at last, and I will -not efface it--that I lingered a while on the summit of the keep to -enjoy the complete impression so overtaken. I spent such another half -hour at Ludlow, which is a much grander and more famous monument. -Ludlow, however, is a ruin--the most impressive and magnificent of -ruins. The charming old town and the admirable castle form a capital -object of pilgrimage. Ludlow is an excellent example of a small English -provincial town that has not been soiled and disfigured by industry; it -exhibits no tall chimneys and smoke-streamers, with their attendant -purlieus and slums. The little city is perched upon a hill near which -the goodly Severn wanders, and it has a remarkable air of civic dignity. -Its streets are wide and clean, empty and a little grass-grown, and -bordered with spacious, mildly-ornamental brick houses, which look as if -there had been more going on in them in the first decade of the century -than there is in the present, but which can still, nevertheless, hold up -their heads and keep their window-panes clear, their knockers brilliant -and their door steps whitened. The place seems to say that a hundred -years, and less, ago it was the centre of a large provincial society, -and that this society was very "good" of its kind. It must have -transported itself to Ludlow for the season--in rumbling coaches and -heavy curricles--and there entertained itself in decent emulation of -that metropolis which a choice of railway lines had not as yet placed -within its immediate reach. It had balls at the assembly rooms; it had -Mrs. Siddons to play; it had Catalani to sing. Miss Burney's and Miss -Austen's heroines might perfectly well have had their first love-affair -there; a journey to Ludlow would certainly have been a great event to -Fanny Price or Emma Woodhouse, or even to those more exalted young -ladies, Evelina and Cecilia. It is a place on which a provincial -"gentry" has left a sensible stamp. I have seldom seen so good a -collection of houses of the period between the elder picturesqueness and -the modern baldness. Such places, such houses, such relics and -intimations, always carry me back to the near antiquity of that -pre-Victorian England which it is still easy for a stranger to picture -with a certain vividness, thanks to the partial survival of many of its -characteristics. It is still easier for a stranger who has stayed a -while in England to form an idea of the tone, the habits, the aspect of -English social life before its classic insularity had begun to wane, as -all observers agree that it did, about thirty years ago. It is true that -the mental operation in this matter reduces itself to fancying some of -the things which form what Mr. Matthew Arnold would call the peculiar -"notes" of England infinitely exaggerated--the rigidly aristocratic -constitution of society, for instance; the unæsthetic temper of the -people; the private character of most kinds of comfort and -entertainment. Let an old gentleman of conservative tastes, who can -remember the century's youth, talk to you at a club _temporis -acti_--tell you wherein it is that from his own point of view London, as -a residence for a gentleman, has done nothing but fall off for the last -forty years. You will listen, of course, with an air of decent sympathy, -but privately you will say to yourself how difficult a place of sojourn -London must have been in those days for a stranger--how little -cosmopolitan, how bound in a thousand ways, with narrowness of custom. -What is true of the metropolis at that time is of course doubly true of -the provinces; and a genteel little city like the one I am speaking of -must have been a kind of focus of insular propriety. Even then, however, -the irritated alien would have had the magnificent ruins of the castle -to dream himself back into good humour in. They would effectually have -transported him beyond all waning or waxing Philistinisms. - - - - -XIV - -ENGLISH VIGNETTES - -1879 - -I - - -Toward the last of April, in Monmouthshire, the primroses were as big as -your fist. I say "in Monmouthshire," because I believe that a certain -grassy mountain which I gave myself the pleasure of climbing, and to -which I took my way across the charming country, through lanes where the -hedges were perched upon blooming banks, lay within the borders of this -ancient province. It was the festive Eastertide, and a pretext for -leaving London had not been wanting. Of course it rained,--it rained a -good deal,--for man and the weather are usually at cross-purposes. But -there were intervals of light and warmth, and in England a couple of -hours of fine weather, islanded in moisture, assert their independence -and leave an uncompromised memory. These bright episodes were even of -longer duration; that whole morning, for instance, on which, with a -companion, I scrambled up the little Skirrid. One had a feeling that one -was very far from London; as, in fact, one was, after six or seven hours -in a smooth, swift English train. In England this is a great remoteness; -it seemed to justify the half-reluctant confession which I heard -constantly made, that the country was extremely "wild." There is -wildness and wildness, I thought; and though I had not been a great -explorer, I compared this rough district with several neighbourhoods in -another part of the world that passed for tame. I went even so far as to -wish that some of its ruder features might be transplanted to that -relatively unregulated landscape and commingled with its suburban -savagery. I went over the elements of this English prospect and of human -life in the midst of it, and wondered whether, if I were to enumerate -them and leave them to be added up by the dwellers beyond the sea, the -total would be set down as a wilderness. We were close to the Welsh -border, and a dozen little mountains in the distance were peeping over -each other's shoulders. But nature was open to the charge of no worse -disorder than this. The Skirrid (I like to repeat the name) wore, it is -true, at a distance, the aspect of a magnified extinguisher; but when, -after a bright, breezy walk through lane and meadow, we had scrambled -over the last of the thickly-flowering hedges which lay around its -shoulders like loosened strings of coral and began to ascend the grassy -cone (very much in the attitude of Nebuchadnezzar), it proved as -smooth-faced as a garden-mound. Hard by, on the flanks of other hills, -were troops of browsing sheep, and the only thing in which there was any -harshness of suggestion was the strong, damp wind. But even this had a -good deal of softness in it, and ministered to my sense of the agreeable -in scenery by the way it blew about the pearly morning mists that were -airing themselves upon neighbouring ridges, and kept shaking the -vaporous veil that fluttered down in the valley over the picturesque -little town of Abergavenny. A breezy, grassy English hill-top, looking -down on a country full of suggestive names and ancient memories, belongs -(especially if you are exhilarated by a beautiful walk, and you have a -flask in your pocket) decidedly to the category of smooth scenery. And -so with all the rest of it. - -On Sunday I stayed away from church, because I learned that the sacred -edifice had a mediæval chill, and that if I should sit there for a -couple of hours I might inherit a lumbago three hundred years old. The -fact was formidable, but the idea was, in a certain way, attractive; -there was nothing crude in a rheumatism which descended from the Norman -times. Practical considerations, however, determined me not to expose -myself to this venerable pain; so in the still hours, when the roads and -lanes were empty, I simply walked to the churchyard and sat upon one of -the sun-warmed grave-stones. I say the roads were empty, but they were -peopled with the big primroses I just now spoke of--primroses of the -size of ripe apples, and yet, in spite of their rank growth, of as pale -and tender a yellow as if their gold had been diluted with silver. It -was indeed a mixture of gold and silver, for there was a wealth of the -white wood-anemone as well, and these delicate flowers, each of so -perfect a coinage, were tumbled along the green wayside as if a prince -had been scattering largesse. The outside of an old English -country-church in service-time is a very pleasant place; and this is as -near as I often care to approach to the celebration of the Anglican -mysteries. A just sufficient sense of their august character may be -gathered from that vague sound of village-music which makes its way out -into the stillness, and from the perusal of those portions of the -Prayer-Book which are inscribed upon mouldering slabs and dislocated -headstones. The church I speak of was a beautiful specimen of its -kind--intensely aged, variously patched, but still solid and useful, and -with no touch of restoration. It was very big and massive, and, hidden -away in the fields, it had a kind of lonely grandeur; there was nothing -in particular near it but its out-of-the-world little parsonage. It was -only one of ten thousand; I had seen a hundred such before. But I -watched the watery sunshine upon the rugosities of its ancient masonry; -I stood a while in the shade of two or three spreading yews which -stretched their black arms over graves decorated for Easter, according -to the custom of that country, with garlands of primrose and dog-violet; -and I reflected that in a wild region it was a blessing to have so quiet -a place of refuge as that. - -Later, I chanced upon a couple of other asylums which were more spacious -and no less tranquil Both of them were old country-houses, and each in -its way was charming. One was a half-modernised feudal dwelling, lying -in a wooded hollow--a large concavity filled with a delightful old park. -The house had a long gray façade and half a dozen towers, and the usual -supply of ivy and of clustered chimneys relieved against a background of -rook-haunted elms. But the windows were all closed and the avenue was -untrodden; the house was the property of a lady who could not afford to -live in it in becoming state, and who had let it, famished, to a rich -young man "for the shooting." The rich young man occupied it but for -three weeks in the year, and for the rest of the time left it a prey to -the hungry gaze of the passing stranger, the would-be redresser of -æsthetic wrongs. It seemed a great æsthetic wrong that so charming a -place should not be a conscious, sentient home. But in England all this -is very common. It takes a great many plain people to keep a gentleman -going; it takes a great deal of wasted sweetness to make up a property. -It is true that, in the other case I speak of, the sweetness, which here -was even greater, was less sensibly squandered. If there was no one else -in the house, at least there were ghosts. It had a dark red front and -grim-looking gables; it was perched upon a sort of terrace, quite high -in the air, which was reached by steep, crooked, mossy steps. Beneath -these steps was an ancient bit of garden, and from the hither side of -the garden stretched a great expanse of turf. Out of the midst of the -turf sprang a magnificent avenue of Scotch firs--a perfect imitation of -the Italian stone-pine. It looked like the Villa Borghese transplanted -to the Welsh hills. The huge, smooth stems, in their double row, were -crowned with dark parasols. In the Scotch fir or the Italian pine there -is always an element of grotesqueness; the open umbrella in a rainy -country is not a poetical analogy, and the case is not better if you -compare the tree to a colossal mushroom. But, without analogies, there -was something very striking in the effect of this enormous, rigid vista, -and in the grassy carpet of the avenue, with the dusky, lonely, -high-featured house looking down upon it. There was something solemn and -tragical; the place was made to the hand of a romancer, and he might -have found his characters within; the leaden lattices were open. - - - - -II - - -The Isle of Wight is disappointing at first. I wondered why it should -be, and then I found the reason in the influence of the detestable -little railway. There can be no doubt that a railway in the Isle of -Wight is a gross impertinence; it is in evident contravention to the -natural style of the place. The place is minutely, delicately -picturesque, or it is nothing at all. It is purely ornamental; it exists -for the entertainment of tourists. It is separated by nature from the -dense railway-system of the less diminutive island, and it is the corner -of the world where a good carriage-road is most in keeping. Never was -there a better place for sacrificing to prettiness; never was there a -better chance for not making, a railway. But now there are twenty trains -a day, and the prettiness is twenty times less. The island is so small -that the hideous embankments and tunnels are obtrusive; the sight of -them is as painful as it would be to see a pedlar's pack on the -shoulders of a pretty woman. This is your first impression as you travel -(naturally by the objectionable conveyance) from Ryde to Ventnor; and -the fact that the train rumbles along very smoothly, and stops at half a -dozen little stations, where the groups on the platform enable you to -perceive that the population consists almost exclusively of gentlemen in -costumes suggestive of unlimited leisure for attention to cravats and -trousers (an immensely large class in England), of old ladies of the -species denominated in France _rentières_, of young ladies of the -highly-educated and sketching variety, this circumstance fails to -reconcile you to the chartered cicatrix which forms your course. At -Ventnor, however, face to face with the sea, and with the blooming -shoulder of the Undercliff close behind you, you lose sight to a certain -extent of the superfluities of civilisation. Not, indeed, that Ventnor -has not been diligently civilised. It is a well-regulated little -watering-place, and it has been subjected to a due measure of -cockneyfication. But the glittering ocean remains, shimmering at moments -with blue and silver, and the large gorse-covered downs rise superbly -above it. Ventnor hangs upon the side of a steep hill, and here and -there it clings and scrambles, it is propped and terraced, like one of -the bright--faced little towns that look down upon the Mediterranean. To -add to the Italian effect, the houses are all denominated villas, though -it must be added that nothing is less like an Italian villa than an -English one. Those which ornament the successive ledges at Ventnor are -for the most part small semi-detached boxes, predestined, even before -they had fairly come into the world, to the entertainment of lodgers. -They stand in serried rows all over the place, with the finest names in -the British _Peerage_ painted upon their gate-posts. Their severe -similarity of aspect, however, is such that even the difference between -Plantagenet and Percival, between Montgomery and Montmorency, is hardly -sufficient to enlighten the puzzled visitor. An English watering-place -is much more comfortable than an American; in a Plantagenet villa the -art of receiving "summer guests" has usually been brought to a higher -perfection than in an American rural hotel. But what strikes an -American, with regard to even so charmingly-nestled a little town as -Ventnor, is that it is far less natural, less pastoral and bosky, than -his own fond image of a summer-retreat. There is too much brick and -mortar; there are too many smoking chimneys and shops and public-houses; -there are no woods nor brooks, nor lonely headlands; there is none of -the virginal stillness of Nature. Instead of these things, there is an -esplanade, mostly paved with asphalt, bordered with benches and little -shops, and provided with a German band. To be just to Ventnor, however, -I must hasten to add that once you get away from the asphalt there is a -great deal of vegetation. The little village of Bonchurch, which closely -adjoins it, is buried in the most elaborate verdure, muffled in the -smoothest lawns and the densest shrubbery. Bonchurch is simply -delicious, and indeed in a manner quite absurd. It is like a model -village in imitative substances, kept in a big glass case; the turf -might be of green velvet and the foliage of cut paper. The villagers are -all happy gentlefolk, the cottages have plate-glass windows, and the -rose-trees on their walls are tended by an under-gardener. Passing from -Ventnor through the elegant umbrage of Bonchurch, and keeping along the -coast toward Shanklin, you come to the prettiest part of the Undercliff, -or, in other words, to the prettiest place in the world. The immense -grassy cliffs which form the coast of the island make what the French -would call a "false descent" to the sea. At a certain point the descent -is broken, and a wide natural terrace, all overtangled with wild shrubs -and flowers, hangs there in mid-air, half-way above the ocean. It is -impossible to imagine anything more charming than this long, blooming -platform, protected from the north by huge green bluffs and plunging on -the other side into the murmuring tides. This delightful arrangement -constitutes for a distance of some fifteen miles the south shore of the -Isle of Wight; but the best of it, as I have said, is to be found in the -four or five miles that separate Ventnor from Shanklin. Of a lovely -afternoon in April these four or five miles are an enchanting walk. - -Of course you must first catch your lovely afternoon. I caught one; in -fact, I caught two. On the second I climbed up the downs, and perceived -that it was possible to put their gorse-covered stretches to still other -than pedestrian uses--to devote them to sedentary pleasures. A long -lounge in the lee of a stone wall, the lingering, fading afternoon -light, the reddening sky, the band of blue sea above the level-topped -bunches of gorse--these things, enjoyed as an undertone to the -conversation of an amiable compatriot, seemed indeed a very sufficient -substitute for that primitive stillness of the absence of which I -ventured just now to complain. - - - - -III - - -It was probably a mistake to stop at Portsmouth. I had done so, however, -in obedience to a familiar theory that seaport-towns abound in local -colour, in curious types, in the quaint and the strange. But these -charms, it must be confessed, were signally wanting to Portsmouth, along -whose sordid streets I strolled for an hour, vainly glancing about me -for an overhanging façade or a group of Maltese sailors. I was -distressed to perceive that a famous seaport could be at once untidy and -prosaic. Portsmouth is dirty, but it is also dull. It may be roughly -divided into the dock-yard and the public-houses. The dock-yard, into -which I was unable to penetrate, is a colossal enclosure, signalised -externally by a grim brick wall, as featureless as an empty blackboard. -The dock-yard eats up the town, as it were, and there is nothing left -over but the gin-shops, which the town drinks up. There is not even a -crooked old quay of any consequence, with brightly patched houses -looking out upon a forest of masts. To begin with, there are no masts; -and then there are no polyglot sign-boards, no overhanging upper -stories, no outlandish parrots and macaws perched in open lattices. I -had another hour or so before my train departed, and it would have gone -hard with me if I had not bethought myself of hiring a boat and being -pulled about in the harbour. Here a certain amount of entertainment was -to be found. There were great iron-clads, and white troopships that -looked vague and spectral, like the floating home of the Flying -Dutchman, and small, devilish vessels whose mission was to project the -infernal torpedo. I coasted about these metallic islets; and then, to -eke out my entertainment, I boarded the _Victory_. The _Victory_ is an -ancient frigate of enormous size, which in the days of her glory carried -I know not how many hundred guns, but whose only function now is to -stand year after year in Portsmouth waters and exhibit herself to the -festive cockney. Bank-holiday is now her great date; once upon a time it -was Trafalgar. The _Victory_, in short, was Nelson's ship; it was on her -huge deck that he was struck and in her deep bowels he breathed his -last. The venerable vessel is provided with a company of ushers, like -the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey, and it is hardly less solid -and spacious than either of those edifices. A good man in uniform did me -the honours of the ship with a terrible displacement of _h_'s, and there -seemed something strange in the way it had lapsed from its heroic part. -It had carried two hundred guns and a mighty warrior, and boomed against -the enemies of England; it had been the scene of one of the most -thrilling and touching events in English history. Now, it was hardly -more than a mere source of income to the Portsmouth watermen--an -objective point for Whitsuntide excursionists--a thing that a foreign -observer must allude to very casually, for fear of seeming vulgar, or -even serious. - - - - -IV - - -But I recouped myself, as they say in England, by stopping afterwards at -Chichester. In this dense and various old England two places may be very -near together and yet strike a very different note. I knew in a general -way that there was a cathedral at Chichester; indeed, I had seen its -beautiful spire from the window of the train. I had always regarded an -afternoon in a little cathedral-town as a high order of entertainment, -and a morning at Portsmouth had left me in the mood for not missing such -an exhibition. The spire of Chichester at a little distance greatly -resembles that of Salisbury. It is on a smaller scale, but it tapers -upward with a delicate slimness which, like that of its famous rival, -makes a picture of the level landscape in which it stands. Unlike the -spire of Salisbury, however, it has not at present the charm of -antiquity. A few years ago the old steeple collapsed and tumbled into -the church, and the present structure is but a modern facsimile. The -cathedral is not of the highest interest; it is rather plain and bare, -and, except a curious old detached bell-tower which stands beside it, -has no particular element of unexpectedness. But an English cathedral of -restricted grandeur may yet be a very charming affair; and I spent an -hour or so lounging around this highly respectable edifice, without the -spell of contemplation being broken by satiety. I approached it, from -the station, by the usual quiet red-brick street of the usual cathedral -town--a street of small, excellent shops, before which, here and there, -one of the vehicles of the neighbouring gentry was drawn up beside the -curbstone, while the grocer or the bookseller, who had hurried out -obsequiously, was waiting upon the comfortable occupant. I went into a -bookseller's to buy a Chichester guide, which I perceived in the window; -I found the shopkeeper talking to a young curate in a soft hat. The -guide seemed very desirable, though it appeared to have been but -scantily desired; it had been published in the year 1841, and a very -large remnant of the edition, with a muslin back and a little white -label and paper-covered boards, was piled up on the counter. It was -dedicated, with terrible humility, to the Duke of Richmond, and -ornamented with primitive woodcuts and steel plates; the ink had turned -brown and the page musty; and the style itself--that of a provincial -antiquary of upwards of forty years ago penetrated with the grandeur of -the aristocracy--had grown rather sallow and stale. Nothing could have -been more mellifluous and urbane than the young curate: he was arranging -to have the _Times_ newspaper sent him every morning for perusal. "So it -will be a penny if it is fetched away at noon?" he said, smiling very -sweetly and with the most gentlemanly voice possible; "and it will be -three halfpence if it is fetched away at four o'clock?" At the top of -the street, into which, with my guide-book, I relapsed, was an old -market-cross, of the fifteenth century--a florid, romantic little -structure. It consists of a stone pavilion, with open sides and a number -of pinnacles and crockets and buttresses, besides a goodly medallion of -the high-nosed visage of Charles I., which was placed above one of the -arches, at the Restoration, in compensation for the violent havoc -wrought upon the little town by the Parliamentary soldiers, who had -wrested the place from the Royalists, and who amused themselves, in -their grim fashion, with infinite hacking and hewing in the cathedral. -Here, to the left, the cathedral discloses itself, lifting its smart -gray steeple out of a pleasant garden. Opposite to the garden was the -Dolphin or the Dragon--in fine, the most eligible inn. I must confess -that for a time it divided my attention with the cathedral, in virtue of -an ancient, musty parlour on the second floor, with hunting-pictures -hung above haircloth sofas; of a red-faced waiter, in evening dress; of -a big round of cold beef and a tankard of ale. The prettiest thing at -Chichester is a charming little three-sided cloister, attached to the -cathedral, where, as is usual in such places, you may sit upon a -gravestone amid the deep grass in the middle, and measure the great -central mass of the church--the large gray sides, the high foundations -of the spire, the parting of the nave and transept. From this point the -greatness of a cathedral seems more complex and impressive. You watch -the big shadows slowly change their relations; you listen to the cawing -of rooks and the twittering of swallows; you hear a slow footstep -echoing in the cloisters. - - - - -V - - -If Oxford were not the finest thing in England, Cambridge would -certainly be. Cambridge was so, for that matter, to my imagination, for -thirty-six hours. To the barbaric mind, ambitious of culture, Oxford is -the usual image of the happy reconciliation between research and -acceptance. It typifies, to an American, the union of science and -sense--of aspiration and ease. A German university gives a greater -impression of science, and an English country-house or an Italian villa -a greater impression of idle enjoyment; but in these cases, on one side, -knowledge is too rugged, and, on the other, satisfaction is too trivial. -Oxford lends sweetness to labour and dignity to leisure. When I say -Oxford, I mean Cambridge, for a barbarian is not in the least obliged to -know the difference, and it suddenly strikes me as being both very -pedantic and very good-natured in him to pretend to know it. What -institution is more majestic than Trinity College? what can be more -touching to an American than the hospitality of such an institution? The -first quadrangle is of immense extent, and the buildings that surround -it, with their long, rich fronts of time-deepened gray, are the -stateliest in the world. In the centre of the court are two or three -acres of close-shaven lawn, in the midst of which rises a splendid -gothic fountain, where the serving-men fill up their buckets. There are -towers and battlements and statues, and besides these things there are -cloisters and gardens and bridges. There are charming rooms in a kind of -stately gate-tower, and the rooms, occupying the thickness of the -building, have windows looking out on one side over the magnificent -quadrangle, with half a mile or so of Decorated architecture, and on the -other into deep-bosomed trees. And in the rooms is the best company -conceivable--distinguished men who are remarkably good fellows. I spent -a beautiful Sunday morning walking about Cambridge, with one of these -gentlemen, and attempting, as the French say, to _débrouiller_ its -charms. These are a very complicated affair, and I do not pretend, in -memory, to keep the colleges apart. There are, however, half a dozen -points that make ineffaceable pictures. Six or eight of the colleges -stand in a row, turning their backs to the river; and hereupon ensues -the loveliest confusion of gothic windows and ancient trees, of grassy -banks and mossy balustrades, of sun-chequered avenues and groves, of -lawns and gardens and terraces, of single-arched bridges spanning the -little stream, which is small and shallow, and looks as if it had been -"turned on" for ornamental purposes. The scantily-flowing Cam appears to -exist simply as an occasion for these enchanting little bridges--the -beautiful covered gallery of John's or the slightly-collapsing arch of -Clare. In the way of college-courts and quiet scholastic porticoes, of -gray-walled gardens and ivied nooks of study, in all the pictorial -accidents of a great English university, Cambridge is delightfully and -inexhaustibly rich. I looked at these one by one, and said to myself -always that the last was the best. If I were called upon, however, to -mention the prettiest corner of the world, I should heave a tender sigh -and point the way to the garden of Trinity Hall. My companion, who was -very competent to judge (but who spoke, indeed, with the partiality of a -son of the house), declared, as he ushered me into it, that it was, to -his mind, the most beautiful _small_ garden in Europe. I freely -accepted, and I promptly repeat, an affirmation so ingeniously -conditioned. The little garden at Trinity Hall is narrow and crooked; it -leans upon the river, from which a low parapet, all muffled in ivy, -divides it; it has an ancient wall, adorned with a thousand matted -creepers on one side, and on the other a group of extraordinary -horse-chestnuts. These trees are of prodigious size; they occupy half -the garden, and they are remarkable for the fact that their giant limbs -strike down into the earth, take root again, and emulate, as they rise, -the majesty of the parent tree. The manner in which this magnificent -group of horse-chestnuts sprawls about over the grass, out into the -middle of the lawn, is one of the most picturesque features of the -garden of Trinity Hall. Of course the single object at Cambridge that -makes the most abiding impression is the famous chapel of King's -College--the most beautiful chapel in England. The effect it attempts to -produce within belongs to the order of sublimity. The attempt succeeds, -and the success is attained by means so light and elegant that at first -it almost defeats itself. The sublime usually has more of a frown and -straddle, and it is not until after you have looked about you for ten -minutes that you perceive that the chapel is saved from being the -prettiest church in England by the accident of its being one of the -noblest. It is a cathedral without aisles or columns or transepts, but -(as a compensation) with such a beautiful slimness of clustered tracery -soaring along the walls, and spreading, bending and commingling in the -roof, that its simplicity seems only a richness the more. I stood there -for a quarter of an hour on a Sunday morning; there was no service, but -in the choir behind the great screen which divides the chapel in half, -the young choristers were rehearsing for the afternoon. The beautiful -boy-voices rose together and touched the splendid vault; they hung -there, expanding and resounding, and then, like a rocket that spends -itself, they faded and melted toward the end of the building. The sound -was angelic. - - - - -VI - - -Cambridgeshire is one of the so-called ugly counties; which means that -it is observably flat. It is for this reason that Newmarket is, in its -own peculiar fashion, so thriving a locality. The country is like a -board of green cloth; the turf presents itself as a friendly provision -of nature. Nature offers her gentle bosom as a gaming-table; -card-tables, billiard-tables are but a humble imitation of Newmarket -Heath. It was odd to think that amid this gentle, pastoral scenery, -there is more betting than anywhere else in the world. The large, neat -English meadows roll away to a humid-looking sky, the young partridges -jump about in the hedges, and nature does not look in the least as if -she were offering you odds. The gentlemen do, though--the gentlemen whom -you meet on the roads and in the railway carriage; they have that -indefinable look--it pervades a man from the cut of his whisker to the -shape of his boot-toe--which denotes a familiarity with the turf. It is -brought home to you that to an immense number of people in England the -events in the _Racing Calendar_ constitute the most important portion of -contemporary history. The very air about Newmarket appears to contain a -vague echo of stable-talk, and you perceive that this is the landscape -depicted in those large coloured prints of the "sporting" genus which -you have admired in inn-parlours. - -The destruction of partridges is, if an equally classical, a less -licentious pursuit, for which, I believe, Cambridgeshire offers peculiar -facilities. Among these is a certain shooting-box, which is a triumph of -accidental picturesqueness (the highest order) and a temple of delicate -hospitality. The shooting belongs to the autumn, not to this vernal -period; but as I have spoken of echoes, I suppose that if I had listened -attentively I might have heard the ghostly crack of some of the famous -shots that have been discharged there. The air, I believe, had vibrated -to several august rifles, but all that I happened to hear by listening -was some excellent talk. - -In England, I said just now, a couple of places may be very near -together, and yet have what the philosophers call a connotation -strangely different. Only a few miles beyond Newmarket lies Bury St. -Edmunds, a town whose tranquil antiquity makes horse-racing, and even -partridge-shooting, appear a restless and fidgety mode of passing the -time. I confess that I went to Bury St. Edmunds simply on the strength -of its name, which I had often encountered, and which had always seemed -to me to have a high value for the tourist I knew that St. Edmund had -been an Anglo-Saxon worthy, but my conviction that the little town that -bore his name would afford entertainment between trains had nothing -definite to rest upon. The event, however, rewarded my faith--rewarded -it with the sight of a magnificent old gatehouse of the thirteenth -century, the most substantial of many relics of the great abbey which -once flourished there. There are many others; they are scattered about -the old precinct of the abbey, a large portion of which has been -converted into a rambling botanic garden, the resort at Whitsuntide of a -thousand very modern merrymakers. The monument I speak of has the -proportions of a triumphal arch; it is at once a gateway and a fortress; -it is covered with beautiful ornament, and is altogether the lion of -Bury. - - - - -XV - -AN ENGLISH NEW YEAR - -1879 - - -It will hardly be pretended this year that the English Christmas has -been a merry one, or that the New Year has the promise of being -particularly happy. The winter is proving very cold and vicious--as if -nature herself were loath to be left out of the general conspiracy -against the comfort and self-complacency of man. The country at large -has a sense of embarrassment and depression, which is brought home more -or less to every class in the closely-graduated social hierarchy, and -the light of Christmas firesides has by no means dispelled the gloom. -Not that I mean to overstate the gloom. It is difficult to imagine any -combination of adverse circumstances powerful enough to infringe very -sensibly upon the appearance of activity and prosperity, social -stability and luxury, which English life must always present to a -stranger. Nevertheless, the times are distinctly hard--there is plenty -of evidence of it--and the spirits of the public are not high. The -depression of business is extreme and universal; I am ignorant whether -it has reached so calamitous a point as that almost hopeless prostration -of every industry which you have lately witnessed in America, and I -believe things are by no means so bad as they have been on two or three -occasions within the present century. The possibility of distress among -the lower classes has been minimised by the gigantic poor-relief system, -which is so characteristic a feature of English civilisation, and which -on particular occasions is supplemented (as is the case at present) by -private charity proportionately huge. I notice, too, that in some parts -of the country discriminating groups of work-people have selected these -dismal days as a happy time for striking. When the labouring classes are -able to indulge in the luxury of a strike I suppose the situation may be -said to have its cheerful side. There is, however, great distress in the -North, and there is a general feeling of impecuniosity throughout the -country. The _Daily News_ has sent a correspondent to the great -industrial regions, and almost every morning for the last three weeks a -very cleverly-executed picture of the misery of certain parts of -Yorkshire and Lancashire has been served up with the matutinal tea and -toast. The work is a good one and, I take it, eminently worth doing, as -it appears to have had a visible effect upon the purse-strings of the -well-to-do. There is nothing more striking in England than the success -with which an "appeal" is always made. Whatever the season or whatever -the cause, there always appears to be enough money and enough -benevolence in the country to respond to it in sufficient measure--a -remarkable fact when one remembers that there is never a moment of the -year when the custom of "appealing" intermits. Equally striking, -perhaps, is the perfection to which the science of distributing charity -has been raised--the way it has been analysed and explored and made one -of the exact sciences. One perceives that it has occupied for a long -time a foremost place among administrative questions, and has received -all the light that experience and practice can throw upon it. The -journal I quoted just now may perhaps, without reproach, be credited -with a political _arrière-pensée_. It would obviously like its readers -to supply in this matter of the stagnation of trade the missing link -between effect and cause--or the link which, if not absolutely missing, -is at any rate difficult to lay one's hand upon. The majority in -Parliament were not apparently of the opinion that the disorganisation -of business is the fault of Lord Beaconsfield; but there is no doubt -that it is a misfortune for the Conservative party that this bad state -of things coincides very much with its tenure of office. When an -Administration may be invidiously described as "restless," "reckless," -and "adventurous," and when at the same time business is very bad and -distress increasing, it requires no great ingenuity to represent the -former fact as responsible for the latter. - -I have spoken of the rigour of the time in the lower walks of English -life; and it is not out of place to say that among those happier people -who stand above the reach of material incommodity, the Christmas season -has been overshadowed sentimentally--or at least conventionally--by the -death of Princess Alice. If I had written to you at the moment this -event occurred I should have been tempted to make some general -reflections upon it, and it is even now perhaps not too late to say that -there was, to an observer, something very interesting and characteristic -in the manner in which the news was received. Broadly speaking, it -produced much more commotion than I should have expected; the papers -overflowed with articles on the subject, the virtues of the deceased -lady and the grief of the Queen were elaborately commemorated; many -shops, on the day of the Princess's funeral, were partially closed, and -the whole nation, it may be said--or the whole of what professes, in any -degree whatever, to be "society"--went into mourning. There was enough -in all this to make a stranger consider and interrogate; and the result -of his reflections would, I think, have been that, after all abatements -are made, the monarchy has still a great hold upon the affections of the -people. The people takes great comfort in its royal family. The love of -social greatness is extraordinarily strong in England, and the royal -family appeals very conveniently to this sentiment. People in the -immense obscurity of that middle class which constitutes the bulk of the -English world like to feel that they are related in some degree to -something that is socially great. They cannot pretend that they are -related to dukes and earls and people of that sort; but they are able to -cultivate a certain sense of being related to the royal family. They may -talk of "our" princes and princesses--and the most exalted members of -the peerage may do no more than that; they may possess photographs of -the Queen's children, and read of their daily comings and goings with an -agreeable sense of property, and without incurring that reproach of -snobbishness which sometimes attaches to too eager an interest in the -doings of the great nobility. There is no reason to suppose that the -Queen takes the humorous view of this situation; her Majesty is indeed -credited with a comfortable, motherly confidence in the salutary effect -of the court-circle upon the mind of the middle class; and there is a -kind of general feeling that, socially speaking, the Queen and the -middle class understand each other. There was something natural, -therefore, in the great impression made by the death of a princess who -was personally known but to an incalculably small proportion of the -people who mourned for her, and on whose behalf propriety would have -resented the idea that she could personally be missed. It is -nevertheless true that Lord Beaconsfield is felt rather to have overdone -his part in announcing the event to the House of Lords in language in -which he might have proclaimed some great national catastrophe. I was -told by a person who was present that the House felt itself to be at the -mercy of his bad taste--that men looked at each other with a blush and a -kind of shudder, and asked each other what was coming next. He remarked, -among other things, that the manner in which the Princess Alice had -contracted her fatal illness (her tender imprudence in kissing her sick -children) was an act worthy to be commemorated in art--"in painting, in -sculpture, and in gems." I have heard these last two words wittily -quoted in illustration of his Semitic origin. An ordinarily florid -speaker would have contented himself with saying "in painting and in -sculpture." The addition "in gems" betrays the genius of the race which -supplies the world with pawnbrokers. - -I left town a short time before Christmas and went to spend the festive -season in the North, in a part of the country with which I was -unacquainted. It was quite possible to absent one's self from London -without a sense of sacrifice, for the charms of the metropolis during -the last several weeks have been obscured by peculiarly atrocious -weather. It is, of course, a very old story that London is foggy, and -this simple statement is not of necessity alarming. But there are fogs -and fogs, and these murky visitations, during the present winter, have -been of the least tolerable sort. The fog that draws down and absorbs -the smoke of the housetops, causes it to hang about the streets in -impenetrable density, forces it into one's eyes and down one's throat, -so that one is half-blinded and quite sickened--this atmospheric -abomination has been much more frequent than usual. Just before -Christmas, too, there was a heavy snow-storm, and even a tolerably light -fall of snow has London quite at its mercy. The emblem of purity is -almost immediately converted into a sticky, lead-coloured mush, the cabs -skulk out of sight or take up their stations before the lurid windows of -a public-house, which glares through the sleety darkness at the -desperate wayfarer with an air of vulgar bravado. This state of things -in the London streets made a rather sorry Christmas, though I believe -the Christmas hearth is supposed to burn the more brightly in proportion -as the outer world is less attractive. The wonderful London shops were, -of course, duly transfigured, but they seemed to me, for the most part, -to have an aspect of vain expectation, and I hear that their proprietors -give a melancholy account of the profits of the season. It was only at a -certain charming little French establishment in Bond Street that I -observed any great activity--a little chocolate-shop where -light-fingered young women from Paris dispense the most wonderful -bonbonnières. - -To keep one's self in good humour with English civilisation, however, -one must do what I alluded to just now--one must go into the country; -one must limit one's horizon, for the time, to the spacious walls of one -of those admirable homes which at this season overflow with hospitality -and good cheer. By this means the result is triumphantly attained--these -are conditions that you cordially appreciate. Of all the great things -that the English have invented and made a part of the glory of the -national character, the most perfect, the most characteristic, the one -they have mastered most completely in all its details, so that it has -become a compendious illustration of their social genius and their -manners, is the well-appointed, well-administered, well-filled -country-house. The grateful stranger makes these reflections--and others -besides--as he wanders about in the beautiful library of such a -dwelling of an inclement winter afternoon just at the hour when six -o'clock tea is impending. Such a place and such a time abound in -agreeable episodes; but I suspect that the episode from which, a -fortnight ago, I received the most ineffaceable impression was but -indirectly connected with the charms of a luxurious fireside. The -country I speak of was a populous manufacturing region, full of tall -chimneys and of an air that is gray and gritty. A lady had made a -present of a Christmas-tree to the children of a workhouse, and she -invited me to go with her and assist at the distribution of the toys. -There was a drive through the early dusk of a very cold Christmas eve, -followed by the drawing-up of a lamp-lit brougham in the snowy -quadrangle of a grim-looking charitable institution. I had never been in -an English workhouse before, and this one transported me, with the aid -of memory, to the early pages of _Oliver Twist_. We passed through -certain cold, bleak passages, to which an odour of suet-pudding, the -aroma of Christmas cheer, failed to impart an air of hospitality; and -then, after waiting a while in a little parlour appertaining to the -superintendent, where the remainder of a dinner of by no means -eleemosynary simplicity and the attitude of a gentleman asleep with a -flushed face on the sofa seemed to effect a tacit exchange of -references, we were ushered into a large frigid refectory, chiefly -illumined by the twinkling tapers of the Christmas-tree. Here entered to -us some hundred and fifty little children of charity, who had been -making a copious dinner, and who brought with them an atmosphere of -hunger memorably satisfied--together with other traces of the occasion -upon their pinafores and their small red faces. I have said that the -place reminded me of _Oliver Twist_, and I glanced through this little -herd for an infant figure that should look as if it were cut out for -romantic adventures. But they were all very prosaic little mortals. They -were made of very common clay indeed, and a certain number of them were -idiotic. They filed up and received their little offerings, and then -they compressed themselves into a tight infantine bunch, and lifting up -their small hoarse voices, directed a melancholy hymn toward their -benefactress. The scene was a picture I shall not forget, with its -curious mixture of poetry and sordid prose--the dying wintry light in -the big, bare, stale room; the beautiful Lady Bountiful, standing in the -twinkling glory of the Christmas-tree; the little multitude of staring -and wondering, yet perfectly expressionless, faces. - - - - -XVI - -AN ENGLISH WINTER -WATERING-PLACE - -1879 - - -I have just been spending a couple of days at a well-known resort upon -the Kentish coast, and though such an exploit is by no means -unprecedented, yet, as to the truly observing mind no opportunity is -altogether void and no impressions are wholly valueless, I have it on my -conscience to make a note of my excursion. Superficially speaking, it -was certainly wanting in originality; but I am afraid that it afforded -me as much entertainment as if the idea of paying a visit to Hastings -had been an invention of my own. This is so far from being the case that -the most striking feature of the town in question is the immense -provision made there for the entertainment of visitors. Hastings and St. -Leonard's, standing side by side, present a united sea-front of more -miles in length than I shall venture to compute. It is sufficient that -in going from one end of the place to the other I had a greater sense of -having taken a long, straight walk, than I had done since I last -measured the remarkable length of Broadway. This is not a strikingly -picturesque image, and it must be confessed that the beauty of Hastings -does not reside in a soft irregularity or a rural exuberance. Like all -the larger English watering-places it is simply a little London _super -mare_. The pictorial is always to be found in England if one will take -the trouble of looking for it; but it must be conceded that at Hastings -this element is less obtrusive than it might be. I had heard it -described as a "dull Brighton," and this description had been intended -to dispose of the place. In fact, however--such is the perversity of the -inquiring mind--it had rather quickened than quenched my interest. It -occurred to me that it might be entertaining to follow out the -variations and modifications of Brighton. Four or five miles of -lodging-houses and hotels staring at the sea across a "parade" adorned -with iron benches, with hand-organs and German bands, with nursemaids -and British babies, with ladies and gentleman of leisure--looking rather -embarrassed with it, and trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get rid of -it--this is the great feature which Brighton and Hastings have in -common. At Brighton there is a certain variety and gaiety of -colour--something suggesting crookedness and yellow paint--which gives -the place a kind of cheerful, easy, more or less vulgar, foreign air. -But Hastings is very gray and sober and English, and, indeed, it is -because it seemed to me so English that I gave my best attention to it. -If one is attempting to gather impressions of a people and to learn to -know them, everything is interesting that is characteristic, quite apart -from its being beautiful. English manners are made up of such a -multitude of small details that the portrait a stranger has privately -sketched in is always liable to receive new touches. And this, indeed, -is the explanation of his noting a great many small points, on the spot, -with a degree of relish and appreciation which must often, to persons -who are not in his position, appear exaggerated. He has formed a mental -picture of the civilisation of the people he lives among, and whom, when -he has a great deal of courage, he makes bold to say he is "studying;" -he has drawn up a kind of tabular view of their manners and customs, -their idiosyncrasies, their social institutions, their general features -and properties; and when once he has suspended this rough cartoon in the -chambers of his imagination, he finds a great deal of occupation in -touching it up and filling it in. Wherever he goes, whatever he sees, he -adds a few strokes. That is how I spent my time at Hastings. - -I found it, for instance, a question more interesting than it might -superficially appear, to choose between the inns--between the Royal -Hotel upon the Parade and an ancient hostel--a survival of the -posting-days--in a side-street. A Mend had described the latter -establishment to me as "mellow," and this epithet complicated the -problem. The term mellow, as applied to an inn, is the comparative -degree of a state of things of which (say) "musty" would be the -superlative. If you can seize this tendency in its comparative stage you -may do very well indeed; the trouble is that, like all tendencies, it -contains, even in its earlier phases, the germs of excess. I thought it -very possible that the Swan would be over-ripe; but I thought it equally -probable that the Royal would be crude. I could claim a certain -acquaintance with "royal" hotels--I knew just how they were constituted. -I foresaw the superior young woman sitting at a ledger, in a kind of -glass cage, at the bottom of the stairs, and expressing by refined -intonations her contempt for a gentleman who should decline to "require" -a sitting-room. The functionary whom in America we know and dread as an -hotel-clerk belongs in England to the sex which, when need be, has an -even more perfect command of the supercilious. Large hotels here are -almost always owned and carried on by companies, and the company is -represented by a well-shaped female figure belonging to the class whose -members are more particularly known as "persons." The chambermaid is a -young woman, and the female tourist is a lady; but the occupant of the -glass cage, who hands you your key and assigns you your apartment, is -designated in the manner I have mentioned. The "person" has various -methods of revenging herself for her shadowy position in the social -scale, and I think it was from a vague recollection of having on former -occasions felt the weight of her embittered spirit that I determined to -seek the hospitality of the humbler inn, where it was probable that one -who was himself humble would enjoy a certain consideration. In the -event, I was rather oppressed by the featherbed quality of the welcome -extended to me at the Swan. Once established there, in a sitting-room -(after all), the whole affair was as characteristically English as I -could desire. - -I have sometimes had occasion to repine at the meagreness and mustiness -of the old-fashioned English inn, and to feel that in poetry and in -fiction these defects had been culpably glossed over. But I said to -myself the other evening that there is a kind of venerable decency even -in some of its dingiest idiosyncrasies, and that in an age of -vulgarisation one should do justice to an institution which is still -more or less of a stronghold of the ancient amenities. It is a -satisfaction in moving about the world to be treated as a gentleman, and -this gratification appears to be more than, in the light of modern -science, a Company can profitably undertake to bestow. I have an old -friend, a person of admirably conservative instincts, from whom, a short -time since, I borrowed a hint of this kind. This lady had been staying -at a small inn in the country, with her daughter; the daughter, whom we -shall call Mrs. B., had left the house a few days before the mother. -"Did you like the place?" I asked of my friend; "was it comfortable?" -"No, it was not comfortable; but I liked it. It was shabby, and I was -much overcharged; but it pleased me." "What was the mysterious charm?" -"Well, when I was coming away, the landlady--she had cheated me -horribly--came to my carriage, and dropped a curtsey, and said: 'My duty -to Mrs. B., ma'am.' Que voulez-vous? That pleased me." There was an old -waiter at Hastings who would have been capable of that--an old waiter -who had been in the house for forty years, and who was not so much an -individual waiter as the very spirit and genius, the incarnation and -tradition of waiter-hood. He was faded and weary and rheumatic, but he -had a sort of mixture of the paternal and the deferential, the -philosophic and the punctilious, which seemed but grossly requited by a -present of a small coin. I am not fond of jugged hare for dinner, either -as a light _entrée_ or as a _pièce de resistance_; but this -accomplished attendant had the art of presenting you such a dish in a -manner that persuaded you, for the time, that it was worthy of your -serious consideration. The hare, by the way, before being subjected to -the mysterious operation of jugging, might have been seen dangling from -a hook in the bar of the inn, together with a choice collection of other -viands. You might peruse the bill of fare in an elementary form as you -passed in and out of the house, and make up your _menu_ for the day by -poking with your stick at a juicy-looking steak or a promising fowl. The -landlord and his spouse were always on the threshold of the bar, -polishing a brass candlestick and paying you their respects; the place -was pervaded by an aroma of rum-and-water and of commercial travellers' -jokes. - -This description, however, is lacking in the element of gentility, and I -will not pursue it farther, for I should give a very false impression of -Hastings if I were to omit so characteristic a feature. It was, I think, -the element of gentility that most impressed me. I know that the word I -have just ventured to use is under the ban of contemporary taste; so I -may as well say outright that I regard it as indispensable in almost any -attempt at portraiture of English manners. It is vain for an observer of -such things to pretend to get on without it. One may talk of foreign -life indefinitely--of the manners and customs of France, Germany, and -Italy--and never feel the need of this suggestive, yet mysteriously -discredited, epithet. One may survey the remarkable face of American -civilisation without finding occasion to strike this particular note. -But in England no circumlocution will serve--the note must be definitely -struck. To attempt to speak of an English watering-place in winter and -yet pass it over in silence, would be to forfeit all claims to analytic -talent. For a stranger, at any rate, the term is invaluable--it is more -convenient than I should find easy to say. It is instantly evoked in my -mind by long rows of smuttily-plastered houses, with a card inscribed -"Apartments" suspended in the window of the ground-floor -sitting-room--that portion of the dwelling which is known in -lodging-house parlance as "the parlours." Everything, indeed, suggests -it--the bath-chairs, drawn up for hire in a melancholy row; the -innumerable and excellent shops, adorned with the latest photographs of -the royal family and of Mrs. Langtry; the little reading-room and -circulating library on the Parade, where the daily papers, neatly -arranged, may be perused for a trifling fee, and the novels of the -season are stacked away like the honeycombs in an apiary; the long pier, -stretching out into the sea, to which you are admitted by the payment of -a penny at a wicket, and where you may enjoy the music of an -indefatigable band, the enticements of several little stalls for the -sale of fancy-work, and the personal presence of good local society. It -is only the winking, twinkling, easily-rippling sea that is not genteel. -But, really, I was disposed to say at Hastings that if the sea were not -genteel, so much the worse for Neptune; for it was the favourable aspect -of the great British proprieties and solemnities that struck me. -Hastings and St. Leonards, with their long, warm seafront, and their -multitude of small, cheap comforts and conveniences, offer a kind of -résumé of middle-class English civilisation and of advantages of which -it would ill become an American to make light. I don't suppose that life -at Hastings is the most exciting or the most gratifying in the world, -but it must certainly have its advantages. If I were a quiet old lady of -modest income and nice habits--or even a quiet old gentleman of the same -pattern--I should certainly go to Hastings. There, amid the little shops -and the little libraries, the bath-chairs and the German bands, the -Parade and the long Pier, with a mild climate, a moderate scale of -prices, and the consciousness of a high civilisation, I should enjoy a -seclusion which would have nothing primitive or crude. - - - - -XVII - -SARATOGA - -1870 - - -The sentimental tourist makes images in advance; they grow up in his -mind by a logic of their own. He finds himself thinking of an unknown, -unseen place, as having such and such a shape and figure rather than -such another. It assumes in his mind a certain complexion, a certain -colour which frequently turns out to be singularly at variance with -reality. For some reason or other, I had supposed Saratoga to be buried -in a sort of elegant wilderness. I imagined a region of shady forest -drives, with a bright, broad-terraced hotel gleaming here and there -against a background of mysterious groves and glades. I had made a -cruelly small allowance for the stem vulgarities of life--for the shops -and sidewalks and loafers, the complex machinery of a city of pleasure. -The fault was so wholly my own that it is quite without bitterness that -I proceed to affirm that the Saratoga of experience is sadly different -from this. I confess, however, that it has always seemed to me that -one's visions, on the whole, gain more than they lose by being -transmuted into fact. There is an essential indignity in indefiniteness; -you cannot allow for accidents and details until you have seen them. -They give more to the imagination than they receive from it I frankly -admit, therefore, that the Saratoga of reality is a much more -satisfactory place than the all-too-primitive Elysium I had constructed. -It is indeed, as I say, immensely different. There is a vast number of -brick--nay, of asphalt--sidewalks, a great many shops, and a magnificent -array of loafers. But what indeed are you to do at Saratoga--the morning -draught having been achieved--unless you loaf? "Que faire en un gîte à -moins que l'on ne songe?" Loafers being assumed, of course shops and -sidewalks follow. The main avenue of Saratoga does not scruple to call -itself Broadway. The untravelled reader may form a very accurate idea of -it by recalling as distinctly as possible, not indeed the splendours of -that famous thoroughfare, but the secondary charms of the Sixth Avenue. -The place has what the French would call the "accent" of the Sixth -Avenue. Its two main features are the two monster hotels which stand -facing each other along a goodly portion of its course. One, I believe, -is considered much better than the other,--less of a monster and more of -a refuge,--but in appearance there is little choice between them. Both -are immense brick structures, directly on the crowded, noisy street, -with vast covered piazzas running along the façade, supported by great -iron posts. The piazza of the Union Hotel, I have been repeatedly -informed, is the largest "in the world." There are a number of objects -in Saratoga, by the way, which in their respective kinds are the finest -in the world. One of these is Mr. John Morrissey's casino. I bowed my -head submissively to this statement, but privately I thought of the blue -Mediterranean, and the little white promontory of Monaco, and the -silver-gray verdure of olives, and the view across the outer sea toward -the bosky cliffs of Italy. The Congress waters, too, it is well known, -are excellent in the superlative degree; this I am perfectly willing to -maintain. - -The piazzas of these great hotels may very well be the biggest of all -piazzas. They have not architectural beauty; but they doubtless serve -their purpose--that of affording sitting-space in the open air to an -immense number of persons. They are, of course, quite the best places to -observe the Saratoga world. In the evening, when the "boarders" have all -come forth and seated themselves in groups, or have begun to stroll in -(not always, I regret to say; to the sad detriment of the dramatic -interest, bisexual) couples, the big heterogeneous scene affords a great -deal of entertainment. Seeing it for the first time, the observer is -likely to assure himself that he has neglected an important item in the -sum of American manners. The rough brick wall of the house, illumined by -a line of flaring gas-lights, forms a natural background to the crude, -impermanent, discordant tone of the assembly. In the larger of the two -hotels, a series of long windows open into an immense parlour--the -largest, I suppose, in the world, and the most scantily furnished in -proportion to its size. A few dozen rocking-chairs, an equal number of -small tables, tripods to the eternal ice-pitcher, serve chiefly to -emphasise the vacuous grandeur of the spot. On the piazza, in the outer -multitude, ladies largely prevail, both by numbers and (you are not slow -to perceive) by distinction of appearance. The good old times of -Saratoga, I believe, as of the world in general, are rapidly passing -away. The time was when it was the chosen resort of none but "nice -people." At the present day, I hear it constantly affirmed, "the company -is dreadfully mixed." What society may have been at Saratoga when its -elements were thus simple and severe, I can only vaguely and mournfully -conjecture. I confine myself to the dense, democratic, vulgar Saratoga -of the current year. You are struck, to begin with, at the hotels, by -the numerical superiority of the women; then, I think, by their personal -superiority. It is incontestably the case that in appearance, in manner, -in grace and completeness of aspect, American women surpass their -husbands and brothers; the relation being reversed among some of the -nations of Europe. Attached to the main entrance of the Union Hotel, and -adjoining the ascent from the street to the piazza, is a "stoop" of -mighty area, which, at most hours of the day and evening, is a favoured -lounging-place of men. I should add, after the remark I have just made, -that even in the appearance of the usual American male there seems to me -to be a certain plastic intention. It is true that the lean, sallow, -angular Yankee of tradition is dignified mainly by a look of decision, a -hint of unimpassioned volition, the air of "smartness." This in some -degree redeems him, but it fails to make him handsome. But in the -average American of the present time, the typical leanness and -sallowness are less than in his fathers, and the individual acuteness is -at once equally marked and more frequently united with merit of form. -Casting your eye over a group of your fellow-citizens in the portico of -the Union Hotel, you will be inclined to admit that, taking the good -with the bad, they are worthy sons of the great Republic. I have found, -at any rate, a great deal of entertainment in watching them. They -suggest to my fancy the swarming vastness--the multifarious -possibilities and activities--of our young civilisation. They come from -the uttermost ends of the Union--from San Francisco, from New Orleans, -from Alaska. As they sit with their white hats tilted forward, and their -chairs tilted back, and their feet tilted up, and their cigars and -toothpicks forming various angles with these various lines, I seem to -see in their faces a tacit reference to the affairs of a continent They -are obviously persons of experience--of a somewhat narrow and monotonous -experience certainly; an experience of which the diamonds and laces -which their wives are exhibiting hard by are, perhaps, the most -substantial and beautiful result; but, at any rate, they have _lived_, -in every fibre of the will. For the time, they are lounging with the -negro waiters, and the boot-blacks, and the news-vendors; but it was not -in lounging that they gained their hard wrinkles and the level impartial -regard which they direct from beneath their hat-rims. They are not the -mellow fruit of a society which has walked hand-in-hand with tradition -and culture; they are hard nuts, which have grown and ripened as they -could. When they talk among themselves, I seem to hear the cracking of -the shells. - -If the men are remarkable, the ladies are wonderful Saratoga is famous, -I believe, as the place of all places in America where women adorn -themselves most, or as the place, at least, where the greatest amount of -dressing may be seen by the greatest number of people. Tour first -impression is therefore of the--what shall I call it?--of the abundance -of petticoats. Every woman you meet, young or old, is attired with a -certain amount of richness, and with whatever good taste may be -compatible with such a mode of life. You behold an interesting, indeed a -quite momentous spectacle; the democratisation of elegance. If I am to -believe what I hear--in fact, I may say what I overhear--many of these -sumptuous persons have enjoyed neither the advantages of a careful -education nor the privileges of an introduction to society. She walks -more or less of a queen, however, each uninitiated nobody. She often -has, in dress, an admirable instinct of elegance and even of what the -French call "chic." This instinct occasionally amounts to a sort of -passion; the result then is wonderful. You look at the coarse brick -walls, the rusty iron posts of the piazza, at the shuffling negro -waiters, the great tawdry steamboat-cabin of a drawing-room--you see the -tilted ill-dressed loungers on the steps--and you finally regret that a -figure so exquisite should have so vulgar a setting. Your resentment, -however, is speedily tempered by reflection. You feel the impertinence -of your old reminiscences of English and French novels, and of the -dreary social order in which privacy was the presiding genius and women -arrayed themselves for the appreciation of the few. The crowd, the -tavern-loungers, the surrounding ugliness and tumult and license, -constitute the social medium of the young lady you are so inconsistent -as to admire; she is dressed for publicity. The thought fills you with a -kind of awe. The social order of tradition is far away indeed, and as -for the transatlantic novels, you begin to doubt whether she is so -amiably curious as to read even the silliest of them. To be dressed up -to the eyes is obviously to give pledges to idleness. I have been -forcibly struck with the apparent absence of any warmth and richness of -detail in the lives of these wonderful ladies of the piazzas. We are -freely accused of being an eminently wasteful people; and I know of few -things which so largely warrant the accusation as the fact that these -conspicuous _élégantes_ adorn themselves, socially speaking, to so -little purpose. To dress for every one is, practically, to dress for no -one. There are few prettier sights than a charmingly-dressed woman, -gracefully established in some shady spot, with a piece of needlework or -embroidery, or a book. Nothing very serious is accomplished, probably, -but an æsthetic principle is recognised. The embroidery and the book -are a tribute to culture, and I suppose they really figure somewhere out -of the opening scenes of French comedies. But here at Saratoga, at any -hour of morning or evening, you may see a hundred rustling beauties -whose rustle is their sole occupation. One lady in particular there is, -with whom it appears to be an inexorable fate that she shall be nothing -more than dressed. Her apparel is tremendously modern, and my remarks -would be much illumined if I had the learning necessary for describing -it I can only say that every evening for a fortnight she has revealed -herself as a fresh creation. But she especially, as I say, has struck me -as a person dressed beyond her life and her opportunities. I resent on -her behalf--or on behalf at least of her finery--the extreme severity -of her circumstances. What is she, after all, but a "regular boarder"? -She ought to sit on the terrace of a stately castle, with a great -baronial park shutting out the undressed world, and bandy quiet -small-talk with an ambassador or a duke. My imagination is shocked when -I behold her seated in gorgeous relief against the dusty clapboards of -the hotel, with her beautiful hands folded in her silken lap, her head -drooping slightly beneath the weight of her _chignon_, her lips parted -in a vague contemplative gaze at Mr. Helmbold's well-known advertisement -on the opposite fence, her husband beside her reading the New York -_Herald_. - -I have indeed observed cases of a sort of splendid social isolation -here, which are not without a certain amount of pathos--people who know -no one, who have money and finery and possessions, only no friends. Such -at least is my inference, from the lonely grandeur with which I see them -invested. Women, of course, are the most helpless victims of this cruel -situation, although it must be said that they befriend each other with a -generosity for which we hardly give them credit I have seen women, for -instance, at various "hops," approach their lonely sisters and invite -them to waltz, and I have seen the fair invited surrender themselves -eagerly to this humiliating embrace. Gentlemen at Saratoga are at a much -higher premium than at European watering-places. It is an old story that -in this country we have no "leisure-class"--the class from which the -Saratogas of Europe recruit a large number of their male frequenters. A -few months ago, I paid a visit to an English "bath," commemorated in -various works of fiction, where, among many visible points of difference -from American resorts, the most striking was the multitude of young men -who had the whole day on their hands. While their sweethearts and -sisters are waltzing together, our own young men are rolling up -greenbacks in counting-houses and stores. I was recently reminded in -another way, one evening, of the unlikeness of Saratoga to Cheltenham. -Behind the biggest of the big hotels is a large planted yard, which it -is the fashion at Saratoga to talk of as a "park," and which is perhaps -believed to be the biggest in the world. At one end of it stands a great -ballroom, approached by a range of wooden steps. It was late in the -evening; the room, in spite of the intense heat, was blazing with light -and the orchestra thundering a mighty waltz. A group of loungers, -including myself, were hanging about to watch the ingress of the -festally-minded. In the basement of the edifice, sunk beneath the -ground, a noisy auctioneer, in his shirt and trousers, black in the face -with heat and vociferation, was selling "pools" of the races to a dense -group of frowsy betting-men. At the foot of the steps was stationed a -man in a linen coat and straw hat, without waistcoat or necktie, to take -the tickets of the ball-goers. As the latter failed to arrive in -sufficient numbers, a musician came forth to the top of the steps and -blew a loud summons on a horn. After this they began to straggle along. -On this occasion, certainly, the company promised to be decidedly -"mixed." The women, as usual, were much bedizened, though without any -constant adhesion to the technicalities of full-dress. The men adhered -to it neither in the letter nor the spirit. The possessor of a pair of -satin-shod feet, twinkling beneath an uplifted volume of gauze and lace -and flowers, tripped up the steps with her gloved hand on the sleeve of -a railway "duster." Now and then two ladies arrived alone; generally a -group of them approached under convoy of a single man. Children were -freely scattered among their elders, and frequently a small boy would -deliver his ticket and enter the glittering portal, beautifully -unembarrassed. Of the children of Saratoga there would be wondrous -things to relate. I believe that, in spite of their valuable aid, the -festival of which I speak was rated rather a "fizzle." I see it -advertised that they are soon to have, for their own peculiar benefit, a -"Masquerade and Promenade Concert, beginning at 9 P.M." I observe that -they usually open the "hops," and that it is only after their elders -have borrowed confidence from the sight of their unfaltering paces that -the latter dare to dance. You meet them far into the evening, roaming -over the piazzas and corridors of the hotels--the little girls -especially--lean, pale, formidable. Occasionally childhood confesses -itself, even when maternity resists, and you see at eleven o'clock at -night some poor little bedizened precocity collapsed in slumber in a -lonely wayside chair. The part played by children in society here is -only an additional instance of the wholesale equalisation of the various -social atoms which is the distinctive feature of collective Saratoga. A -man in a "duster" at a ball is as good as a man in regulation-garments; -a young woman dancing with another young woman is as good as a young -woman dancing with a young man; a child of ten is as good as a woman of -thirty; a double negative in conversation is rather better than a -single. - -An important feature in many a watering-place is the facility for -leaving it a little behind you and tasting of the unmitigated country. -You may wander to some shady hillside and sentimentalise upon the vanity -of a high civilisation. But at Saratoga civilisation holds you fast. The -most important feature of the place, perhaps, is the impossibility of -carrying out any such pastoral dream. The surrounding country is a -charming wilderness, but the roads are so abominably bad that walking -and driving are alike unprofitable. Of course, however, if you are bent -upon a walk, you will take a walk. There is a striking contrast between -the concentrated prodigality of life in the immediate neighbourhood of -the hotels and the pastoral solitudes into which a walk of half an hour -may lead you. You have left the American citizen and his wife, the -orchestras, the pools, the precocious infants, the cocktails, the -importations from Worth, but a mile or two behind, but already the -forest is primeval and the landscape is without figures. Nothing could -be less manipulated than the country about Saratoga. The heavy roads are -little more than sandy wheel-tracks; by the tangled wayside the -blackberries wither unpicked. The horizon undulates with an air of -having it all its own way. There are no white villages gleaming in the -distance, no spires of churches, no salient details. It is all green, -lonely, and vacant. If you wish to enjoy a detail, you must stop beneath -a cluster of pines and listen to the murmur of the softly-troubled air, -or follow upward the scaly straightness of their trunks to where the -afternoon light gives it a colour. Here and there on a slope by the -roadside stands a rough unpainted farmhouse, looking as if its dreary -blackness were the result of its standing dark and lonely amid so many -months--and such a wide expanse--of winter snow. It has turned black by -contrast. The principal feature of the grassy unfurnished yard is the -great wood-pile, telling grimly of the long reversion of the summer. For -the time, however, it looks down contentedly enough over a goodly -appanage of grain-fields and orchards, and I can fancy that it may be -amusing to be a boy there. But to be a man, it must be quite what the -lean, brown, serious farmers physiognomically hint it to be. You have, -however, at the present season, for your additional beguilement, on the -eastern horizon, the vision of the long bold chain of the Green -Mountains, clad in that single coat of simple, candid blue which is the -favourite garment of our American hills. As a visitor, too, you have for -an afternoon's excursion your choice between a couple of lakes. Saratoga -Lake, the larger and more distant of the two, is the goal of the regular -afternoon drive. Above the shore is a well-appointed tavern--"Moon's" it -is called by the voice of fame--where you may sit upon a broad piazza -and partake of fried potatoes and "drinks;" the latter, if you happen to -have come from poor dislicensed Boston, a peculiarly gratifying -privilege. You enjoy the felicity sighed for by that wanton Italian lady -of the anecdote, when, one summer evening, to the sound of music, she -wished that to eat an ice were a sin. The other lake is small, and its -shores are unadorned by any edifice but a boat-house, where you may hire -a skiff and pull yourself out into the minnow-tickled, wood-circled -oval. Here, floating in its darkened half, while you watch on the -opposite shore the tree-stems, white and sharp in the declining sunlight, -and their foliage whitening and whispering in the breeze, and you feel -that this little solitude is part of a greater and more portentous -solitude, you may recall certain passages of Ruskin, in which he dwells -upon the needfulness of some human association, however remote, to make -natural scenery fully impressive. You may recall that magnificent page -in which he relates having tried with such fatal effect, in a -battle-haunted valley of the Jura, to fancy himself in a nameless -solitude of our own continent. You feel around you, with irresistible -force, the eloquent silence of undedicated nature--the absence of -serious associations, the nearness, indeed, of the vulgar and trivial -associations of the least complete of all the cities of pleasure--you -feel this, and you wonder what it is you so deeply and calmly enjoy. You -make up your mind, possibly, that it is a great advantage to be able at -once to enjoy Mr. Ruskin and to enjoy Mr. Ruskin's alarms. And hereupon -you return to your hotel and read the New York papers on the plan of the -French campaign and the Nathan murder. - - - - -XVIII - -NEWPORT - -1870 - - -The season at Newport has an obstinate life. September has fairly begun, -but as yet there is small visible diminution in the steady stream--the -splendid, stupid stream--of carriages which rolls in the afternoon along -the Avenue. There is, I think, a far more intimate fondness between -Newport and its frequenters than that which in most American -watering-places consecrates the somewhat mechanical relation between the -visitors and the visited. This relation here is for the most part -slightly sentimental. I am very far from professing a cynical contempt -for the gaieties and vanities of Newport life: they are, as a spectacle, -extremely amusing; they are full of a certain warmth of social colour -which charms alike the eye and the fancy; they are worth observing, if -only to conclude against them; they possess at least the dignity of all -extreme and emphatic expressions of a social tendency; but they are not -so untouched with Philistinism that I do not seem to overhear at times -the still, small voice of this tender sense of the sweet, superior -beauty of the natural things that surround them, pleading gently in -their favour to the fastidious critic. I feel almost warranted in saying -that here the background of life has sunk less in relative value and -suffered less from the encroachments of pleasure-seeking man than the -scenic dispositions of any other watering-place. For this, perhaps, we -may thank rather the modest, incorruptible integrity of the Newport -landscape than any very intelligent forbearance on the part of the -summer colony. The beauty of this landscape is so subtle, so essential, -so humble, so much a thing of character and expression, so little a -thing of feature and pretension, that it cunningly eludes the grasp of -the destroyer or the reformer, and triumphs in impalpable purity even -when it seems to make concessions. I have sometimes wondered, in -rational moods, why it is that Newport is so much appreciated by the -votaries of idleness and pleasure. Its resources are few in number. It -is extremely circumscribed. It has few drives, few walks, little variety -of scenery. Its charms and its interest are confined to a narrow circle. -It has of course the unlimited ocean, but seafaring idlers are not true -Newporters, for any other sea would suit them as well. Last evening, it -seemed to me, as I drove along the Avenue, that I guessed the answer to -the riddle. The atmospheric tone, the careful selection of ingredients, -your pleasant sense of a certain climatic ripeness--these are the real -charm of Newport, and the secret of her supremacy. You are affected by -the admirable art of the landscape, by seeing so much that is lovely and -impressive achieved with such a frugality of means--with so little -parade of the vast, the various, or the rare, with so narrow a range of -colour and form. I could not help thinking, as I turned from the -harmonies and purities which lay deepening on the breast of nature, with -the various shades of twilight, to the heterogeneous procession in the -Avenue, that, quite in their own line of effect, the usual performers in -this exhibition might learn a few good lessons from the daily prospect -of the great western expanse of rock and ocean in its relations with the -declining sun. But this is asking too much. Many persons of course come -to Newport simply because others come, and in this way the present -brilliant colony has grown up. Let me not be suspected, when I speak of -Newport, of the untasteful heresy of meaning primarily rocks and waves -rather than ladies and gentlemen. - -The ladies and gentlemen are in great force--the ladies, of course, -especially. It is true everywhere, I suppose, that women are the -animating element of "society;" but you feel this to be especially true -as you pass along Bellevue Avenue. I doubt whether anywhere else so many -women have a "good time" with so small a sacrifice of the luxury of -self-respect. I heard a lady yesterday tell another, with a quiet -ecstasy of tone, that she had been having a "most perfect time." This is -the very poetry of pleasure. It is a part of our complacent tradition -that in those foreign lands where women are supposed to be socially -supreme, they maintain their empire by various clandestine and -reprehensible arts. With us--we say it at Newport without bravado--they -are both conspicuous and unsophisticated. You feel this most gratefully -as you receive a confident bow from a pretty girl in her basket-phaeton. -She is very young and very pretty, but she has a certain habitual -assurance which is only a grace the more. She combines, you reflect with -respectful tenderness, all that is possible in the way of modesty with -all that is delightful in the way of facility. Shyness is certainly very -pretty--when it is not very ugly; but shyness may often darken the bloom -of genuine modesty, and a certain frankness and confidence may often -incline it toward the light. Let us assume, then, that all the young -ladies whom you may meet here are of the highest modern type. In the -course of time they ripen into the delightful matrons who divide your -admiration. It is easy to see that Newport must be a most agreeable -sojourn for the male sex. The gentlemen, indeed, look wonderfully -prosperous and well-conditioned. They gallop on shining horses or -recline in a sort of coaxing Herculean submission beside the lovely -mistress of a curricle. Young men--and young old men--I have occasion to -observe, are far more numerous than at Saratoga, and of vastly superior -quality. There is, indeed, in all things a striking difference in tone -and aspect between these two great centres of pleasure. After Saratoga, -Newport seems really substantial and civilised. Æsthetically speaking, -you may remain at Newport with a fairly good conscience; at Saratoga you -linger under passionate protest. At Newport life is public, if you will; -at Saratoga it is absolutely common. The difference, in a word, is the -difference between a group of undiscriminating hotels and a series of -organised homes. Saratoga perhaps deserves our greater homage, as being -characteristically democratic and American; let us, then, make Saratoga -the heaven of our aspiration, but let us yet a while content ourselves -with Newport as the lowly earth of our residence. - -The villas and "cottages," the beautiful idle women, the beautiful idle -men, the brilliant pleasure-fraught days and evenings, impart, perhaps, -to Newport life a faintly European expression, in so far as they suggest -the somewhat alien presence of leisure--"fine old Leisure," as George -Eliot calls it. Nothing, it seems to me, however, can take place in -America without straightway seeming very American; and, after a week at -Newport, you begin to fancy that to live for amusement simply, beyond -the noise of commerce or of care, is a distinctively national trait. -Nowhere else in this country--nowhere, of course, within the range of -our better civilisation--does business seem so remote, so vague, and -unreal. It is the only place in America in which enjoyment is organised. -If there be any poetry in the ignorance of trade and turmoil and the -hard processes of fortune, Newport may claim her share of it. She -knows--or at least appears to know--for the most part nothing but -results. Individuals here, of course, have private cares and burdens to -preserve the balance and the dignity of life; but collective society -conspires to forget everything that worries. It is a singular fact that -a society that does nothing is decidedly more pictorial, more -interesting to the eye of contemplation, than a society which is hard at -work. Newport, in this way, is infinitely more fertile in combinations -than Saratoga. There you feel that idleness is occasional, empirical. -Most of the people you see are asking themselves, you imagine, whether -the game is worth the candle and work is not better than such difficult -play. But here, obviously, the habit of pleasure is formed, and (within -the limits of a severe morality) many of the secrets of pleasure are -known. Do what we will, on certain lines Europe is in advance of us yet. -Newport lags altogether behind Trouville and Brighton in her exhibition -of the unmentionable. All this is markedly absent from the picture, -which is therefore signally destitute of the enhancing tints produced by -the mysteries and fascinations of vice. But idleness per se is vicious, -and of course you may imagine what you please. For my own part, I prefer -to imagine nothing but the graceful and the pure; and with the help of -such imaginings you may construct a very pretty sentimental undercurrent -to the superficial movement of society. This I lately found very -difficult to do at Saratoga. Sentiment there is pitifully shy and -elusive. Here, the multiplied relations of men and women, under the -permanent pressure of luxury and idleness, give it a very fair chance. -Sentiment, indeed, of masterly force and interest, springs up in every -soil, with a sovereign disregard of occasion. People love and hate and -aspire with the greatest intensity when they have to make their time and -opportunity. I should hardly come to Newport for the materials of a -tragedy. Even in their own kind, the social elements are as yet too -light and thin. But I can fancy finding here the motive of a drama which -should depend more on smiles than tears. I can almost imagine, indeed, a -transient observer of the Newport spectacle dreaming momentarily of a -great American novel, in which the heroine might be infinitely realistic -and yet neither a schoolmistress nor an outcast. I say intentionally the -"transient" observer, because it is probable that here the suspicion -only is friendly to dramatic point; the knowledge is hostile. The -observer would discover, on a nearer view, I rather fear, that his -possible heroines have too perfect a time. - -This will remind the reader of what he must already have heard affirmed, -that to speak of a place with abundance you must know it, but not too -well. I suffer from knowing the natural elements of Newport too well to -attempt to describe them. I have known them so long that I hardly know -what I think of them. I have little more than a simple consciousness of -enjoying them very much. Even this consciousness at times lies dumb and -inert. I wonder at such times whether, to appeal fairly to the general -human sense, the horizon has not too much of that mocking straightness -which is such a misrepresentation of the real character of the sea--as -if, forsooth, it were level. Life seems too short, space too narrow, to -warrant you in giving in an unqualified adhesion to a pay sage which is -two-thirds ocean. For the most part, however, I am willing to take the -landscape as it stands, and to think that, without the water to make it -precious, the land would be much less lovable. It is, in fact, a land -exquisitely modified by marine influences. Indeed, in spite of all the -evil it has done me, I could almost speak well of the ocean when I -remember the charming tricks it plays with the Newport promontories. - -The place consists, as the reader will know, of an ancient and -honourable town, a goodly harbour, and a long, broad neck of land, -stretching southward into the sea and forming the chief habitation of -the summer colony. Along the greater part of its eastward length, this -projecting coast is bordered with cliffs of no great height, and dotted -with seaward-gazing villas. At the head of the promontory the villas -enjoy a magnificent reach of prospect. The pure Atlantic--the old world -westward tides--expire directly at their feet. Behind the line of villas -runs the Avenue, with more villas yet--of which there is nothing at all -to say but that those built recently are a hundred times prettier than -those built fifteen years ago, and give one some hope of a revival of -the architectural art. Some years ago, when I first knew Newport, the -town proper was considered remarkably quaint. If an antique shabbiness -that amounts almost to squalor is a pertinent element, as I believe it -is, of this celebrated quality, the little main street at least--Thames -Street by name--still deserves the praise. Here, in their crooked and -dwarfish wooden mansions, are the shops that minister to the daily needs -of the expanded city; and here of a summer morning, jolting over the -cobble stones of the narrow roadway, you may see a hundred superfine -ladies seeking with languid eagerness what they may buy--to "buy -something," I believe, being a diurnal necessity of the conscientious -American woman. This busy region gradually melts away into the -grass-grown stillness of the Point, in the eyes of many persons the -pleasantest quarter of Newport. It has superficially the advantage of -being as yet uninvaded by fashion. When I first knew it, however, its -peculiar charm was even more undisturbed than at present. The Point may -be called the old residential, as distinguished from the commercial, -town. It is meagre, shallow and scanty--a mere pinch of antiquity--but, -so far as it goes, it retains an exquisite tone. It leaves the shops and -the little wharves, and wanders close to the harbour, where the -breeze-borne rattle of shifted sails and spars alone intrudes upon its -stillness, till its mouldy-timbered quiet subsides into the low, tame -rocks and beaches which edge the bay. Several matter-of-course modern -houses have recently been erected on the water-side, absorbing the -sober, primitive tenements which used to maintain the picturesque -character of the place. They improve it, of course, as a residence, but -they injure it as an unexpected corner. Enough of early architecture -still remains, however, to suggest a multitude of thoughts as to the -severe simplicity of the generation which produced it. The plain gray -nudity of these little warped and shingled boxes seems to make it a -hopeless task on their part to present any positive appearance at all. -But here, as elsewhere, the magical Newport atmosphere wins half the -battle. It aims at no mystery--it simply makes them scintillate in their -bareness. Their homely notches and splinters twinkle till the mere -friendliness of the thing makes a surface. Their steep gray roofs, -barnacled with lichens, remind you of old barges, overturned on the -beach to dry. - -One of the more recent monuments of fashion is the long drive which -follows the shore. The Avenue, where the Neck abruptly terminates, has -been made to extend itself to the west, and to wander for a couple of -miles over a lovely region of beach and lowly down and sandy meadow and -salt brown sheep-grass. This region was formerly the most beautiful part -of Newport--the least frequented and the most untamed by fashion. I by -no means regret the creation of the new road, however. A walker may very -soon isolate himself, and the occupants of carriages axe exposed to a -benefit quite superior to their power of injury. The peculiar charm of -this great westward expanse is very difficult to define. It is in an -especial degree the charm of Newport in general--the combined lowness of -tone, as painters call it, in all the elements of _terra firma_, and the -extraordinary elevation of tone in the air. For miles and miles you see -at your feet, in mingled shades of yellow and gray, a desolate waste of -mossclad rock and sand-starved grass. At your left is nothing but the -shine and surge of the ocean, and over your head that wonderful sky of -Newport, which has such an unexpected resemblance to the sky of Venice. -In spite of the bare simplicity of this prospect, its beauty is far more -a beauty of detail than that of the average American landscape. Descend -into a hollow of the rocks, into one of the little warm climates, five -feet square, which you may find there, beside the grateful ocean glare, -and you will be struck quite as much by their fineness as by their -roughness. From time to time, as you wander, you will meet a lonely, -stunted tree, which is sure to be a charming piece of the individual -grotesque. The region of which I speak is perhaps best seen in the late -afternoon, from the high seat of a carriage on the Avenue. You seem to -stand just outside the threshold of the west. At its opposite extremity -sinks the sun, with such a splendour, perhaps, as I lately saw--a -splendour of the deepest blue, more luminous and fiery than the usual -redness of evening, and all streaked and barred with blown and drifted -gold. The whole large interval, with its rocks and marshes and ponds, -seems bedimmed with a kind of purple glaze. The near Atlantic fades and -turns cold with that desolate look of the ocean when the day ceases to -care for it. In the foreground, a short distance from the road, an old -orchard uplifts its tangled stems and branches against the violet mists -of the west. It seems strangely grotesque and enchanted. No ancient -olive-grove of Italy or Provence was ever more hoarily romantic. This is -what people commonly behold on the last homeward bend of the drive. For -such of them as are happy enough to occupy one of the villas on the -cliffs, the beauty of the day has even yet not expired. The present -summer has been emphatically the summer of moonlights. Not the nights, -however, but the long days, in these agreeable homes, are what -especially appeal to my fancy. Here you find a solution of the insoluble -problem--to combine an abundance of society with an abundance of -solitude. In their charming broad-windowed drawing-rooms, on their great -seaward piazzas, within sight of the serious Atlantic horizon, which is -so familiar to the eye and so mysterious to the heart, caressed by the -gentle breeze which makes all but simple, social, delightful now and -here seem unreal and untasteful--the sweet fruit of the lotus grows more -than ever succulent and magical. How sensible they ought to be, the -denizens of these pleasant places, of their peculiar felicity and -distinction! How it should purify their temper and refine their tastes! -How delicate, how wise, how discriminating they should become! What -excellent manners--what enlightened opinions--their situation should -produce! How it should purge them of vulgarity! Happy _villeggianti_ of -Newport! - - - - -XIX - -QUEBEC - -1871 - -I - - -A traveller who combines a taste for old towns with a love of letters -ought not, I suppose, to pass through "the most picturesque city in -America" without making an attempt to commemorate his impressions. His -first impression will certainly have been that not America, but Europe, -should have the credit of Quebec. I came, some days since, by a dreary -night-journey, to Point Levi, opposite the town, and as we rattled -toward our goal in the faint raw dawn, and, already attentive to -"effects," I began to consult the misty window-panes and descried -through the moving glass little but crude, monotonous woods, suggestive -of nothing that I had ever heard of in song or story, I felt that the -land would have much to do to give itself a romantic air. And, in fact, -the feat is achieved with almost magical suddenness. The old world rises -in the midst of the new in the manner of a change of scene on the stage. -The St. Lawrence shines at your left, large as a harbour-mouth, gray -with smoke and masts, and edged on its hither verge by a bustling -water-side _faubourg_ which looks French or English, or anything not -local that you please; and beyond it, over against you, on its rocky -promontory, sits the ancient town, belted with its hoary wall and -crowned with its granite citadel. Now that I have been here a while I -find myself wondering how the city would strike one if the imagination -had not been bribed beforehand. The place, after all, is of the soil on -which it stands; yet it appeals to you so cunningly with its little -stock of transatlantic wares that you overlook its flaws and lapses, and -swallow it whole. Fancy lent a willing hand the morning I arrived, and -zealously retouched the picture. The very sky seemed to have been -brushed in like the sky in an English water-colour, the light to filter -down through an atmosphere more dense and more conscious. You cross a -ferry, disembark at the foot of the rock on unmistakably foreign soil, -and then begin to climb into the city proper--the city _intra muros_. -These walls, to the American vision, are of course the sovereign fact of -Quebec; you take off your hat to them as you clatter through the gate. -They are neither very high nor, after all, very hoary. Our clear -American air is hostile to those mellow deposits and incrustations which -enrich the venerable surfaces of Europe. Still, they are walls; till but -a short time ago they quite encircled the town; they are garnished with -little slits for musketry and big embrasures for cannon; they offer here -and there to the strolling bourgeoisie a stretch of grassy rampart; and -they make the whole place definite and personal. - -Before you reach the gates, however, you will have been reminded at a -dozen points that you have come abroad. What is the essential difference -of tone between street-life in an old civilisation and in a new? It -seems something subtler and deeper than mere external accidents--than -foreign architecture, than foreign pinks, greens, and yellows plastering -the house-fronts, than the names of the saints on the corners, than all -the pleasant crookedness, narrowness and duskiness, the quaint -economised spaces, the multifarious detail, the brown French faces, the -ruddy English ones. It seems to be the general fact of detail -itself--the hint in the air of a slow, accidental accretion, in -obedience to needs more timidly considered and more sparingly gratified -than the pressing necessities of American progress. But apart from the -metaphysics of the question, Quebec has a great many pleasant little -ripe spots and amenities. You note the small, box-like houses in rugged -stone or in stucco, each painted with uncompromising _naïveté_ in some -bright hue of the owner's fond choice; you note with joy, with envy, -with momentary self-effacement, as a New Yorker, as a Bostonian, the -innumerable calashes and cabs which contend for your selection; and you -observe when you arrive at the hotel, that this is a blank and gloomy -inn, of true provincial aspect, with slender promise of the "American -plan." Perhaps, even the clerk at the office will have the courtesy of -the ages of leisure. I confess that, in my case, he was terribly modern, -so that I was compelled to resort for a lodging to a private house near -by, where I enjoy a transitory glimpse of the _vie intime_ of Quebec. I -fancied, when I came in, that it would be a compensation for worse -quarters to possess the little Canadian vignette I enjoy from my -windows. Certain shabby Yankee sheds, indeed, encumber the foreground, -but they are so near that I can overlook them. Beyond is a piece of -garden, attached to nothing less than a convent of the cloistered nuns -of St. Ursula. The convent chapel rises inside it, crowned with what -seemed to me, in view of the circumstances, a real little _clocher de -France_. The "circumstances," I confess, are simply a couple of stout -French poplars. I call them French because they are alive and happy; -whereas, if they had been American they would have died of a want of -appreciation, like their brothers in the "States." I do not say that the -little convent-belfry, roofed and coated as it is with quaint scales of -tin, would, by itself, produce any very deep illusion; or that the -whispering poplars, _per se_, would transport me to the Gallic -mother-land; but poplars and belfry together constitute an -"effect"--strike a musical note in the scale of association. I look -fondly even at the little casements which command this prospect, for -they too are an old-world heritage. They open sidewise, in two wings, -and are screwed together by that bother--some little iron handle over -which we have fumbled so often in European inns. - -If the windows tell of French dominion, of course larger matters testify -with greater eloquence. In a place so small as Quebec, the bloom of -novelty of course rubs off; but when first I walked abroad I fancied -myself again in a French seaside town where I once spent a year, in -common with a large number of economically disposed English. The French -element offers the groundwork, and the English colony wears, for the -most part, that half-genteel and migratory air which stamps the exiled -and provincial British. They look as if they were still _en -voyage_--still in search of low prices--the men in woollen shirts and -Scotch bonnets; the ladies with a certain look of being equipped for -dangers and difficulties. Your very first steps will be likely to lead -you to the market-place, which is a genuine bit of Europeanism. One side -of it is occupied by a huge edifice of yellow plaster, with stone -facings painted in blue, and a manner of _porte-cochère_, leading into -a veritable court--originally, I believe, a college of the early -Jesuits, now a place of military stores. On the other stands the French -cathedral, with an ample stone façade, a bulky stone tower, and a -high-piled, tin-scaled belfry; not architectural, of course, nor -imposing, but with a certain gray maturity, and, as regards the belfry, -a quite adequate quaintness. Bound about are shops and houses, touching -which, I think, it is no mere fancy that they might, as they stand, look -down into some dull and rather dirty place in France. The stalls and -booths in the centre--tended by genuine peasants of tradition, -brown-faced old Frenchwomen, with hard wrinkles and short petticoats, -and white caps beneath their broad-brimmed hats, and more than one -price, as I think you'll find--these, and the stationed calèches and -cabriolets complete a passably fashionable French picture. It is a proof -of how nearly the old market-women resemble their originals across the -sea that you rather resentfully miss one or two of the proper features -of the type--the sabots for the feet and the donkey for the load. Of -course you go into the cathedral, and how forcibly that swing of the -door, as you doff your hat in the cooler air, recalls the old tourist -strayings and pryings beneath other skies! You find a big garish church, -with a cold high light, a promiscuity of stucco and gilding, and a mild -odour of the seventeenth century. It is, perhaps, a shade or so more -sensibly Catholic than it would be with ourselves; but, in fine, it has -pews and a boarded floor, and the few paintings are rather pale in their -badness, and you are forced to admit that the old-world tone which -sustains itself so comfortably elsewhere falters most where most is -asked of it. - -Among the other lions of Quebec--notably in the Citadel--you find -Protestant England supreme. A robust trooper of her Majesty, with a pair -of very tight trousers and a very small cap, takes charge of you at the -entrance of the fortifications, and conducts you through all kinds of -incomprehensible defences. I cannot speak of the place as an engineer, -but only as a tourist, and the tourist is chiefly concerned with the -view. This is altogether superb, and if Quebec is not the most -picturesque city in America, this is no fault of its incomparable site. -Perched on its mountain of rock, washed by a river as free and ample as -an ocean-gulf, sweeping from its embattled crest, the villages, the -forests, the blue undulations of the imperial province of which it is -warden--as it has managed from our scanty annals to squeeze out a past, -you pray in the name of all that's majestic that it may have a future. I -may add that, to the mind of the reflective visitor, these idle ramparts -and silent courts present other visions than that of the mighty course -of the river and its anchorage for navies. They evoke a shadowy image of -that great English power, the arches of whose empire were once built -strong on foreign soil; and as you stand where they are highest and look -abroad upon a land of alien speech, you seem to hear the echoed names of -other strongholds and provinces--Gibraltar, Malta, India. Whether these -arches are crumbling now, I do not pretend to say; but the last regular -troops (in number lately much diminished) are just about to be withdrawn -from Quebec, and in the private circles to which I have been admitted I -hear sad forebodings of what society will lose by the departure of the -"military." This single word is eloquent; it reveals a social order -distinctly affiliated, in spite of remoteness, to the society reproduced -for the pacific American in novels in which the hero is a captain of the -army or navy, and of which the scene is therefore necessarily laid in -countries provided with these branches of the public service. Another -opportunity for some such reflections, worthy of a historian or an -essayist, as those I have hinted at, is afforded you on the Plains of -Abraham, to which you probably adjourn directly from the -Citadel--another, but I am bound to say, in my opinion, a less inspiring -one. A battlefield remains a battlefield, whatever may be done to it; -but the scene of Wolfe's victory has been profaned by the erection of a -vulgar prison, and this memento of human infirmities does much to efface -the meagre column which, with its neat inscription, "Here died Wolfe, -victorious," stands there as a symbol of exceptional virtue. - - - - -II - - -To express the historical interest of the place completely, I should -dwell on the light provincial--French provincial--aspect of some of the -little residential streets. Some of the houses have the staleness of -complexion which Balzac loved to describe. They are chiefly built of -stone or brick, with a stoutness and separateness of structure which -stands in some degree in stead of architecture. I know not that, -externally, they have any greater charm than that they belong to that -category of dwellings which in our own cities were long since pulled -down to make room for brown-stone fronts. I know not, indeed, that I can -express better the picturesque merit of Quebec than by saying that it -has no fronts of this luxurious and horrible substance. The greater -number of houses are built of rough-hewn squares of some more vulgar -mineral, painted with frank chocolate or buff, and adorned with blinds -of a cruder green than we admire. As you pass the low windows of these -abodes, you perceive the walls to be of extraordinary thickness; the -embrasure is of great depth; Quebec was built for winter. Door-plates -are frequent, and you observe that the tenants are of the Gallic -persuasion. Here and there, before a door, stands a comely private -equipage--a fact agreeably suggestive of a low scale of prices; for -evidently in Quebec one need not be a millionaire to keep a carriage, -and one may make a figure on moderate means. The great number of private -carriages visible in the streets is another item, by the way, among the -Europeanisms of the place; and not, as I may say, as regards the simple -fact that they exist, but as regards the fact that they are considered -needful for women, for young persons, for gentility. What does it do -with itself, this gentility, keeping a gig or not, you wonder, as you -stroll past its little multicoloured mansions. You strive almost vainly -to picture the life of this French society, locked up in its small dead -capital, isolated on a heedless continent, and gradually consuming its -principal, as one may say--its vital stock of memories, traditions, -superstitions. Its evenings must be as dull as the evenings described by -Balzac in his _Vie de Province_; but has it the same ways and means of -dulness? Does it play loto and "boston" in the long winter nights, and -arrange marriages between its sons and daughters, whose education it has -confided to abbés and abbesses? I have met in the streets here little -old Frenchmen who look as if they had stepped out of Balzac--bristling -with the habits of a class, wrinkled with old-world expressions. -Something assures one that Quebec must be a city of gossip; for -evidently it is not a city of culture. A glance at the few booksellers' -windows gives evidence of this. A few Catholic statuettes and prints, -two or three Catholic publications, a festoon or so of rosaries, a -volume of Lamartine, a supply of ink and matches, form the principal -stock. - -In the lower class of the French population there is a much livelier -vitality. They are a genuine peasantry; you very soon observe it, as you -drive along the pleasant country-roads. Just what it is that makes a -peasantry, it is, perhaps, not easy to determine; but whatever it is, -these good people have it--in their simple, unsharpened faces, in their -narrow patois, in their ignorance and naïveté, and their evident good -terms with the tin-spired parish church, standing there as bright and -clean with ungrudged paint and varnish as a Nürnberg toy. One of them -spoke to me with righteous contempt of the French of France--"They are -worth nothing; they are bad Catholics." These are good Catholics, and I -doubt whether anywhere Catholicism wears a brighter face and maintains -more docility at the cost of less misery. It is, perhaps, not -Longfellow's Evangeline for chapter and verse, but it is a tolerable -prose transcript. There is no visible squalor, there are no rags and no -curses, but there is a most agreeable tinge of gentleness, thrift, and -piety. I am assured that the country-people are in the last degree mild -and peaceable; surely, such neatness and thrift, without the -irritability of the French genius--it is true the genius too is -absent--is a very pleasant type of character. Without being ready to -proclaim, with an enthusiastic friend, that the roadside scenery is more -French than France, I may say that, in its way, it is quite as -picturesque as anything within the city. There is an air of completeness -and maturity in the landscape which suggests an old country. The roads, -to begin with, are decidedly better than our own, and the cottages and -farmhouses would need only a bit of thatch and a few red tiles here and -there to enable them to figure creditably by the waysides of Normandy or -Brittany. The road to Montmorency, on which tourists most congregate, is -also, I think, the prettiest. The rows of poplars, the heavy stone -cottages, seamed and cracked with time, in many cases, and daubed in -coarse, bright hues, the little bourgeois villas, rising middle-aged at -the end of short vistas, the sunburnt women in the fields, the old men -in woollen stockings and red nightcaps, the long-kirtled curé nodding -to doffed hats, the more or less bovine stare which greets you from -cottage-doors, are all so many touches of a local colour reflected from -over the sea. What especially strikes one, however, is the peculiar tone -of the light and the atmospheric effects--the chilly whites and grays, -the steely reflections, the melancholy brightness of a frigid zone. -Winter here gives a stamp to the year, and seems to leave even through -spring and summer a kind of scintillating trail of his presence. To me, -I confess it is terrible, and I fancy I see constantly in the brilliant -sky the hoary genius of the climate brooding grimly over his dominion. - -The falls of Montmorency, which you reach by the pleasant avenue I speak -of, are great, I believe, among the falls of the earth. They are -certainly very fine, even in the attenuated shape to which they are -reduced at the present season. I doubt whether you obtain anywhere in -simpler and more powerful form the very essence of a cataract--the wild, -fierce, suicidal plunge of a living, sounding flood. A little platform, -lodged in the cliff, enables you to contemplate it with almost shameful -convenience; here you may stand at your leisure and spin analogies, more -or less striking, on the very edge of the white abyss. The leap of the -water begins directly at your feet, and your eye trifles dizzily with -the long, perpendicular shaft of foam, and tries, in the eternal crash, -to effect some vague notation of its successive stages of sound and -fury; but the vaporous sheet, for ever dropping, lapses from beneath the -eye, and leaves the vision distracted in mid-space; and the vision, in -search of a resting-place, sinks in a flurry to the infamous saw-mill -which defaces the very base of the torrent. The falls of Montmorency are -obviously one of the greatest of the beauties of nature; but I hope it -is not beside the mark to say that of all the beauties of nature, -"falls" are to me the least satisfying. A mountain, a precipice, a -river, a forest, a plain, I can enjoy at my ease; they are natural, -normal, self-assured; they make no appeal; they imply no human -admiration, no petty human cranings and shrinkings, head-swimmings and -similes. A cataract, of course, is essentially violent. You are certain, -moreover, to have to approach it through a turnstile, and to enjoy it -from some terribly cockneyfied little booth. The spectacle at -Montmorency appears to be the private property of a negro innkeeper, who -"runs" it evidently with great pecuniary profit. A day or two since I -went so far as to be glad to leave it behind, and drive some five miles -farther along the road, to a village rejoicing in the pretty name of -Château-Richer. The village is so pretty that you count on finding -there the elderly manor which might have baptized it. But, of course, in -such pictorial efforts as this Quebec breaks down; one must not ask too -much of it. You enjoy from here, however, a revelation of the noble -position of the city. The river, finding room in mid-stream for the long -island of Orleans, opens out below you with a peculiar freedom and -serenity, and leads the eye far down to where an azure mountain gazes up -the channel and responds to the dark headland of Quebec. I noted, here -and there, as I went, an extremely sketchable effect. Between the road -and the river stand a succession of ancient peasant-dwellings, with -their back-windows looking toward the stream. Glancing, as I passed, -into the apertures that face the road, I saw, as through a -picture-frame, their dark, rich-toned interiors, played into by the late -river light and making an admirable series of mellow _tableaux de -genre_. The little curtained alcoves, the big household beds, and -presses, and dressers, the black-mouthed chimney-pieces, the crucifixes, -the old women at their spinning-wheels, the little heads at the -supper-table, around the big French loaf, outlined with a rim of light, -were all as warmly, as richly composed, as French, as Dutch, as worthy -of the brush, as anything in the countries to which artists resort for -subjects. - -I suppose no patriotic American can look at all these things, however -idly, without reflecting on the ultimate possibility of their becoming -absorbed into his own huge state. Whenever, sooner or later, the change -is wrought, the sentimental tourist will keenly feel that a long stride -has been taken, roughshod, from the past to the present. The largest -appetite in modern civilisation will have swallowed the largest morsel. -What the change may bring of comfort or of grief to the Canadians -themselves, will be for them to say; but, in the breast of this -sentimental tourist of ours, it will produce little but regret. The -foreign elements of eastern Canada, at least, are extremely interesting; -and it is of good profit to us Americans to have near us, and of easy -access, an ample something which is not our expansive selves. Here we -find a hundred mementoes of an older civilisation than our own, of -different manners, of social forces once mighty, and still glowing with -a sort of autumnal warmth. The old-world needs which created the -dark-walled cities of France and Italy seem to reverberate faintly in -the steep and narrow and Catholic streets of Quebec. The little houses -speak to the fancy by rather inexpensive arts; the ramparts are endued -with a sort of silvery innocence; but the historic sense, conscious of a -general solidarity in the picturesque, ekes out the romance and deepens -the colouring. - - - - -XX - -NIAGARA - -1871 - - -My journey hitherward by a morning's sail from Toronto across Lake -Ontario, seemed to me, as regards a certain dull vacuity in this episode -of travel, a kind of calculated preparation for the uproar of Niagara--a -pause or hush on the threshold of a great impression; and this, too, in -spite of the reverent attention I was mindful to bestow on the first -seen, in my experience, of the great lakes. It has the merit, from the -shore, of producing a slight ambiguity of vision. It is the sea, and yet -just not the sea. The huge expanse, the landless line of the horizon, -suggest the ocean; while an indefinable shortness of pulse, a kind of -fresh-water gentleness of tone, seem to contradict the idea. What meets -the eye is on the scale of the ocean, but you feel somehow that the lake -is a thing of smaller spirit. Lake-navigation, therefore, seems to me -not especially entertaining. The scene tends to offer, as one may say, a -sort of marine-effect missed. It has the blankness and vacancy of the -sea, without that vast essential swell which, amid the belting brine, so -often saves the situation to the eye. I was occupied, as we crossed, in -wondering whether this dull reduction of the main contained that which -could properly be termed "scenery." At the mouth of the Niagara River, -however, after a sail of three hours, scenery really begins, and very -soon crowds upon you in force. The steamer puts into the narrow channel -of the stream, and heads upward between high embankments. From this -point, I think, you really enter into relations with Niagara. Little by -little the elements become a picture, rich with the shadow of coming -events. You have a foretaste of the great spectacle of colour which you -enjoy at the Falls. The even cliffs of red-brown earth are crusted and -spotted with autumnal orange and crimson, and, laden with this gorgeous -decay, they plunge sheer into the deep-dyed green of the river. As you -proceed, the river begins to tell its tale--at first in broken syllables -of foam and flurry, and then, as it were, in rushing, flashing sentences -and passionate ejaculations. Onwards from Lewiston, where you are -transferred from the boat to the train, you see it from the edge of the -American cliff, far beneath you, now superbly unnavigable. You have a -lively sense of something happening ahead; the river, as a man near me -said, has evidently been in a row. The cliffs here are immense; they -form a vomitorium worthy of the living floods whose exit they protect. -This is the first act of the drama of Niagara; for it is, I believe, one -of the commonplaces of description that you instinctively convert it -into a series of "situations." At the station pertaining to the railway -suspension-bridge, you see in mid-air, beyond an interval of murky -confusion produced at once by the farther bridge, the smoke of the -trains, and the thickened atmosphere of the peopled bank, a huge -far-flashing sheet which glares through the distance as a monstrous -absorbent and irradiant of light. And here, in the interest of the -picturesque, let me note that this obstructive bridge tends in a way to -enhance the first glimpse of the cataract. Its long black span, falling -dead along the shining brow of the Falls, seems shivered and smitten by -their fierce effulgence, and trembles across the field of vision like -some enormous mote in a light too brilliant. A moment later, as the -train proceeds, you plunge into the village, and the cataract, save as a -vague ground-tone to this trivial interlude, is, like so many other -goals of æsthetic pilgrimage, temporarily postponed to the hotel. - -With this postponement comes, I think, an immediate decline of -expectation; for there is every appearance that the spectacle you have -come so far to see is to be choked in the horribly vulgar shops and -booths and catchpenny artifices which have pushed and elbowed to within -the very spray of the Falls, and ply their importunities in shrill -competition with its thunder. You see a multitude of hotels and taverns -and stores, glaring with white paint; bedizened with placards and -advertisements, and decorated by groups of those gentlemen who flourish -most rankly on the soil of New York and in the vicinage of hotels; who -carry their hands in their pockets, wear their hats always and every -way, and, although of a stationary habit, yet spurn the earth with their -heels. A side-glimpse of the Falls, however, calls out your philosophy; -you reflect that this may be regarded as one of those sordid foregrounds -which Turner liked to use, and which may be effective as a foil; you -hurry to where the roar grows louder, and, I was going to say, you -escape from the village. In fact, however, you don't escape from it; it -is constantly at your elbow, just to the right or the left of the line -of contemplation. It would be paying Niagara a poor compliment to say -that, practically, she does not hurl away this chaffering by-play from -her edge; but as you value the integrity of your impression, you are -bound to affirm that it suffers appreciable abatement from such sources. -You wonder, as you stroll about, whether it is altogether an unrighteous -dream that with the slow progress of taste and the possible or -impossible growth of some larger comprehension of beauty and fitness, -the public conscience may not tend to confer upon such sovereign phases -of nature something of the inviolability and privacy which we are slow -to bestow, indeed, upon fame, but which we do not grudge at least to -art. We place a great picture, a great statue, in a museum: we erect a -great monument in the centre of our largest square, and if we can -suppose ourselves nowadays to build a cathedral, we should certainly -isolate it as much as possible and expose it to no ignoble contact. We -cannot enclose Niagara with walls and a roof, nor girdle it with a -palisade; but the sentimental tourist may muse upon the contingency of -its being guarded by the negative homage of empty spaces and absent -barracks and decent forbearance. The actual abuse of the scene belongs -evidently to that immense class of iniquities which are destined to grow -very much worse in order to grow a very little better. The good humour -engendered by the main spectacle bids you suffer it to run its course. - -Though hereabouts so much is great, distances are small, and a ramble of -two or three hours enables you to gaze hither and thither from a dozen -standpoints. The one you are likely to choose first is that on the -Canada cliff, a little way above the suspension-bridge. The great fall -faces you, enshrined in its own surging incense. The common feeling just -here, I believe, is one of disappointment at its want of height; the -whole thing appears to many people somewhat smaller than its fame. My -own sense, I confess, was absolutely gratified from the first; and, -indeed, I was not struck with anything being tall or short, but with -everything being perfect. You are, moreover, at some distance, and you -feel that with the lessening interval you will not be cheated of your -chance to be dizzied with mere dimensions. Already you see the -world-famous green, baffling painters, baffling poets, shining on the -lip of the precipice; the more so, of course, for the clouds of silver -and snow into which it speedily resolves itself. The whole picture -before you is admirably simple. The Horseshoe glares and boils and -smokes from the centre to the right, drumming itself into powder and -thunder; in the centre the dark pedestal of Goat Island divides the -double flood; to the left booms in vaporous dimness the minor battery of -the American Fall; while on a level with the eye, above the still crest -of either cataract, appear the white faces of the hithermost rapids. The -circle of weltering froth at the base of the Horseshoe, emerging from -the dead white vapours--absolute white, as moonless midnight is absolute -black--which muffle impenetrably the crash of the river upon the lower -bed, melts slowly into the darker shades of green. It seems in itself a -drama of thrilling interest, this blanched survival and recovery of the -stream. It stretches away like a tired swimmer, struggling from the -snowy scum and the silver drift, and passing slowly from an eddying -foam-sheet, touched with green lights, to a cold, verd-antique, streaked -and marbled with trails and wild arabesques of foam. This is the -beginning of that air of recent distress which marks the river as you -meet it at the lake. It shifts along, tremendously conscious, relieved, -disengaged, knowing the worst is over, with its dignity injured but its -volume undiminished, the most stately, the least turbid of torrents. Its -movement, its sweep and stride, are as admirable as its colour, but as -little as its colour to be made a matter of words. These things are but -part of a spectacle in which nothing is imperfect. As you draw nearer -and nearer, on the Canada cliff, to the right arm of the Horseshoe, the -mass begins in all conscience to be large enough. You are able at last -to stand on the very verge of the shelf from which the leap is taken, -bathing your boot-toes, if you like, in the side-ooze of the glassy -curve. I may say, in parenthesis, that the importunities one suffers -here, amid the central din of the cataract, from hackmen and -photographers and vendors of gimcracks, are simply hideous and infamous. -The road is lined with little drinking-shops and warehouses, and from -these retreats their occupants dart forth upon the hapless traveller -with their competitive attractions. You purchase release at last by the -fury of your indifference, and stand there gazing your fill at the most -beautiful object in the world. - -The perfect taste of it is the great characteristic. It is not in the -least monstrous; it is thoroughly artistic and, as the phrase is, -thought out. In the matter of line it beats Michael Angelo. One may seem -at first to say the least, but the careful observer will admit that one -says the most, in saying that it pleases--pleases even a spectator who -was not ashamed to write the other day that he didn't care for -cataracts. There are, however, so many more things to say about it--its -multitudinous features crowd so upon the vision as one looks--that it -seems absurd to begin to analyse. The main feature, perhaps, is the -incomparable loveliness of the immense line of the shelf and its lateral -abutments. It neither falters, nor breaks nor stiffens, but maintains -from wing to wing the lightness of its semicircle. This perfect curve -melts into the sheet that seems at once to drop from it and sustain it. -The famous green loses nothing, as you may imagine, on a nearer view. A -green more vividly cool and pure it is impossible to conceive. It is to -the vulgar greens of earth what the blue of a summer sky is to -artificial dyes, and is, in fact, as sacred, as remote, as impalpable as -that. You can fancy it the parent-green, the head-spring of colour to -all the verdant water-caves and all the dear, sub-fluvial haunts and -bowers of naiads and mermen in all the streams of the earth. The lower -half of the watery wall is shrouded in the steam of the boiling gulf--a -veil never rent nor lifted. At its heart this eternal cloud seems fixed -and still with excess of motion--still and intensely white; but, as it -rolls and climbs against its lucent cliff, it tosses little whiffs and -fumes and pants of snowy smoke, which betray the convulsions we never -behold. In the middle of the curve, the depth of the recess, the -converging walls are ground into a dust of foam, which rises in a tall -column, and fills the upper air with its hovering drift. Its summit far -overtops the crest of the cataract, and, as you look down along the -rapids above, you see it hanging over the averted gulf like some -far-flowing signal of danger. Of these things some vulgar verbal hint -may be attempted; but what words can render the rarest charm of all--the -clear-cut brow of the Fall, the very act and figure of the leap, the -rounded passage of the horizontal to the perpendicular? To say it is -simple is to make a phrase about it. Nothing was ever more successfully -executed. It is carved as sharp as an emerald, as one must say and say -again. It arrives, it pauses, it plunges; it comes and goes for ever; it -melts and shifts and changes, all with the sound as of millions of -bass-voices; and yet its outline never varies, never moves with a -different pulse. It is as gentle as the pouring of wine from a -flagon--of melody from the lip of a singer. From the little grove beside -the American Fall you catch this extraordinary profile better than you -are able to do at the Horseshoe. If the line of beauty had vanished from -the earth elsewhere, it would survive on the brow of Niagara. It is -impossible to insist too strongly on the grace of the thing, as seen -from the Canada cliff. The genius who invented it was certainly the -first author of the idea that order, proportion and symmetry are the -conditions of perfect beauty. He applied his faith among the watching -and listening forests, long before the Greeks proclaimed theirs in the -measurements of the Parthenon. Even the roll of the white batteries at -the base seems fixed and poised and ordered, and in the vague middle -zone of difference between the flood as it falls and the mist as it -rises you imagine a mystical meaning--the passage of body to soul, of -matter to spirit, of human to divine. - -Goat Island, of which every one has heard, is the menagerie of lions, -and the spot where your single stone--or, in plain prose, your -half-dollar--kills most birds. This broad insular strip, which performs -the excellent office of withholding the American shore from immediate -contact with the flood, has been left very much to itself, and here you -may ramble, for the most part, in undiverted contemplation. The island -is owned, I believe, by a family of co-heirs, who have the good taste to -keep it quiet. More than once, however, as I have been told, they have -been offered a "big price" for the privilege of building an hotel upon -this sacred soil. They have been wise, but, after all, they are human, -and the offer may be made once too often. Before this fatal day dawns, -why should not the State buy up the precious acres, as California has -done the Yo-Semite? It is the opinion of a sentimental tourist that no -price would be too great to pay. Otherwise, the only hope for their -integrity is in the possibility of a shrewd provision on the part of the -gentlemen who know how to keep hotels that the music of the dinner-band -would be injured by the roar of the cataract. You approach from Goat -Island the left abutment of the Horseshoe. The little tower which, with -the classic rainbow, figures in all "views" of the scene, is planted at -a dozen feet from the shore, directly on the shoulder of the Fall. This -little tower, I think, deserves a compliment. One might have said -beforehand that it would never do, but, as it stands, it makes rather a -good point. It serves as a unit of appreciation of the scale of things, -and from its spray-blackened summit it admits you to an almost downward -peep into the green gulf. More here, even, than on the Canada shore, you -perceive the unlimited _wateriness_ of the whole spectacle. Its liquid -masses take on at moments the likeness of walls and pillars and columns, -and, to present any vivid picture of them, we are compelled to talk -freely of emerald and crystal, of silver and marble. But really, all the -simplicity of the Falls, and half their grandeur, reside in their -unmitigated fluidity, which excludes all rocky staging and earthy -commixture. It is water piled on water, pinned on water, hinging and -hanging on water, breaking, crashing, whitening in shocks altogether -watery. And yet for all this no solid was ever so solid as that -sculptured shoulder of the Horseshoe. From this little tower, or, better -still, from various points farther along the island-shore, even to look -is to be immersed. Before you stretches the huge expanse of the upper -river, with its belittled cliffs, now mere black lines of forest, dull -as with the sadness of gazing at perpetual trouble, eternal danger. -Anything more horribly desolate than this boundless livid welter of the -rapids it is impossible to conceive, and you very soon begin to pay it -the tribute of your own suddenly-assumed suspense, in the impulse to -people it with human forms. On this theme you can work out endless -analogies. Yes, they are alive, every fear-blanched billow and eddy of -them--alive and frenzied with the sense of their doom. They see below -them that nameless pause of the arrested current, and the high-tossed -drift of sound and spray which rises up lamenting, like the ghosts of -their brothers who have been dashed to pieces. They shriek, they sob, -they clasp their white hands and toss their long hair; they cling and -clutch and wrestle, and, above all, they appear to _bite_. Especially -tragical is the air they have of being forced backward, with averted -faces, to their fate. Every pulse of the flood is like the grim stride -of a giant, wading huge-kneed to his purpose, with the white teeth of a -victim fastened in his neck. The outermost of three small islands, -interconnected by short bridges, at the extremity of this shore, places -one in singularly intimate relation with this portentous flurry. To say -that hereabouts the water leaps and plunges and rears and dives, that -its uproar makes even one's own ideas about it inaudible, and its -current sweeps those ideas to perdition, is to give a very pale account -of the universal agitation. - -The great spectacle may be called complete only when you have gone down -the river some four miles, on the American side, to the so-called rapids -of the Whirlpool. Here the unhappy stream tremendously renews its -anguish. Two approaches have been contrived on the cliff--one to the -rapids proper, the other, farther below, to the scene of the sudden -bend. The first consists of a little wooden cage, of the "elevator" -pattern, which slides up and down a gigantic perpendicular shaft of -horrible flimsiness. But a couple of the usual little brides, staggering -beneath the weight of gorgeous cashmeres, entered the conveyance with -their respective consorts at the same time with myself; and, as it thus -carried Hymen and his fortunes, we survived the adventure. You obtain -from below--that is, on the shore of the river--a specimen of the -noblest cliff-scenery. The green embankment at the base of the sheer red -wall is by itself a very fair example of what they call in the Rocky -Mountains a foot-hill; and from this continuous pedestal erects itself a -bristling palisade of earth. As it stands, Gustave Doré might have -drawn it. He would have sketched with especial ardour certain -parasitical shrubs and boskages--lone and dizzy witnesses of autumn; -certain outward-peering wens and warts and other perpendicular -excrescences of rock; and, above all, near the summit, the fantastic -figures of sundry audacious minor cliffs, grafted upon the greater by a -mere lateral attachment and based in the empty air, with great slim -trees rooted on their verges, like the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio at -Florence. The actual whirlpool is a third of a mile farther down the -river, and is best seen from the cliff above. From this point of view, -it seems to me by all odds the finest of the secondary episodes of the -drama of Niagara, and one on which a scribbling tourist, ineffectively -playing at showman, may be content to ring down his curtain. The channel -at this point turns away to the right, at a clean right-angle, and the -river, arriving from the rapids just above with stupendous velocity, -meets the hollow elbow of the Canada shore. The movement with which it -betrays its surprise and bewilderment--the sudden issueless maze of -waters--is, I think, after the Horseshoe Fall, the very finest thing in -its progress. It breaks into no small rage; the offending cliffs receive -no drop of spray; for the flood moves in a body and wastes no vulgar -side-spurts; but you see it shaken to its innermost bowels and panting -hugely, as if smothered in its excessive volume. Pressed back upon its -centre, the current creates a sort of pivot, from which it eddies, -groping for exit in vast slow circles, delicately and irregularly -outlined in foam. The Canada shore, shaggy and gaudy with late September -foliage, closes about it like the rising shelves of an amphitheatre, and -deepens by contrast the strong blue-green of the stream. This -slow-revolving surface--it seems in places perfectly still--resembles -nothing so much as some ancient palace-pavement, cracked and scratched -by the butts of legionary spears and the gold-stiffened hem of the -garments of kings. - - - - -THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORTRAITS OF PLACES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Portraits of places</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 10, 2022 [eBook #68961]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Laura Natal Rodrigues (Images generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORTRAITS OF PLACES ***</div> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/portraits_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/portraits_frontispiece.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h2>HENRY JAMES</h2> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h1>PORTRAITS OF PLACES</h1> - -<p><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</h4> - -<h4>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY</h4> - -<h4>The Riverside Press, Cambridge</h4> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>NOTE</h4> - -<p> -The following papers originally appeared in the <i>Century</i>, the -<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, the <i>Galaxy</i> Magazine, in that of -Lippincott, and in the <i>New York Tribune</i> and <i>The Nation</i>. -The four last chapters in the book, which were the earliest published, -can now have (in some slight degree) only the value of history. The -lapse of thirteen years will have brought many changes to Saratoga, -Newport, Quebec, and Niagara. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>CONTENTS</h4> - -<p class="nind"> -I. <a href="#chap01">Venice</a><br /> - -II. <a href="#chap02">Italy Revisited</a><br /> - -III. <a href="#chap03">Occasional Paris</a><br /> - -IV. <a href="#chap04">Rheims and Laon: A Little Tour</a><br /> - -V. <a href="#chap05">Chartres</a><br /> - -VI. <a href="#chap06">Rouen</a><br /> - -VII. <a href="#chap07">Etretat</a><br /> - -VIII. <a href="#chap08">From Normandy to the Pyrenees</a><br /> - -IX. <a href="#chap09">An English Easter</a><br /> - -X. <a href="#chap10">London at Midsummer</a><br /> - -XI. <a href="#chap11">Two Excursions</a><br /> - -XII. <a href="#chap12">In Warwickshire</a><br /> - -XIII. <a href="#chap13">Abbeys and Castles</a><br /> - -XIV. <a href="#chap14">English Vignettes</a><br /> - -XV. <a href="#chap15">An English New Year</a><br /> - -XVI. <a href="#chap16">An English Winter Watering-Place</a><br /> - -XVII. <a href="#chap17">Saratoga</a><br /> - -XVIII. <a href="#chap18">Newport</a><br /> - -XIX. <a href="#chap19">Quebec</a><br /> - -XX. <a href="#chap20">Niagara</a></p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap01"></a></p> - -<h4>I -<br /><br /> -VENICE -<br /><br /> -1882</h4> - -<p> -It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is not -a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it. Venice has been -painted and described many thousands of times, and of all the cities of -the world it is the easiest to visit without going there. Open the first -book and you will find a rhapsody about it; step into the first -picture-dealer's and you will find three or four high-coloured "views" -of it. There is nothing more to be said about it. Every one has been -there, and every one has brought back a collection of photographs. There -is as little mystery about the Grand Canal as about our local -thoroughfare; and the name of St. Mark is as familiar as the postman's -ring. It is not forbidden, however, to speak of familiar things, and I -believe that, for the true Venice-lover, Venice is always in order. -There is nothing new to be said about it certainly, but the old is -better than any novelty. It would be a sad day, indeed, when there -should be something new to say. I write these lines with the full -consciousness of having no information whatever to offer. I do not -pretend to enlighten the reader; I pretend only to give a fillip to his -memory; and I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in -love with his topic. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -Mr. Ruskin has given it up, that is very true; but it is only after -extracting half a life-time of pleasure and an immeasurable quantity of -fame from it. We all may do the same, after it has served our turn, -which it probably will not cease to do for many a year to come. -Meantime, it is Mr. Ruskin who, beyond any one, helps us to enjoy. He -has, indeed, lately produced several aids to depression in the shape of -certain little humorous—ill-humorous—pamphlets (the series -of <i>St. Mark's Rest</i>), which embody his latest reflections on the -subject of Venice and describe the latest atrocities that have been -perpetrated there. These latter are numerous and deeply to be deplored; -but to admit that they have spoiled Venice would be to admit that Venice -may be spoiled—an admission pregnant, as it seems to us, with -disloyalty. Fortunately, one reacts against the Ruskinian contagion, and -one hour of the lagoon is worth a hundred pages of demoralised prose. -This queer, late-coming prose of Mr. Ruskin (including the revised and -condensed issue of the <i>Stones of Venice</i>, only one little volume -of which has appeared or, perhaps, will ever appear) is all to be read, -though much of it seems to be addressed to children of tender age. It is -pitched in the nursery-key, and might be supposed to emanate from an -angry governess. It is, however, all suggestive, and much of it is -delightfully just. There is an inconceivable want of form in it, though -the author has spent his life in laying down the principles of form, and -scolding people for departing from them; but it throbs and flashes with -the love of his subject—a love disconcerted and abjured, but which -has still some of the force of inspiration. Among the many strange -things that have befallen Venice, she has had the good fortune to become -the object of a passion to a man of splendid genius, who has made her -his own, and, in doing so, has made her the world's. There is no better -reading at Venice, therefore, as I say, than Ruskin, for every true -Venice-lover can separate the wheat from the chaff. The narrow -theological spirit, the moralism <i>à tout propos</i>, the queer -provincialities and pruderies, are mere wild weeds in a mountain of -flowers. One may doubtless be very happy in Venice without reading at -all—without criticising or analysing or thinking a strenuous -thought. It is a city in which, I suspect, there is very little -strenuous thinking, and yet it is a city in which there must be almost -as much happiness as misery. The misery of Venice stands there for all -the world to see; it is part of the spectacle—a thorough-going -devotee of local colour might consistently say it is part of the -pleasure. The Venetian people have little to call their own—little -more than the bare privilege of leading their lives in the most -beautiful of towns. Their habitations are decayed; their taxes heavy; -their pockets light; their opportunities few. One receives an -impression, however, that life presents itself to them with attractions -not accounted for in this meagre train of advantages, and that they are -on better terms with it than many people who have made a better bargain. -They lie in the sunshine; they dabble in the sea; they wear bright rags; -they fall into attitudes and harmonies; they assist at an eternal -<i>conversazione</i>. It is not easy to say that one would have them -other than they are, and it certainly would make an immense difference -should they be better fed. The number of persons in Venice who evidently -never have enough to eat is painfully large; but it would be more -painful if we did not equally perceive that the rich Venetian -temperament may bloom upon a dog's allowance. Nature has been kind to -it, and sunshine and leisure and conversation and beautiful views form -the greater part of its sustenance. It takes a great deal to make a -successful American; but to make a happy Venetian takes only a handful -of quick sensibility. The Italian people have, at once, the good and -evil fortune to be conscious of few wants; so that if the civilisation -of a society is measured by the number of its needs, as seems to be the -common opinion to-day, it is to be feared that the children of the -lagoon would make but a poor figure in a set of comparative tables. Not -their misery, doubtless, but the way they elude their misery, is what -pleases the sentimental tourist, who is gratified by the sight of a -beautiful race that lives by the aid of its imagination. The way to -enjoy Venice is to follow the example of these people and make the most -of simple pleasures. Almost all the pleasures of the place are simple; -this may be maintained even under the imputation of ingenious paradox. -There is no simpler pleasure than looking at a fine Titian—unless -it be looking at a fine Tintoret, or strolling into St. Mark's—it -is abominable, the way one falls into the habit—and resting one's -light-wearied eyes upon the windowless gloom; or than floating in a -gondola, or hanging over a balcony, or taking one's coffee at Florian's. -It is of these superficial pastimes that a Venetian day is composed, and -the pleasure of the matter is in the emotions to which they minister. -These, fortunately, are of the finest; otherwise, Venice would be -insufferably dull. Reading Ruskin is good; reading the old records is, -perhaps, better; but the best thing of all is simply staying on. The -only way to care for Venice as she deserves it, is to give her a chance -to touch you often—to linger and remain and return. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -The danger is that you will not linger enough—a danger of which -the author of these lines had known something. It is possible to dislike -Venice, and to entertain the sentiment in a responsible and intelligent -manner. There are travellers who think the place odious, and those who -are not of this opinion often find themselves wishing that the others -were only more numerous. The sentimental tourist's only quarrel with his -Venice is that he has too many competitors there. He likes to be alone; -to be original; to have (to himself, at least) the air of making -discoveries. The Venice of to-day is a vast museum where the little -wicket that admits you is perpetually turning and creaking, and you -march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers. There is -nothing left to discover or describe, and originality of attitude is -completely impossible. This is often very annoying; you can only turn -your back on your impertinent playfellow and curse his want of delicacy. -But this is not the fault of Venice; it is the fault of the rest of the -world. The fault of Venice is that, though it is easy to admire it, it -is not so easy to live in it. After you have been there a week, and the -bloom of novelty has rubbed off, you wonder whether you can accommodate -yourself to the peculiar conditions. Your old habits become -impracticable, and you find yourself obliged to form new ones of an -undesirable and unprofitable character. You are tired of your gondola -(or you think you are), and you have seen all the principal pictures and -heard the names of the palaces announced a dozen times by your -gondolier, who brings them out almost as impressively as if he were an -English butler bawling titles into a drawing-room. You have walked -several hundred times round the Piazza, and bought several bushels of -photographs. You have visited the antiquity-mongers whose horrible -sign-boards dishonour some of the grandest vistas in the Grand Canal; -you have tried the opera and found it very bad; you have bathed at the -Lido and found the water flat. You have begun to have a -shipboard-feeling—to regard the Piazza as an enormous saloon and -the Riva degli Schiavoni as a promenade-deck. You are obstructed and -encaged; your desire for space is unsatisfied; you miss your usual -exercise. You try to take a walk, and you fail, and meantime, as I say, -you have come to regard your gondola as a sort of magnified baby's -cradle. You have no desire to be rocked to sleep, though you are -sufficiently kept awake by the irritation produced, as you gaze across -the shallow lagoon, by the attitude of the perpetual gondolier, with his -turned-out toes, his protruded chin, his absurdly unscientific stroke. -The canals have, a horrible smell, and the everlasting Piazza, where you -have looked repeatedly at every article in every shop-window and found -them all rubbish, where the young Venetians who sell bead-bracelets and -"panoramas" are perpetually thrusting their wares at you, where the same -tightly-buttoned officers are for ever sucking the same black weeds, at -the same empty tables, in front of the same <i>caffès</i>—the -Piazza, as I say, has resolved itself into a sort of magnificent -tread-mill. This is the state of mind of those shallow inquirers who -find Venice all very well for a week; and if in such a state of mind you -take your departure, you act with fatal rashness. The loss is your own, -moreover; it is not—with all deference to your personal -attractions—that of your companions who remain behind; for though -there are some disagreeable things in Venice, there is nothing so -disagreeable as the visitors. The conditions are peculiar, but your -intolerance of them evaporates before it has had time to become a -prejudice. When you have called for the bill to go, pay it and remain, -and you will find on the morrow that you are deeply attached to Venice. -It is by living there from day to day that you feel the fulness of its -charm; that you invite its exquisite influence to sink into your spirit. -The place is as changeable as a nervous woman, and you know it only when -you know all the aspects of its beauty. It has high spirits or low, it -is pale or red, gray or pink, cold or warm, fresh or wan, according to -the weather or the hour. It is always interesting and almost always sad; -but it has a thousand occasional graces and is always liable to happy -accidents. You become extraordinarily fond of these things; you count -upon them; they make part of your life. Tenderly fond you become; there -is something indefinable in those depths of personal acquaintance that -gradually establish themselves. The place seems to personify itself, to -become human and sentient, and conscious of your affection. You desire -to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it; and finally, a soft sense of -possession grows up, and your visit becomes a perpetual love-affair. It -is very true that if you go there, like the author of these lines, about -the middle of March, a certain amount of disappointment is possible. He -had not been there for several years, and in the interval the beautiful -and helpless city had suffered an increase of injury. The barbarians are -in full possession, and you tremble for what they may do. You are -reminded, from the moment of your arrival, that Venice scarcely exists -any more as a city at all; that it exists only as a battered peep-show -and bazaar. There was a horde of savage Germans encamped in the Piazza, -and they filled the Ducal Palace and the Academy with their uproar. The -English and Americans came a little later. They came in good time, with -a great many French, who were discreet enough to make very long repasts -at the Caffè Quadri, during which they were out of the way. The months -of April and May of the year 1881 were not, as a general thing, a -favourable season for visiting the Ducal Palace and the Academy. The -valet-de-place had marked them for his own, and held triumphant -possession of them. He celebrates his triumphs in a terrible brassy -voice, which resounds all over the place, and has, whatever language he -be speaking, the accent of some other idiom. During all the spring -months in Venice these gentry abound in the great resorts, and they lead -their helpless captives through churches and galleries in dense -irresponsible groups. They infest the Piazza; they pursue you along the -Riva; they hang about the bridges and the doors of the <i>caffès</i>. -In saying just now that I was disappointed at first, I had chiefly in -mind the impression that assails me to-day in the whole precinct of St. -Mark's. The condition of this ancient sanctuary is surely a great -scandal The pedlars and commissioners ply their trade—often a very -unclean one—at the very door of the temple; they follow you across -the threshold, into the sacred dusk, and pull your sleeve, and hiss into -your ear, scuffling with each other for customers. There is a great deal -of dishonour about St. Mark's altogether, and if Venice, as I say, has -become a great bazaar, this exquisite edifice is now the biggest booth. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<p> -It is treated as a booth in all ways, and if it had not, somehow, a -great spirit of solemnity within it, the traveller would soon have -little warrant for regarding it as a religious affair. The restoration -of the outer walls, which has lately been so much attacked and defended, -is certainly a great shock. Of the necessity of the work only an expert -is, I suppose, in a position to judge; but there is no doubt that, if a -necessity it be, it is one that is deeply to be regretted. To no more -distressing necessity have people of taste lately had to resign -themselves. Wherever the hand of the restorer has been laid all -semblance of beauty has vanished; which is a sad fact, considering that -the external loveliness of St. Mark's has been for ages less impressive -only than that of the still comparatively uninjured interior. I know not -what is the measure of necessity in such a case, and it appears indeed -to be a very delicate question. To-day, at any rate, that admirable -harmony of faded mosaic and marble, which, to the eye of the traveller -emerging from the narrow streets that lead to the Piazza, filled all the -farther end of it with a sort of dazzling, silvery presence—to-day -this lovely vision is in a way to be completely reformed and, indeed, -well-nigh abolished. The old softness and mellowness of colour—the -work of the quiet centuries and of the breath of the salt sea—is -giving way to large crude patches of new material, which have the effect -of a monstrous malady rather than of a restoration to health. They look -like blotches of red and white paint and dishonourable smears of chalk -on the cheeks of a noble matron. The face toward the Piazzetta is in -especial the newest-looking thing conceivable—as new as a new pair -of boots, or as the morning's paper. We do not profess, however, to -undertake a scientific quarrel with these changes; we admit that our -complaint is a purely sentimental one. The march of industry in united -Italy must doubtless be looked at as a whole, and one must endeavour to -believe that it is through innumerable lapses of taste that this deeply -interesting country is groping her way to her place among the nations. -For the present, it is not to be denied, certain odd phases of the -process are more visible than the result, to arrive at which it seems -necessary that, as she was of old a passionate votary of the beautiful, -she should to-day burn everything that she has adored. It is, doubtless, -too soon to judge her, and there are moments when one is willing to -forgive her even the restoration of St. Mark's. Inside, as well, there -has been a considerable attempt to make the place more tidy; but the -general effect, as yet, has not seriously suffered. What I chiefly -remember is the straightening out of that dark and rugged old -pavement—those deep undulations of primitive mosaic, in which the -wondering tourist was thought to perceive an intended resemblance to the -waves of the ocean. Whether intended or not, the analogy was an image -the more in a treasure-house of images; but from a considerable portion -of the church it has now disappeared. Throughout the greater part, -indeed, the pavement remains as recent generations have known -it—dark, rich, cracked, uneven, spotted with porphyry and -time-blackened malachite, and polished by the knees of innumerable -worshippers; but in other large sections the idea imitated by the -restorers is that of the ocean in a dead calm, and the model they have -taken, the floor of a London clubhouse or of a New York hotel. I think -no Venetian and scarcely any Italian cares much for such differences; -and when, a year ago, people in England were writing to the <i>Times</i> -about the whole business, and holding meetings to protest against it, -the dear children of the lagoon (so far as they heard, or heeded, the -rumour) thought them partly busy-bodies and partly asses. Busy-bodies -they doubtless were, but they took a good deal of disinterested trouble. -It never occurs to the Venetian mind of to-day that such trouble may be -worth taking; the Venetian mind vainly endeavours to conceive a state of -existence in which personal questions are so insipid that people have to -look for grievances in the wrongs of brick and marble. I must not, -however, speak of St. Mark's as if I had the pretension of giving a -description of it, or as if the reader desired one. The reader has been -too well served already. It is surely the best-described building in the -world. Open the <i>Stones of Venice</i>, open Théophile Gautier's -<i>Italia</i>, and you will see. These writers take it very seriously, -and it is only because there is another way of taking it that I venture -to speak of it; the way that offers itself after you have been in Venice -a couple of months, and the light is hot in the great Square, and you -pass in under the pictured porticoes with a feeling of habit and -friendliness, and a desire for something cool and dark. There are -moments, after all, when the church is comparatively quiet and empty, -when you may sit there with an easy consciousness of its beauty. From -the moment, of course, that you go into any Italian church for any -purpose but to say your prayers or look at the ladies, you rank yourself -among the trooping barbarians I just spoke of; you treat the place like -an orifice in the peep-show. Still, it is almost a spiritual -function—or, at the worst, an amorous one—to feed one's eyes -on the moulten colour that drops from the hollow vaults and thickens the -air with its richness. It is all so quiet and sad and faded; and yet it -is all so brilliant and living. The strange figures in the mosaic -pictures, bending with the curve of niche and vault, stare down through -the glowing dimness; and the burnished gold that stands behind them -catches the light on its little uneven cubes. St. Mark's owes nothing of -its character to the beauty of proportion or perspective; there is -nothing grandly balanced or far-arching; there are no long lines nor -triumphs of the perpendicular. The church arches indeed; but it arches -like a dusky cavern. Beauty of surface, of tone, of detail, of things -near enough to touch and kneel upon and lean against—it is from -this the effect proceeds. In this sort of beauty the place is incredibly -rich, and you may go there every day and find afresh some lurking -pictorial nook. It is a treasury of bits, as the painters say; and there -are usually three or four painters, with their easels set up in -uncertain equilibrium on the undulating floor. It is not easy to catch -the real complexion of St. Mark's, and these laudable attempts at -portraiture are apt to look either lurid or livid. But, if you cannot -paint the old loose-looking marble slabs, the great panels of basalt and -jasper, the crucifixes, of which the lonely anguish looks deeper in the -vertical light, the tabernacles whose open doors disclose a dark -Byzantine image, spotted with dull, crooked gems—if you cannot -paint these things you can, at least, grow fond of them. You grow fond -even of the old benches of red marble, partly worn away by the breeches -of many generations, and attached to the base of those wide pilasters, -of which the precious plating, delightful in its faded brownness, with a -faint gray bloom upon it, bulges and yawns a little with honourable age. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<p> -Even at first, when the vexatious sense of the city of the Doges having -been reduced to earning its living as a curiosity-shop was in its -keenness, there was a great deal of entertainment to be got from lodging -on the Riva degli Schiavoni and looking out at the far-shimmering -lagoon. There was entertainment indeed in simply getting into the place -and observing the queer incidents of a Venetian installation. A great -many persons contribute indirectly to this undertaking, and it is -surprising how they spring out at you during your novitiate to remind -you that they are bound up in some mysterious manner with the -constitution of your little establishment. It was an interesting -problem, for instance, to trace the subtle connection existing between -the niece of the landlady and the occupancy of the fourth floor. -Superficially, it was not easily visible, as the young lady in question -was a dancer at the Fenice theatre—or, when that was closed, at -the Rossini—and might have been supposed to be absorbed by her -professional duties. It proved to be necessary, however, that she should -hover about the premises in a velvet jacket and a pair of black kid -gloves, with one little white button; as also, that she should apply a -thick coating of powder to her face, which had a charming oval and a -sweet, weak expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens, who, -as a general thing (it was not a peculiarity of the landlady's niece), -are fond of besmearing themselves with flour. It soon became plain that -it is not only the many-twinkling lagoon that you behold from a -habitation on the Riva; you see a little of everything Venetian. -Straight across, before my windows, rose the great pink mass of San -Giorgio Maggiore, which, for an ugly Palladian church, has a success -beyond all reason. It is a success of position, of colour, of the -immense detached Campanile, tipped with a tall gold angel. I know not -whether it is because San Giorgio is so grandly conspicuous, and because -it has a great deal of worn, faded-looking brickwork; but for many -persons the whole place has a kind of suffusion of rosiness. If we were -asked what is the leading colour at Venice we should say pink, and yet, -after all, we cannot remember that this elegant tint occurs very often. -It is a faint, shimmering, airy, watery pink; the bright sea-light seems -to flush with it, and the pale whitish-green of lagoon and canal to -drink it in. There is, indeed, in Venice a great deal of very evident -brickwork, which is never fresh or loud in colour, but always burnt out, -as it were, always exquisitely mild. There are certain little mental -pictures that rise before the sentimental tourist at the simple mention, -written or spoken, of the places he has loved. When I hear, when I see, -the magical name I have written above these pages, it is not of the -great Square that I think, with its strange basilica and its high -arcades, nor of the wide mouth of the Grand Canal, with the stately -steps and the well-poised dome of the Salute; it is not of the low -lagoon, nor the sweet Piazzetta, nor the dark chambers of St. Mark's. I -simply see a narrow canal in the heart of the city—a patch of -green water and a surface of pink wall. The gondola moves slowly; it -gives a great, smooth swerve, passes under a bridge, and the gondolier's -cry, carried over the quiet water, makes a kind of splash in the -stillness. A girl is passing over the little bridge, which has an arch -like a camel's back, with an old shawl on her head, which makes her look -charming; you see her against the sky as you float beneath. The pink of -the old wall seems to fill the whole place; it sinks even into the -opaque water. Behind the wall is a garden, out of which the long arm of -a white June rose—the roses of Venice are splendid—has flung -itself by way of spontaneous ornament. On the other side of this small -water-way is a great shabby façade of Gothic windows and -balconies—balconies on which dirty clothes are hung and under -which a cavernous-looking doorway opens from a low flight of slimy -water-steps. It is very hot and still, the canal has a queer smell, and -the whole place is enchanting. It is poor work, however, talking about -the colour of things in Venice. The sentimental tourist is perpetually -looking at it from his window, when he is not floating about with that -delightful sense of being for the moment a part of it, which any -gentleman in a gondola is free to entertain. Venetian windows and -balconies are a dreadful lure, and while you rest your elbows on these -cushioned ledges the precious hours fly away. But, in truth, Venice is -not, in fair weather, a place for concentration of mind. The effort -required for sitting down to a writing-table is heroic, and the -brightest page of MS. looks dull beside the brilliancy of your -<i>milieu</i>. All nature beckons you forth, and murmurs to you -sophistically that such hours should be devoted to collecting -impressions. Afterward, in ugly places, at unprivileged times, you can -convert your impressions into prose. Fortunately for the present proser, -the weather was not always fine; the first month was wet and windy, and -it was better to look at the lagoon from an open casement than to -respond to the advances of persuasive gondoliers. Even then, however, -there was a constant entertainment in the view. It was all cold colour, -and the steel-gray floor of the lagoon was stroked the wrong way by the -wind. Then there were charming cool intervals, when the churches, the -houses, the anchored fishing-boats, the whole gently-curving line of the -Riva, seemed to be washed with a pearly white. Later it all turned -warm—warm to the eye as well as to other senses. After the middle -of May the whole place was in a glow. The sea took on a thousand shades, -but they were only infinite variations of blue, and those rosy walls I -just spoke of began to flush in the thick sunshine. Every patch of -colour, every yard of weather-stained stucco, every glimpse of nestling -garden or daub, of sky above a <i>calle</i>, began to shine and -sparkle—began, as the painters say, to "compose." The lagoon was -streaked with odd currents, which played across it like huge, smooth -finger-marks. The gondolas multiplied and spotted it all over; every -gondola and every gondolier looking, at a distance, precisely like every -other. There is something strange and fascinating in this mysterious -impersonality of the gondola. It has an identity when you are in it, -but, thanks to their all being of the same size, shape, and colour, and -of the same deportment and gait, it has none, or as little as possible, -as you see it pass before you. From my windows on the Riva there was -always the same silhouette—the long, black, slender skiff, lifting -its head and throwing it back a little, moving yet seeming not to move, -with the grotesquely-graceful figure on the poop. This figure inclines, -as may be, more to the graceful or to the grotesque—standing in -the "second position" of the dancing-master, but indulging, from the -waist upward, in a freedom of movement which that functionary would -deprecate. One may say, as a general thing, that there is something -rather awkward in the movement of even the most graceful gondolier, and -something graceful in the movement of the most awkward. In the graceful -men of course the grace predominates, and nothing can be finer than the -large firm way in which, from their point of vantage, they throw -themselves over their tremendous oar. It has the boldness of a plunging -bird, and the regularity of a pendulum. Sometimes, as you see this -movement in profile, in a gondola that passes you—see, as you -recline on your own low cushions, the arching body of the gondolier -lifted up against the sky—it has a kind of nobleness which -suggests an image on a Greek frieze. The gondolier at Venice is your -very good friend—if you choose him happily—and on the -quality of the personage depends a good deal that of your impressions. -He is a part of your daily life, your double, your shadow, your -complement. Most people, I think, either like their gondolier or hate -him; and if they like him, like him very much. In this case they take an -interest in him after his departure; wish him to be sure of employment, -speak of him as the gem of gondoliers, and tell their friends to be -certain to "secure" him. There is usually no difficulty in securing him; -there is nothing elusive or reluctant about a gondolier. They are, for -the most part, excellent fellows, and the sentimental tourist must -always have a kindness for them. More than the rest of the population, -of course, they are the children of Venice; they are associated with its -idiosyncrasy, with its essence, with its silence, with its melancholy. -When I say they are associated with its silence, I should immediately -add that they are associated also with its sound. Among themselves they -are an extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the -<i>traghetti</i>, where they always have some sharp point under -discussion; they bawl across the canals; they bespeak your commands as -you approach; they defy each other from afar. If you happen to have a -<i>traghetto</i> under your window, you are well aware that they are a -vocal race. I should go even farther than I went just now, and say that -the voice of the gondolier is, in fact, the sound of Venice. There is -scarcely any other, and that, indeed, is part of the interest of the -place. There is no noise there save distinctly human noise; no rumbling, -no vague uproar, nor rattle of wheels and hoofs. It is all articulate, -personal sound. One may say, indeed, that Venice is, emphatically, the -city of conversation; people talk all over the place, because there is -nothing to interfere with their being heard. Among the populace it is a -kind of family party. The still water carries the voice, and good -Venetians exchange confidences at a distance of half a mile. It saves a -world of trouble, and they don't like trouble. Their delightful -garrulous language helps them to make Venetian life a long -<i>conversazione</i>. This language, with its soft elisions, its odd -transpositions, its kindly contempt for consonants and other -disagreeables, has in it something peculiarly human and accommodating. -If your gondolier had no other merit, he would have the merit that he -speaks Venetian. This may rank as a merit, even—some people -perhaps would say especially—when you don't understand what he -says. But he adds to it other graces which make him an agreeable feature -in your life. The price he sets on his services is touchingly small, and -he has a happy art of being obsequious, without being, or, at least, -without seeming, abject. For occasional liberalities he evinces an -almost lyrical gratitude. In short, he has delightfully good manners, a -merit which he shares, for the most part, with Venetians at large. One -grows very fond of these people, and the reason of one's fondness is the -frankness and sweetness of their address. That of the Italian people, in -general, has much to recommend it; but in the Venetian manner there is -something peculiarly ingratiating. One feels that the race is old, that -it has a long and rich civilisation in its blood, and that if it has not -been blessed by fortune, it has at least been polished by time. It has -not a genius for morality, and indeed makes few pretensions in that -direction. It scruples not to represent the false as the true, and is -liable to confusion in the attribution of property. It is peculiarly -susceptible to the tender sentiment, which it cultivates with a graceful -disregard of the more rigid formalities. I am not sure that it is very -brave, and was not struck with its being very industrious. But it has an -unfailing sense of the amenities of life; the poorest Venetian is a -natural man of the world. He is better company than persons of his class -are apt to be among the nations of industry and virtue—where -people are also, sometimes, perceived to lie and steal. He has a great -desire to please and to be pleased. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<p> -In this latter point the cold-blooded stranger begins at last to imitate -him; he begins to lead a life that is, before all things, good-humoured: -unless, indeed, he allow himself, like Mr. Ruskin, to be put out of his -good-humour by Titian and Tiepolo. The hours he spends among the -pictures are his best hours in Venice, and I am ashamed of myself to -have written so much of common things when I might have been making -festoons of the names of the masters. But, when we have covered our page -with such festoons, what more is left to say? When one has said -Carpaccio and Bellini, the Tintoret and the Veronese, one has struck a -note that must be left to resound at will. Everything has been said -about the mighty painters, and it is of little importance to record that -one traveller the more has found them to his taste. "Went this morning -to the Academy; was very much pleased with Titian's 'Assumption.'" That -honest phrase has doubtless been written in many a traveller's diary, -and was not indiscreet on the part of its author. But it appeals little -to the general reader, and we must, moreover, not expose our deepest -feelings. Since I have mentioned Titian's "Assumption," I must say that -there are some people who have been less pleased with it than the -gentleman we have just imagined. It is one of the possible -disappointments of Venice, and you may, if you like, take advantage of -your privilege of not caring for it. It imparts a look of great richness -to the side of the beautiful room of the Academy on which it hangs; but -the same room contains two or three works less known to fame which are -equally capable of inspiring a passion. "The 'Annunciation' struck me as -coarse and superficial": that was once written in a simple-minded -traveller's note-book. At Venice, strange to say, Titian is altogether a -disappointment; the city of his adoption is far from containing the best -of him. Madrid, Paris, London, Florence, Dresden, Munich—these are -the homes of his greatness. There are other painters who have but a single -home, and the greatest of these is the Tintoret. Close beside him sit -Carpaccio and Bellini, who make with him the dazzling Venetian trio. The -Veronese may be seen and measured in other places; he is most splendid -in Venice, but he shines in Paris and in Dresden. You may walk out of -the noon-day dusk of Trafalgar Square in November, and in one of the -chambers of the National Gallery see the family of Darius rustling and -pleading and weeping at the feet of Alexander. Alexander is a beautiful -young Venetian in crimson pantaloons, and the picture sends a glow into -the cold London twilight. You may sit before it for an hour, and dream -you are floating to the water-gate of the Ducal Palace, where a certain -old beggar, with one of the handsomest heads in the world—he has sat -to a hundred painters for Doges, and for personages more sacred—has a -prescriptive right to pretend to pull your gondola to the steps and to -hold out a greasy, immemorial cap. But you must go to Venice, in fact, -to see the other masters, who form part of your life while you are -there, and illuminate your view of the universe. It is difficult to -express one's relation to them; for the whole Venetian art-world is so -near, so familiar, so much an extension and adjunct of the actual world, -that it seems almost invidious to say one owes more to one of them than -to another. Nowhere (not even in Holland, where the correspondence -between the real aspects and the little polished canvases is so constant -and so exquisite) do art and life seem so interfused and, as it were, so -consanguineous. All the splendour of light and colour, all the Venetian -air and the Venetian history, are on the walls and ceilings of the -palaces; and all the genius of the masters, all the images and visions -they have left upon canvas, seem to tremble in the sunbeams and dance -upon the waves. That is the perpetual interest of the place—that you -live in a certain sort of knowledge as in a rosy cloud. You don't go -into the churches and galleries by way of a change from the streets; you -go into them because they offer you an exquisite reproduction of the -things that surround you. All Venice was both model and painter, and -life was so pictorial that art could not help becoming so. With all -diminutions life is pictorial still, and this fact gives an -extraordinary freshness to one's perception of the great Venetian works. -You judge of them not as a connoisseur, but as a man of the world, and -you enjoy them because they are so social and so actual. Perhaps, of all -works of art that are equally great, they demand least reflection on the -part of the spectator—they make least of a mystery of being enjoyed. -Reflection only confirms your admiration, but it is almost ashamed to -show its head. These things speak so frankly and benignantly to the -sense that we feel there is reason as well in such an address. But it is -hard, as I say, to express all this, and it is painful as well to -attempt it—painful, because in the memory of vanished hours so filled -with beauty the sense of present loss is overwhelming. Exquisite hours, -enveloped in light and silence, to have known them once is to have -always a terrible standard of enjoyment. Certain lovely mornings of May -and June come back with an ineffaceable fairness. Venice is not -smothered in flowers at this season, in the manner of Florence and Rome; -but the sea and sky themselves seem to blossom and rustle. The gondola -waits at the wave-washed steps, and if you are wise you will take your -place beside a discriminating companion. Such a companion, in Venice, -should, of course, be of the sex that discriminates most finely. An -intelligent woman who knows her Venice seems doubly intelligent, and it -makes no woman's perceptions less keen to be aware that she cannot help -looking graceful as she glides over the waves. The handsome Pasquale, -with uplifted oar, awaits your command, knowing, in a general way, from -observation of your habits, that your intention is to go to see a -picture or two. It perhaps does not immensely matter what picture you -choose: the whole affair is so charming. It is charming to wander -through the light and shade of intricate canals, with perpetual -architecture above you and perpetual fluidity beneath. It is charming to -disembark at the polished steps of a little empty <i>campo</i>—a -sunny, shabby square, with an old well in the middle, an old church on one -side, and tall Venetian windows looking down. Sometimes the windows are -tenantless; sometimes a lady in a faded dressing-gown is leaning vaguely -on the sill. There is always an old man holding out his hat for coppers; -there are always three or four small boys dodging possible -umbrella-pokes while they precede you, in the manner of custodians, to -the door of the church. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<p> -The churches of Venice are rich in pictures, and many a masterpiece -lurks in the unaccommodating gloom of side-chapels and sacristies. Many -a noble work is perched behind the dusty candles and muslin roses of a -scantily-visited altar; some of them, indeed, are hidden behind the -altar, in a darkness that can never be explored. The facilities offered -you for approaching the picture, in such cases, are a kind of mockery of -your irritated desire. You stand on tip-toe on a three-legged stool, you -climb a rickety ladder, you almost mount upon the shoulders of the -<i>custode</i>. You do everything but see the picture. You see just enough -to perceive that it is beautiful. You catch a glimpse of a divine head, of -a fig-tree against a mellow sky; but the rest is impenetrable mystery. -You renounce all hope, for instance, of approaching the magnificent Cima -da Conegliano in San Giovanni in Bragora; and bethinking yourself of the -immaculate purity that dwells in the works of this master, you renounce -it with chagrin and pain. Behind the high altar, in that church, there -hangs a Baptism of Christ, by Cima, which, I believe, has been more or -less repainted. You can make the thing out in spots; you can see that it -has a fulness of perfection. But you turn away from it with a stiff neck, -and promise yourself consolation in the Academy and at the Madonna dell' -Orto, where two noble pictures, by the same hand—pictures as clear -as a summer twilight—present themselves in better circumstances. -It may be said, as a general thing, that you never see the Tintoret. You -admire him, you adore him, you think him the greatest of painters, but, -in the great majority of cases, you don't see him. This is partly his -own fault; so many of his works have turned to blackness and are -positively rotting in their frames. At the Scuola di San Rocco, where -there are acres of the Tintoret, there is scarcely anything at all -adequately visible save the immense "Crucifixion" in the upper story. It -is true that in looking at this huge composition you look at many -pictures; it has not only a multitude of figures, but a wealth of -episodes; and you pass from one of these to the other as if you were -"doing" a gallery. Surely, no single picture in the world contains more -of human life; there is everything in it, including the most exquisite -beauty. It is one of the greatest things of art; it is always -interesting. There are pictures by the Tintoret which contain touches -more exquisite, revelations of beauty more radiant, but there is no -other vision of so intense a reality and execution so splendid. The -interest, the impressiveness, of that whole corner of Venice, however -melancholy the effect of its gorgeous and ill-lighted chambers, gives a -strange importance to a visit to the Scuola. Nothing that all travellers -go to see appears to suffer less from the incursions of travellers. It -is one of the loneliest booths of the bazaar, and the author of these -lines has always had the good fortune, which he wishes to every other -traveller, of having it to himself. I think most visitors find the place -rather alarming and wicked-looking. They walk about a while among the -fitful figures that gleam here and there out of the great tapestry (as -it were) with which the painter has hung all the walls, and then, -depressed and bewildered by the portentous solemnity of these objects, -by strange glimpses of unnatural scenes, by the echo of their lonely -footsteps on the vast stone floors, they take a hasty departure, and -find themselves again, with a sense of release from danger, and of the -<i>genius loci</i> having been a sort of mad white-washer, who worked with -a bad mixture, in the bright light of the <i>campo</i>, among the beggars, -the orange-vendors, and the passing gondolas. Solemn, indeed, is the place, -solemn and strangely suggestive, for the simple reason that we shall -scarcely find four walls elsewhere that inclose within a like area an -equal quantity of genius. The air is thick with it, and dense and -difficult to breathe; for it was genius that was not happy, inasmuch as -it lacked the art to fix itself for ever. It is not immortality that we -breathe at the Scuola di San Rocco, but conscious, reluctant mortality. -Fortunately, however, we have the Ducal Palace, where everything is so -brilliant and splendid that the poor dusky Tintoret is lifted in spite -of himself into the concert. This deeply original building is, of -course, the loveliest thing in Venice, and a morning's stroll there is a -wonderful illumination. Cunningly select your hour—half the enjoyment -of Venice is a question of dodging—and go at about one o'clock, when -the tourists have gone to lunch and the echoes of the charming chambers -have gone to sleep among the sunbeams. There is no brighter place in -Venice; by which I mean that, on the whole, there is none half so -bright. The reflected sunshine plays up through the great windows from -the glittering lagoon, and shimmers and twinkles over gilded walls and -ceilings. All the history of Venice, all its splendid, stately past, -glows around you in a strong sea-light. Every one here is magnificent, -but the great Veronese is the most magnificent of all. He swims before -you in a silver cloud; he thrones in an eternal morning. The deep blue -sky burns behind him, streaked across with milky bars; the white -colonnades sustain the richest canopies, under which the first gentlemen -and ladies in the world both render homage and receive it. Their -glorious garments rustle in the air of the sea, and their sun-lighted -faces are the very complexion of Venice. The mixture of pride and piety, -of politics and religion, of art and patriotism, gives a magnificent -dignity to every scene. Never was a painter more nobly joyous, never did -an artist take a greater delight in life, seeing it all as a kind of -breezy festival and feeling it through the medium of perpetual success. -He revels in the gold-framed ovals of the ceilings, with the fluttering -movement of an embroidered banner that tosses itself into the blue. He -was the happiest of painters, and he produced the happiest picture in -the world. The "Rape of Europa" surely deserves this title; it is -impossible to look at it without aching with envy. Nowhere else in art -is such a temperament revealed; never did inclination and opportunity -combine to express such enjoyment. The mixture of flowers and gems and -brocade, of blooming flesh and shining sea and waving groves, of youth, -health, movement, desire—all this is the brightest vision that ever -descended upon the soul of a painter. Happy the artist who could -entertain such a vision; happy the artist who could paint it as the -"Rape of Europa" is painted. The Tintoret's visions were not so bright -as that; but he had several that were radiant enough. In the room that -contains the "Rape of Europa" are several smaller canvases by the -greatly more complex genius of the Scuola di San Rocco, which are almost -simple in their loveliness, almost happy in their simplicity. They have -kept their brightness through the centuries, and they shine with their -neighbours in those golden rooms. There is a piece of painting in one of -them which is one of the sweetest things in Venice, and which reminds -one afresh of those wild flowers of execution that bloom so profusely -and so unheeded in the dark corners of all of the Tintoret's work. -"Pallas chasing away Mars" is, I believe, the name that is given to the -picture; and it represents in fact a young woman of noble appearance -administering a gentle push to a fine young man in armour, as if to tell -him to keep his distance. It is of the gentleness of this push that I -speak, the charming way in which she puts out her arm, with a single -bracelet on it, and rests her young hand, with its rosy fingers parted, -upon his dark breastplate. She bends her enchanting head with the -effort—a head which has all the strange fairness that the Tintoret -always sees in women—and the soft, living, flesh-like glow of all -these members, over which the brush has scarcely paused in its course, is -as pretty an example of genius as all Venice can show. But why speak of the -Tintoret when I can say nothing of the great "Paradise," which unfolds -its somewhat smoky splendour, and the wonder of its multitudinous -circles, in one of the other chambers? If it were not one of the first -pictures in the world, it would be about the biggest, and it must be -confessed that at first the spectator gets from it chiefly an impression -of quantity. Then he sees that this quantity is really wealth; that the -dim confusion of faces is a magnificent composition, and that some of -the details of this composition are supremely beautiful. It is -impossible, however, in a retrospect of Venice, to specify one's -happiest hours, though, as one looks backward, certain ineffaceable -moments start here and there into vividness. How is it possible to -forget one's visits to the sacristy of the Frari, however frequent they -may have been, and the great work of John Bellini which forms the -treasure of that apartment? -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>VII</h4> - -<p> -Nothing in Venice is more perfect than this, and we know of no work of -art more complete. The picture is in three compartments: the Virgin sits -in the central division with her child; two venerable saints, standing -close together, occupy each of the others. It is impossible to imagine -anything more finished or more ripe. It is one of those things that sum -up the genius of a painter, the experience of a life, the teaching of a -school. It seems painted with molten gems, which have only been -clarified by time, and it is as solemn as it is gorgeous, and as simple -as it is deep. John Bellini is, more or less, everywhere in Venice, and -wherever he is, he is almost certain to be first—first, I mean, in -his own line; he paints little else than the Madonna and the saints; he has -not Carpaccio's care for human life at large, nor the Tintoret's, nor -that of the Veronese. Some of his greater pictures, however, where -several figures are clustered together, have a richness of sanctity that -is almost profane. There is one of them on the dark side of the room at -the Academy, containing Titian's "Assumption," which, if we could only see -it—its position is an inconceivable scandal—would evidently be -one of the mightiest of so-called sacred pictures. So, too, is the Madonna -of San Zaccaria, hung in a cold, dim, dreary place, ever so much too -high, but so mild and serene, and so grandly disposed and accompanied, -that the proper attitude for even the most critical amateur, as he looks -at it, seems to be the bended knee. There is another noble John Bellini, -one of the very few in which there is no Virgin, at San Giovanni -Crisostomo—a St Jerome, in a red dress, sitting aloft upon the rocks, -with a landscape of extraordinary purity behind him. The absence of the -peculiarly erect Madonna makes it an interesting surprise among the -works of the painter, and gives it a somewhat less strenuous air. But it -has brilliant beauty, and the St. Jerome is a delightful old personage. -The same church contains another great picture, for which he must find a -shrine apart in his memory; one of the most interesting things he will -have seen, if not the most brilliant. Nothing appeals more to him than -three figures of Venetian ladies which occupy the foreground of a -smallish canvas of Sebastian del Piombo, placed above the high altar of -San Giovanni Crisostomo. Sebastian was a Venetian by birth, but few of -his productions are to be seen in his native place; few, indeed, are to -be seen anywhere. The picture represents the patron-saint of the church, -accompanied by other saints, and by the worldly votaries I have -mentioned. These ladies stand together on the left, holding in their -hands little white caskets; two of them are in profile, but the foremost -turns her face to the spectator. This face and figure are almost unique -among the beautiful things of Venice, and they leave the susceptible -observer with the impression of having made, or rather having missed, a -strange, a dangerous, but a most valuable, acquaintance. The lady, who -is superbly handsome, is the typical Venetian of the sixteenth century, -and she remains in the mind as the perfect flower of that society. Never -was there a greater air of breeding, a deeper expression of tranquil -superiority. She walks like a goddess—as if she trod, without sinking, -the waves of the Adriatic. It is impossible to conceive a more perfect -expression of the aristocratic spirit, either in its pride or in its -benignity. This magnificent creature is so strong and secure that she is -gentle, and so quiet that, in comparison, all minor assumptions of -calmness suggest only a vulgar alarm. But for all this, there are depths -of possible disorder in her light-coloured eye. I had meant, however, to -say nothing about her, for it is not right to speak of Sebastian when -one has not found room for Carpaccio. These visions come to one, and one -can neither hold them nor brush them aside. Memories of Carpaccio, the -magnificent, the delightful—it is not for want of such visitations, -but only for want of space, that I have not said of him what I would. There -is little enough need of it for Carpaccio's sake, his fame being brighter -to-day—thanks to the generous lamp Mr. Ruskin has held up to -it—than it has ever been. Yet there is something ridiculous in -talking of Venice without making him, almost, the refrain. He and the -Tintoret are the two great realists, and it is hard to say which is the -more human, the more various. The Tintoret had the mightier temperament, -but Carpaccio, who had the advantage of more newness and more -responsibility, sailed nearer to perfection. Here and there he quite -touches it, as in the enchanting picture, at the Academy, of St. Ursula -asleep in her little white bed, in her high, clean room, where the angel -visits her at dawn; or in the noble St. Jerome in his study, at S. -Giorgio degli Schiavoni. This latter work is a pearl of sentiment, and I -may add, without being fantastic, a ruby of colour. It unites the most -masterly finish with a kind of universal largeness of feeling, and he -who has it well in his memory will never hear the name of Carpaccio -without a throb of almost personal affection. This, indeed, is the -feeling that descends upon you in that wonderful little chapel of St. -George of the Slaves, where this most personal and sociable of artists -has expressed all the sweetness of his imagination. The place is small -and incommodious, the pictures are out of sight and ill-lighted, the -custodian is rapacious, the visitors are mutually intolerable, but the -shabby little chapel is a palace of art. Mr. Ruskin has written a -pamphlet about it which is a real aid to enjoyment, though I cannot but -think the generous artist, with his keen senses and his just feeling, -would have suffered at hearing his eulogist declare that one of his -other productions—in the Museo Civico in Palazzo Correr, a delightful -portrait of two Venetian ladies, with pet animals—is the "finest -picture in the world." It has no need of that to be thought admirable; -and what more can a painter desire? -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>VIII</h4> - -<p> -May in Venice is better than April, but June is best of all. Then the -days are hot, but not too hot, and the nights are more beautiful than -the days. Then Venice is rosier than ever in the morning, and more -golden than ever as the day descends. It seems to expand and evaporate, -to multiply all its reflections and iridescences. Then the life of its -people and the strangeness of its constitution become a perpetual -comedy, or, at least, a perpetual drama. Then the gondola is your sole -habitation, and you spend days between sea and sky. You go to the Lido, -though the Lido has been spoiled. When I was first in Venice, in 1869, -it was a very natural place, and there was only a rough lane across the -little island from the landing-place to the beach. There was a -bathing-place in those days, and a restaurant, which was very bad, but -where, in the warm evenings, your dinner did not much matter as you sat -letting it cool upon the wooden terrace that stretched out into the sea. -To-day the Lido is a part of united Italy, and has been made the victim -of villainous improvements. A little cockney village has sprung up on -its rural bosom, and a third-rate boulevard leads from Santa Elisabetta -to the Adriatic. There are bitumen walls and gas-lamps, lodging-houses, -shops, and a <i>teatro diurno</i>. The bathing-establishment is bigger than -before, and the restaurant as well; but it is a compensation, perhaps, -that the cuisine is no better. Such as it is, however, you will not -scorn occasionally to partake of it on the breezy platform under which -bathers dart and splash, and which looks out to where the fishing-boats, -with sails of orange and crimson, wander along the darkening horizon. -The beach at the Lido is still lonely and beautiful, and you can easily -walk away from the cockney village. The return to Venice in the sunset -is classical and indispensable, and those who, at that glowing hour, -have floated toward the towers that rise out of the lagoon, will not -easily part with the impression. But you indulge in larger -excursions—you go to Burano and Torcello, to Malamocco and Chioggia. -Torcello, like the Lido, has been improved; the deeply interesting -little cathedral of the eighth century, which stood there on the edge of -the sea, as touching in its ruin, with its grassy threshold and its -primitive mosaics, as the bleached bones of a human skeleton washed -ashore by the tide, has now been restored and made cheerful, and the -charm of the place, its strange and suggestive desolation, has well-nigh -departed. It will still serve you as a pretext, however, for a day on -the lagoon, especially as you will disembark at Burano and admire the -wonderful fisher-folk, whose good looks—and bad manners, I am sorry -to say—can scarcely be exaggerated. Burano is celebrated for the -beauty of its women and the rapacity of its children, and it is a fact that -though some of the ladies are rather bold about it, every one of them shows -you a handsome face. The children assail you for coppers, and, in their -desire to be satisfied, pursue your gondola into the sea. Chioggia is a -larger Burano, and you carry away from either place a half-sad, -half-cynical, but altogether pictorial impression; the impression of -bright-coloured hovels, of bathing in stagnant canals, of young girls -with faces of a delicate shape and a susceptible expression, with -splendid heads of hair and complexions smeared with powder, faded yellow -shawls that hang like old Greek draperies, and little wooden shoes that -click as they go up and down the steps of the convex bridges; of -brown-cheeked matrons with lustrous tresses and high tempers, massive -throats encased with gold beads, and eyes that meet your own with a -certain traditional defiance. The men throughout the islands of Venice -are almost as handsome as the women; I have never seen so many -good-looking fellows. At Burano and Chioggia they sit mending their -nets, or lounge at the street corners, where conversation is always -high-pitched, or clamour to you to take a boat; and everywhere they -decorate the scene with their splendid colour—cheeks and throats as -richly brown as the sails of their fishing-smacks—their sea-faded -tatters which are always a "costume"—their soft Venetian jargon, and -the gallantry with which they wear their hats—an article that nowhere -sits so well as on a mass of dense Venetian curls. If you are happy, you -will find yourself, after a June day in Venice (about ten o'clock), on a -balcony that overhangs the Grand Canal, with your elbows on the broad -ledge, a cigarette in your teeth, and a little good company beside you. -The gondolas pass beneath, the watery surface gleams here and there from -their lamps, some of which are coloured lanterns that move mysteriously -in the darkness. There are some evenings in June when there are too many -gondolas, too many lanterns, too many serenades in front of the hotels. -The serenading (in particular) is overdone; but on such a balcony as I -speak of you needn't suffer from it, for in the apartment behind -you—an accessible refuge—there is more good company, there -are more cigarettes. If you are wise you will step back there presently. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap02"></a></p> - -<h4>II -<br /><br /> -ITALY REVISITED -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -I waited in Paris until after the elections for the new Chamber (they -took place on the 14th of October); for only after one had learned that -the celebrated attempt of Marshal MacMahon and his ministers to drive -the French nation to the polls like a flock of huddling sheep, each with -the white ticket of an official candidate round his neck, had not -achieved the success which the energy of the process might have -promised—only then was it possible to draw a long breath and deprive -the republican party of such support as might have been conveyed in -one's sympathetic presence. Seriously speaking, too, the weather had -been enchanting, and there were Italian sensations to be encountered -without leaving the banks of the Seine. Day after day the air was filled -with golden light, and even those chalkish vistas of the Parisian <i>beaux -quartiers</i> assumed the iridescent tints of autumn. Autumn-weather in -Europe is often such a very sorry affair that a fair-minded American -will have it on his conscience to call attention to a rainless and -radiant October. -</p> -<p> -The echoes of the electoral strife kept me company for a while after -starting upon that abbreviated journey to Turin, which, as you leave -Paris at night, in a train unprovided with encouragements to slumber, is -a singular mixture of the odious and the charming. The charming, -however, I think, prevails; for the dark half of the journey is, in -fact, the least interesting. The morning light ushers you into the -romantic gorges of the Jura, and after a big bowl of <i>café au lait</i> at -Culoz you may compose yourself comfortably for the climax of your -spectacle. The day before leaving Paris I met a French friend who had -just returned from a visit to a Tuscan country-seat, where he had been -watching the vintage. "Italy," he said, "is more lovely than words can -tell, and France, steeped in this electoral turmoil, seems no better -than a bear-garden." That part of the bear-garden through which you -travel as you approach the Mont-Cenis seemed to me that day very -beautiful. The autumn colouring, thanks to the absence of rain, had been -vivid and crisp, and the vines that swung their low garlands between the -mulberries, in the neighbourhood of Chambéry, looked like long festoons -of coral and amber. The frontier station of Modane, on the farther side -of the Mont-Cenis tunnel, is a very ill-regulated place; but even the -most irritable of tourists, meeting it on his way southward, will be -disposed to consider it good-naturedly. There is far too much bustling -and scrambling, and the facilities afforded you for the obligatory -process of ripping open your luggage before the officers of the Italian -custom-house are much scantier than should be; but, for myself, there is -something that deprecates irritation in the shabby green and gray -uniforms of all the Italian officials who stand loafing about and -watching the northern invaders scramble back into marching order. -Wearing an administrative uniform does not necessarily spoil a man's -temper, as in France one is sometimes led to believe; for these -excellent under-paid Italians carry theirs as lightly as possible, and -their answers to your inquiries do not in the least bristle with -rapiers, buttons, and cockades. After leaving Modane you slide straight -downhill into the Italy of your desire; and there is something very -impressive in the way the road edges along those great precipices which -stand shoulder to shoulder, in a long perpendicular file, until they -finally admit you to a distant glimpse of the ancient capital of -Piedmont. -</p> -<p> -Turin is not a city to make, in vulgar parlance, a fuss about, and I pay -an extravagant tribute to subjective emotion in speaking of it as -ancient. But if the place is not so peninsular as Florence and Rome, at -least it is more so than New York and Paris; and while the traveller -walks about the great arcades and looks at the fourth-rate shop windows, -he does not scruple to cultivate a shameless optimism. Relatively -speaking, Turin is diverting; but there is, after all, no reason in a -large collection of shabbily-stuccoed houses, disposed in a rigidly -rectangular manner, for passing a day of deep, still gaiety. The only -reason, I am afraid, is the old superstition of Italy—that property -in the very look of the written word, the evocation of a myriad images, -that makes any lover of the arts take Italian satisfactions upon easier -terms than any other. Italy is an idea to conjure with, and we play -tricks upon our credulity even with such inferior apparatus as is -offered to our hand at Turin. I walked about all the morning under the -tall porticoes, thinking it sufficient entertainment to take note of the -soft, warm air, of that colouring of things in Italy that is at once -broken and harmonious, and of the comings and goings, the physiognomy -and manners, of the excellent Turinese. I had opened the old book again; -the old charm was in the style; I was in a more delightful world. I saw -nothing surpassingly beautiful or curious; but the appreciative -traveller finds a vividness in nameless details. And I must add that on -the threshold of Italy he tastes of one solid and perfectly definable -pleasure, in finding himself among the traditions of the grand style in -architecture. It must be said that we have still to come to Italy to see -great houses. (I am speaking more particularly of town-architecture.) In -northern cities there are beautiful houses, picturesque and curious -houses; sculptured gables that hang over the street, charming -bay-windows, hooded doorways, elegant proportions, and a profusion of -delicate ornament; but a good specimen of an old Italian palazzo has a -nobleness that is all its own. We laugh at Italian "palaces," at their -peeling paint, their nudity, their dreariness; but they have the great -palatial quality—elevation and extent. They make smaller houses seem -beggarly; they round their great arches and interspace their huge -windows with a noble indifference to the cost of materials. These grand -proportions—the colossal basements, the doorways that seem meant for -cathedrals, the far-away cornices—impart by contrast a humble and -<i>bourgeois</i> expression to those less exalted dwellings in which the -air of grandeur depends largely upon the help of the upholsterer. At Turin -my first feeling was really one of shame for the architectural manners -of our northern lands. I have heard people who know the Italians well -say that at bottom they despise all the rest of mankind and regard them -as barbarians. I doubt of it, for the Italians strike me as having less -national vanity than any other people in Europe; but if the charge had -its truth there would be some ground for the feeling in the fact that -they live in palaces. -</p> -<p> -An impression which, on coming back to Italy, I find even stronger than -when it was first received is that of the contrast between the fecundity -of the great artistic period and the vulgarity of the Italian genius of -to-day. The first few hours spent on Italian soil are sufficient to -renew it, and the phenomenon that I allude to is surely one of the most -singular in human history. That the people who but three hundred years -ago had the best taste in the world should now have the worst; that -having produced the noblest, loveliest, costliest works, they should now -be given up to the manufacture of objects at once ugly and paltry; that -the race of which Michael Angelo and Raphael, Leonardo and Titian were -characteristic should have no other title to distinction than third-rate -<i>genre</i> pictures and catchpenny statues—all this is a frequent -perplexity to the observer of actual Italian life. The flower of art in -these latter years has ceased to bloom very powerfully anywhere; but -nowhere does it seem so drooping and withered as in the shadow of the -immortal embodiments of the old Italian genius. You go into a church or -a gallery and feast your fancy upon a splendid picture or an exquisite -piece of sculpture, and on issuing from the door that has admitted you -to the beautiful past you are confronted with something that has all the -effect of a very bad joke. The aspect of your lodging (the carpets, the -curtains, the upholstery in general, with their crude and violent -colouring and their vulgar material), the third-rate look of the shops, -the extreme bad taste of the dress of the women, the cheapness and -baseness of every attempt at decoration in the cafés and railway -stations, the hopeless frivolity of everything that pretends to be a -work of art—all this modern crudity runs riot over the relics of the -great period. -</p> -<p> -We can do a thing for the first time but once; it is but once for all -that we can have a pleasure in its freshness. This is a law which is not -on the whole, I think, to be regretted, for we sometimes learn to know -things better by not enjoying them too much. It is certain, however, at -the same time, that a traveller who has worked off the primal -fermentation of his relish for this inexhaustibly interesting country -has by no means entirely drained the cup. After thinking of Italy as -historical and artistic, it will do him no great harm to think of her, -for a while, as modern, an idea supposed (as a general thing correctly) -to be fatally at variance with the Byronic, the Ruskinian, the artistic, -poetic, æsthetic manner of considering this fascinating peninsula. He -may grant—I don't say it is absolutely necessary—that modern -Italy is ugly, prosaic, provokingly out of relation to the diary and the -album; it is nevertheless true that, at the point things have come to, -modern Italy in a manner imposes herself! I had not been many hours in the -country before I became conscious of this circumstance; and I may add -that, the first irritation past, I found myself able to accept it. And -if we think of it, nothing is more easy to understand than a certain -displeasure on the part of the young Italy of to-day at being looked at -by all the world as a kind of soluble pigment. Young Italy, preoccupied -with its economical and political future, must be heartily tired of -being admired for its eyelashes and its pose. In one of Thackeray's -novels there is mention of a young artist who sent to the Royal Academy -a picture representing "A Contadino dancing with a Trasteverina at the -door of a Locanda, to the music of a Pifferaro." It is in this attitude -and with these conventional accessories that the world has hitherto seen -fit to represent young Italy, and I do not wonder that, if the youth has -any spirit, he should at last begin to resent our insufferable æsthetic -patronage. He has established a line of tram-cars in Rome, from the -Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, and it is on one of these -democratic vehicles that I seem to see him taking his triumphant course -down the vista of the future. I will not pretend to rejoice with him any -more than I really do; I will not pretend, as the sentimental tourists -say about it all, as if it were the setting of an intaglio or the border -of a Roman scarf, to "like" it. Like it or not, as we may, it is -evidently destined to be; I see a new Italy in the future which in many -important respects will equal, if not surpass, the most enterprising -sections of our native land. Perhaps by that time Chicago and San Francisco -will have acquired a pose, and their sons and daughters will dance at the -doors of <i>locande</i>. However this may be, a vivid impression -of an accomplished schism between the old Italy and the new is, as the -French say, <i>le plus clair</i> of a new visit to this ever-suggestive -part of the world. The old Italy has become more and more of a museum, -preserved and perpetuated in the midst of the new, but without any -further relation to it—it must be admitted, indeed, that such a -relation is considerable—than that of the stock on his shelves to the -shopkeeper, or of the Siren of the South to the showman who stands -before his booth. More than once, as we move about nowadays in the -Italian cities, there seems to pass before our eyes a vision of the -coming years. It represents to our satisfaction an Italy united and -prosperous, but altogether commercial. The Italy, indeed, that we -sentimentalise and romance about was an ardently mercantile country; -though I suppose it loved not its ledgers less, but its frescoes and -altar-pieces more. Scattered through this brilliantly economical -community—this country of a thousand ports—we see a large -number of beautiful buildings, in which an endless series of dusky pictures -are darkening, dampening, fading, failing, through the years. At the doors -of the beautiful buildings are little turnstiles, at which there sit a -great many men in uniform, to whom the visitor pays a ten-penny fee. -Inside, in the vaulted and frescoed chambers, the art of Italy lies -buried, as in a thousand mausoleums. It is well taken care of; it is -constantly copied; sometimes it is "restored"—as in the case of that -beautiful boy-figure of Andrea del Sarto, at Florence, which may be seen -at the gallery of the Uffizi, with its honourable duskiness quite peeled -off and heaven knows what raw, bleeding cuticle laid bare. One evening -lately, in Florence, in the soft twilight, I took a stroll among those -encircling hills on which the massive villas are mingled with the -vaporous olives. Presently I arrived where three roads met at a wayside -shrine, in which, before some pious daub of an old-time Madonna, a -little votive lamp glimmered through the evening air. The hour, the -lovely evening, the place, the twinkling taper, the sentiment of the -observer, the thought that some one had been rescued here from an -assassin, or from some other peril, and had set up a little grateful -altar in consequence, in the yellow-plastered wall of a tangled -<i>podere</i>; all this led me to approach the shrine with a reverent, an -emotional step. I drew near it, but after a few steps I paused. I became -conscious of an incongruous odour; it seemed to me that the evening air -was charged with a perfume which, although to a certain extent familiar, -had not hitherto associated itself with rustic frescoes and wayside -altars. I gently interrogated the atmosphere, and the operation left me -no doubts. The odour was that of petroleum; the votive taper was -nourished with the national fluid of Pennsylvania. I confess that I -burst out laughing, and a picturesque contadino, wending his homeward -way in the dusk, stared at me as if I were an iconoclast. If he noticed -the petroleum, it was only, I imagine, to sniff it gratefully; but to me -the thing served as a symbol of the Italy of the future. There is a -horse-car from the Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, and the Tuscan -shrines are fed with kerosene. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -If it is very well to come to Turin first, it is still better to go to -Genoa afterwards. Genoa is the queerest place in the world, and even a -second visit helps you little to straighten it out. In the wonderful -crooked, twisting, climbing, soaring, burrowing Genoese alleys the -traveller is really up to his neck in the old Italian sketchability. -Genoa is, I believe, a port of great capacity, and the bequest of the -late Duke of Galliera, who left four millions of dollars for the purpose -of improving and enlarging it, will doubtless do much toward converting -it into one of the great commercial stations of Europe. But as, after -leaving my hotel the afternoon I arrived, I wandered for a long time at -hazard through the tortuous byways of the city, I said to myself, not -without an accent of private triumph, that here was something it would -be almost impossible to modernise. I had found my hotel, in the first -place, extremely entertaining—the Croce di Malta, as it was called, -established in a gigantic palace on the edge of the swarming and not -over-clean harbour. It was the biggest house I had ever entered, and the -basement alone would have contained a dozen American caravansaries. I -met an American gentleman in the vestibule who (as he had indeed a perfect -right to be) was annoyed by its troublesome dimensions—one was a -quarter of an hour ascending out of the basement—and desired to know -whether it was a "fair sample" of the Genoese inns. It appeared to be an -excellent specimen of Genoese architecture generally; so far as I -observed, there were few houses perceptibly smaller than this Titanic -tavern. I lunched in a dusky ballroom, whose ceiling was vaulted, -frescoed and gilded with the fatal facility of a couple of centuries -ago, and which looked out upon another ancient house-front, equally huge -and equally battered, from which it was separated only by a little wedge -of dusky space (one of the principal streets, I believe, of Genoa), out -of the bottom of which the Genoese populace sent up to the windows—I -had to crane out very far to see it—a perpetual clattering, -shuffling, chaffering sound. Issuing forth, presently, into this crevice of -a street, I found an abundance of that soft local colour for the love of -which one revisits Italy. It offered itself, indeed, in a variety of -tints, some of which were not remarkable for their freshness or purity. -But their combined effect was highly pictorial, and the picture was a -very rich and various representation of southern low-life. Genoa is the -crookedest and most incoherent of cities; tossed about on the sides and -crests of a dozen hills, it is seamed with gullies and ravines that -bristle with those innumerable palaces for which we have heard from our -earliest years that the place is celebrated. These great edifices, with -their mottled and faded complexions, lift their big ornamental cornices -to a tremendous height in the air, where, in a certain indescribably -forlorn and desolate fashion, over-topping each other, they seem to -reflect the twinkle and glitter of the warm Mediterranean. Down about -the basements, in the little dim, close alleys, the people are for ever -moving to and fro, or standing in their cavernous doorways and their -dusky, crowded shops, calling, chattering, laughing, scrambling, living -their lives in the conversational Italian fashion. For a long time I had -not received such an impression of the human agglomeration. I had not -for a long time seen people elbowing each other so closely, or swarming -so thickly out of populous hives. A traveller is very often disposed to ask -himself whether it has been worth while to leave his home—whatever -his home may have been—only to see new forms of human suffering, only -to be reminded that toil and privation, hunger and sorrow and sordid -effort, are the portion of the great majority of his fellow-men. To -travel is, as it were, to go to the play, to attend a spectacle; and -there is something heartless in stepping forth into the streets of a -foreign town to feast upon novelty when the novelty consists simply of -the slightly different costume in which hunger and labour present -themselves. These reflections were forced upon me as I strolled about in -those crepuscular, stale-smelling alleys of Genoa; but after a time they -ceased to bear me company. The reason of this, I think, is because (at -least to foreign eyes) the sum of Italian misery is, on the whole, less -than the sum of the Italian knowledge of life. That people should thank -you, with a smile of striking sweetness, for the gift of twopence is a -proof, certainly, of an extreme and constant destitution; but (keeping -in mind the sweetness) it is also a proof of an enviable ability not to -be depressed by circumstances. I know that this may possibly be great -nonsense; that half the time that we are admiring the brightness of the -Italian smile the romantic natives may be, in reality, in a sullen -frenzy of impatience and pain. Our observation in any foreign land is -extremely superficial, and our remarks are happily not addressed to the -inhabitants themselves, who would be sure to exclaim upon the impudence -of the fancy-picture. The other day I visited a very picturesque old -city upon a mountain-top, where, in the course of my wanderings, I -arrived at an old disused gate in the ancient town-wall. The gate had -not been absolutely forfeited; but the recent completion of a modern -road down the mountain led most vehicles away to another egress. The -grass-grown pavement, which wound into the plain by a hundred graceful -twists and plunges, was now given up to ragged contadini and their -donkeys, and to such wayfarers as were not alarmed at the disrepair into -which it had fallen. I stood in the shadow of the tall old gateway -admiring the scene, looking to right and left at the wonderful walls of -the little town, perched on the edge of a shaggy precipice; at the -circling mountains over against them; at the road dipping downward among -the chestnuts and olives. There was no one within sight but a young man, -who was slowly trudging upward, with his coat slung over his shoulder -and his hat upon his ear, like a cavalier in an opera. Like an operatic -performer, too, he was singing as he came; the spectacle, generally, was -operatic, and as his vocal flourishes reached my ear I said to myself -that in Italy accident was always picturesque, and that such a figure -had been exactly what was wanted to set off the landscape. It suggested -in a high degree that knowledge of life for which I just now commended -the Italians. I was turning back, under the old gateway, into the town, -when the young man overtook me, and, suspending his song, asked me if I -could favour him with a match to light the hoarded remnant of a cigar. -This request led, as I walked back to the inn, to my having some -conversation with him. He was a native of the ancient city, and answered -freely all my inquiries as to its manners and customs and the state of -public opinion there. But the point of my anecdote is that he presently -proved to be a brooding young radical and communist, filled with hatred -of the present Italian government, raging with discontent and crude -political passion, professing a ridiculous hope that Italy would soon -have, as France had had, her "'89," and declaring that he, for his part, -would willingly lend a hand to chop off the heads of the king and the -royal family. He was an unhappy, underfed, unemployed young man, who -took a hard, grim view of everything, and was operatic only quite in -spite of himself. This made it very absurd of me to have looked at him -simply as a graceful ornament to the prospect, an harmonious little -figure in the middle distance. "Damn the prospect, damn the middle -distance!" would have been all his philosophy. Yet, but for the accident -of my having a little talk with him, I should have made him do service, -in memory, as an example of sensuous optimism! -</p> -<p> -I am bound to say, however, that I believe that a great deal of the -sensuous optimism that I noticed in the Genoese alleys and beneath the -low, crowded arcades along the port was very real. Here every one was -magnificently sunburnt, and there were plenty of those queer types, -mahogany-coloured, bare-chested mariners, with earrings and crimson -girdles, that make a southern seaport entertaining. But it is not fair -to speak as if at Genoa there were nothing but low-life to be seen, for -the place is the residence of some of the grandest people in the world. -Nor are all the palaces ranged upon dusky alleys; the handsomest and -most impressive form a splendid series on each side of a couple of very -proper streets, in which there is plenty of room for a coach-and-four to -approach the big doorways. Many of these doorways are open, revealing -great marble staircases, with couchant lions for balustrades, and -ceremonious courts surrounded by walls of sun-softened yellow. One of -the palaces is coloured a goodly red, and contains, in particular, the -grand people I just now spoke of. They live, indeed, in the third story; -but here they have suites of wonderful painted and gilded chambers, in -which there are many foreshortened frescoes in the vaulted ceilings, and -the walls are embossed with the most florid mouldings. These -distinguished tenants bear the name of Vandyke, though they are members -of the noble family of Brignole-Sale, one of whose children (the Duchess -of Galliera) has lately given proof of nobleness in presenting the -gallery of the Red Palace to the city of Genoa. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<p> -On leaving Genoa I repaired to Spezia, chiefly with a view of -accomplishing a sentimental pilgrimage, which I, in fact, achieved, in -the most agreeable conditions. The Gulf of Spezia is now the -headquarters of the Italian fleet, and there were several big -iron-plated frigates riding at anchor in front of the town. The streets -were filled with lads in blue flannel, who were receiving instruction at a -school-ship in the harbour, and in the evening—there was a brilliant -moon—the little breakwater which stretched out into the Mediterranean -offered a promenade to the naval functionaries. But this fact is, from -the tourist's point of view, of little account, for since it has become -prosperous Spezia has grown ugly. The place is filled with long, dull -stretches of dead wall and great raw expanses of artificial land. It -wears that look of monstrous, of more than Occidental, newness which -distinguishes all the creations of the young Italian state. Nor did I -find any great compensation in an immense new inn, which has lately been -deposited by the edge of the sea, in anticipation of a <i>passeggiata</i> -which is to come that way some five years hence, the region being in the -meantime of the most primitive formation. The inn was filled with grave -English people, who looked respectable and bored, and there was of -course a Church of England service in the gaudily-frescoed parlour. -Neither was it the drive to Porto Venere that chiefly pleased me—a -drive among vines and olives—over the hills and beside the sea, to a -queer little crumbling village on a headland, as sweetly desolate and -superannuated as the name it bears. There is a ruined church near the -village, which occupies the site (according to tradition) of an ancient -temple of Venus; and if Venus ever revisits her desecrated shrines she -must sometimes pause a moment in that sunny stillness, and listen to the -murmur of the tideless sea at the base of the narrow promontory. If -Venus sometimes comes there, Apollo surely does as much; for close to -the temple is a gateway, surmounted by an inscription in Italian and -English, which admits you to a curious (and it must be confessed rather -cockneyfied) cave among the rocks. It was here, says the inscription, -that the great Byron, swimmer and poet, "defied the waves of the -Ligurian sea." The fact is interesting, though not supremely so; for -Byron was always defying something, and if a slab had been put up -whenever this performance came off, these commemorative tablets would -be, in many parts of Europe, as thick as milestones. No; the great merit -of Spezia, to my eye, is that I engaged a boat there of a lovely October -afternoon, and had myself rowed across the gulf—it took about an hour -and a half—to the little bay of Lerici, which opens out of it. This -bay of Lerici is charming; the bosky gray-green hills close it in, and on -either side of the entrance, perched upon a bold headland, a wonderful -old crumbling castle keeps ineffectual guard. The place is classic for -all English travellers, for in the middle of the curving shore is the -now desolate little villa in which Shelley spent the last months of his -short life. He was living at Lerici when he started on that short -southern cruise from which he never returned. The house he occupied is -strangely shabby, and as sad as you may choose to find it. It stands -directly upon the beach, with scarred and battered walls, and a loggia -of several arches opening upon a little terrace with a rugged parapet, -which, when the wind blows, must be drenched with the salt spray. The -place is very lonely—all overwearied with sun and breeze and -brine—very close to nature, as it was Shelley's passion to be. I can -fancy a great lyric poet sitting on the terrace, of a warm evening, far -from England, in the early years of the century. In that place, and with -his genius, he would, as a matter of course, have heard in the voice of -nature a sweetness which only the lyric movement could translate. It is -a place where an English-speaking traveller may very honestly be -sentimental and feel moved, himself, to lyric utterance. But I must -content myself with saying in halting prose that I remember few episodes -of Italian travel more sympathetic, as they have it here, than that -perfect autumn afternoon; the half-hour's station on the little battered -terrace of the villa; the climb to the singularly picturesque old castle -that hangs above Lerici; the meditative lounge, in the fading light, on -the vine-decked platform that looked out toward the sunset and the -darkening mountains, and, far below, upon the quiet sea, beyond which -the pale-faced villa stared up at the brightening moon. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<p> -I had never known Florence more charming than I found her for a week in -that brilliant October. She sat in the sunshine beside her yellow river -like the little treasure-city that she has always seemed, without -commerce, without other industry than the manufacture of mosaic -paper-weights and alabaster Cupids, without actuality, or energy, or -earnestness, or any of those rugged virtues which in most cases are -deemed indispensable for civic robustness; with nothing but the little -unaugmented stock of her mediæval memories, her tender-coloured -mountains, her churches and palaces, pictures and statues. There were -very few strangers; one's detested fellow sight-seer was infrequent; the -native population itself seemed scanty; the sound of wheels in the -streets was but occasional; by eight o'clock at night, apparently, every -one had gone to bed, and the wandering tourist, still wandering, had the -place to himself—had the thick shadow-masses of the great palaces, -and the shafts of moonlight striking the polygonal paving-stones, and the -empty bridges, and the silvered yellow of the Arno, and the stillness -broken only by a homeward step, accompanied by a snatch of song from a -warm Italian voice. My room at the inn looked out on the river, and was -flooded all day with sunshine. There was an absurd orange-coloured paper -on the walls; the Arno, of a hue not altogether different, flowed -beneath; and on the other side of it rose a line of sallow houses, of -extreme antiquity, crumbling and mouldering, bulging and protruding over -the stream. (I seem to speak of their fronts; but what I saw was their -shabby backs, which were exposed to the cheerful flicker of the river, -while the fronts stood for ever in the deep, damp shadow of a narrow -mediæval street.) All this brightness and yellowness was a perpetual -delight; it was a part of that indefinably charming colour which -Florence always seems to wear as you look up and down at it from the river, -from the bridges and quays. This is a kind of grave brilliancy—a -harmony of high tints—which I know not how to describe. There are -yellow walls and green blinds and red roofs, and intervals of brilliant -brown and natural-looking blue; but the picture is not spotty nor gaudy, -thanks to the colours being distributed in large and comfortable masses, -and to its being washed over, as it were, by some happy softness of -sunshine. The river-front of Florence is, in short, a delightful -composition. Part of its charm comes, of course, from the generous -aspect of those high-based Tuscan palaces which a renewal of -acquaintance with them has again commended to me as the most dignified -dwellings in the world. Nothing can be finer than that look of giving up -the whole immense ground-floor to simple purposes of vestibule and -staircase, of court and high-arched entrance; as if this were all but a -massive pedestal for the real habitation, and people were not properly -housed unless, to begin with, they should be lifted fifty feet above the -pavement. The great blocks of the basement; the great intervals, -horizontally and vertically, from window to window (telling of the -height and breadth of the rooms within); the armorial shield hung -forward at one of the angles; the wide-brimmed roof, overshadowing the -narrow street; the rich old browns and yellows of the walls—these -definite elements are put together with admirable art. - -Take one of these noble structures out of its oblique situation in the -town; call it no longer a palace, but a villa; set it down upon a -terrace, on one of the hills that encircle Florence, with a row of -high-waisted cypresses beside it, a grassy courtyard, and a view of the -Florentine towers and the valley of the Arno, and you will think it -perhaps even more worthy of your esteem. It was a Sunday noon, and -brilliantly warm, when I arrived in Florence; and after I had looked -from my windows a while at that quietly-basking river-front I have -spoken of, I took my way across one of the bridges and then out of one -of the gates—that immensely tall Roman Gate, in which the space from -the top of the arch to the cornice (except that there is scarcely a -cornice, it is all a plain, massive piece of wall) is as great (or seems -to be) as that from the ground to the former point. Then I climbed a -steep and winding way—much of it a little dull, if one likes, being -bounded by mottled, mossy garden-walls—to a villa on a hill-top, -where I found various things that touched me with almost too fine a point. -Seeing them again, often, for a week, both by sunlight and moonshine, I -never quite learned not to covet them; not to feel that not being a part -of them was somehow to miss an exquisite chance. What a tranquil, -contented life it seemed, with romantic beauty as a part of its daily -texture!—the sunny terrace, with its tangled <i>podere</i> beneath -it; the bright gray olives against the bright blue sky; the long, serene, -horizontal lines of other villas, flanked by their upward cypresses, -disposed upon the neighbouring hills; the richest little city in the -world in a softly-scooped hollow at one's feet, and beyond it the most -appealing of views, the most majestic, yet the most familiar. Within the -villa was a great love of art and a painting-room full of successful -work, so that if human life there seemed very tranquil, the tranquillity -meant simply contentment and devoted occupation. A beautiful occupation -in that beautiful position, what could possibly be better? That is what -I spoke just now of envying—a way of life that is not afraid of a -little isolation and tolerably quiet days. When such a life presents -itself in a dull or an ugly place, we esteem it, we admire it, but we do -not feel it to be the ideal of good fortune. When, however, the people -who lead it move as figures in an ancient, noble landscape, and their -walks and contemplations are like a turning of the leaves of history, we -seem to have before us an admirable case of virtue made easy; meaning -here by virtue, contentment and concentration, the love of privacy and -study. One need not be exacting if one lives among local conditions that -are of themselves constantly suggestive. It is true, indeed, that I -might, after a certain time, grow weary of a regular afternoon stroll -among the Florentine lanes; of sitting on low parapets, in intervals of -flower-topped wall, and looking across at Fiesole, or down the rich-hued -valley of the Arno; of pausing at the open gates of villas and wondering -at the height of cypresses and the depth of loggias; of walking home in -the fading light and noting on a dozen westward-looking surfaces the -glow of the opposite sunset. But for a week or so all this was -delightful. The villas are innumerable, and if one is a stranger half -the talk is about villas. This one has a story; that one has another; -they all look as if they had stories. Most of them are offered to rent -(many of them for sale) at prices unnaturally low; you may have a tower -and a garden, a chapel and an expanse of thirty windows, for five -hundred dollars a year. In imagination, you hire three or four; you take -possession, and settle, and live there. About the finest there is -something very grave and stately; about two or three of the best there -is something even solemn and tragic. From what does this latter -impression come? You gather it as you stand there in the early dusk, -looking at the long, pale-brown façade, the enormous windows, the iron -cages fastened upon the lower ones. Part of the brooding expression of -these great houses comes, even when they have not fallen into decay, -from their look of having outlived their original use. Their -extraordinary largeness and massiveness are a satire upon their present -fate. They were not built with such a thickness of wall and depth of -embrasure, such a solidity of staircase and superfluity of stone, simply -to afford an economical winter residence to English and American -families. I know not whether it was the appearance of these stony old -villas, which seemed so dumbly conscious of a change of manners, that -threw a tinge of melancholy over the general prospect; certain it is -that, having always found this plaintive note in the view of Florence, -it seemed to me now particularly distinct. "Lovely, lovely, but it makes -me blue," the fanciful stranger could not but murmur to himself as, in -the late afternoon, he looked at the landscape from over one of the low -parapets, and then, with his hands in his pockets, turned away indoors -to candles and dinner. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<p> -Below, in the city, in wandering about in the streets and churches and -museums, it was impossible not to have a good deal of the same feeling; -but here the impression was more easy to analyse. It came from a sense -of the perfect separateness of all the great productions of the -Renaissance from the present and the future of the place, from the -actual life and manners, the native ideal I have already spoken of the -way in which the great aggregation of beautiful works of art in the -Italian cities strikes the visitor nowadays (so far as present Italy is -concerned) as the mere stock-in-trade of an impecunious but thrifty -people. It is this metaphysical desertedness and loneliness of the great -works of architecture and sculpture that deposits a certain weight upon -the heart; when we see a great tradition broken we feel something of the -pain with which we hear a stifled cry. But regret is one thing and -resentment is another. Seeing one morning, in a shop-window, the series -of <i>Mornings in Florence</i>, published a few years since by Mr. Ruskin, -I made haste to enter and purchase these amusing little books, some -passages of which I remembered formerly to have read. I could not turn -over many pages without observing that the "separateness" of the new and -old which I just mentioned had produced in their author the liveliest -irritation. With the more acute phases of this sentiment it was -difficult to sympathise, for the simple reason, it seems to me, that it -savours of arrogance to demand of any people, as a right of one's own, -that they shall be artistic. "Be artistic yourselves!" is the very -natural reply that young Italy has at hand for English critics and -censors. When a people produces beautiful statues and pictures it gives -us something more than is set down in the bond, and we must thank it for -its generosity; and when it stops producing them or caring for them we -may cease thanking, but we hardly have a right to begin and abuse it. -The wreck of Florence, says Mr. Ruskin, "is now too ghastly and -heart-breaking to any human soul that remembers the days of old;" and -these desperate words are an allusion to the fact that the little square -in front of the cathedral, at the foot of Giotto's Tower, with the grand -Baptistery on the other side, is now the resort of a number of -hackney-coaches and omnibuses. This fact is doubtless lamentable, and it -would be a hundred times more agreeable to see among people who have -been made the heirs of so priceless a work of art as the sublime -campanile some such feeling about it as would keep it free even from the -danger of defilement. A cab-stand is a very ugly and dirty thing, and -Giotto's Tower should have nothing in common with such conveniences. But -there is more than one way of taking such things, and a quiet traveller, -who has been walking about for a week with his mind full of the -sweetness and suggestiveness of a hundred Florentine places, may feel at -last, in looking into Mr. Ruskin's little tracts that, discord for -discord, there is not much to choose between the importunity of the -author's personal ill-humour and the incongruity of horse-pails and -bundles of hay. And one may say this without being at all a partisan of -the doctrine of the inevitableness of new desecrations. For my own part, -I believe there are few things in this line that the new Italian spirit -is not capable of, and not many, indeed, that we are not destined to -see. Pictures and buildings will not be completely destroyed, because in -that case foreigners with full pockets would cease to visit the country, -and the turn-stiles at the doors of the old palaces and convents, with -the little patented slit for absorbing your half-franc, would grow quite -rusty, and creak with disuse. But it is safe to say that the new Italy, -growing into an old Italy again, will continue to take her elbow-room -wherever she finds it. -</p> -<p> -I am almost ashamed to say what I did with Mr. Ruskin's little books. I -put them into my pocket and betook myself to Santa Maria Novella. There -I sat down, and after I had looked about for a while at the beautiful -church, I drew them forth one by one, and read the greater part of them. -Occupying one's self with light literature in a great religious edifice -is perhaps as bad a piece of profanation as any of those rude dealings -which Mr. Ruskin justly deplores; but a traveller has to make the most -of odd moments, and I was waiting for a friend in whose company I was to -go and look at Giotto's beautiful frescoes in the cloister of the -church. My friend was a long time coming, so that I had an hour with Mr. -Ruskin, whom I called just now a light <i>littérateur</i>, because in these -little Mornings in Florence he is for ever making his readers laugh. I -remembered, of course, where I was; and, in spite of my latent hilarity, -I felt that I had rarely got such a snubbing. I had really been enjoying -the good old city of Florence; but I now learned from Mr. Ruskin that -this was a scandalous waste of charity. I should have gone about with an -imprecation on my lips, I should have worn a face three yards long. I -had taken great pleasure in certain frescoes by Ghirlandaio, in the -choir of that very church; but it appeared from one of the little books -that these frescoes were as naught. I had much admired Santa Croce, and -I had thought the Duomo a very noble affair; but I had now the most -positive assurance I knew nothing about it. After a while, if it was -only ill-humour that was needed for doing honour to the city of the -Medici, I felt that I had risen to a proper level; only now it was Mr. -Ruskin himself I had lost patience with, and not the stupid Brunelleschi -and the vulgar Ghirlandaio. Indeed, I lost patience altogether, and -asked myself by what right this informal votary of form pretended to run -riot through a quiet traveller's relish for the noblest of -pleasures—his wholesome enjoyment of the loveliest of cities. The -little books seemed invidious and insane, and it was only when I -remembered that I had been under no obligation to buy them that I -checked myself in repenting of having done so. Then, at last, my friend -arrived, and we passed together out of the church, and through the first -cloister beside it, into a smaller enclosure, where we stood a while to -look at the tomb of the Marchesa Strozzi-Ridolfi, upon which the great -Giotto has painted four superb little pictures. It was easy to see the -pictures were superb; but I drew forth one of my little books again, for -I had observed that Mr. Ruskin spoke of them. Hereupon I recovered my -tolerance; for what could be better in this case, I asked myself, than -Mr. Ruskin's remarks? They are, in fact, excellent and charming, and -full of appreciation of the deep and simple beauty of the great -painter's work. I read them aloud to my companion; but my companion was -rather, as the phrase is, "put off" by them. One of the frescoes (it is -a picture of the birth of the Virgin) contains a figure coming through a -door. "Of ornament," I quote, "there is only the entirely simple outline -of the vase which the servant carries; of colour two or three masses of -sober red and pure white, with brown and gray. That is all," Mr. Ruskin -continues. "And if you are pleased with this you can see Florence. But -if not, by all means amuse yourself there, if you find it amusing, as -long as you like; you can never see it." <i>You can never see it</i>. This -seemed to my friend insufferable, and I had to shuffle away the book -again, so that we might look at the fresco with the unruffled geniality -it deserves. We agreed afterwards, when in a more convenient place I -read aloud a good many more passages from Mr. Ruskin's tracts, that -there are a great many ways of seeing Florence, as there are of seeing -most beautiful and interesting things, and that it is very dry and -pedantic to say that the happy vision depends upon our squaring our toes -with a certain particular chalk-mark. We see Florence wherever and -whenever we enjoy it, and for enjoying it we find a great many more -pretexts than Mr. Ruskin seems inclined to allow. My friend and I agreed -also, however, that the little books were an excellent purchase, on -account of the great charm and felicity of much of their incidental -criticism; to say nothing, as I hinted just now, of their being -extremely amusing. Nothing, in fact, is more comical than the familiar -asperity of the author's style and the pedagogic fashion in which he -pushes and pulls his unhappy pupils about, jerking their heads toward -this, rapping their knuckles for that, sending them to stand in corners, -and giving them Scripture texts to copy. But it is neither the -felicities nor the aberrations of detail, in Mr. Ruskin's writings, that -are the main affair for most readers; it is the general tone that, as I -have said, puts them off or draws them on. For many persons he will -never bear the test of being read in this rich old Italy, where art, so -long as it really lived at all, was spontaneous, joyous, irresponsible. -If the reader is in daily contact with those beautiful Florentine works -which do still, in a way, force themselves into notice through the -vulgarity and cruelty of modern profanation, it will seem to him that -Mr. Ruskin's little books are pitched in the strangest falsetto key. -"One may read a hundred pages of this sort of thing," said my friend, -"without ever dreaming that he is talking about <i>art</i>. You can say -nothing worse about it than that." And that is very true. Art is the one -corner of human life in which we may take our ease. To justify our -presence there the only thing that is demanded of us is that we shall -have a passion for representation. In other places our passions are -conditioned and embarrassed; we are allowed to have only so many as are -consistent with those of our neighbours; with their convenience and -well-being, with their convictions and prejudices, their rules and -regulations. Art means an escape from all this. Wherever her brilliant -standard floats the need for apologies and exonerations is over; there -it is enough simply that we please or that we are pleased. There the -tree is judged only by its fruits. If these are sweet, one is welcome to -pluck them. -</p> -<p> -One may read a great many pages of Mr. Ruskin without getting a hint of -this delightful truth; a hint of the not unimportant fact that art, -after all, is made for us, and not we for art. This idea of the value of -a work of art being the amount of illusion it yields is conspicuous by -its absence. And as for Mr. Ruskin's world of art being a place where we -may take life easily, woe to the luckless mortal who enters it with any -such disposition. Instead of a garden of delight, he finds a sort of -assize-court, in perpetual session. Instead of a place in which human -responsibilities are lightened and suspended, he finds a region governed -by a kind of Draconic legislation. His responsibilities, indeed, are -tenfold increased; the gulf between truth and error is for ever yawning -at his feet; the pains and penalties of this same error are advertised, -in apocalyptic terminology, upon a thousand sign-posts; and the poor -wanderer soon begins to look back with infinite longing to the lost -paradise of the artless. There can be no greater want of tact in dealing -with those things with which men attempt to ornament life than to be -perpetually talking about "error." A truce to all rigidities is the law -of the place; the only thing that is absolute there is sensible charm. -The grim old bearer of the scales excuses herself; she feels that this -is not her province. Differences here are not iniquity and -righteousness; they are simply variations of temperament and of point of -view. We are not under theological government. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<p> -It was very charming, in the bright, warm days, to wander from one -corner of Florence to another, paying one's respects again to remembered -masterpieces. It was pleasant also to find that memory had played no -tricks, and that the beautiful things of an earlier year were as -beautiful as ever. To enumerate these beautiful things would take a -great deal of space; for I never had been more struck with the mere -quantity of brilliant Florentine work. Even giving up the Duomo and -Santa Croce to Mr. Ruskin as very ill-arranged edifices, the list of the -Florentine treasures is almost inexhaustible. Those long outer galleries -of the Uffizi had never seemed to me more delectable; sometimes there -were not more than two or three figures standing there, Baedeker in -hand, to break the charming perspective. One side of this -upstairs-portico, it will be remembered, is entirely composed of glass; -a continuity of old-fashioned windows, draped with white curtains of -rather primitive fashion, which hang there till they acquire a -perceptible "tone." The light, passing through them, is softly filtered -and diffused; it rests mildly upon the old marbles—chiefly antique -Roman busts—which stand in the narrow intervals of the casements. It -is projected upon the numerous pictures that cover the opposite wall, and -that are not by any means, as a general thing, the gems of the great -collection; it imparts a faded brightness to the old ornamental -arabesques upon the painted wooden ceiling, and it makes a great soft -shining upon the marble floor, in which, as you look up and down, you -see the strolling tourists and the motionless copyists almost reflected. -I don't know why I should find all this very pleasant, but, in fact, I -have seldom gone into the Uffizi without walking the length of this -third-story cloister, between the (for the most part) third-rate -pictures and the faded cotton curtains. Why is it that in Italy we see a -charm in things in regard to which in other countries we always take -vulgarity for granted? If in the city of New York a great museum of the -arts were to be provided, by way of decoration, with a species of -verandah inclosed on one side by a series of small-paned windows, draped -in dirty linen, and furnished on the other with an array of pictorial -feebleness, the place being surmounted by a thinly-painted wooden roof, -strongly suggestive of summer heat, of winter cold, of frequent leakage, -those amateurs who had had the advantage of foreign travel would be at -small pains to conceal their contempt. Contemptible or respectable, to -the judicial mind, this quaint old loggia of the Uffizi admitted me into -twenty chambers where I found as great a number of ancient favourites. I -do not know that I had a warmer greeting for any old friend than for -Andrea del Sarto, that most touching of painters who is not one of the -first. But it was on the other side of the Arno that I found him in -force, in those dusky drawing-rooms of the Pitti Palace, to which you -take your way along the tortuous tunnel that wanders through the houses -of Florence, and is supported by the little goldsmiths' booths on the -Ponte Vecchio. In the rich, insufficient light of these beautiful rooms, -where, to look at the pictures, you sit in damask chairs and rest your -elbows on tables of malachite, Andrea del Sarto becomes peculiarly -effective. Before long you feel a real affection for him. But the great -pleasure, after all, was to revisit the earlier masters, in those -specimens of them chiefly that bloom so unfadingly on the big, plain -walls of the Academy. Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and -Lorenzo di Credi are the sweetest and best of all painters; as I sat for -an hour in their company, in the cold great hall of the institution I have -mentioned—there are shabby rafters above and an immense expanse of -brick tiles below, and many bad pictures as well as good ones—it -seemed to me more than ever that if one really had to choose one could not -do better than choose here. You may sit very quietly and comfortably at the -Academy, in this big first room—at the upper end, especially, on the -left—because more than many other places it savours of old Florence. -More for instance, in reality, than the Bargello, though the Bargello -makes great pretensions. Beautiful and picturesque as the Bargello is, -it smells too strongly of restoration, and, much of old Italy as still -lurks in its furbished and renovated chambers, it speaks even more -distinctly of the ill-mannered young kingdom that has (as unavoidably as -you please) lifted down a hundred delicate works of sculpture from the -convent-walls where their pious authors placed them. If the early Tuscan -painters are exquisite, I can think of no praise generous enough for the -sculptors of the same period, Donatello and Luca della Robbia, Matteo -Civitale and Mino da Fiesole, who, as I refreshed my memory of them, -seemed to me to leave absolutely nothing to be desired in the way of -purity of inspiration and grace of invention. The Bargello is full of -early Tuscan sculpture, most of the pieces of which have come from -suppressed convents; and even if the visitor be an ardent liberal, he is -uncomfortably conscious of the rather brutal process by which it has -been collected. One can hardly envy young Italy the number of -disagreeable things she has had to do. -</p> -<p> -The railway journey from Florence to Rome has been altered both for the -better and for the worse; for the better, in that it has been shortened -by a couple of hours; for the worse, inasmuch as, when about half the -distance has been traversed, the train deflects to the west, and leaves -the beautiful old cities of Assisi, Perugia, Terni, Narni, unvisited. Of -old, it was possible to visit these places, in a manner, from the window -of the train; even if you did not stop, as you probably could not, every -time you passed, the picturesque fashion in which, like a loosened belt -on an aged and shrunken person, their old red walls held them easily -together was something well worth noting. Now, however, by way of -compensation, the express-train to Rome stops at Orvieto, and in -consequence... In consequence what? What is the consequence of an -express train stopping at Orvieto? As I glibly wrote that sentence I -suddenly paused, with a sense of the queer stuff I was uttering. That an -express train would graze the base of the horrid purple mountain from -the apex of which this dark old Catholic city uplifts the glittering front -of its cathedral—that might have been foretold by a keen observer -of contemporary manners. But that it would really have the grossness to -stop there, this is a fact over which, as he records it, a sentimental -chronicler may well make what is vulgarly called an ado. The train does -stop at Orvieto, not very long, it is true, but long enough to let you -out. The same phenomenon takes place on the following day, when, having -visited the city, you get in again. I availed myself of both of these -occasions, having formerly neglected to drive to Orvieto in a -post-chaise. And really, the railway-station being in the plain, and the -town on the summit of an extraordinary hill, you have time to forget all -about the triumphs of steam, while you wind upwards to the city-gate. -The position of Orvieto is superb; it is worthy of the "middle distance" -of a last-century landscape. But, as every one knows, the beautiful -cathedral is the proper attraction of the place, which, indeed, save for -this fine monument, and for its craggy and crumbling ramparts, is a -meanly arranged and, as Italian cities go, not particularly impressive -little town. I spent a beautiful Sunday there, and I looked at the -charming church. I looked at it a great deal—a great deal considering -that on the whole I found it inferior to its fame. Intensely brilliant, -however, is the densely carved front; densely covered with the -freshest-looking mosaics. The old white marble of the sculptured -portions is as softly yellow as ancient ivory; the large, exceedingly -bright pictures above them flashed and twinkled in the splendid weather. -Very beautiful and interesting are the theological frescoes of Luca -Signorelli, though I have seen pictures that struck me as more -attaching. Very enchanting, finally, are the clear-faced saints and -seraphs, in robes of pink and azure, whom Fra Angelico has painted upon the -ceiling of the great chapel, along with a noble sitting figure—more -expressive of movement than most of the creations of this pictorial -peace-maker—of Christ in judgment. But the interest of the cathedral -of Orvieto is mainly not the visible result, but the historical process -that lies behind it; those three hundred years of devoted popular labour -of which an American scholar has written an admirable account.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -</p> - -<p><br /></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="nind"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>Charles Eliot Norton: <i>Study and Travel in Italy.</i></p></div> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap03"></a></p> - -<h4>III -<br /><br /> -OCCASIONAL PARIS -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<p> -It is hard to say exactly what is the profit of comparing one race with -another, and weighing in opposed groups the manners and customs of -neighbouring countries; but it is certain that as we move about the -world we constantly indulge in this exercise. This is especially the -case if we happen to be infected with the baleful spirit of the -cosmopolite—that uncomfortable consequence of seeing many lands and -feeling at home in none. To be a cosmopolite is not, I think, an ideal; -the ideal should be to be a concentrated patriot. Being a cosmopolite is -an accident, but one must make the best of it. If you have lived about, -as the phrase is, you have lost that sense of the absoluteness and the -sanctity of the habits of your fellow-patriots which once made you so -happy in the midst of them. You have seen that there are a great many -<i>patriæ</i> in the world, and that each of these is filled with excellent -people for whom the local idiosyncrasies are the only thing that is not -rather barbarous. There comes a time when one set of customs, wherever -it may be found, grows to seem to you about as provincial as another; -and then I suppose it may be said of you that you have become a -cosmopolite. You have formed the habit of comparing, of looking for -points of difference and of resemblance, for present and absent -advantages, for the virtues that go with certain defects, and the -defects that go with certain virtues. If this is poor work compared with -the active practice, in the sphere to which a discriminating Providence -has assigned you, of the duties of a tax-payer, an elector, a juryman or -a diner-out, there is nevertheless something to be said for it. It is -good to think well of mankind, and this, on the whole, a cosmopolite -does. If you limit your generalisations to the sphere I mentioned just -now, there is a danger that your occasional fits of pessimism may be too -sweeping. When you are out of humour the whole country suffers, because -at such moments one is never discriminating, and it costs you very -little bad logic to lump your fellow-citizens together. But if you are -living about, as I say, certain differences impose themselves. The worst -you can say of the human race is, for instance, that the Germans are a -detestable people. They do not represent the human race for you, as in -your native town your fellow-citizens do, and your unflattering judgment -has a flattering reverse. If the Germans are detestable, you are -mentally saying, there are those admirable French, or those charming -Americans, or those interesting English. (Of course it is simply by -accident that I couple the German name here with the unfavourable -adjective. The epithets may be transposed at will.) Nothing can well be -more different from anything else than the English from the French, so -that, if you are acquainted with both nations, it may be said that on -any special point your agreeable impression of the one implies a -censorious attitude toward the other, and <i>vice versa</i>. This has -rather a shocking sound; it makes the cosmopolite appear invidious and -narrow-minded. But I hasten to add that there seems no real reason why -even the most delicate conscience should take alarm. The consequence of -the cosmopolite spirit is to initiate you into the merits of all -peoples; to convince you that national virtues are numerous, though they -may be very different, and to make downright preference really very -hard. I have, for instance, every disposition to think better of the -English race than of any other except my own. There are things which -make it natural I should; there are inducements, provocations, -temptations, almost bribes. There have been moments when I have almost -burned my ships behind me, and declared that, as it simplified matters -greatly to pin one's faith to a chosen people, I would henceforth cease -to trouble my head about the lights and shades of the foreign character. -I am convinced that if I had taken this reckless engagement, I should -greatly have regretted it. You may find a room very comfortable to sit -in with the window open, and not like it at all when the window has been -shut. If one were, to give up the privilege of comparing the English -with other people, one would very soon, in a moment of reaction, make -once for all (and most unjustly) such a comparison as would leave the -English nowhere. Compare then, I say, as often as the occasion presents -itself. The result as regards any particular people, and as regards the -human race at large, may be pronounced agreeable, and the process is -both instructive and entertaining. -</p> -<p> -So the author of these observations finds it on returning to Paris after -living for upwards of a year in London. He finds himself comparing, and -the results of comparison are several disjointed reflections, of which -it may be profitable to make a note. Certainly Paris is a very old -story, and London is a still older one; and there is no great reason why -a journey across the channel and back should quicken one's perspicacity -to an unprecedented degree. I therefore will not pretend to have been -looking at Paris with new eyes, or to have gathered on the banks of the -Seine a harvest of extraordinary impressions. I will only pretend that a -good many old impressions have recovered their freshness, and that there -is a sort of renovated entertainment in looking at the most brilliant -city in the world with eyes attuned to a different pitch. Never, in -fact, have those qualities of brightness and gaiety that are half the -stock-in-trade of the city by the Seine seemed to me more uncontestable. -The autumn is but half over, and Paris is, in common parlance, empty. -The private houses are closed, the lions have returned to the jungle, -the Champs Elysées are not at all "mondains." But I have never seen -Paris more Parisian, in the pleasantest sense of the word; better -humoured, more open-windowed, more naturally entertaining. A radiant -September helps the case; but doubtless the matter is, as I hinted -above, in a large degree "subjective." For when one comes to the point -there is nothing very particular just now for Paris to rub her hands -about. The Exhibition of 1878 is looming up as large as a mighty mass of -buildings on the Trocadéro can make it. These buildings are very -magnificent and fantastical; they hang over the Seine, in their sudden -immensity and glittering newness, like a palace in a fairy-tale. But the -trouble is that most people appear to regard the Exhibition as in fact a -fairy-tale. They speak of the wonderful structures on the Champ de Mars -and the Trocadéro as a predestined monument to the folly of a group of -gentlemen destitute of a sense of the opportune. The moment certainly -does not seem very well chosen for inviting the world to come to Paris to -amuse itself. The world is too much occupied with graver cares—with -reciprocal cannonading and chopping, with cutting of throats and burning -of homes, with murder of infants and mutilation of mothers, with warding -off famine and civil war, with lamenting the failure of its resources, -the dulness of trade, the emptiness of its pockets. Rome is burning -altogether too fast for even its most irresponsible spirits to find any -great satisfaction in fiddling. But even if there is (as there very well -may be) a certain scepticism at headquarters as to the accomplishment of -this graceful design, there is no apparent hesitation, and everything is -going forward as rapidly as if mankind were breathless with expectation. -That familiar figure, the Parisian <i>ouvrier</i>, with his white, chalky -blouse, his attenuated person, his clever face, is more familiar than -ever, and I suppose, finding plenty of work to his hand, is for the time -in a comparatively rational state of mind. He swarms in thousands, -not only in the region of the Exhibition, but along the great -thoroughfare—the Avenue de l'Opéra—which has just been opened -in the interior of Paris. -</p> -<p> -This is an extremely Parisian creation, and as it is really a great -convenience—it will save a great many steps and twists and -turns—I suppose it should be spoken of with gratitude and -admiration. But I confess that to my sense it belongs primarily to that -order of benefits which during the twenty years of the Empire gradually -deprived the streets of Paris of nine-tenths of their ancient -individuality. The deadly monotony of the Paris that M. Haussmann called -into being—its huge, blank, pompous, featureless -sameness—sometimes comes over the wandering stranger with a force -that leads him to devote the author of these miles of architectural -commonplace to execration. The new street is quite on the imperial -system; it must make the late Napoleon III. smile with beatific -satisfaction as he looks down upon it from the Bonapartist corner of -Paradise. It stretches straight away from the pompous façade of the -Opera to the doors of the Théâtre Français, and it must be admitted -that there is something fine in the vista that is closed at one end by -the great sculptured and gilded mass of the former building. But it -smells of the modern asphalt; it is lined with great white houses that -are adorned with machine-made arabesques, and each of which is so exact -a copy of all the rest that even the little white porcelain number on a -blue ground, which looks exactly like all the other numbers, hardly -constitutes an identity. Presently there will be a long succession of -milliners' and chocolate-makers' shops in the basement of this -homogeneous row, and the pretty bonnets and bonbonnières in the shining -windows will have their ribbons knotted with a <i>chic</i> that you must -come to Paris to see. Then there will be little glazed sentry-boxes at -regular intervals along the curbstone, in which churlish old women will -sit selling half a dozen copies of each of the newspapers; and over the -hardened bitumen the young Parisian of our day will constantly -circulate, looking rather pallid and wearing very large shirt-cuffs. And -the new avenue will be a great success, for it will place in symmetrical -communication two of the most important establishments in -France—the temple of French music and the temple of French comedy. -</p> -<p> -I said just now that no two things could well be more unlike than -England and France; and though the remark is not original, I uttered it -with the spontaneity that it must have on the lips of a traveller who, -having left either country, has just disembarked in the other. It is of -course by this time a very trite observation, but it will continue to be -made so long as Boulogne remains the same lively antithesis of -Folkestone. An American, conscious of the family-likeness diffused over -his own huge continent, never quite unlearns his surprise at finding -that so little of either of these two almost contiguous towns has rubbed -off upon the other. He is surprised at certain English people feeling so -far away from France, and at all French people feeling so far away from -England. I travelled from Boulogne the other day in the same -railway-carriage with a couple of amiable and ingenuous young Britons, -who had come over to spend ten days in Paris. It was their first landing -in France; they had never yet quitted their native island; and in the -course of a little conversation that I had with them I was struck with -the scantiness of their information in regard to French manners and -customs. They were very intelligent lads; they were apparently fresh -from a university; but in respect to the interesting country they were -about to enter, their minds were almost a blank. If the conductor, -appearing at the carriage door to ask for our tickets, had had the leg -of a frog sticking out of his pocket, I think their only very definite -preconception would have been confirmed. I parted with them at the Paris -station, and I have no doubt that they very soon began to make precious -discoveries; and I have alluded to them not in the least to throw -ridicule upon their "insularity"—which indeed, being accompanied with -great modesty, I thought a very pretty spectacle—but because having -become, since my last visit to France, a little insular myself, I was -more conscious of the emotions that attend on an arrival. -</p> -<p> -The brightness always seems to begin while you are still out in the -channel, when you fairly begin to see the French coast. You pass into a -region of intenser light—a zone of clearness and colour. These -properties brighten and deepen as you approach the land, and when you -fairly stand upon that good Boulognese quay, among the blue and red -douaniers and soldiers, the small ugly men in cerulean blouses, the -charming fishwives, with their folded kerchiefs and their crisp -cap-frills, their short striped petticoats, their tightly-drawn -stockings, and their little clicking sabots—when you look about you -at the smokeless air, at the pink and yellow houses, at the white-fronted -café, close at hand, with its bright blue letters, its mirrors and -marble-topped tables, its white-aproned, alert, undignified waiter, -grasping a huge coffee-pot by a long handle—when you perceive all -these things you feel the additional savour that foreignness gives to the -picturesque; or feel rather, I should say, that simple foreignness may -itself make the picturesque; for certainly the elements in the picture I -have just sketched are not especially exquisite. No matter; you are -amused, and your amusement continues—being sensibly stimulated by a -visit to the buffet at the railway station, which is better than the -refreshment-room at Folkestone. It is a pleasure to have people offering -you soup again, of their own movement; it is a pleasure to find a little -pint of Bordeaux standing naturally before your plate; it is a pleasure -to have a napkin; it is a pleasure, above all, to take up one of the good -long sticks of French bread—as bread is called the staff of life, -the French bake it literally in the shape of staves—and break off a -loose, crisp, crusty morsel. -</p> -<p> -There are impressions, certainly, that imperil your good-humour. No -honest Anglo-Saxon can like a French railway-station; and I was on the -point of adding that no honest Anglo-Saxon can like a French -railway-official. But I will not go so far as that; for after all I -cannot remember any great harm that such a functionary has ever done -me—except in locking me up as a malefactor. It is necessary to say, -however, that the honest Anglo-Saxon, in a French railway-station, is in -a state of chronic irritation—an irritation arising from his sense of -the injurious effect upon the genial French nature of the possession of -an administrative uniform. I believe that the consciousness of brass -buttons on his coat and stripes on his trousers has spoiled many a -modest and amiable Frenchman, and the sight of these aggressive insignia -always stirs within me a moral protest. I repeat that my aversion to -them is partly theoretic, for I have found, as a general thing, that an -inquiry civilly made extracts a civil answer from even the most -official-looking personage. But I have also found that such a -personage's measure of the civility due to him is inordinately large; if -he places himself in any degree at your service, it is apparently from -the sense that true greatness can afford to unbend. You are constantly -reminded that you must not presume. In England these intimations never -proceed from one's "inferiors." In France the "administration" is the -first thing that touches you; in a little while you get used to it, but -you feel somehow that, in the process, you have lost the flower of your -self-respect. Of course you are under some obligation to it. It has -taken you off the steamer at Folkestone; made you tell your name to a -gentleman with a sword, stationed at the farther end of the plank—not -a drawn sword, it is true, but still, at the best, a very nasty weapon; -marshalled you into the railway-station; assigned you to a carriage—I -was going to say to a seat; transported you to Paris, marshalled you -again out of the train, and under a sort of military surveillance, into -an enclosure containing a number of human sheep-pens, in one of which it -has imprisoned you for some half-hour. I am always on the point, in -these places, of asking one of my gaolers if I may not be allowed to -walk about on parole. The administration at any rate has finally taken -you out of your pen, and, through the medium of a functionary who -"inscribes" you in a little book, transferred you to a cab selected by a -logic of its own. In doing all this it has certainly done a great deal -for you; but somehow its good offices have made you feel sombre and -resentful. The other day, on arriving from London, while I was waiting -for my luggage, I saw several of the porters who convey travellers' -impedimenta to the cab come up and deliver over the coin they had just -received for this service to a functionary posted <i>ad hoc</i> in a -corner, and armed with a little book in which he noted down these -remittances. The <i>pour-boires</i> are apparently thrown into a common -fund and divided among the guild of porters. The system is doubtless an -excellent one, excellently carried out; but the sight of the poor -round-shouldered man of burdens dropping his coin into the hand of the -official arithmetician was to my fancy but another reminder that the -individual, as an individual, loses by all that the administration assumes. -</p> -<p> -After living a while in England you observe the individual in Paris with -quickened attention; and I think it must be said that at first he makes -an indifferent figure. You are struck with the race being physically and -personally a poorer one than that great family of largely-modelled, -fresh-coloured people you have left upon the other side of the channel. -I remember that in going to England a year ago and disembarking of a -dismal, sleety Sunday evening at Folkestone, the first thing that struck -me was the good looks of the railway porters—their broad shoulders, -their big brown beards, their well-cut features. In like manner, landing -lately at Boulogne of a brilliant Sunday morning, it was impossible not -to think the little men in numbered caps who were gesticulating and -chattering in one's path, rather ugly fellows. In arriving from other -countries one is struck with a certain want of dignity in the French -face. I do not know, however, whether this is anything worse than the -fact that the French face is expressive; for it may be said that, in a -certain sense, to express anything is to compromise with one's dignity, -which likes to be understood without taking trouble. As regards the -lower classes, at any rate, the impression I speak of always passes -away; you perceive that the good looks of the French working-people are -to be found in their look of intelligence. These people, in Paris, -strike me afresh as the cleverest, the most perceptive, and, -intellectually speaking, the most human of their kind. The Paris -<i>ouvrier</i>, with his democratic blouse, his expressive, demonstrative, -agreeable eye, his meagre limbs, his irregular, pointed features, his -sallow complexion, his face at once fatigued and animated, his light, -nervous organisation, is a figure that I always encounter again with -pleasure. In some cases he looks depraved and perverted, but at his -worst he looks refined; he is full of vivacity of perception, of -something that one can appeal to. -</p> -<p> -It takes some courage to say this, perhaps, after reading -<i>L'Assommoir</i>; but in M. Emile Zola's extraordinary novel one must -make the part, as the French say, of the horrible uncleanness of the -author's imagination. <i>L'Assommoir</i>, I have been told, has had -great success in the lower walks of Parisian life; and if this fact is -not creditable to the delicacy of M. Zola's humble readers, it proves a -good deal in favour of their intelligence. With all its grossness the -book in question is essentially a literary performance; you must be -tolerably clever to appreciate it. It is highly appreciated, I believe, -by the young ladies who live in the region of the Latin -Quarter—those young ladies who thirty years ago were called -grisettes, and now are called I don't know what. They know long passages -by heart; they repeat them with infinite gusto. "Ce louchon -d'Augustine"—the horrible little girl with a squint, who is always -playing nasty tricks and dodging slaps and projectiles in Gervaise's -shop, is their particular favourite; and it must be admitted that "ce -louchon d'Augustine" is, as regards reality, a wonderful creation. -</p> -<p> -If Parisians, both small and great, have more of the intellectual stamp -than the people one sees in London, it is striking, on the other hand, -that the people of the better sort in Paris look very much less -"respectable." I did not know till I came back to Paris how used I had -grown to the English <i>cachet</i>; but I immediately found myself missing -it. You miss it in the men much more than in the women; for the -well-to-do Frenchwoman of the lower orders, as one sees her in public, -in the streets and in shops, is always a delightfully comfortable and -creditable person. I must confess to the highest admiration for her, an -admiration that increases with acquaintance. She, at least, is -essentially respectable; the neatness, compactness, and sobriety of her -dress, the decision of her movement and accent suggest the civic and -domestic virtues—order, thrift, frugality, the moral necessity of -making a good appearance. It is, I think, an old story that to the -stranger in France the women seem greatly superior to the men. Their -superiority, in fact, appears to be conceded; for wherever you turn you -meet them in the forefront of action. You meet them, indeed, too often; -you pronounce them at times obtrusive. It is annoying when you go to -order your boots or your shirts, to have to make known your desires to -even the most neat-waisted female attendant; for the limitations to the -feminine intellect are, though few in number, distinct, and women are -not able to understand certain masculine needs. Mr. Worth makes ladies' -dresses; but I am sure there will never be a fashionable tailoress. -There are, however, points at which, from the commercial point of view, -feminine assistance is invaluable. For insisting upon the merits of an -article that has failed to satisfy you, talking you over, and making you -take it; for defending a disputed bill, for paying the necessary -compliments or supplying the necessary impertinence—for all these -things the neat-waisted sex has peculiar and precious faculties. In the -commercial class in Paris the man always appeals to the woman; the woman -always steps forward. The woman always proposes the conditions of a -bargain. Go about and look for furnished rooms, you always encounter a -concierge and his wife. When you ask the price of the rooms, the woman -takes the words out of her husband's mouth, if indeed he have not first -turned to her with a questioning look. She takes you in hand; she -proposes conditions; she thinks of things he would not have thought of. -</p> -<p> -What I meant just now by my allusion to the absence of the "respectable" -in the appearance of the Parisian population was that the men do not -look like gentlemen, as so many Englishmen do. The average Frenchman -that one encounters in public is of so different a type from the average -Englishman that you can easily believe that to the end of time the two -will not understand each other. The Frenchman has always, comparatively -speaking a Bohemian, empirical look; the expression of his face, its -colouring, its movement, have not been toned down to the neutral -complexion of that breeding for which in English speech we reserve the -epithet of "good." He is at once more artificial and more natural; the -former where the Englishman is positive, the latter where the Englishman -is negative. He takes off his hat with a flourish to a friend, but the -Englishman never bows. He ties a knot in the end of a napkin and thrusts -it into his shirt-collar, so that, as he sits at breakfast, the napkin -may serve the office of a pinafore. Such an operation as that seems to -the Englishman as <i>naïf</i> as the flourishing of one's hat is -pretentious. -</p> -<p> -I sometimes go to breakfast at a café on the Boulevard, which I -formerly used to frequent with considerable regularity. Coming back -there the other day, I found exactly the same group of habitués at -their little tables, and I mentally exclaimed as I looked at them over -my newspaper, upon their unlikeness to the gentlemen who confront you in -the same attitude at a London club. Who are they? what are they? On -these points I have no information; but the stranger's imagination does -not seem to see a majestic social order massing itself behind them as it -usually does in London. He goes so far as to suspect that what is behind -them is not adapted for exhibition; whereas your Englishmen, whatever -may be the defects of their personal character, or the irregularities of -their conduct, are pressed upon from the rear by an immense body of -private proprieties and comforts, of domestic conventions and -theological observances. But it is agreeable all the same to come back -to a café of which you have formerly been an habitué. Adolphe or -Edouard, in his long white apron and his large patent-leather slippers, -has a perfect recollection of "les habitudes de Monsieur." He remembers -the table you preferred, the wine you drank, the newspaper you read. He -greets you with the friendliest of smiles, and remarks that it is a long -time since he has had the pleasure of seeing Monsieur. There is -something in this simple remark very touching to a heart that has -suffered from that incorruptible dumbness of the British domestic. But -in Paris such a heart finds consolation at every step; it is reminded of -that most classic quality of the French nature—its sociability; a -sociability which operates here as it never does in England, from below -upward. Your waiter utters a greeting because, after all, something -human within him prompts him; his instinct bids him say something, and -his taste recommends that it be agreeable. The obvious reflection is -that a waiter must not say too much, even for the sake of being human. -But in France the people always like to make the little extra remark, to -throw in something above the simply necessary. I stop before a little -man who is selling newspapers at a street-corner, and ask him for the -<i>Journal des Débats</i>. His answer deserves to be literally given: "Je -ne l'ai plus, Monsieur; mais je pourrai vous donner quelque chose à peu -près dans le même genre—<i>la République Française</i>." Even a -person of his humble condition must have had a lurking sense of the -comicality of offering anything as an equivalent for the "genre" of the -venerable, classic, academic <i>Débats</i>. But my friend could not bear -to give me a naked, monosyllabic refusal. -</p> -<p> -There are two things that the returning observer is likely to do with as -little delay as possible. One is to dine at some <i>cabaret</i> of which -he retains a friendly memory; another is to betake himself to the -Théâtre Français. It is early in the season; there are no new pieces; -but I have taken great pleasure in seeing some of the old ones. I lost -no time in going to see Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt in -<i>Andromaque</i>. <i>Andromaque</i> is not a novelty, but Mademoiselle -Sarah Bernhardt has a perennial freshness. The play has been revived, to -enable her to represent not the great part, the injured and passionate -Hermione, but that of the doleful, funereal widow of Hector. This part -is a poor one; it is narrow and monotonous, and offers few brilliant -opportunities. But the actress knows how to make opportunities, and she -has here a very sufficient one for crossing her thin white arms over her -nebulous black robes, and sighing forth in silver accents her dolorous -rhymes. Her rendering of the part is one more proof of her singular -intelligence—of the fineness of her artistic nature. As there is -not a great deal to be done with it in the way of declamation, she has -made the most of its plastic side. She understands the art of motion and -attitude as no one else does, and her extraordinary personal grace never -fails her. Her Andromaque has postures of the most poetic -picturesqueness—something that suggests the broken stem and -drooping head of a flower that had been rudely plucked. She bends over -her classic confidant like the figure of Bereavement on a bas-relief, -and she has a marvellous manner of lifting and throwing back her -delicate arms, locking them together, and passing them behind her -hanging head. -</p> -<p> -The <i>Demi-Monde</i> of M. Dumas <i>fils</i> is not a novelty either; -but I quite agree with M. Francisque Sarcey that it is on the whole, in -form, the first comedy of our day. I have seen it several times, but I -never see it without being forcibly struck with its merits. For the -drama of our time it must always remain the model. The interest of the -story, the quiet art with which it is unfolded, the naturalness and -soberness of the means that are used, and by which great effects are -produced, the brilliancy and richness of the dialogue—all these -things make it a singularly perfect and interesting work. Of course it -is admirably well played at the Théâtre Français. Madame d'Ange was -originally a part of too great amplitude for Mademoiselle Croizette; but -she is gradually filling it out and taking possession of it; she begins -to give a sense of the "calme infernal," which George Sand somewhere -mentions as the leading attribute of the character. As for Delaunay, he -does nothing better, more vividly and gallantly, than Olivier de Jalin. -When I say gallantry I say it with qualification; for what a very queer -fellow is this same M. de Jalin! In seeing the <i>Demi-Monde</i> again I -was more than ever struck with the oddity of its morality and with the -way that the ideal of fine conduct differs in different nations. The -<i>Demi-Monde</i> is the history of the eager, the almost heroic, effort -of a clever and superior woman, who has been guilty of what the French -call "faults," to pass from the irregular and equivocal circle to which -these faults have consigned her into what is distinctively termed "good -society." The only way in which the passage can be effected is by her -marrying an honourable man; and to induce an honourable man to marry -her, she must suppress the more discreditable facts of her career. -Taking her for an honest woman, Raymond de Nanjac falls in love with -her, and honestly proposes to make her his wife. But Raymond de Nanjac -has contracted an intimate friendship with Olivier de Jalin, and the -action of the play is more especially De Jalin's attempt—a -successful one—to rescue his friend from the ignominy of a union -with Suzanne d'Ange. Jalin knows a great deal about her, for the simple -reason that he has been her lover. Their relations have been most -harmonious, but from the moment that Suzanne sets her cap at Nanjac, -Olivier declares war. Suzanne struggles hard to keep possession of her -suitor, who is very much in love with her, and Olivier spares no pains -to detach him. It is the means that Olivier uses that excite the -wonderment of the Anglo-Saxon spectator. He takes the ground that in -such a cause all means are fair, and when, at the climax of the play, he -tells a thumping lie in order to make Madame d'Ange compromise herself, -expose herself, he is pronounced by the author "le plus honnête homme -que je connaisse." Madame d'Ange, as I have said, is a superior woman; -the interest of the play is in her being a superior woman. Olivier has -been her lover; he himself is one of the reasons why she may not marry -Nanjac; he has given her a push along the downward path. But it is -curious how little this is held by the author to disqualify him from -fighting the battle in which she is so much the weaker combatant. An -English-speaking audience is more "moral" than a French, more easily -scandalised; and yet it is a singular fact that if the <i>Demi-Monde</i> -were represented before an English-speaking audience, its sympathies -would certainly not go with M. de Jalin. It would pronounce him rather a -coward. Is it because such an audience, although it has not nearly such -a pretty collection of pedestals to place under the feet of the charming -sex, has, after all, in default of this degree of gallantry, a -tenderness more fundamental? Madame d'Ange has stained herself, and it -is doubtless not at all proper that such ladies should be led to the -altar by honourable young men. The point is not that the -English-speaking audience would be disposed to condone Madame d'Ange's -irregularities, but that it would remain perfectly cold before the -spectacle of her ex-lover's masterly campaign against her, and quite -fail to think it positively admirable, or to regard the fib by which he -finally clenches his victory as a proof of exceptional honesty. The -ideal of our own audience would be expressed in some such words as, "I -say, that's not fair game. Can't you let the poor woman alone?" -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap04"></a></p> - -<h4>IV -<br /><br /> -RHEIMS AND LAON: A LITTLE TOUR -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<p> -It was a very little tour, but the charm of the three or four old towns -and monuments that it embraced, the beauty of the brilliant October, the -pleasure of reminding one's self how much of the interest, strength and -dignity of France is to be found outside of that huge pretentious -caravansary called Paris (a reminder often needed), these things deserve -to be noted. I went down to Rheims to see the famous cathedral, and to -reach Rheims I travelled through the early morning hours along the -charming valley of the Marne. The Marne is a pretty little green river, -the vegetation upon whose banks, otherwise unadorned, had begun to blush -with the early frosts in a manner that suggested the autumnal tints of -American scenery. The trees and bushes were scarlet and orange; the -light was splendid and a trifle harsh; I could have fancied myself -immersed in an American "fall," if at intervals some gray old -large-towered church had not lifted a sculptured front above a -railway-station, to dispel the fond illusion. One of these church-fronts -(I saw it only from the train) is particularly impressive; the little -cathedral of Meaux, of which the great Bossuet was bishop, and along -whose frigid nave he set his eloquence rolling with an impetus which it -has not wholly lost to this day. It was entertaining, moreover, to enter -the country of champagne; for Rheims is in the ancient province whose -later fame is syllabled the world over in popping corks. A land of -vineyards is not usually accounted sketchable; but the country about -Epernay seemed to me to have a charm of its own. It stretched away in -soft undulations that were pricked all over with little stakes muffled -in leaves. The effect at a distance was that of vast surfaces, long, -subdued billows, of pincushion; and yet it was very pretty. The deep -blue sky was over the scene; the undulations were half in sun and half -in shade; and here and there, among their myriad bristles, were groups -of vintagers, who, though they are in reality, doubtless, a prosaic and -mercenary body of labourers, yet assumed, to a fancy that glanced at -them in the cursory manner permitted by the passage of the train, the -appearance of joyous and disinterested votaries of Bacchus. The blouses -of the men, the white caps of the women, were gleaming in the sunshine; -they moved about crookedly among the tiny vine-poles. I thought them -full of a charming suggestiveness. Of all the delightful gifts of France -to the world, this was one of the most agreeable—the keen, living -liquid in which the finest flower of sociability is usually dipped. It -came from these sunny places; this little maze of curling-sticks -supplied the world with half the world's gaiety. I call it little only -in relation to the immense number of bottles with gilded necks in which -this gaiety is annually stored up. The acreage of the champagne seemed -to me, in fact, large; the bristling slopes went rolling away to new -horizons in a manner that was positively reassuring. Making the -handsomest allowance for the wine manufactured from baser elements, it -was apparent that this big corner of a province represents a very large -number of bottles. -</p> -<p> -As you draw near to Rheims the vineyards become sparser, and finally -disappear, a fact not to be regretted, for there is something -incongruous in the juxtaposition of champagne and gothic architecture. -It may be said, too, that for the proper appreciation of a structure -like the cathedral of Rheims you have need of all your head. As, after -my arrival, I sat in my window at the inn, gazing up at the great -façade, I found something dizzying in the mere climbing and soaring of -one's astonished vision; and later, when I came to wander about in the -upper regions of the church, and to peep down through the rugged -lacework of the towers at the little streets and the small spots of -public places, I found myself musing upon the beauty of soberness. My -window at the Lion d'Or was like a proscenium-box at the play; to admire -the cathedral at my leisure I had only to perch myself in the casement -with a good opera-glass. I sat there for a long time watching the great -architectural drama. A drama I may call it, for no church-front that I -have seen is more animated, more richly figured. The density of the -sculptures, the immense scale of the images, detract, perhaps, at first, -in a certain sense, from the impressiveness of the cathedral of Rheims; -the absence of large surfaces, of ascending lines, deceives you as to -the elevation of the front, and the dimensions of some of the upper -statues bring them unduly near the eye. But little by little you -perceive that this great figured and storied screen has a mass -proportionate to its detail, and that it is the grandest part of a -structure which, as a whole, is one of the noblest works of man's hands. -Most people remember to have seen some print or some photograph of this -heavily-charged façade of Rheims, which is usually put forward as the -great example of the union of the purity and the possible richness of -gothic. I must first have seen some such print in my earliest years, for -I have always thought of Rheims as the typical gothic cathedral I had -vague associations with it; it seemed to me that I had already stood -there in the little overwhelmed <i>place</i>. One's literary associations -with Rheims are indeed very vivid and impressive; they begin with the -picture of the steel-clad Maid passing under the deeply-sculptured -portal, with a banner in her hand which she has no need to lower, and -while she stands amid the incense and the chants, the glitter of arms -and the glow of coloured lights, asking leave of the young king whom she -has crowned to turn away and tend her flocks. And after that there is -the sense of all the kings of France having travelled down to Rheims in -their splendour to be consecrated; the great groups on the front of the -church must have looked down on groups almost as stately—groups full -of colour and movement—assembled in the square. (The square of -Rheims, it must be confessed, is rather shabby. It is singular that the -august ceremony of the <i>sacre</i> should not have left its mark upon the -disposition of the houses, should not have kept them at a respectful -distance. Louis XIV., smoothing his plumage before he entered the -church, can hardly have had space to swing the train of his -coronation-robe.) But when in driving into the town I reached the small -precinct, such as it is, and saw the cathedral lift its spireless towers -above the long rows of its carven saints, the huge wheel of its window, -the three great caverns of its portals, with the high acute pediments -above each arch, and the sides abutting outward like the beginning of a -pyramid; when I looked at all this I felt that I had carried it in my -mind from my earliest years, and that the stately vision had been -implanted there by some forgotten glimpse of an old-fashioned -water-colour sketch, in which the sky was washed in with expressive -splashes, the remoter parts of the church tinted with a fascinating -blueness, and the foundations represented as encumbered with little -gabled and cross-timbered houses, inhabited by women in red petticoats -and curious caps. -</p> -<p> -I shall not attempt any regular enumeration of the great details of the -façade of Rheims; I cannot profess even to have fully apprehended them. -They are a glorious company, and here and there, on its high-hung -pedestal, one of the figures detaches itself with peculiar -effectiveness. Over the central portal sits the Virgin Mary, meekly -submitting her head to the ponderous crown which her Son prepares to -place upon it; the attitude and movement of Christ are full of a kind of -splendid politeness. The three great doorways are in themselves a museum -of imagery, disposed in each case in five close tiers, the statues in -each of the tiers packed perpendicularly against their comrades. The -effect of these great hollowed and chiselled recesses is extremely -striking; they are a proper vestibule to the dusky richness of the -interior. The cathedral of Rheims, more fortunate than many of its -companions, appears not to have suffered from the iconoclasts of the -Revolution; I noticed no absent heads nor broken noses. It is very true -that these members may have had adventures to which they do not, as it -were, allude. But, like many of its companions, it is so pressed upon by -neighbouring houses that it is not easy to get a general view of the -sides and the rear. You may walk round it, and note your walk as a long -one; you may observe that the choir of the church travels back almost -into another quarter of the city; you may see the far-spreading mass lose -itself for a while in parasitic obstructions, and then emerge again with -all its buttresses flying; but you miss that wide margin of space and -light which should enable it to present itself as a consistent picture. -Pictures have their frames, and poems have their margins; a great work -of art, such as a gothic cathedral, should at least have elbow-room. You -may, however, stroll beneath the walls of Rheims, along a narrow, dark -street, and look up at the mighty structure and see its higher parts -foreshortened into all kinds of delusive proportions. There is a grand -entertainment in the view of the church which you obtain from the -farthermost point to which you may recede from it in the rear, keeping -it still within sight I have never seen a cathedral so magnificently -buttressed. The buttresses of Rheims are all double; they have a -tremendous spring, and are supported upon pedestals surmounted by -immense crocketed canopies containing statues of wide-winged angels. A -great balustrade of gothic arches connects these canopies one with -another, and along this balustrade are perched strange figures of -sitting beasts, unicorns and mermaids, griffins and monstrous owls. -Huge, terrible gargoyles hang far over into the street, and doubtless -some of them have a detail which I afterwards noticed at Laon. The -gargoyle represents a grotesque beast—a creature partaking at once of -the shape of a bird, a fish, and a quadruped. At Laon, on either side of -the main entrance, a long-bellied monster cranes forth into the air with -the head of a hippopotamus; and under its belly crouches a little man, -hardly less grotesque, making up a rueful grimace and playing some -ineffectual trick upon his terrible companion. One of these little -figures has plunged a sword, up to the hilt, into the belly of the -monster above him, so that when he draws it forth there will be a leak -in the great stone gutter; another has suspended himself to a rope that -is knotted round the neck of the gargoyle, and is trying in the same -manner to interrupt its functions by pulling the cord as tight as -possible. There was sure to be a spirit of life in an architectural -conception that could range from the combination of clustering towers -and opposing fronts to this infinitely minute play of humour. -</p> -<p> -There is no great play of humour in the interior of Rheims, but there is -a great deal of beauty and solemnity. This interior is a spectacle that -excites the sensibility, as our forefathers used to say; but it is not -an easy matter to describe. It is no description of it to say that it is -four hundred and sixty-six feet in length, and that the roof is one -hundred and twenty-four feet above the pavement; nor is there any very -vivid portraiture in the statement that if there is no coloured glass in -the lower windows, there is, <i>per contra</i>, a great deal of the most -gorgeous and most ancient in the upper ones. The long sweep of the nave, -from the threshold to the point where the coloured light-shafts of the -choir lose themselves in the gray distance, is a triumph of -perpendicular perspective. The white light in the lower part of Rheims -really contributes to the picturesqueness of the interior. It makes the -gloom above look richer still, and throws that part of the roof which -rests upon the gigantic piers of the transepts into mysterious -remoteness. I wandered about for a long time; I sat first in one place -and then in another; I attached myself to that most fascinating part of -every great church, the angle at which the nave and transept divide. It -was the better to observe this interesting point, I think, that I passed -into the side gate of the choir—the gate that stood ajar in the -tall gilded railing. I sat down on a stool near the threshold; I leaned -back against the side of one of the stalls; the church was empty, and I -lost myself in the large perfection of the place. I lost myself, but the -beadle found me; he stood before me, and with a silent, imperious -gesture, motioned me to depart. I risked an argumentative glance, -whereupon he signified his displeasure, repeated his gesture, and -pointed to an old gentleman with a red cape, who had come into the choir -softly, without my seeing him, and had seated himself in one of the -stalls. This old gentleman seemed plunged in pious thoughts; I was not, -after all, very near him, and he did not look as if I disturbed him. A -canon is at any time, I imagine, a more merciful man than a beadle. But -of course I obeyed the beadle, and eliminated myself from this -peculiarly sacred precinct. I found another chair, and I fell to -admiring the cathedral again. But this time I think it was with a -difference—a difference which may serve as an excuse for the -triviality of my anecdote. Sundry other old gentlemen in red capes -emerged from the sacristy and went into the choir; presently, when there -were half a dozen, they began to chant, and I perceived that the -impending vespers had been the reason of my expulsion. This was highly -proper, and I forgave the beadle; but I was not so happy as before, for -my thoughts had passed out of the architectural channel into—what -shall I say?—into the political. Here they found nothing so sweet -to feed upon. It was the 5th of October; ten days later the elections -for the new Chamber were to take place—the Chamber which was to -replace the Assembly dissolved on the 16th of May by Marshal MacMahon, -on a charge of "latent" radicalism. Stranger though one was, it was -impossible not to be much interested in the triumph of the republican -cause; it was impossible not to sympathise with this supreme effort of a -brilliant and generous people to learn the lesson of national -self-control and self-government. It was impossible by the same token, -not to have noted and detested the alacrity with which the Catholic -party had rallied to the reactionary cause, and the unction with which -the clergy had converted itself into the go-betweens of Bonapartism. The -clergy was giving daily evidence of its devotion to arbitrary rule and -to every iniquity that shelters itself behind the mask of "authority." -These had been frequent and irritating reflections; they lurked in the -folds of one's morning paper. They came back to me in the midst of that -tranquil grandeur of Rheims, as I listened to the droning of the old -gentlemen in the red capes. Some of the canons, it was painful to -observe, had not been punctual; they came hurrying gut of the sacristy -after the service had, begun. They looked like amiable and venerable -men; their chanting and droning, as it spread itself under the great -arches, was not disagreeable to listen to; I could certainly bear them -no grudge. But their presence there was distracting and vexatious; it -had spoiled my enjoyment of their church, in which I doubtless had no -business. It had set me thinking of the activity and vivacity of the -great organisation to which they belonged, and of all the odious things -it would have done before the 15th of October. To what base uses do we -come at last! It was this same organisation that had erected the -magnificent structure around and above me, and which had then seemed an -image of generosity and benignant power. Such an edifice might at times -make one feel tenderly sentimental toward the Catholic church—make -one remember how many of the great achievements of the past we owe to -her. To lapse gently into this state of mind seems indeed always, while -one strolls about a great cathedral, a proper recognition of its -hospitality; but now I had lapsed gently out of it, and it was one of -the exasperating elements of the situation that I felt, in a manner, -called upon to decide how far such a lapse was unbecoming. I found -myself even extending the question a little, and picturing to myself -that conflict which must often occur at such a moment as the -present—which is actually going on, doubtless, in many thousands -of minds—between the actively; practically liberal instinct and -what one may call the historic, æsthetic sense, the sense upon which -old cathedrals lay a certain palpable obligation. How far should a lover -of old cathedrals let his hands be tied by the sanctity of their -traditions? How far should he let his imagination bribe him, as it were, -from action? This of course is a question for each man to answer for -himself; but as I sat listening to the drowsy old canons of Rheims, I -was visited, I scarcely know why, by a kind of revelation of the -anti-catholic passion, as it must bum to-day in the breasts of certain -radicals. I felt that such persons must be intent upon war to the death; -how that must seem the most sacred of all duties. Can anything, in the -line of action, for a votary of the radical creed, be more sacred? I -asked myself; and can any instruments be too trenchant? I raised my eyes -again to the dusky splendour of the upper aisles and measured their -enchanting perspective, and it was with a sense of doing them full -justice that I gave my fictive liberal my good wishes. -</p> -<p> -This little operation restored my equanimity, so that I climbed several -hundred steps and wandered lightly over the roof of the cathedral. -Climbing into cathedral-towers and gaping at the size of the statues -that look small from the street has always seemed to me a rather brutal -pastime; it is not the proper way to treat a beautiful building; it is -like holding one's nose so close to a picture that one sees only the -grain of the canvas. But when once I had emerged into the upper -wilderness of Rheims the discourse of a very urbane and appreciative old -bell-ringer, whom I found lurking behind some gigantic excrescence, gave -an aesthetic complexion to what would otherwise have been a rather -vulgar feat of gymnastics. It was very well to see what a great -cathedral is made of, and in these high places of the immensity of -Rheims I found the matter very impressively illustrated. I wandered for -half an hour over endless expanses of roof, along the edge of sculptured -abysses, through hugely-timbered attics and chambers that were in -themselves as high as churches. I stood knee-high to strange images, of -unsuspected proportions, and I followed the topmost staircase of one of -the towers, which curls upward like the groove of a corkscrew, and gives -you at the summit a hint of how a sailor feels at the masthead. The -ascent was worth making to learn the fulness of beauty of the church, -the solidity and perfection, the mightiness of arch and buttress, the -latent ingenuity of detail. At the angles of the balustrade which -ornaments the roof of the choir are perched a series of huge sitting -eagles, which from below, as you look up at them, produce a great -effect. They are immense, grim-looking birds, and the sculptor has given -to each of them a pair of very neatly carved human legs, terminating in -talons. Why did he give them human legs? Why did he indulge in this -ridiculous conceit? I am unable to say, but the conceit afforded me -pleasure. It seemed to tell of an imagination always at play, fond of -the unexpected and delighting in its labour. -</p> -<p> -Apart from its cathedral Rheims is not an interesting city. It has a -prosperous, modern, mercantile air. The streets look as if at one time -M. Haussmann, in person, may have taken a good deal of exercise in them; -they prove, however, that a French provincial town may be a wonderfully -fresh, clean, comfortable-looking place. Very different is the aspect of -the ancient city of Laon, to which you may, by the assistance of the -railway, transfer yourself from Rheims in a little more than an hour. -Laon is full of history, and the place, as you approach it, reminds you -of a quaint-woodcut in the text of an ancient folio. Out of the midst of -a smiling plain rises a goodly mountain, and on the top of the mountain -is perched the old feudal <i>commune</i>, from the centre of which springs, -with infinite majesty, the many-towered cathedral. At Laon you are in -the midst of old France; it is one of the most interesting chapters of -the past. Ever since reading in the pages of M. Thierry the story of the -fierce straggle for municipal independence waged by this ardent little -city against its feudal and ecclesiastical lords, I had had the -conviction that Laon was worthy of a visit. All the more so that her two -hundred years of civic fermentation had been vainly spent, and that in -the early part of the fourteenth century she had been disfranchised -without appeal. M. Thierry's readers will remember the really thrilling -interest of the story which he has selected as the most complete and -typical among those of which the records of the mediæval communities -are full; the complications and fluctuations of the action, its -brilliant episodes, its sombre, tragic <i>dénoûment</i>, I did not visit -Laon with the <i>Lettres sur l'Histoire de France</i> in my pocket, nor -had I any other historic texts for reference; but a vague notion of the -vigorous manner in which for a couple of centuries the stubborn little -town had attested its individuality supplied my observations with an -harmonious background. Nothing can well be more picturesque than the -position of this interesting city. The tourist who has learned his trade -can tell a "good" place at a glance. The moment Laon became visible from -the window of the train I perceived that Laon was good. And then I had -the word for it of an extremely intelligent young officer of artillery, -who shared my railway-carriage in coming from Rheims, and who spoke with -an authority borrowed from three years of garrison-life on that windy -hill-top. He affirmed that the only recreation it afforded was a walk -round the ramparts which encircle the town; people went down the hill as -little as possible—it was such a dreadful bore to come up again. But -he declared, nevertheless, that, as an intelligent traveller, I should be -enchanted with the place; that the cathedral was magnificent, the view -of the surrounding country a perpetual entertainment, and the little -town full of originality. After I had spent a day there I thought of -this pleasant young officer and his familiar walk upon the city-wall; he -gave a point to my inevitable reflections upon the degree to which at -the present hour, in France, the front of the stage is occupied by the -army. Inevitable reflections, I say, because the net result of any -little tour that one may make just now is a vivid sense of red trousers -and cropped heads. Wherever you go you come upon a military quarter, you -stumble upon a group of young citizens in uniform. It is always a pretty -spectacle; they enliven the scene; they touch it here and there with an -effusion of colour. But this is not the whole of the matter, and when -you have admitted that it is pictorial to be always <i>sous les armes</i>, -you fall to wondering whether it is not very expensive. A million of -defenders take up a good deal of room, even for defenders. It must be -very uncomfortable to be always defending. How do the young men bear it; -how does France bear it; how long will she be able to keep it up? Every -young Frenchman, on reaching maturity, has to give up five years of his -life to this bristling Minotaur of military service. It is hard for a -nation of shameless civilians to understand how life is arranged among -people who come into the world with this heavy mortgage upon the -freshest years of their strength; it seems like drinking the wine of -life from a vessel with a great leak in the bottom. Is such a <i>régime</i> -inspiring, or is it demoralising? Is the effect of it to quicken the -sentiment of patriotism, the sense of the daggers to which one's country -is exposed and of what one owes to the common cause, or to take the edge -from all ambition that is not purely military, to force young men to say -that there is no use trying, that nothing is worth beginning, and that a -young fellow condemned to pay such a tax as that has a right to refund -himself in any way that is open to him? Reminded as one is at every step -of the immensity of the military burden of France, the most interesting -point seems to me not its economical but its moral bearing. Its effect -upon the finances of the country may be accurately computed; its effect -upon the character of the young generation is more of a mystery. As the -analytic tourist wanders of an autumn afternoon upon the planted rampart -of an ancient town and meets young soldiers strolling in couples or -leaning against the parapet and looking off at the quiet country, he is -apt to take the more genial view of the dreadful trade of arms. He is -disposed to say that it teaches its votaries something that is worth -knowing and yet is not learned in several other trades—the hardware, -say, or the dry-goods business. Five years is a good deal to ask of a -young life as a sacrifice; but the sacrifice is in some ways a gain. -Certainly, apart from the question of material defence, it may be said -that no European nation, at present, can afford, morally, not to pass -her young men, the hope of the country, through the military mill. It -does for them something indispensable; it toughens, hardens, solidifies -them; gives them an ideal of honour, of some other possibility in life -than making a fortune. A country in which the other trades I spoke of -have it all their own way appears, in comparison, less educated. -</p> -<p> -So I mused, as I strolled in the afternoon along the charming old -city-wall at Laon; and if my meditations seem pretentious or fallacious, -I must say in justice that I had been a good while coming to them. I had -done a great many things first. I had climbed up the long straight -staircase which has been dropped like a scaling-ladder from one of the -town-gates to the bottom of the hill. Laon still has her gates as she -still has her wall, and one of these, the old Porte d'Ardon, is a really -precious relic of mediæval architecture. I had repaired to the sign of the -<i>Hure</i>—a portrait of this inhospitable beast is swung from the -front of the inn—and bespoken a lodging; I had spent a long time in -the cathedral, in it and before it, beside it, behind it; I had walked -all over the town, from the citadel, at one end of the lofty plateau on -which it stands, to the artillery-barracks and the charming old church -of St. Martin at the other. The cathedral of Laon has not the elaborate -grandeur of that of Rheims; but it is a very noble and beautiful church. -Nothing can be finer than its position; it would set off any church to -stand on such a hill-crest. Laon has also a façade of many sculptures, -which, however, has suffered greater violence than that of Rheims, and -is now being carefully and delicately restored. Whole figures and -bas-reliefs have lately been replaced by exact imitations in that fresh -white French stone which looks at first like a superior sort of plaster. -They were far gone, and I suppose the restorer's hand was imperiously -called for. I do not know that it has been too freely used. But half the -charm of Laon is the magnificent colouring of brownish, weather-battered -gray which it owes to the great exposure of its position, and it will be -many a year before the chalky scars and patches will be wrought into -dusky harmony with the rest of the edifice. Fortunately, however, they -promise not to be very numerous; the principal restorations have taken -place inside. I know not what all this labour costs; but I was -interested in learning from the old bell-ringer at Rheims that the sum -voted by the Chamber for furbishing up his own church was two millions -of francs, to be expended during ten years. That is what it is to have -"national monuments" to keep up. One is apt to think of the fourteenth -century as a rather ill-appointed and comfortless period; but the fact -that at the present time the mere repair of one of its buildings costs -forty thousand dollars a year would indicate that the original builders -had a great deal of money to spend. The cathedral of Laon was intended -to be a wonderful cluster of towers, but only two of these -ornaments—the couple above the west front—have been carried to -a great altitude; the pedestals of the rest, however, detach themselves -with much vigour, and contribute to the complicated and somewhat fantastic -look which the church wears at a distance, and which makes its great -effectiveness. The finished towers are admirably light and graceful; -with the sky shining through their large interstices they suggest an -imitation of timber in masonry. They have one very quaint feature. From -their topmost portions, at each angle, certain carven heads of oxen peep -forward with a startling naturalness—a tribute to the patient, -powerful beasts who dragged the material of the building up the long -zig-zags of the mountain. We perhaps treat our dumb creatures better to-day -than was done five hundred years ago; but I doubt whether a modern -architect, in settling his accounts, would have "remembered," as they say, -the oxen. -</p> -<p> -The whole precinct of the cathedral of Laon is picturesque. There is a -charming Palais de Justice beside it, separated from it by a pleasant, -homely garden, in which, as you walk about, you have an excellent view -of the towering back and sides of the great church. The Palais de -Justice, which is an ancient building, has a fine old gothic arcade, and -on the other side, directly upon the city-wall, a picturesque, irregular -rear, with a row of painted windows, through which, from the <i>salle -d'audience</i>, the judge on the bench and the prisoner in the dock may -enjoy a prospect, admonitory, inspiring, or depressing, as the case may -be, of the expanded country. This great sea-like plain that lies beneath -the town on all sides constitutes, for Laon, a striking resemblance to -those Italian cities—Siena, Volterra, Perugia—which the -traveller remembers so fondly as a dark silhouette lifted high against a -glowing sunset. There is something Italian, too, in the mingling of rock -and rampart in the old foundations of the town, and in the generous -verdure in which these are muffled. At one end of the hill-top the -plateau becomes a narrow ridge; the slope makes a deep indentation, -which contributes to the effect of a thoroughly Italian picture. A line -of crooked little red-roofed houses stands on the edge of this -indentation, with their feet in the tangled verdure that blooms in it; -and above them rises a large, florid, deserted-looking church, which you -may be sure has a little empty, grass-grown, out-of-the-way <i>place</i> -before it. Almost opposite, on another spur of the hill, the gray walls -of a suppressed convent peep from among the trees. I might have been at -Perugia. -</p> -<p> -There came in the evening to the inn of the Hure a very worthy man who -had vehicles to hire. The Hure was decidedly a provincial hostelry, and -I compared it mentally with certain English establishments of a like -degree, of which I had lately had observation. In England I should have -had a waiter in an old evening-suit and a white cravat, who would have -treated me to cold meat and bread and cheese. There would have been a -musty little inn-parlour and probably a very good fire in the grate, and -the festally-attired waiter would have been my sole entertainer. At Laon -I was in perpetual intercourse with the landlord and his wife, and a -large body of easy-going, confidential domestics. Our intercourse was -carried on in an old darksome stone kitchen, with shining copper vessels -hanging all over the walls, in which I was free to wander about and take -down my key in one place and rummage out my candlestick in another, -while the domestics sat at table eating <i>pot-au-feu</i>. The landlord -cooked the dinner; he wore a white cap and apron; he brought in the -first dish at the table d'hôte. Of course there was a table d'hôte, -with several lamps and a long array of little dessert-dishes, for the -benefit of two commercial travellers, who tucked their napkins into -their necks, and the writer of these lines. Every country has its -manners. In England the benefits—whatever they -are—represented by the evening dress of the waiter would have been -most apparent; in France one was more sensible of the blessings of which -the white cap and apron of the host were a symbol. In England, -certainly, one is treated more as a gentleman. It is too often -forgotten, however, that even a gentleman partakes of nourishment. But I -am forgetting my dispenser of vehicles, concerning whom, however, and -whose large red cheeks and crimson cravat, I have left myself room to -say no more than that they were witnesses of a bargain that I should be -driven early on the morrow morning, in an "Américaine," to the Château -de Coucy. The Américaine proved to be a vehicle of which I should not -have been eager to claim the credit for my native land; but with the aid -of a ragged but resolute little horse, and a driver so susceptible as -regards his beast's appearance that, referring to the exclamation of -dismay with which I had greeted it, he turned to me at the end of each -successive kilometre with a rancorous "<i>Now</i>, do you say he can't -go?"—with these accessories, I say, it conveyed me more than -twenty miles. It was entertaining to wind down the hillside from Laon in -the early morning of a splendid autumn day; to dip into the glistening -plain, all void of hedges and fences, and sprinkled with light and dew; -to jog along the straight white roads, between the tall, thin poplars; -to rattle through the half-waked villages and past the orchards heavy -with sour-looking crimson apples. The Château de Coucy is a well-known -monument; it is one of the most considerable ruins in France, and it is -in some respects the most extraordinary. As you come from Laon a turn in -the road suddenly, at last, reveals it to you. It is still at a -distance; you will not reach it for half an hour; but its huge white -donjon stands up like some gigantic lighthouse at sea. Coucy is -altogether on a grand scale, but this colossal, shining cylinder is a -wonder of bigness. As M. Viollet-le-Duc says, it seems to have been -built by giants for a race of giants. The very quaint little town of -Coucy-le-Château nestles at the foot of this strange, half-substantial, -half-spectral structure; it was, together with a goodly part of the -neighbouring country, the feudal appanage of those terrible lords who -erected the present indestructible edifice, and whose "boastful motto" -(I quote from Murray) was -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"Roi je ne suis,</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Prince ni comte aussi;</span><br /> -<span class="i2">Je suis le Sire de Coucy."</span> -</div></div> - -<p> -Coucy is a sleepy little borough, still girdled with its ancient wall, -entered by its old gateways, and supported on the verdurous flanks of a -hill-top. I interviewed the host of the Golden Apple in his kitchen; I -breakfasted—<i>ma foi, fort bien</i>, as they would say in the -indigenous tongue—in his parlour; and then I visited the château, -which is at five minutes' walk. This very interesting ruin is the -property of the state, and the state is represented by a very civil and -intelligent woman, who divests the trade of custodian of almost all its -grossness. Any feudal ruin is a charming affair, and Coucy has much of -the sweet melancholy of its class. There are four great towers, -connected by a massive curtain and enclosing the tremendous donjon of -which I just now spoke. All this is very crumbling and silvery; the -enclosure is a tangle of wild verdure, and the pigeons perch upon the -inaccessible battlements exactly where the sketcher would wish them. But -the place lacked, to my sense, the peculiar softness and venerableness, -the ivied mellowness, of a great English ruin. At Coucy there is no ivy -to speak of; the climate has not caressed and embroidered the rugged -masses of stone. This is what I meant by speaking of the famous donjon -as spectral; the term is an odd one to apply to an edifice whose walls -are thirty-four feet thick. Its vast, pale surface has not a speck nor a -stain, not a clinging weed nor a creeping plant. It looks like a tower -of ivory. -</p> -<p> -I took my way from Coucy to the ancient town of Soissons, where I found -another cathedral, from which, I think, I extracted all the -entertainment it could legitimately yield. There is little other to be -had at Soissons, in spite of the suggestiveness of its name, which is -redolent of history and local colour. The truth is, I suppose, that -Soissons looks so new, precisely because she is so old. She is in her -second youth; she has renewed herself. The old city was worn out; it -could no longer serve; it has been succeeded by another. The new one is a -quiet, rather aristocratic-looking little <i>ville de province</i>—a -collection of well-conditioned, sober-faced abodes of gentility, with -high-walled gardens behind them and very carefully closed -portes-cochère in front. Occasionally a porte-cochère opens; an -elderly lady in black emerges and paces discreetly away. An old -gentleman has come to the door with her. He is comfortably corpulent; he -wears gold spectacles and embroidered slippers. He looks up and down the -dull street, and sees nothing at all; then he retires, closing the -porte-cochère very softly and firmly. But he has stood there long -enough to give an observant stranger the impression of a cautious -provincial bourgeoisie that has a solid fortune well invested, and that -marries its daughters only <i>à bon escient</i>. This latter ceremony, -however, whenever it occurs, probably takes place in the cathedral, and -though resting on a prosaic foundation must borrow a certain grace from -that charming building. The cathedral of Soissons has a statueless front -and only a single tower; but it is full of a certain natural elegance. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap05"></a></p> - -<h4>V -<br /><br /> -CHARTRES -<br /><br /> -1876</h4> - -<p> -The spring, in Paris, since it has fairly begun, has been enchanting. -The sun and the moon have been blazing in emulation, and the difference -between the blue sky of day and of night has been as slight as possible. -There are no clouds in the sky, but there are little thin green clouds, -little puffs of raw, tender verdure, entangled among the branches of the -trees. All the world is in the streets; the chairs and tables which have -stood empty all winter before the doors of the cafés are at a premium; -the theatres have become intolerably close; the puppet-shows in the -Champs Elysées are the only form of dramatic entertainment which seems -consistent with the season. By way of doing honour, at a small cost, to -this ethereal mildness, I went out the other day to the ancient town of -Chartres, where I spent several hours, which I cannot consent to pass -over as if nothing had happened. It is the experience of the writer of -these lines, who likes nothing so much as moving about to see the world, -that if one has been for a longer time than usual resident and -stationary, there is a kind of overgrown entertainment in taking the -train, even for a suburban goal; and that if one takes it on a charming -April day, when there is a sense, almost an odour, of change in the air, -the innocent pleasure is as nearly as possible complete. My -accessibility to emotions of this kind amounts to an infirmity, and the -effect of it was to send me down to Chartres in a shamelessly optimistic -state of mind. I was so prepared to be entertained and pleased with -everything that it is only a mercy that the cathedral happens really to -be a fine building. If it had not been, I should still have admired it -inordinately, at the risk of falling into heaven knows what æsthetic -heresy. But I am almost ashamed to say how soon my entertainment began. -It began, I think with my hailing a little open carriage on the -Boulevard and causing myself to be driven to the Gare de l'Ouest—far -away across the river, up the Rue Bonaparte, of art-student memories, -and along the big, straight Rue de Rennes to the Boulevard Montparnasse. Of -course, at this rate, by the time I reached Chartres—the journey is -of a couple of hours—I had almost drained the cup of pleasure. But it -was replenished at the station, at the buffet, from the pungent bottle -of wine I drank with my breakfast. Here, by the way, is another -excellent excuse for being delighted with any day's excursion in -France—that wherever you are, you may breakfast to your taste. There -may, indeed, if the station is very small, be no buffet; but if there is -a buffet, you may be sure that civilisation—in the persons of a -sympathetic young woman in a well-made black dress, and a rapid, zealous, -grateful waiter—presides at it. It was quite the least, as the French -say, that after my breakfast I should have thought the cathedral, -as I saw it from the top of the steep hill on which the town stands, -rising high above the clustered houses and seeming to make of their -red-roofed agglomeration a mere pedestal for its immense beauty, -promised remarkably well. You see it so as you emerge from the station, -and then, as you climb slowly into town, you lose sight of it. You -perceive Chartres to be a rather shabby little <i>ville de province</i>, -with a few sunny, empty open places, and crooked shady streets, in which -two or three times you lose your way, until at last, after more than once -catching a glimpse, high above some slit between the houses, of the -clear gray towers shining against the blue sky, you push forward again, -risk another short cut, turn another interposing corner, and stand -before the goal of your pilgrimage. -</p> -<p> -I spent a long time looking at this monument. I revolved around it, like -a moth around a candle; I went away and I came back; I chose twenty -different standpoints; I observed it during the different hours of the -day, and saw it in the moonlight as well as the sunshine. I gained, in a -word, a certain sense of familiarity with it; and yet I despair of -giving any coherent account of it. Like most French cathedrals, it rises -straight out of the street, and is destitute of that setting of turf and -trees and deaneries and canonries which contribute so largely to the -impressiveness of the great English churches. Thirty years ago a row of -old houses was glued to its base and made their back walls of its -sculptured sides. These have been plucked away, and, relatively -speaking, the church is fairly isolated. But the little square that -surrounds it is deplorably narrow, and you flatten your back against the -opposite houses in the vain attempt to stand off and survey the towers. -The proper way to look at them would be to go up in a balloon and hang -poised, face to face with them, in the blue air. There is, however, -perhaps an advantage in being forced to stand so directly under them, -for this position gives you an overwhelming impression of their height. -I have seen, I suppose, churches as beautiful as this one, but I do not -remember ever to have been so fascinated by superpositions and vertical -effects. The endless upward reach of the great west front, the clear, -silvery tone of its surface, the way three or four magnificent features -are made to occupy its serene expanse, its simplicity, majesty, and -dignity—these things crowd upon one's sense with a force that makes -the act of vision seem for the moment almost all of life. The impressions -produced by architecture lend themselves as little to interpretation by -another medium as those produced by music. Certainly there is an -inexpressible harmony in the façade of Chartres. -</p> -<p> -The doors are rather low, as those of the English cathedrals are apt to -be, but (standing three together) are set in a deep framework of -sculpture—rows of arching grooves, filled with admirable little -images, standing with their heels on each other's heads. The church, as it -now exists, except the northern tower, dates from the middle of the -thirteenth century, and these closely-packed figures are full of the -grotesqueness of the period. Above the triple portals is a vast -round-topped window, in three divisions, of the grandest dimensions and -the stateliest effect. Above this window is a circular aperture, of huge -circumference, with a double row of sculptured spokes radiating from its -centre and looking on its lofty field of stone, as expansive and -symbolic as if it were the wheel of Time itself. Higher still is a -little gallery with a delicate balustrade, supported on a beautiful -cornice and stretching across the front from tower to tower; and above -this is a range of niched statues of kings—fifteen, I believe, in -number. Above the statues is a gable, with an image of the Virgin and -Child on its front, and another of Christ on its apex. In the relation -of all these parts there is such a high felicity that while on the one -side the eye rests on a great many large blanks there is no approach on -the other to poverty. The little gallery that I have spoken of, beneath -the statues of the kings, had for me a peculiar charm. Useless, at its -tremendous altitude, for other purposes, it seemed intended for the -little images to step down and walk about upon. When the great façade -begins to glow in the late afternoon light, you can imagine them -strolling up and down their long balcony in couples, pausing with their -elbows on the balustrade, resting their stony chins in their hands, and -looking out, with their little blank eyes, on the great view of the old -French monarchy they once ruled, and which now has passed away. The two -great towers of the cathedral are among the noblest of their kind. They -rise in solid simplicity to a height as great as the eye often troubles -itself to travel, and then suddenly they begin to execute a magnificent -series of feats in architectural gymnastics. This is especially true of -the northern spire, which is a late creation, dating from the sixteenth -century. The other is relatively quiet; but its companion is a sort of -tapering bouquet of sculptured stone. Statues and buttresses, gargoyles, -arabesques and crockets pile themselves in successive stages, until the -eye loses the sense of everything but a sort of architectural lacework. -The pride of Chartres, after its front, is the two portals of its -transepts—great dusky porches, in three divisions, covered with more -images than I have time to talk about. Wherever you look, along the -sides of the church, a time-worn image is niched or perched. The face of -each flying buttress is garnished with one, with the features quite -melted away. -</p> -<p> -The inside of the cathedral corresponds in vastness and grandeur to the -outside—it is the perfection of gothic in its prime. But I looked at -it rapidly, the place was so intolerably cold. It seemed to answer one's -query of what becomes of the winter when the spring chases it away. The -winter hereabouts has sought an asylum in Chartres cathedral, where it -has found plenty of room and may reside in a state of excellent -preservation until it can safely venture abroad again. I supposed I had -been in cold churches before, but the delusion had been an injustice to -the temperature of Chartres. The nave was full of the little padded -chairs of the local bourgeoisie, whose faith, I hope for their comfort, -is of the good old red-hot complexion. In a higher temperature I should -have done more justice to the magnificent old glass of the -windows—which glowed through the icy dusk like the purple and orange -of a winter sunset—and to the immense sculptured external casing of -the choir. This latter is an extraordinary piece of work. It is a high -gothic screen, shutting in the choir, and covered with elaborate -bas-reliefs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, representing -scenes from the life of Christ and of the Virgin. Some of the figures -are admirable, and the effect of the whole great semicircular wall, -chiselled like a silver bowl, is superb. There is also a crypt of high -antiquity and, I believe, great interest, to be seen; but my teeth -chattered a respectful negative to the sacristan who offered to guide me -to it It was so agreeable to stand in the warm outer air again, that I -spent the rest of the day in it. -</p> -<p> -Although, besides its cathedral, Chartres has no very rare architectural -treasures, the place is pictorial, in a shabby, third-rate, -poverty-stricken degree, and my observations were not unremunerative. -There is a little church of Saint-Aignan, of the sixteenth century, with -an elegant, decayed façade, and a small tower beside it, lower than its -own roof, to which it is joined, in unequal twinship, by a single long -buttress. Standing there with its crumbling Renaissance doorway, in a -kind of grass-grown alcove, it reminded me of certain monuments that the -tourist encounters in small Italian towns. Most of the streets of -Chartres are crooked lanes, winding over the face of the steep hill, the -summit of the hill being occupied by half a dozen little open squares, -which seem like reservoirs of the dulness and stillness that flow -through the place. In the midst of one of them rises an old dirty brick -obelisk, commemorating the glories of the young General Marceau, of the -first Republic—"Soldier at 16, general at 23, he died at 27." Such -memorials, when one comes upon them unexpectedly, produce in the mind a -series of circular waves of feeling, like a splash in a quiet pond. -Chartres gives us an impression of extreme antiquity, but it is an -antiquity that has gone down in the world. I saw very few of those -stately little hôtels, with pilastered fronts, which look so well in -the silent streets of provincial towns. The houses are mostly low, -small, and of sordid aspect, and though many of them have overhanging -upper stories, and steep, battered gables, they are rather wanting in -character. I was struck, as an American always is in small French and -English towns, with the immense number of shops, and their brilliant -appearance, which seems so out of proportion to any visible body of -consumers. At Chartres the shopkeepers must all feed upon each other, -for, whoever buys, the whole population sells. This population appeared -to consist mainly of several hundred brown old peasant women, in the -seventies and eighties, with their faces cross-hatched with wrinkles and -their quaint white coifs drawn tightly over their weather-blasted -eye-brows. Labour-stricken grandams, all the world over, are the -opposite of lovely, for the toil that wrestles for its daily bread, -morsel by morsel, is not beautifying; but I thought I had never seen the -possibilities of female ugliness so variously embodied as in the crones -of Chartres. Some of them were leading small children by the -hand—little red-cheeked girls, in the close black caps and black -pinafores of humble French infancy—a costume which makes French -children always look like orphans. Others were guiding along the flinty -lanes the steps of small donkeys, some of them fastened into little -carts, some with well-laden backs. These were the only quadrupeds I -perceived at Chartres. Neither horse nor carriage did I behold, save at -the station the omnibuses of the rival inns—the "Grand Monarque" and -the "Duc de Chartres"—which glare at each other across the Grande -Place. A friend of mine told me that a few years ago, passing through -Chartres, he went by night to call upon a gentleman who lived there. -During his visit it came on to rain violently, and when the hour for his -departure arrived the rain had made the streets impassable. There was no -vehicle to be had, and my friend was resigning himself to a soaking. -"You can be taken of course in the sedan-chair," said his host with -dignity. The sedan-chair was produced, a couple of serving-men grasped the -handles, my friend stepped into it, and went swinging back—through -the last century—to the "Grand Monarque." This little anecdote, I -imagine, still paints Chartres socially. -</p> -<p> -Before dinner I took a walk on the planted promenade which encircles the -town—the Tour-de-ville it is called—much of which is extremely -picturesque. Chartres has lost her walls as a whole, but here and there -they survive, and play a desultory part in holding the town together. In -one place the rampart is really magnificent—smooth, strong and lofty, -curtained with ivy, and supporting on its summit an old convent and its -garden. Only one of the city-gates remains—a narrow arch of the -fourteenth century, flanked by two admirable round towers, and preceded -by a fosse. If you stoop a little, as you stand outside, the arch of -this hoary old gate makes a capital setting for the picture of the -interior of the town, and, on the inner hill-top, against the sky, the -large gray mass of the cathedral. The ditch is full, and to right and to -left it flows along the base of the mouldering wall, through which the -shabby backs of houses extrude, and which is garnished with little -wooden galleries, lavatories of the town's soiled linen. These little -galleries are filled with washerwomen, who crane over and dip their -many-coloured rags into the yellow stream. The old patched and -interrupted wall, the ditch with its weedy edges, the spots of colour, -the white-capped laundresses in their little wooden cages—one lingers -to look at it all. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap06"></a></p> - -<h4>VI -<br /><br /> -ROUEN -<br /><br /> -1876</h4> - -<p> -It is quite in the nature of things that a Parisian correspondence -should have flagged during the last few weeks; for even the most -brilliant of capitals, when the summer has fairly begun to be summer, -affords few topics to the chronicler. To a chronicle of small beer such -a correspondence almost literally finds itself reduced. The -correspondent consumes a goodly number of those magnified thimblefuls of -this fluid, known in Paris as "bocks," and from the shadiest corner of -the coolest café he can discover watches the softened bitumen grow more -largely interspaced. There is little to do or to see, and therefore -little to write about. There is in fact only one thing to do, namely, to -get out of Paris. The lively imagination of the correspondent -anticipates his departure and takes flight to one of the innumerable -watering-places whose charms at this season are set forth in large -yellow and pink placards on all the empty walls. They order this matter, -like so many others, much better in France. Here you have not, as in -America, to hunt up the "summer retreat" about which you desire -information in a dense alphabetical list in the columns of a newspaper; -you are familiar with its merits for weeks before you start—you have -seen them half a dozen times a day emblazoned on the line of your -customary walk, over the hand and seal of the company that runs, as we -should say in America, the Casino. If you are detained in Paris, however, -after luckier mortals have departed—your reflections upon the -fate of the luckless mortals who do not depart at all are quite another -question, demanding another chapter—it does not perhaps make you much -happier to peruse these lyrical advertisements, which seem to flutter -with the breezes of Houlgate and Etretat. You must take your consolation -where you can find it, and it must be added that of all great cities -Paris is the most tolerable in hot weather. It is true that the asphalt -liquifies, and it is true that the brilliant limestone of which the city -is built reflects the sun with uncomfortable fierceness. It is also true -that of a summer evening you pay a penalty for living in the -best-lighted capital in the world. The inordinate amount of gas in the -streets makes the atmosphere hot and thick, so that even under the dim -constellations you feel of a July night as if you were in a big -music-hall If you look down at such a time upon the central portions of -Paris from a high window in a remoter quarter, you see them wrapped in a -lurid haze, of the devil's own brewing. But, on the other hand, there -are a hundred facilities for remaining out of doors. You are not obliged -to sit on a "stoop" or on a curbstone, as in New-York. The Boulevards -are a long chain of cafés, each one with its little promontory of -chairs and tables projecting into the sea of asphalt. These promontories -are doubtless not exactly islands of the blessed, peopled though some of -them may be with sirens addicted to beer, but they may help you to pass -a hot evening. Then you may dine in the Champs Elysées, at a table -spread under the trees, beside an ivied wall, and almost believe you are -in the country. This illusion, imperfect as it is, is a luxury, and must -be paid for accordingly; the dinner is not so good as at a restaurant on -the Boulevard, and is considerably dearer, and there is after all not -much difference in sitting with one's feet in dusty gravel or on a -sanded floor. But the whole situation is more idyllic. I indulged in a -cheap idyl the other day by taking the penny steamer down the Seine to -Auteuil (a very short sail), and dining at what is called in Parisian -parlance a <i>guingette</i> on the bank of the stream. It was a very humble -style of entertainment, but the most ambitious pursuit of pleasure can -do no more than succeed, and this was a success. The Seine at Auteuil is -wide, and is spanned by a stately viaduct of two tiers of arches, which -stands up against the sky in a picturesque and monumental manner. Your -table is spread under a trellis which scratches your head—spread -chiefly with fried fish—and an old man who looks like a political -exile comes and stands before it and sings a doleful ditty on the respect -due to white hairs. You testify by the bestowal of copper coin the esteem -with which his own inspire you, and he is speedily replaced by a lad -with one arm, who treats you to something livelier: -</p> - -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">"A la bonne heure; parlez-moi de ça!"</span> -</div></div> - -<p> -You eventually return to Paris on the top of a tramcar. It is a very -different affair to go out and dine at the Bois de Boulogne, at the -charming restaurant which is near the cascade and the Longchamp -racecourse. Here are no ballad-singers, but stately trees majestically -grouped and making long evening shadows on a lawn, and irreproachable -tables, and carriages rolling up behind high-stepping horses and -depositing all sorts of ladies. The drive back through the wood at night -is most charming, and the coolness of the air extreme, however hot you -may still be certain to find the city. -</p> -<p> -The best thing, therefore, is not to go back. I write these lines at an -inn at Havre, before a window which frames the picture of the seaward -path of the transatlantic steamers. One of the great black ships is at -this moment painted on the canvas, very near, and beginning its outward -journey. I watch it to the right-hand ledge of the window, which is as -far as so poor a sailor need be expected to follow it. The hotel at -Havre is called, for mysterious reasons, "Frascati"—reasons which I -give up the attempt to fathom, so undiscoverable are its points of -analogy with the lovely village of the same name which nestles among the -olives of the Roman hills. The locality has its charms, however. It is -very agreeable, for instance, at the end of a hot journey, to sit down -to dinner in a great open cage, hung over the Atlantic, and, while the -sea-breeze cools your wine, watch the swiftly-moving ships pass before -you like the figures on the field of a magic lantern. It is pleasant -also to open your eyes in the early dawn, before the light is intense, -and without moving your head on the pillow, enjoy the same clear vision -of the ocean highway. In the vague dusk, with their rapid gliding, the -passing vessels look like the ghosts of wrecked ships. Most seaports are -picturesque, and Havre is not the least so; but my enjoyment has been -not of my goal, but of my journey. -</p> -<p> -My head is full of the twenty-four hours I have just passed at Rouen, -and of the charming sail down the Seine to Honfleur. Rouen is a city of -very ancient renown, and yet I confess I was not prepared to find a -little town of so much expression. The traveller who treads the Rouen -streets at the present day sees but the shadow of their former -characteristics; for the besom of M. Haussmann has swept through the -city, and a train of "embellishments" has followed in its track. The -streets have been widened and straightened, and the old houses—gems -of mediæval domestic architecture—which formed the peculiar treasure -of the place, have been more than decimated. A great deal remains, however, -and American eyes are quick to make discoveries. The cathedral, the -churches, the Palais de Justice, are alone a splendid group of -monuments, and a stroll through the streets reveals a collection of -brown and sculptured façades, of quaintly-timbered gables, of curious -turrets and casements, of doorways which still may be called rich. Every -now and then a considerable stretch of duskiness and crookedness -delights the sentimental tourist who is to pass but a couple of nights -at Rouen, and who does not care if his favourite adjective happen to -imply another element which also is spelled with a <i>p</i>. It is nothing -to him that the picturesque is pestiferous. It is everything to him that -the great front of the cathedral is magnificently battered, heavy, -impressive. It has been defaced immensely, and is now hardly more than a -collection of empty niches. I do not mean, of course, that the wanton -tourist rejoices in the absence of the statues which once filled them, -but up to the present moment, at least, he is not sorry that the façade -has not been restored. It consists of a sort of screen, pierced in the -centre with a huge wheel-window, crowned with a pyramid of chiselled -needles and spires, flanked with two turrets capped with tall empty -canopies, and covered, generally, with sculptures—friezes, statues, -excrescences. On each side of it rises a great tower; one a rugged mass -of early Norman work, with little ornament save its hatcheted closed -arches, and its great naked base, as huge and white as the bottom of a -chalk-cliff; the other a specimen of sixteenth century gothic, extremely -flamboyant and confounding to the eye. The sides of the cathedral are as -yet more or less imbedded in certain black and dwarfish old houses, but -if you pass around them by a long détour, you arrive at two superb -lateral porches. The so-called Portail des Libraires, in especial, on -the northern side, is a magnificent affair, sculptured from summit to -base (it is now restored), and preceded by a long forecourt, in which -the guild of booksellers used to hold its musty traffic. From here you -see the immense central tower, perched above the junction of the -transepts and the nave, and crowned with a gigantic iron spire, lately -erected to replace one which was destroyed by lightning in the early -part of the century. This gaunt pyramid has the drawback, to American -eyes, of resembling too much the tall fire-towers which are seen in -transatlantic cities, and its dimensions are such that, viewed from a -distance, it fairly makes little Rouen look top-heavy. Behind the choir, -within, is a beautiful lady-chapel, and in this chapel are two -enchanting works of art. The larger and more striking of these is the -tomb of the two Cardinals d'Amboise, uncle and nephew—the elder, if I -mistake not, minister of Louis XII. It consists of a shallow, oblong -recess in the wall, lined with gilded and fretted marble, and corniced -with delicate little statues. Within the recess the figures of the two -cardinals are kneeling, with folded hands and ruggedly earnest faces, -their long robes spread out behind them with magnificent amplitude. They -are full of life, dignity, and piety; they look like portraits of -Holbein transferred into marble. The base of the monument is composed of -a series of admirable little images representing the cardinal and other -virtues, and the effect of the whole work is wonderfully grave and rich. -The discreet traveller will never miss an opportunity to come into a -great church at eventide—the hour when his fellow-travellers, less -discreet, are lingering over the table d'hôte, when the painted windows -glow with a deeper splendour, when the long wand of the beadle, slowly -tapping the pavement, or the shuffle of the old sacristan, has a ghostly -resonance along the empty nave, and three or four work-weary women, -before a dusky chapel, are mumbling for the remission of unimaginable -sins. At this hour, at Rouen, the tomb of the Duke of Brézé, husband -of Diana of Poitiers, placed opposite to the monument I have just -described, seemed to me the most beautiful thing in the world. It is -presumably the work of the delightful Jean Goujon, and it bears the -stamp of his graceful and inventive talent. The deceased is lying on his -back, almost naked, with a part of his shroud bound in a knot about his -head—a realistic but not a repulsive image of death. At his head -kneels the amiable Diana, in sober garments, all decency and devotion; at -his feet stands the Virgin, a charming young woman with a charming child. -Above, on another tier, the subject of the monument is represented in -the fulness of life, dressed as for a tournament, bestriding a -high-stepping war-horse, riding forth like a Roland or a Galahad. The -architecture of the tomb is exceedingly graceful and the subordinate -figures admirable, but the image of the dead Duke is altogether a -masterpiece. The other evening, in the solemn stillness and the fading -light of the great cathedral, it seemed irresistibly human and touching. -The spectator felt a sort of impulse to smooth out the shroud and -straighten the helpless hands. -</p> -<p> -The second church of Rouen, Saint-Ouen, the beautiful and harmonious, -has no monuments of this value, but it offers within a higher interest -than the Cathedral. Without, it looks like an English abbey, scraped and -restored, disencumbered of huddling neighbours and surrounded on three -sides by a beautiful garden. Seen to this excellent advantage it is one -of the noblest of churches; but within, it is one of the most -fascinating. My taste in architecture greatly resembles my opinions in -fruit; the particular melon or pear or peach that I am eating appears to -me to place either peaches, pears, or melons, beyond all other succulent -things. In the same way, in a fine building the present impression is -the one that convinces me most. This is deplorable levity; yet I risk -the affirmation <i>à propos</i> of Saint-Ouen. I can imagine no happier -combination of lightness and majesty. Its proportions bring tears to the -eyes. I have left myself space only to recommend the sail down the Seine -from Rouen to the mouth of the stream; but I recommend it in the highest -terms. The heat was extreme and the little steamer most primitive, but -the river is as entertaining as one could wish. It makes an infinite -number of bends and corners and angles, rounded off by a charming -vegetation. Abrupt and rocky hills go with it all the way—hills with -cornfields lying in their hollows and deep woods crowning their tops. -Out of the woodland peep old manors, and beneath, between the hills and -the stream, are high-thatched farmsteads, lying deep in their meadows -and orchards, cottages pallisaded with hollyhocks, gray old Norman -churches and villas flanked with big horse-chestnuts. It is a land of -peace and plenty, and remarkable to Anglo-Saxon eyes for the -English-looking details of its scenery. I noticed a hundred places where -one might have been in Kent as well as in Normandy. In fact it is almost -better than Kent, for Kent has no Seine. At the last the river becomes -unmistakably an arm of the sea, and as a river, therefore, less -interesting. But crooked little Honfleur, with its miniature port, -clinging to the side of a cliff as luxuriant as one of the headlands of -the Mediterranean, gratifies in a high degree the tourist with a -propensity for sketching. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap07"></a></p> - -<h4>VII -<br /><br /> -ETRETAT -<br /><br /> -1876</h4> - -<p> -The coast of Normandy and Picardy, from Trouville to Boulogne, is a -chain of <i>stations balnéaires</i>, each with its particular claim to -patronage. The grounds of the claim are in some cases not especially -obvious; but they are generally found to reside in the fact that if -one's spirits, on arriving, are low, so also are the prices. There are -the places that are dear and brilliant, like Trouville and Dieppe, and -places that are cheap and dreary, like Fécamp and Cabourg. Then there -are the places that are both cheap and pleasant. This delightful -combination of qualities may be found at the modest <i>plage</i> from which -I write these lines. At Etretat you may enjoy some of the finest -cliff-scenery it has been my fortune to behold, and you may breakfast -and dine at the principal hotel for the sum of five and a half francs a -day. You may engage a room in the town over the butcher's, the baker's, -the cobbler's, at a rate that will depend upon your talent for driving a -bargain, but that in no case will be exorbitant. Add to this that there -are no other opportunities at Etretat to spend money. You wear old -clothes, you walk about in canvas shoes, you deck your head with a -fisherman's cap (when made of white flannel these articles may be -extolled for their coolness, convenience, and picturesqueness), you lie -on the pebbly strand most of the day, watching the cliffs, the waves, -and the bathers; in the evening you converse with your acquaintance on -the terrace of the Casino, and you keep monkish hours. Though Etretat -enjoys great and deserved popularity, I see no symptoms of the decline of -these simple fashions—no menace of the invasion of luxury. A little -more luxury, indeed, might be imported without doing any harm; though -after all we soon learn that it is an idle enough prejudice that has -hitherto prevented us from keeping our soap in a sugar-dish and -regarding a small rock, placed against a door, as an efficient -substitute for a key. From a Parisian point of view, Etretat is -certainly primitive, but it would be affectation on the part of an -American to pretend that he was not agreeably surprised to find a -"summer resort," in which he had been warned that he would have to rough -it, so elaborately appointed and organised. Etretat may be primitive, -but Etretat is French, and therefore Etretat is "administered." -</p> -<p> -Like most of the French watering-places, the place has a limited past. -Twenty years ago it was but a cluster of fishing-huts. A group of -artists and literary people were its first colonists, and Alphonse Karr -became the mouthpiece of their enthusiasm. In vulgar phrase, he wrote up -Etretat, and he lives in legend, at the present hour, as the <i>genius -loci</i>. The main street is named after him; the gable of the chief -inn—the classic Hôtel Blanquet—is adorned with a coloured -medallion representing his cropped head and long beard; the shops are -stocked with his photographs and with pictures of his villa. Like the -magician who has evoked the spirit, he has made his how and retired; but -the artistic fraternity, his disciples, still haunt the place, and it -enjoys also the favour of theatrical people, three or four of whom, -having retired upon their laurels, possess villas here. From my open -window, as I write these lines, I look out beyond a little cluster of -clean housetops at the long green flank of the down, as it slopes to the -village from the summit of the cliff. To the right is the top of an old -storm-twisted grove of oaks, in the heart of which stands a brown old -farmhouse; then comes the sharp, even outline of the down, with its side -spotted with little flat bushes and wrinkled with winding paths, along -which here and there I see a bright figure moving; on the left, above -the edge of the cliff, stands a bleak little chapel, dedicated to our -Lady of the fishing-folk. Just here a provoking chimney starts up and -cuts off my view of the downward plunge of the cliff, showing me, with a -bar of blue ocean beyond, but a glimpse of its white cheek—its -fantastic profile is to the left. But there is not far to go to see -without impediments. Three minutes' walk along the Rue Alphonse Karr, -where every house is a shop, and every shop has lodgers above it, who -scramble bedward by a ladder and trap-door, brings you to the little -pebbly bay where the cliffs are perpendicular and the foreign life of -Etretat goes forward. At one end are the small fishing-smacks, with -their green sides and their black sails, resting crookedly upon the -stones; at the other is the Casino, and the two or three tiers of -bathing-houses on the slope of the beach in front of it. This beach may -be said to be Etretat. It is so steep and stony as to make circulation -impossible; one's only course is to plant a camp-chair among the stones -or to look for a soft spot in the pebbles, and to abide in the position -so chosen. And yet it is the spot in Etretat most sacred to tranquil -pleasure. -</p> -<p> -The French do not treat their beaches as we do ours—as places for a -glance, a dip, or a trot, places animated simply during the balneary -hours, and wrapped in natural desolation for the rest of the -twenty-four. They love them, they adore them, they take possession of -them, they live upon them. The people here sit upon the beach from -morning to night; whole families come early and establish themselves, -with umbrellas and rugs, books and work. The ladies get sunburnt and -don't mind it; the gentlemen smoke interminably; the children roll over -on the pointed pebbles and stare at the sun like young eagles. (The -children's lot I rather commiserate; they have no wooden spades and -pails; they have no sand to delve and grub in; they can dig no trenches -and canals, nor see the creeping tide flood them.) The great occupation -and amusement is the bathing, which has many entertaining features (I -allude to it as a spectacle), especially for strangers who keep an eye -upon national idiosyncrasies. The French take their bathing very -seriously; supplemented by opéra-bouffe in the evening at the Casino, -it is their most preferred form of communion with nature. The spectators -and the bathers commingle in graceful promiscuity; it is the freedom of -the golden age. The whole beach becomes a large family party, in which -the sweetest familiarities prevail. There is more or less costume, but -the minimum rather than the maximum is found the more comfortable. -Bathers come out of their dressing-houses wrapped in short white sheets, -which they deposit on the stones, taking an air-bath for some minutes -before entering the water. Like everything in France, the bathing is -excellently managed, and you feel the firm hand of a paternal and -overlooking government the moment you issue from your hut. The -Government will on no consideration consent to your being rash. There -are six or eight worthy old sons of Neptune on the beach—perfect -amphibious creatures—who, if you are a new-comer, immediately accost -you and demand pledges that you know how to swim. If you do not, they -give you much excellent advice, and keep an eye on you while you are in -the water. They are moreover obliged to render you any service you may -demand—to pour buckets of water over your head, to fetch your -bathing-sheet and your slippers, to carry your wife and children into -the sea, to dip them, cheer them, sustain them, to teach them how to -swim and how to dive, to hover about, in short, like ministering and -trickling angels. At a short distance from the shore are two boats, -freighted with sundry other marine divinities, who remain there -perpetually, taking it as a personal offence if you venture out too far. -</p> -<p> -The French themselves have every pretext for venturing, being in general -excellent swimmers. Every one swims, and swims indefatigably—men, -women, and children. I have been especially struck with the prowess of -the ladies, who take the neatest possible headers from the two long -plunging-boards which are rigged in the water upon high wheels. As you -recline upon the beach you may observe Mademoiselle X. issue from her -cabin—Mademoiselle X., the actress of the Palais Royal Theatre, whom -you have seen and applauded behind the footlights. She wears a -bathing-dress in which, as regards the trousers, even what I have called -the minimum has been appreciably scanted; but she trips down, surveying -her liberated limbs. "<i>C'est convenable, j'espère, hein</i>?" says -Mademoiselle, and trots up the spring-board which projects over the -waves with one end uppermost, like a great see-saw. She balances a -moment, and then gives a great aerial dive, executing on the way the -most graceful of somersaults. This performance the star of the Palais -Royal repeats during the ensuing hour, at intervals of five minutes, and -leaves you, as you lie tossing little stones into the water, to consider -the curious and delicate question why a lady may go so far as to put -herself into a single scant clinging garment and take a straight leap, -head downward, before three hundred spectators, without violation of -propriety—and why impropriety should begin only when she turns over -in the air in such a way that for five seconds her head is upwards. The -logic of the matter is mysterious; white and black are divided by a -hair. But the fact remains that virtue is on one side of the hair and -vice on the other. There are some days here so still and radiant, -however, that it seems as if vice itself, steeped in such an air and -such a sea, might be diluted into innocence. The sea is as blue as -melted sapphires, and the rugged white faces of the bordering cliffs -make a silver frame for the picture. Every one is idle, amused, -good-natured; the bathers take to the water as easily as mermen and -mermaids. The bathing-men in the two <i>bateaux de surveillance</i> have in -their charge a freight of rosy children, more or less chubbily naked, -and they have nailed a gay streamer and a rude nosegay to their low -mastheads. The swimmers dip and rise, circling round the boats and -playing with the children. Every now and then they grasp the sides of -the boats and cling to them in a dozen harmonious attitudes, making one -fancy that Eugène Delacroix's great picture of Dante and Virgil on the -Styx, with the damned trying to scramble into Charon's bark, has been -repainted as a scene on one of the streams of Paradise. The swimmers are -not the damned, but the blessed, and the demonstrative French babies are -the cherubs. -</p> -<p> -The Casino at Etretat is a modest but respectable establishment, with a -sufficiently capacious terrace, directly upon the beach, a café, a -billiard-room, a ballroom—which may also be used as a theatre, a -reading-room, and a <i>salon de conversation</i>. It is in very good taste, -without any attempt at gilding or mirrors; the ballroom, in fact, is -quite a masterpiece, with its charm of effect produced simply by -unpainted woods and happy proportions. Three evenings in the week a -blond young man in a white necktie plays waltzes on a grand piano; but -the effect is not that of an American "hop," owing to the young ladies -of France not being permitted to dance in public places. They may only -sit wistfully beside their mammas. Imagine a "hop" at which sweet -seventeen is condemned to immobility. The burden of the gaiety is -sustained by three or four rosy English maidens and as many of their -American sisters. On the other evenings a weak little operatic troupe -gives light specimens of the lyric drama, the privilege of enjoying -which is covered by your subscription to the Casino. The French hurry in -joyously (four times a week in July and August!) at the sound of the -bell, but I can give no report of the performances. Sometimes I look -through the lighted windows and see, on the diminutive stage, a -short-skirted young woman with one hand on her heart and the other -persuasively extended. Through the hot unpleasant air comes a little -ghost of a roulade. I turn away and walk on the terrace and listen to -the ocean vocalising to the stars. -</p> -<p> -But there are (by daylight) other walks at Etretat than the terrace, and -no account of the place is complete without some commemoration of the -admirable cliffs. They are the finest I have seen; their fantastic -needles and buttresses, at either end of the little bay, give to -careless Etretat an extreme distinction. In spite of there being no -sands, a persistent admirer of nature will walk a long distance upon the -tiresome sea-margin of pebbles for the sake of being under them and -visiting some of their quiet caves and embrowned recesses, varnished by -the ocean into splendid tones. Seen in this way from directly below, -they look stupendous; they hold up their heads with attitudes quite -Alpine. They are marvellously white and straight and smooth; they have -the tint and something of the surface of time-yellowed marble, and here -and there, at their summits, they break into quaint little pinnacles and -turrets. But to be on the top of them is even better; here you may walk -over miles of grassy, breezy down, with the woods, contorted and -sea-stunted, of old farmsteads on your land-side (the farmhouses here -have all a charming way of being buried in a wood, like the castle of the -Sleeping Beauty), coming every little while upon a weather-blackened old -shepherd and his flock (their conversation—the shepherds'—is -delightful), or on some little seaward-plunging valley, holding in its -green hollow a diminutive agricultural village, curtained round from the -sea-winds by a dense stockade of trees. So you may go southward or -northward, without impediment, to Havre or to Dieppe. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap08"></a></p> - -<h4>VIII -<br /><br /> -FROM NORMANDY TO THE PYRENEES -<br /><br /> -1876</h4> - -<p> -The other day, before the first fire of winter, when the deepening dusk -had compelled me to close my book and wheel my chair closer, I indulged -in a retrospect. The objects of it were not far distant, and yet they -were already interfused with the mellow tints of the past. In the -crackling flame the last remnant of the summer appeared to shrink up and -vanish. But the flicker of its destruction made a sort of fantastic -imagery, and in the midst of the winter fire the summer sunshine seemed -to glow. It lit up a series of visible memories. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -One of the first was that of a perfect day on the coast of Normandy—a -warm, still Sunday in the early part of August. From my pillow, on -waking, I could look at a strip of blue sea and a great cube of white -cliff. I observed that the sea had never been so brilliant, and that the -cliff was shining as if it had been painted in the night. I rose and -came forth with the sense that it was the finest day of summer, and that -one ought to do something uncommon by way of keeping it. At Etretat it -was uncommon to take a walk; the custom of the country is to lie all day -upon the pebbly strand, watching, as we should say in America, one's -fellow-boarders. Your leisurely stroll, in a scanty sheet, from your -bathing-cabin into the water, and your trickling progress from the water -back into your cabin, form, as a general thing, the sum total of your -pedestrianism. For the rest you remain horizontal, contemplating the -horizon. To mark the day with a white stone, therefore, it was quite -sufficient to stretch my legs. So I climbed the huge grassy cliff which -shuts in the little bay on the right (as you lie on the beach, head -upward), and gained the bleak white chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, -which a lady told me she was sure was the original of Matthew Arnold's -"little gray church on the windy shore." This is very likely; but the -little church to-day was not gray, neither was the shore windy. -</p> -<p> -I had occasion, by the time I reached the summit, to wish it had been. -Deep, silent sunshine filled the air, and the long grass of the downs -stood up in the light without a tremor. The downs at Etretat are -magnificent, and the way they stretched off toward Dieppe, with their -shining levels and their faintly-shaded dells, was in itself an -irresistible invitation. On the land-side they have been somewhat -narrowed by cultivation; the woods, and farms, and grain-fields here and -there creep close enough to the edge of the cliff almost to see the -shifting of the tides at its base. But cultivation in Normandy is itself -picturesque, and the pedestrian rarely needs resent its encroachments. -Neither walls nor hedges nor fences are anywhere visible; the whole land -lies open to the breezes and to his curious footsteps. This universal -absence of barriers gives an air of vastness to the landscape, so that -really, in a little French province, you have more of the feeling of -being in a big country than on our own huge continent, which bristles so -incongruously with defensive palings and dykes. Norman farmhouses, too, -with their mossy roofs and their visible beams making all kinds of -triangles upon the ancient plaster of their walls, are very delightful -things. Hereabouts they have always a dark little wood dose beside them; -often a <i>chênaie</i>, as the term is—a fantastic little grove of -tempest-tossed oaks. The trees look as if, some night, when the -sea-blasts were howling their loudest and their boughs were tossing most -wildly, the tumult had suddenly been stilled and they had stopped short, -each in the attitude into which the storm was twisting it. The only -thing the storm can do with them now is to blow them straight. The long, -indented coast-line had never seemed to me so charming. It stretched -away into the light haze of the horizon, with such lovely violet spots -in its caves and hollows, and such soft white gleams on its short -headlands—such exquisite gradations of distance and such capricious -interruptions of perspective—that one could only say that the land -was really trying to smile as intensely as the sea. The smile of the sea -was a positive simper. Such a glittering and twinkling, such a softness and -blueness, such tiny little pin-points of foam, and such delicate little -wrinkles of waves—all this made the ocean look like a flattered -portrait. -</p> -<p> -The day I speak of was a Sunday, and there were to be races at Fécamp, -ten miles away. The agreeable thing was, of course, to walk to Fécamp -over the grassy downs. I walked and walked, over the levels and the -dells, having land and ocean quite to myself. Here and there I met a -shepherd lying flat on his stomach in the sun, while his sheep, in -extreme dishabille (shearing-time being recent), went huddling in front -of me as I approached. Far below, on the blue ocean, like a fly on a -table of lapis, crawled a little steamer, carrying people from Etretat -to the races. I seemed to go much faster, yet the steamer got to Fécamp -before me. But I stopped to gossip with a shepherd on a grassy hillside, -and to admire certain little villages which are niched in small, -transverse, seaward-sloping valleys. The shepherd told me that he had -been farm-servant to the same master for five-and-thirty years—ever -since the age of ten; and that for thirty-five summers he had fed his -flock upon those downs. I don't know whether his sheep were tired of -their diet, but he professed himself very tired of his life. I remarked -that in fine weather it must be charming, and he observed, with humility, -that to thirty-five summers there went a certain number of rainy days. -</p> -<p> -The walk to Fécamp would be quite satisfactory if it were not for the -<i>fonds</i>. The <i>fonds</i> are the transverse valleys just -mentioned—the channels, for the most part, of small water-courses -which discharge themselves into the sea. The downs subside, -precipitately, to the level of the beach, and then slowly lift their -grassy shoulders on the other side of the gully. As the cliffs are of -immense height, these indentations are profound, and drain off a little -of the exhilaration of the too elastic pedestrian. The first <i>fond</i> -strikes him as delightfully picturesque, and he is down the long slope -on one side and up the gigantic hump on the other before he has time to -feel hot. But the second is greeted with that tempered -<i>empressement</i> with which you bow in the street to an acquaintance -whom you have met half an hour before; the third is a stale repetition; -the fourth is decidedly one too many, and the fifth is sensibly -exasperating. The <i>fonds</i>, in a word, are very tiresome. It was, if -I remember rightly, in the bottom of the last and widest of the series -that I discovered the little town of Yport. Every little fishing-village -on the Norman coast has, within the last ten years, set up in business -as a watering-place; and, though one might fancy that nature had -condemned Yport to modest obscurity, it is plain she has no idea of -being out of the fashion. But she is a miniature imitation of her -rivals. She has a meagre little wood behind her and an evil-smelling -beach, on which bathing is possible only at the highest tide. At the -scorching midday hour at which I inspected her she seemed absolutely -empty, and the ocean, beyond acres of slippery seaweed, looked very far -away. She has everything that a properly appointed <i>station de -bains</i> should have, but everything is on a Lilliputian scale. The -whole place looked like a huge Nüremburg toy. There is a diminutive -hotel, in which, properly, the head-waiter should be a pigmy and the -chambermaid a sprite, and beside it there is a Casino on the smallest -possible scale. Everything about the Casino is so consistently -microscopic, that it seems a matter of course that the newspapers in the -reading-room should be printed in the very finest type. Of course there -is a reading-room, and a dancing-room, and a café, and a billiard-room, -with a bagatelle-board instead of a table, and a little terrace on which -you may walk up and down with very short steps. I hope the prices are as -tiny as everything else, and I suspect, indeed, that Yport honestly -claims, not that she is attractive, but that she is cheap. -</p> -<p> -I toiled up the perpendicular cliff again, and took my way over the -grass, for another hour, to Fécamp, where I found the peculiarities of -Yport directly reversed. The place is a huge, straggling village, seated -along a wide, shallow bay, and adorned, of course, with the classic -Casino and the row of hotels. But all this is on a very brave scale, -though it is not manifest that the bravery at Fécamp has won a victory; -and, indeed, the local attractions did not strike me as irresistible. A -pebbly beach of immense length, fenced off from the town by a grassy -embankment; a Casino of a bald and unsociable aspect; a principal inn, -with an interminable brown façade, suggestive somehow of an asylum or -an almshouse—such are the most striking features of this particular -watering-place. There are magnificent cliffs on each side of the bay, -but, as the French say, without impropriety, it is the devil to get to -them. There was no one in the hotel, in the Casino, or on the beach; the -whole town being in the act of climbing the farther cliff, to reach the -downs on which the races were to be held. The green hillside was black -with trudging spectators and the long sky-line was fretted with them. -When I say there was no one at the inn, I forget the gentleman at the -door, who informed me positively that he would give me no breakfast; he -seemed to have stayed at home from the races expressly to give himself -this pleasure. But I went farther and fared better, obtaining a meal of -homely succulence in an unfashionable tavern, in a back street, where -the wine was sound, the cutlets were tender, and the serving-maid was -rosy. Then I walked along—for a mile, it seemed—through a -dreary, gray <i>grand'-rue</i>, where the sunshine was hot, the odours were -portentous, and the doorsteps garnished with aged fishwives, retired from -business, whose plaited linen coifs gave a value, as the painters say, to -the brown umber of their cheeks. I inspected the harbour and its goodly -basin—with nothing in it—and certain pink and blue houses which -surround it, and then, joining the last stragglers, I clambered up the -side of the cliff to the downs. -</p> -<p> -The races had already begun, and the ring of spectators was dense. I -picked out some of the smallest people, looked over their heads, and saw -several young farmers, in parti-coloured jackets and very red in the -face, bouncing up and down on handsome cart-horses. Satiated at last -with this diversion, I turned away and wandered down the hill again; and -after strolling through the streets of Fécamp, and gathering not a -little of the wayside entertainment that a seaport and fishing-town -always yields, I repaired to the Abbey-church, a monument of some -importance, and almost as great an object of pride in the town as the -Casino. The Abbey of Fécamp was once a very rich and powerful -establishment, but nothing remains of it now save its church and its -<i>trappistine</i>. The church, which is for the most part early gothic, is -very stately and interesting, and the <i>trappistine</i>, a distilled -liquor of the Chartreuse family, is much prized by people who take a little -glass after their coffee. By the time I had done with the Abbey the -townsfolk had slid <i>en masse</i> down the cliff again, the yellow -afternoon had come, and the holiday-takers, before the wine-shops, made -long and lively shadows. I hired a sort of two-wheeled gig, without a hood, -and drove back to Etretat in the rosy stage of evening. The gig dandled me -up and down in a fashion of which I had been unconscious since I left -off baby-clothes; but the drive, through the charming Norman country, -over roads which lay among the peaceful meadows like paths across a -park, was altogether delightful. The sunset gave a deeper mellowness to -the standing crops, and in the grassiest corner of the wayside villages -the young men and maidens were dancing like the figures in -vignette-illustrations of classic poets. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -It was another picked day—you see how freely I pick them—when I -went to breakfast at Saint-Jouin, chez la belle Ernestine. The beautiful -Ernestine is as hospitable as she is fair, and to contemplate her charms -you have only to order breakfast. They shine forth the more brilliantly -in proportion as your order is liberal, and Ernestine is beautiful -according as your bill is large. In this case she comes and smiles, -really very handsomely, round your table, and you feel some hesitation -in accusing so well-favoured a person of extortion. She keeps an inn at -the end of a lane which diverges from the high road between Etretat and -Havre, and it is an indispensable feature of your "station" at the -former place that you choose some fine morning and seek her hospitality. -She has been a celebrity these twenty years, and is no longer a simple -maiden in her flower; but twenty years, if they have diminished her -early bloom, have richly augmented her <i>musée</i>. This is a collection -of all the verses and sketches, the autographs, photographs, monographs, -trinkets, presented to the amiable hostess by admiring tourists. It -covers the walls of her sitting-room and fills half a dozen big albums -which you look at while breakfast is being prepared, just as if you were -awaiting dinner in genteel society. Most Frenchmen of the day whom one -has heard of appear to have called at Saint-Jouin, and to have left -their <i>homages</i>. Each of them has turned a compliment with pen or -pencil, and you may see in a glass case on the parlour wall what -Alexandre Dumas <i>fils</i> thought of the landlady's nose, and how several -painters measured her ankles. -</p> -<p> -Of course you must make this excursion in good company, and I affirm -that I was in the very best. The company prefers, equally of course, to -have its breakfast in the orchard in front of the house; which, if the -repast is good, will make it seem better still, and if it is poor, will -carry off its poorness. Clever innkeepers should always make their -victims (in tolerable weather) eat in the garden. I forget whether -Ernestine's breakfast was intrinsically good or bad, but I distinctly -remember enjoying it, and making everything welcome. Everything, that -is, save the party at the other table—the Paris actresses and the -American gentlemen. The combination of these two classes of persons, -individually so delightful, results in certain phenomena which seem less -in harmony with appleboughs and summer breezes than with the gas-lamps -and thick perfumes of a <i>cabinet particulier</i>; and yet it was -characteristic of this odd mixture of things that Mademoiselle -Ernestine, coming to chat with her customers, should bear a beautiful -infant on her arm, and smile with artless pride on being assured of its -filial resemblance to herself. She looked handsomer than ever as she -caressed this startling attribute of presumptive spinsterhood. -</p> -<p> -Saint-Jouin is close to the sea and to the finest cliffs in the world. -One of my companions, who had laden the carriage with the implements of -a painter, went off into a sunny meadow to take the portrait of a -windmill, and I, choosing the better portion, wandered through a little -green valley with the other. Ten minutes brought us to the edge of the -cliffs, which at this point of the coast are simply sublime. I had -supposed the white sea-walls of Etretat the finest thing possible in -this way, but the huge red porphyritic-looking masses of Saint-Jouin -have an even grander character. I have rarely seen a landscape more -"plastic." They are strange, fantastic, out of keeping with the country, -and for some rather arbitrary reason suggested to me a Spanish or even -an African prospect. Certain sun-scorched precipices in Spanish sierras -must have very much the same warmth of tone and desolation of attitude. -The great distinction of the cliffs of Saint-Jouin is their -extraordinary doubleness. Falling to an immense depth, they encounter a -certain outward ledge, or terrace, where they pause and play a dozen -fantastic tricks, such as piling up rocks into the likeness of needles -and watch-towers; then they plunge again, and in another splendid sweep -descend to the beach. There was something very impressive in the way -their evil brows, looking as if they were stained with blood and rust, -were bent upon the indifferent—the sleeping—sea. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<p> -In a month of beautiful weather at Etretat, every day was not an -excursion, but every day seemed indeed a picked day. For that matter, as -I lay on the beach watching the procession of the easy-going hours, I -took a good many mental excursions. The one, perhaps, on which I -oftenest embarked, was a comparison between French manners, French, -habits, French types, and those of my native land. These comparisons are -not invidious; I do not conclude against one party and in favour of the -other; as the French say, <i>je constate</i> simply. The French people -about me were "spending the summer," just as I had so often seen my -fellow-countrymen spend it, and it seemed to me, as it had seemed to me -at home, that this operation places men and women under a sort of -monstrous magnifying-glass. The human figure has a higher relief in the -country than in town, and I know of no place where psychological studies -prosper so much as at the seaside. I shall not pretend to relate my -observations in the order in which they occurred to me (or indeed to -relate them in full at all); but I may say that one of the foremost was -to this effect—that the summer-question, for every one, had been more -easily settled than it usually is in America. The solution of the -problem of where to go had not been a thin-petalled rose, plucked from -among particularly sharp-pointed thorns. People presented themselves -with a calmness and freshness very different from the haggardness of -aspect which announces that the American citizen and his family have -"secured accommodations." This impression, with me, rests perhaps on the -fact that most Frenchwomen turned of thirty—the average wives and -mothers—are so comfortably endowed with flesh. I have never seen such -richness of contour as among the mature <i>baigneuses</i> of Etretat. The -lean and desiccated person into whom a dozen years of matrimony so often -converts the blooming American girl is not emulated in France. A -majestic plumpness flourished all around me—the plumpness of triple -chins and deeply dimpled hands. I mused upon it, and I discovered that -it was the result of the best breakfasts and dinners in the world. It -was the corpulence of ladies who are thoroughly well fed, and who never -walk a step that they can spare. The assiduity with which the women of -America measure the length of our democratic pavements is doubtless a -factor in their frequent absence of redundancy of outline. As a "regular -boarder" at the Hôtel Blanquet—pronounced by Anglo-Saxon visitors -Blanket—I found myself initiated into the mysteries of the French -dietary system. I assent to the common tradition that the French are a -temperate people, so long as it is understood in this sense—that they -eat no more than they want to. But their wants are very comprehensive. -Their capacity strikes me as enormous, and we ourselves, if we are less -regulated, are certainly much more slender consumers. -</p> -<p> -The American breakfast has, I believe, long been a subject of irony to -the foreign observer; but the American breakfast is an ascetic meal -compared with the French <i>déjeûner-à-la-fourchette</i>. The latter, -indeed, is simply a dinner without soup; it differs neither generically -nor specifically from the evening-repast. If it excludes soup, it -includes eggs, prepared in a hundred forms; and if it proscribes -champagne, it admits beer in foaming pitchers, so that the balance is -fairly preserved. I think that an American will often suffer vicariously -from the reflection that a French family which sits down at half-past -eleven to fish and entries and roasts, to asparagus and beans, to salad -and dessert, and cheese and coffee, proposes to do exactly the same -thing at half-past six. But we may be sure at any rate that the dinner -will be as good as the breakfast, and that the breakfast has nothing to -fear from prospective comparison with the dinner; and we may further -reflect that in a country where the pleasures of the table are -thoroughly organised, it is natural that they should be prolonged and -reiterated. Nothing is more noticeable among the French than their -superior intelligence in dietary matters; every one seems naturally a -judge, a dilettante. They have analysed tastes and savours to a finer -point than we; they are aware of differences and relations of which we -take no heed. Observe a Frenchman of any age and of any condition (I -have been quite as much struck with it in the very young men as in the -old), as he orders his breakfast or his dinner at a Parisian restaurant, -and you will perceive that the operation is much more solemn than it is -apt to be in New York or in London. Monsieur has, in a word, a certain -ideal for a particular repast, and it will make a difference in his -happiness whether the kidneys, for instance, of a certain style, are -chopped to the ultimate or only to the penultimate smallness. His -directions and admonitions to the waiter are therefore minute and -exquisite, and eloquently accentuated by the pressure of thumb and -forefinger; and it must be added that the imagination of the waiter is -usually quite worthy of the refined communion opened to it. -</p> -<p> -This subtler sense of quality is observable even among those classes in -which in other countries it is generally forestalled by a depressing -consciousness on the subject of quantity. Observe your concierge and his -wife at their mid-day meal, as you pass up and down stairs. They are not -satisfying nature upon green tea and potatoes; they are seated before a -repast which has been reasoned out, which, on its modest scale, is -served in courses, and has a beginning, a middle, an end. I will not say -that the French sense of comfort is confined to the philosophy of -nutrition, but it is certainly here that it is most highly evolved. -French people must have a good dinner and a good bed; but they are -willing that the bed should be stationed and the dinner be eaten in the -most insufferable corners. Your porter and his wife dine with a certain -distinction, and sleep soft in their lodge; but their lodge is in all -probability a fetid black hole, five feet square, in which, in England -or in America, people of their talents would never consent to live. The -French are willing to abide in the dark, to huddle together, to forego -privacy, to let bad smells grow great among them. They have an accursed -passion for coquettish furniture; for cold, brittle chairs, for tables -with scalloped edges, for ottomans without backs, for fireplaces muffled -in plush and fringe. A French bedroom is a bitter mockery—a ghastly -attempt to serve two masters which succeeds in being agreeable to -neither. It is a thing of traps and delusions, constructed on the -assumption that it is inelegant to be known to wash or to sleep, and yet -pervaded with suggestions of uncleanness compared with which the -matutinal "tub," well <i>en évidence</i>, is a delightful symbol of purity. -This comes of course from that supreme French quality, the source of -half the charm of the French mind as well as of all its dryness, the -genius for economy. It is wasting a room to let it be a bedroom alone; -so it must be tricked out ingeniously as a sitting-room, and ends by -being (in many cases) insufferable both by night and by day. But -allowing all weight to these latter reflections, it is still very -possible that the French have the better part. If you are well fed, you -can perhaps afford to be ill lodged; whereas enjoyment of the most -commodious apartments is incompatible with inanition and dyspepsia. -</p> -<p> -If I had not cut short my mild retrospect by these possibly milder -generalisations, I should have touched lightly upon some of the social -phenomena of which the little beach at Etretat was the scene. I should -have narrated that the French, at the seaside, are not "sociable" as -Americans affect to be in a similar situation, and I should subjoin that -at Etretat it was very well on the whole that they should not have been. -The immeasurably greater simplicity of composition of American society -makes sociability with us a comparatively untaxed virtue; but anything -like an equal exercise of it in France would be attended with alarming -drawbacks. Sociability (in the American sense of the word) in any -aristocratic country would indeed be very much like an attempt to -establish visiting relations between birds and fishes. At Etretat no -making of acquaintance was to be perceived; people went about in -compact, cohesive groups, of natural formation, governed doubtless, -internally, by humane regulations, but presenting to the world an -impenetrable defensive front. The groups usually formed a solid phalanx -around two or three young girls, compressed into the centre, the -preservation of whose innocence was their chief solicitude. These groups -were doubtless wisely constituted, for with half a dozen <i>cocottes</i>, -in scarlet petticoats, scattered over the sunny, harmless-looking beach, -what were mammas and duennas to do? I used to pity the young ladies at -first, for this perpetual application of the leading-string; but a -little reflection showed me that the French have ordered this as well as -they have ordered everything else. The case is not nearly so hard as it -would be with us, for there is this immense difference between the lot -of the <i>jeune fille</i> and her American sister, that the former may as a -general thing be said to be certain to marry. "Alas, to marry badly," -the Anglo-Saxon objector may reply. But the objection is precipitate; -for if French marriages are almost always arranged, it must be added -that they are in the majority of cases arranged successfully. Therefore, -if a <i>jeune fille</i> is for three or four years tied with a very short -rope and compelled to browse exclusively upon the meagre herbage which -sprouts in the maternal shadow, she has at least the comfort of -reflecting that, according to the native phrase, <i>on s'occupe de la -marier</i>—that measures are being carefully taken to promote her to -a condition of unbounded liberty. Whatever, to her imagination, marriage -may fail to mean, it at least means freedom and consideration. It does -not mean, as it so often means in America, being socially shelved—and -it is not too much to say, in certain circles, degraded; it means being -socially launched and consecrated. It means becoming that exalted -personage, a <i>mère de famille</i>. To be a <i>mère de famille</i> is to -occupy not simply (as is mostly the case with us) a sentimental, but really -an official position. The consideration, the authority, the domestic pomp -and circumstance allotted to a French mamma are in striking contrast -with the amiable tolerance which in our own social order is so often the -most liberal measure that the female parent may venture to expect at her -children's hands, and which, on the part of the young lady of eighteen -who represents the family in society, is not unfrequently tempered by a -conscientious severity. All this is worth waiting for, especially if you -have not to wait very long. Mademoiselle is married certainly, and -married early, and she is sufficiently well informed to know, and to be -sustained by the knowledge, that the sentimental expansion which may not -take place at present will have an open field after her marriage. That -it should precede her marriage seems to her as unnatural as that she -should put on her shoes before her stockings. And besides all this, to -browse in the maternal shadow is not considered in the least a hardship. -A young French girl who is <i>bien-élevée</i>—an expression which -means so much—will be sure to consider her mother's company the most -delightful in the world, and to think that the herbage which sprouts about -this lady's petticoats is peculiarly tender and succulent. It may be -fanciful, but it often seems to me that the tone with which such a young -girl says <i>Ma mère</i> has a peculiar intensity of meaning. I am -at least not wrong in affirming that in the accent with which the -mamma—especially if she be of the well-rounded order alluded to -above—speaks of <i>Ma fille</i> there is a kind of sacerdotal -dignity. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<p> -After this came two or three pictures of quite another -complexion—pictures of which a long green valley, almost in the -centre of France, makes the general setting. The valley itself, indeed, -forms one delightful picture, although the country which surrounds it is -by no means one of the regions that place themselves on exhibition. It -is the old territory of the Gâtinais, which has much history, but no -renown of beauty. It is very quiet, deliciously rural, immitigably -French; the typical, average, "pleasant" France of history, literature, -and art—of art, of landscape-art, perhaps, especially. Wherever I -look I seem to see one of the familiar pictures on a dealer's -wall—a Lambinet, a Troyon, a Daubigny, a Diaz. The Lambinets -perhaps are in the majority; the mood of the landscape usually expresses -itself in silvery lights and vivid greens. The history of this part of -France is the history of the monarchy, and its language is, I won't say -absolutely the classic tongue, but a nearer approach to it than any -local patois. The peasants deliver themselves with rather a drawl, but -their French is as consecutive as that of Ollendorf. -</p> -<p> -Each side of the long valley is a continuous ridge, which offers it a -high, wooded horizon, and through the middle of it there flows a -charming stream, wandering, winding and doubling, smothered here and -there in rushes, and spreading into lily-coated reaches, beneath the -clear shadow of tall, straight, light-leaved trees. On each side of the -stream the meadows stretch away flat, clean, magnificent, lozenged -across with rows of lateral foliage, under which a cow-maiden sits on -the grass, hooting now and then, nasally, to the large-uddered browsers -in front of her. There are no hedges nor palings nor walls; it is all a -single estate. Occasionally in the meadows there rises a cluster of -red-roofed hovels—each a diminutive village. At other points, at -about half an hour's walk apart, are three charming old houses. The -châteaux are extremely different, but, both as pictures and as -dwellings, each has its points. They are very intimate with each other, -so that these points may be amicably discussed. The points in one case, -however, are remarkably strong. The little old <i>castel</i> I mention -stands directly in the attenuated river, on an island just great enough -to hold it, and the garden-flowers grow upon the farther bank. This, of -course, is a most delightful affair. But I found something very -agreeable in the aspect of one of the others, when I made it the goal of -certain of those walks before breakfast, which of cool mornings, in the -late summer, do not fall into the category of ascetic pleasures. (In -France, indeed, if one did not do a great many things before breakfast, -the work of life would be but meagrely performed.) -</p> -<p> -The dwelling in question stands on the top of the long ridge which -encloses the comfortable valley to the south, being by its position -quite in the midst of its appurtenant acres. It is not particularly -"kept up," but its quiet rustiness and untrimmedness only help it to be -familiar. A grassy plateau approaches it from the edge of the hill, -bordered on one side by a short avenue of horse-chestnuts, and on the -other by a dusky wood. Beyond the chestnuts are the steep-roofed, -yellow-walled farm-buildings, and under cover of the wood a stretch of -beaten turf, where, on Sundays and holidays, the farm-servants play at -bowls. Directly before the house is a little square garden, enclosed by -a low parapet, which is interrupted by a high gateway of mossy pillars -and iron arabesques, the whole of it muffled in creeping plants. The -house, with its yellow walls and russet roof, is ample and substantial; it -is a very proper <i>gentilhommière</i>. In a corner of the garden, at the -angle of the parapet, rises that classic emblem of rural gentility, the -<i>pigeonnier</i>, the old stone dovecot. It is a great round tower, as -broad of base as a lighthouse, with its roof shaped like an extinguisher, -and a big hole in its upper portion, in and out of which a dove is always -fluttering. -</p> -<p> -You see all this from the windows of the drawing-room. Be sure that the -drawing-room is panelled in white and gray, with old rococo mouldings -over the doorways and mantelpiece. The open gateway of the garden, with -its tangled creepers, makes a frame for the picture that lies beyond the -grassy esplanade where the thistles have been suffered to grow round a -disused stone well, placed in odd remoteness from the house (if, indeed, -it be not a relic of an earlier habitation): a picture of a wide green -country, rising beyond the unseen valley and stretching away to a far -horizon in deep blue lines of wood. Behind, through other windows, you -look out on the gardens proper. There are places that take one's fancy -by some accident of expression, some mystery of accident. This one is -high and breezy, both genial and reserved, plain yet picturesque, -extremely cheerful and a little melancholy. It has what in the arts is -called "style," and so I have attempted to commemorate it. -</p> -<p> -Going to call on the peasants was as charming an affair as a chapter in -one of George Sand's rural tales. I went one Sunday morning with my -hostess, who knew them well and enjoyed their most garrulous confidence. -I don't mean that they told her all their secrets, but they told her a -good many; if the French peasant is a simpleton, he is a very shrewd -simpleton. At any rate, of a Sunday morning in August, when he is -stopping at home from work and has put on his best jacket and trousers, -and is loafing at the door of his neighbour's cabin, he is a very -charming person. The peasantry in the region I speak of had admirably -good manners. The curé gave me a low account of their morals, by which -he meant, on the whole, I suspect, that they were moderate church-goers. -But they have the instinct of civility and a talent for conversation; -they know how to play the host and the entertainer. By "he," just now, I -meant she quite as much; it is rare that, in speaking superlatively of -the French, in any connection, one does not think of the women even more -than of the men. They constantly strike the foreigner as a stronger -expression of the qualities of the race. On the occasion I speak of the -first room in the very humble cabins I successively visited—in -some cases, evidently, it was the only room—had been set into -irreproachable order for the day. It had usually a fine brownness of -tone, generated by the high chimney-place, with its swinging pots, the -important bed, in its dusky niche, with its flowered curtains, the -big-bellied earthenware in the cupboard, the long-legged clock in the -corner, the thick, quiet light of the small, deeply-set window, the -mixture, on all things, of smoke-stain and the polish of horny hands. -Into the midst of this "la Rabillon" or "la mère Léger" brings forward -her chairs and begs us to be seated, and, seating herself, with crossed -hands, smiles expressively and answers abundantly every inquiry about -her cow, her husband, her bees, her eggs, her baby. The men linger half -outside and half in, with their shoulders against dressers and -door-posts; every one smiles with that simple, clear-eyed smile of the -gratified peasant; they talk much more like George Sand's Berrichons -than might be supposed. And if they receive us without gross -awkwardness, they speed us on our way with proportionate urbanity. I go -to six or eight little hovels, all of them dirty outside and clean -within; I am entertained everywhere with the bonhomie, the quaintness, -the good faces and good manners of their occupants, and I finish my tour -with an esteem for my new acquaintance which is not diminished by -learning that several of them have thirty or forty thousand francs -carefully put away. -</p> -<p> -And yet, as I say, M. le Curé thinks they are in a bad way, and he -knows something about them. M. le Curé, too, is not a dealer in -scandal; there is something delightfully quaint in the way in which he -deprecates an un-Christian construction of his words. There is more than -one curé in the valley whose charms I celebrate; but the worthy priest -of whom I speak is the pearl of the local priesthood. He has been -accused, I believe, of pretensions to <i>illuminisme</i>; but even in his -most illuminated moments it can never occur to him that he has been -chronicled in an American magazine, and therefore it is not indiscreet -to say that he is the curé, not of Gy, but of the village nearest to -Gy. I write this sentence half for the pleasure of putting down that -briefest of village-names and seeing how it looks in print. But it may -be elongated at will, and yet be only improved. If you wish to be very -specific, you may call it Gy-les-Nonnains—Gy of the Little Nuns. I -went with my hostess, another morning, to call upon M. le Curé, who himself -opened his garden door to us (there was a crooked little black cross -perched upon it), and, lifting his rusty <i>calotte</i>, stood there a -moment in the sunshine, smiling a greeting more benignant than his words. -</p> -<p> -A rural <i>presbytère</i> is not a very sumptuous dwelling, and M. le -Curé's little drawing-room reminded me of a Yankee parlour (<i>minus</i> -the subscription-books from Hartford on the centre-table) in some -out-of-the-way corner of New England. But he took us into his very -diminutive garden, and showed us an ornament that would not have -flourished in the shadow of a Yankee parlour—a rude stone image of -the Virgin, which he had become possessed of I know not how, and for which -he was building a sort of niche in the wall. The work was going on -slowly, for he must take the labour as he could get it; but he appealed -to his visitors, with a smile of indulgent irony, for an assurance that -his little structure would not make too bad a figure. One of them told -him that she would send him some white flowers to set out round the -statue; whereupon he clasped his hands together over his snuff-box and -expressed cheerful views of the world we live in. A couple of days -afterward he came to breakfast, and of course arrived early, in his new -cassock and band. I found him in the billiard-room, walking up and down -alone and reading his breviary. The combination of the locality, the -personage and the occupation, made me smile; and I smiled again when, -after breakfast, I found him strolling about the garden, puffing a -cigarette. Of course he had an excellent appetite; but there is -something rather cruel in those alternations of diet to which the French -parish priest is subjected. At home he lives like a peasant—a fact -which, in itself, is not particularly cruel, inasmuch as he has -usually—or in many cases—been brought up to that life. But his -fellow-peasants don't breakfast at the château and gaze down the -savoury vistas opened by cutlets à la Soubise. They have not the acute -pain of relapsing into the stale atmosphere of bread and beans. Of -course it is by no means every day, or every week even, that M. le Curé -breakfasts at the château; but there must nevertheless be a certain -uncomfortable crookedness in his position. He lives like a labourer, yet -he is treated like a gentleman. The latter character must seem to him -sometimes to have rather a point of irony. But to the ideal curé, of -course, all characters are equal; he thinks neither too ill of his bad -breakfasts nor too well of his good ones. I won't say that the excellent -man I speak of is the ideal curé, but I suspect he is an approach to -it; he has a grain of the epicurean to an ounce of stoicism. In the -garden-path, beside the moat, while he puffed his cigarette, he told me -how he had held up his head to the Prussians; for, hard as it seemed to -believe it, that pastoral valley had been occupied by ravaging Teutons. -According to this recital, he had spoken his mind civilly, but very -distinctly, to the group of officers who had made themselves at home in -his dwelling—had informed them that it grieved him profoundly that he -was obliged to meet them standing there in his <i>soutane</i>, and not out -in the fields with a musket in his hands and a dozen congenial spirits at -his side. The scene must have been dramatic. The first of the officers -got up from table and asked for the privilege of shaking his hand. "M. -le Curé," he said, "j'estime hautement votre caractère." -</p> -<p> -Six miles away—or nearer, by a charming shaded walk along a -canal—was an ancient town with a legend—a legend which, as a -child, I read in my lesson-book at school, marvelling at the woodcut -above it, in which a ferocious dog was tearing a strange man to pieces, -while the king and his courtiers sat by as if they were at the circus. I -allude to it chiefly in order to mention the name of one of its -promenades, which is the stateliest, beyond all comparison, in the -world; the name, I mean, not the street. The latter is called the -Promenade des Belles Manières. Could anything be finer than that? With -what a sweep gentlemen must once have taken off their hats there; how -ladies must once have curtsied, regardless of gutters, and how people -must have turned out their toes as they walked! -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<p> -My next impressions were gathered on the margin of a southern sea—if -the Bay of Biscay indeed deserve so sympathetic a name. We generally -have a mental image beforehand of a place on which we may intend to -project ourself, and I supposed I had a tolerably vivid prevision of -Biarritz. I don't know why, but I had a singular sense of having been -there; the name always seemed to me expressive. I saw the way it lay -along its gleaming beach; I had taken in imagination long walks toward -Spain over the low cliffs, with the blue sea always to my right and the -blue Pyrenees always before me. My only fear was that my mental picture -had not been brilliant enough; but this could easily be touched up on -the spot. In truth, however, on the spot I was exclusively occupied in -toning it down. Biarritz seemed to be decidedly below its reputation; I -am at a loss to see how its reputation was made. There is a partial -explanation that is obvious enough. There is a low, square, bare brick -mansion seated on the sands, under shelter of a cliff; it is one of the -first objects to attract the attention of an arriving stranger. It is -not picturesque, it is not romantic, and even in the days of its -prosperity it never can have been impressive. It is called the Villa -Eugénie, and it explains in a great measure, as I say, the Biarritz -which the arriving stranger, with some dismay, perceives about him. It -has the aspect of one of the "cottages" of Newport during the winter -season, but is surrounded by a vegetation much less dense than the -prodigies of arborescence now so frequent at Newport. It was what the -newspapers call the "favourite resort" of the ex-Empress of the French, -who might have been seen at her imperial avocations with a good glass, -at any time, from the Casino. The Casino, I hasten to add, has quite the -air of an establishment frequented by gentlemen who look at ladies' -windows with telescopes. There are Casinos and Casinos, and that of -Biarritz is, in the summary French phrase, "impossible." Except for its -view, it is moreover very unattractive. Perched on the top of a cliff -which has just space enough to hold its immense brick foundations, it -has no garden, no promenade, no shade, no place of out-of-door -reunion—the most indispensable feature of a Casino. It turns its back -to the Pyrenees and to Spain, and looks out prettily enough over a blue -ocean to an arm of the low French coast. -</p> -<p> -Biarritz, for the rest, scrambles over two or three steep hills, -directly above the sea, in a promiscuous, many-coloured, noisy fashion. -It is a watering-place pure and simple; every house has an expensive -little shop in the basement and a still more expensive set of rooms to -let above stairs. The houses are blue and pink and green; they stick to -the hillsides as they can, and being near Spain, you try to fancy they -look Spanish. You succeed, perhaps, even a little, and are rewarded for -your zeal by finding, when you cross the border a few days afterward, -that the houses at San Sebastian look strikingly French. Biarritz is -bright, crowded, irregular, filled with many sounds, and not without a -certain second-rate pictorial quality; but it struck me as common and -cockneyfied, and my vision travelled back to modest little Etretat, by -its northern sea, as to a very much more downy couch. The south-western -coast of France has little of the exquisite charm of the Mediterranean -shore. It has of course a southern expression which in itself is always -delightful. You see a brilliant, yellow sun, with a pink-faced, -red-tiled house staring up at it. You can see here and there a trellis -and an orange-tree, a peasant-woman in a gold necklace, driving a -donkey, a lame beggar adorned with earrings, a glimpse of blue sea -between white garden-walls. But the superabundant detail of the French -Riviera is wanting; the softness, luxuriousness, enchantment. -</p> -<p> -The most pictorial thing at Biarritz is the Basque population, which -overflows from the adjacent Spanish provinces and swarms in the crooked -streets. It lounges all day in the public places, sprawls upon the -curbstones, clings to the face of the cliffs, and vociferates -continually a shrill, strange tongue, which has no discoverable affinity -with any other. The Basques look like hardier and thriftier Neapolitan -lazzaroni; if the superficial resemblance is striking, the difference is -very much in their favour. Although those specimens which I observed at -Biarritz appeared to enjoy an excess of leisure, they had nothing of a -shiftless or beggarly air, and seemed as little disposed to ask favours -as to confer them. The roads leading into Spain were dotted with them, -and here they were coming and going as if on important business—the -business of the abominable Don Carlos himself. They struck me as a very -handsome race. The men are invariably clean-shaven; smooth chins seem a -positively religious observance. They wear little round maroon-coloured -caps, like those of sailor-boys, dark stuff shirts, and curious white -shoes, made of strips of rope laid together—an article of toilet -which makes them look like honorary members of base-ball clubs. They sling -their jackets cavalier-fashion, over one shoulder, hold their heads very -high, swing their arms very bravely, step out very lightly, and, when -you meet them in the country at eventide, charging down a hillside in -companies of half a dozen, make altogether a most impressive appearance. -With their smooth chins and childish caps, they may be taken, in the -distance, for a lot of very naughty little boys; for they have always a -cigarette in their teeth. -</p> -<p> -The best thing at Biarritz is your opportunity for driving over into -Spain. Coming speedily to a consciousness of this fact, I found a charm -in sitting in a landau and rolling away to San Sebastian behind a -coachman in a high glazed hat with long streamers, a jacket of scarlet -and silver and a pair of yellow breeches and jack-boots. If it has been -the desire of one's heart and the dream of one's life to visit the land -of Cervantes, even grazing it so lightly as by a day's excursion from -Biarritz is a matter to encourage visions. Everything helping—the -admirable scenery, the charming day, the operatic coachman, the -smooth-rolling carriage—I am afraid I became more visionary than it -is decent to tell of. You move toward the magnificent undulations of the -Pyrenees, as if you were going to plunge straight into them; but in -reality you travel beneath them and beside them, pass between their -expiring spurs and the sea. It is on proceeding beyond San Sebastian -that you seriously attack them. But they are already extremely -vivid—none the less so that in this region they abound in suggestions -of the recent Carlist war. Their far-away peaks and ridges are crowned -with lonely Spanish watch-towers, and their lower slopes are dotted with -demolished dwellings. It was hereabouts that the fighting was most -constant. But the healing powers of nature are as remarkable as the -destructive powers of man, and the rich September landscape appeared -already to have forgotten the injuries of yesterday. Everything seemed -to me a small foretaste of Spain; I discovered an unreasonable amount of -local colour. I discovered it at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the last French -town, in a great brown church, filled with galleries and boxes, like a -playhouse—the altar and choir, indeed, looked very much like a -proscenium; at Bohébie, on the Bidassoa, the small yellow stream which -divides France from Spain, and which at this point offers to view the -celebrated Isle of Pheasants, a little bushy strip of earth adorned with -a decayed commemorative monument, on which, in the seventeenth century, -the affairs of Louis XIV. and the Iberian monarch were discussed in -ornamental conference; at Fuentarabia (glorious name), a mouldering -relic of Spanish stateliness; at Hendaye, at Irun, at Benteria, and -finally at San Sebastian. At all of these wayside towns the houses show -marks of Alphonsist bullets (the region was strongly Carlist); but to be -riddled and battered seems to carry out the meaning of the pompous old -escutcheons carven above the doorways, some of them covering almost half -the house. It struck me, in fact, that the narrower and shabbier was the -poor little dusky dwelling, the grander and more elaborate was this -noble advertisement. But it represented knightly prowess, and pitiless -time had taken up the challenge. I found it a luxury to ramble through -the narrow single street of Irun and Benteria, between the -strange-coloured houses, the striped awnings, the universal balconies -and the heraldic doorways. -</p> -<p> -San Sebastian is a lively watering-place, and is set down in the -guide-books as the Biarritz or the Brighton of Spain. It has of course a -new quarter in the provincial-elegant style (fresh stucco cafés, -barber-shops, and apartments to let), looking out upon a planted -promenade and a charming bay, locked in fortified heights, with a narrow -portal to the ocean. I walked about for two or three hours and devoted -most of my attention to the old quarter, the town proper, which has a -great frowning gate upon the harbour, through which you look along a -vista of gaudy house-fronts, balconies, awnings, surmounted by a narrow -strip of sky. Here the local colour was richer, the manners more naïf. -Here too was a church with a flamboyant Jesuit façade and an interior -redolent of Spanish Catholicism. There was a life-sized effigy of the -Virgin perched upon a table beside the great altar (she appeared to have -been walking abroad in a procession), which I looked at with extreme -interest. She seemed to me a heroine, a solid Spanish person, as perfect -a reality as Don Quixote or Saint Theresa. She was dressed in an -extraordinary splendour of laces, brocades and jewels, her coiffure and -complexion were of the finest, and she evidently would answer to her -name if you should speak to her. Mustering up the stateliest title I -could think of, I addressed her as Dona Maria of the Holy Office; -whereupon she looked round the great dusky, perfumed church, to see -whether we were alone, and then she dropped her fringed eyelids and held -out her hand to be kissed. She was the sentiment of Spanish Catholicism; -gloomy, yet bedizened, emotional as a woman and mechanical as a doll. -After a moment I grew afraid of her, and went slinking away. After this -I didn't really recover my spirits until I had the satisfaction of -hearing myself addressed as "Caballero." I was hailed with this epithet -by a ragged infant, with sickly eyes and a cigarette in his lips, who -invited me to cast a copper into the sea, that he might dive for it; and -even with these limitations, the sensation seemed worth the cost of my -excursion. It appeared kinder, to my gratitude, to make the infant dive -upon the pavement. -</p> -<p> -A few days later I went back to San Sebastian, to be present at a -bull-fight; but I suppose my right to descant upon this entertainment -should be measured less by the gratification it afforded me than by the -question whether there is room in literature for another chapter on this -subject. I incline to think there is not; the national pastime of Spain -is the best-described thing in the world. Besides, there are other -reasons for not describing it. It is extremely disgusting, and one -should not describe disgusting things—except (according to the new -school) in novels, where they have not really occurred, and are invented -on purpose. Description apart, one has taken a certain sort of pleasure -in the bull-fight, and yet how is one to state gracefully that one has -taken pleasure in a disgusting thing? It is a hard case. If you record -your pleasure, you seem to exaggerate it and to calumniate your -delicacy; and if you record nothing but your displeasure, you feel as if -you were wanting in suppleness. Thus much I can say, at any rate, that -as there had been no bull-fights in that part of the country during the -Carlist war, the native dilettanti (and every man, woman, and child of -them comes under this denomination) returned to their precious pastime -with peculiar zest. The spectacle, therefore, had an unusual splendour. -Under these circumstances it is highly effective. The weather was -beautiful; the near mountains peeped over the top of the vast open -arena, as if they too were curious; weary of disembowelled horses and -posturing <i>espadas</i>, the spectator (in the boxes) might turn away and -look through an unglazed window at the empty town and the cloud-shadowed -sea. But few of the native spectators availed themselves of this -privilege. Beside me sat a blooming matron, in a white lace mantilla, -with three very juvenile daughters; and if these ladies sometimes yawned -they never shuddered. For myself, I confess that if I sometimes -shuddered I never yawned. A long list of bulls was sacrificed, each of -whom had pretensions to originality. The <i>banderillos</i>, in their silk -stockings and embroidered satin costumes, skipped about with a great -deal of attitude; the <i>espada</i> folded his arms within six inches of -the bull's nose and stared him out of countenance; yet I thought the bull, -in any case, a finer fellow than any of his tormentors, and I thought -his tormentors finer fellows than the spectators. In truth, we were all, -for the time, rather sorry fellows together. A bull-fight will, to a -certain extent, bear looking at, but it will not bear thinking of. There -was a more innocent effect in what I saw afterward, when we all came -away, in the late afternoon, as the shadows were at their longest: the -bright-coloured southern crowd, spreading itself over the grass, and the -women, with mantillas and fans, and the Andalusian gait, strolling up -and down before the mountains and the sea. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap09"></a></p> - -<h4>IX -<br /><br /> -AN ENGLISH EASTER -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -It may be said of the English, as is said of the council of war in -Sheridan's farce of <i>The Critic</i> by one of the spectators of the -rehearsal, that when they do agree, their unanimity is wonderful. They -differ among themselves greatly just now as regards the machinations of -Russia, the derelictions of Turkey, the merits of the Reverend Arthur -Tooth, the genius of Mr. Henry Irving, and a good many other matters; -but neither just now nor at any other time do they fail to conform to -those social observances on which respectability has set her seal -England is a country of curious anomalies, and this has much to do with -her being so interesting to foreign observers. The English individual -character is very positive, very independent, very much made up -according to its own sentiment of things, very prone to startling -eccentricities; and yet at the same time it has beyond any other this -peculiar gift of squaring itself with fashion and custom. In no other -country, I imagine, are so many people to be found doing the same thing, -in the same way, at the same time—using the same slang, wearing the -same hats and neckties, collecting the same china-plates, playing the -same game of lawn-tennis or of polo, admiring the same professional -beauty. The monotony of such a spectacle would soon become oppressive if -the foreign observer were not conscious of this latent capacity in the -performers for great freedom of action; he finds a good deal of -entertainment in wondering how they reconcile the traditional insularity -of the individual with this perpetual tribute to usage. Of course, in -all civilised societies, the tribute to usage is constantly paid; if it -is less apparent in America than elsewhere the reason is not, I think, -because individual independence is greater, but because usage is more -sparsely established. Where custom can be ascertained people certainly -follow it; but for one definite precedent in American life there are -fifty in English. I am very far from having discovered the secret; I -have not in the least learned what becomes of that explosive personal -force in the English character which is compressed and corked down by -social conformity. I look with a certain awe at some of the -manifestations of the conforming spirit, but the fermenting -idiosyncrasies beneath it are hidden from my vision. The most striking -example, to foreign eyes, of the power of custom in England is, of -course, the universal church-going. In the sight of the English people -getting up from its tea and toast of a Sunday morning and brushing its -hat, and drawing on its gloves, and taking its wife on its arm, and -making its offspring march before, and so, for decency's, -respectability's, propriety's sake, taking its way to a place of worship -appointed by the State, in which it repeats the formulas of a creed to -which it attaches no positive sense, and listens to a sermon over the -length of which it explicitly haggles and grumbles—in this exhibition -there is something very striking to a stranger, something which he -hardly knows whether to regard as a great force or as a great infirmity. -He inclines, on the whole, to pronounce the spectacle sublime, because -it gives him the feeling that whenever it may become necessary for a -people trained in these manœuvres to move all together under a common -direction, they will have it in them to do so with tremendous weight and -cohesiveness. We hear a good deal about the effect of the Prussian -military system in consolidating the German people and making them -available for a particular purpose; but I really think it not fanciful -to say that the military punctuality which characterises the English -observance of Sunday ought to be appreciated in the same fashion. A -nation which has passed through the mill will certainly have been -stamped by it. And here, as in the German military service, it is really -the whole nation. When I spoke just now of paterfamilias and his -<i>entourage</i> I did not mean to limit the statement to him. The young -unmarried men go to church, the gay bachelors, the irresponsible members -of society. (That last epithet must be taken with a grain of allowance. -No one in England is literally irresponsible, that perhaps is the -shortest way of describing the nation. Every one is free and every one -is responsible. To say what it is people are responsible to is of course -a great extension of the question: briefly, to social expectation, to -propriety, to morality, to "position," to the classic English -conscience, which is, after all, such a powerful factor. With us there -is infinitely less responsibility; but there is also, I think, less -freedom.) -</p> -<p> -The way in which the example of the more luxurious classes imposes -itself upon the less luxurious may of course be noticed in smaller -matters than church-going; in a great many matters which it may seem -trivial to mention. If one is bent upon observation, nothing, however, -is trivial. So I may cite the practice of banishing the servants from -the room at breakfast. It is the fashion, and accordingly, through the -length and breadth of England, every one who has the slightest -pretension to standing high enough to feel the way the social breeze is -blowing conforms to it. It is awkward, unnatural, troublesome for those -at table, it involves a vast amount of leaning and stretching, of -waiting and perambulating, and it has just that vice against which, in -English history, all great movements have been made—it is arbitrary. -But it flourishes for all that, and all genteel people, looking into -each other's eyes with the desperation of gentility, agree to endure it -for gentility's sake. My instance may seem feeble, and I speak honestly -when I say I might give others, forming part of an immense body of -prescriptive usage, to which a society possessing in the largest manner, -both by temperament and education, the sense of the "inalienable" rights -and comforts of the individual, contrives to accommodate itself. I do -not mean to say that usage in England is always uncomfortable and -arbitrary. On the contrary, few strangers can be unfamiliar with that -sensation (a most agreeable one) which consists in perceiving in the -rigidity of a tradition which has struck one at first as mechanical, a -reason existing in the historic "good sense" of the English race. The -sensation is frequent, though in saying so I do not mean to imply that -even superficially the presumption is against the usages of English -society. It is not, for instance, necessarily against the custom of -which I had it more especially in mind to speak in writing these lines. -The stranger in London is forewarned that at Easter all the world goes -out of town, and that if he have no mind to be left as lonely as Marius -on the ruins of Carthage, he, too, had better make arrangements for a -temporary absence. It must be admitted that there is a sort of -unexpectedness in this prompt re-emigration of a body of people who, but -a week before, were apparently devoting much energy to settling down for -the season. Half of them have but lately come back from the country, -where they have been spending the winter, and they have just had time, -it may be supposed, to collect the scattered threads of town-life. -Presently, however, the threads are dropped and society is dispersed, as -if it had taken a false start. It departs as Holy Week draws to a close, -and remains absent for the following ten days. Where it goes is its own -affair; a good deal of it goes to Paris. Spending last winter in that -city, I remember how, when I woke up on Easter Monday and looked out of -my window, I found the street covered, overnight, with a sort of -snow-fall of disembarked Britons. They made, for other people, an -uncomfortable week of it. One's customary table at the restaurant, one's -habitual stall at the Théâtre Français, one's usual fiacre on the -cab-stand, were very apt to have suffered pre-emption. I believe that -the pilgrimage to Paris was this year of the usual proportions; and you -may be sure that people who did not cross the Channel were not without -invitations to quiet old places in the country, where the pale, fresh -primroses were beginning to light up the dark turf and the purple bloom -of the bare tree-masses to be freckled here and there with verdure. In -England country-life is the obverse of the medal, town-life the reverse, -and when an occasion comes for quitting London there are few members of -what the French call the "easy class" who have not a collection of dull, -moist, verdant resorts to choose from. Dull I call them, and I fancy not -without reason, though at the moment I speak of, their dulness must have -been mitigated by the unintermittent presence of the keenest and -liveliest of east winds. Even in mellow English country homes Easter-tide -is a period of rawness and atmospheric acridity—the moment -at which the frank hostility of winter, which has at last to give up the -game, turns to peevishness and spite. This is what makes it arbitrary, -as I said just now, for "easy" people to go forth to the wind-swept -lawns and the shivering parks. But nothing is more striking to an -American than the frequency of English holidays and the large way in -which occasions for "a little change" are made use of. All this speaks -to Americans of three things which they are accustomed to see allotted -in scantier measure. The English have more time than we, they have more -money, and they have a much higher relish for active leisure. Leisure, -fortune, and the love of sport—these things are implied in English -society at every turn. It was a very small number of weeks before Easter -that Parliament met, and yet a ten days' recess was already, from the -luxurious Parliamentary point of view, a necessity. A short time hence -we shall be having the Whitsuntide holidays, which I am told are even -more of a season of revelry than Easter, and from this point to -midsummer, when everything stops, it is an easy journey. The men of -business and the professional men partake in equal measure of these -agreeable diversions, and I was interested in hearing a lady whose -husband was an active member of the bar say that, though he was leaving -town with her for ten days, and though Easter was a very nice "little -break," they really amused themselves more during the later festival, -which would come on toward the end of May. I thought this highly -probable, and admired so dramatic an interfusion of work and play. If my -phrase has a slightly ironical sound, this is purely accidental. A large -appetite for holidays, the ability not only to take them but to know -what to do with them when taken, is the sign of a robust people, and -judged by this measure we Americans are rather incompetent. Such -holidays as we take are taken very often in Europe, where it is -sometimes noticeable that our privilege is rather heavy on our hands. -Acknowledgement made of English industry, however (our own stands in no -need of compliments), it must be added that for those same easy classes -I just spoke of things are very easy indeed. The number of persons -obtainable for purely social purposes at all times and seasons is -infinitely greater than among ourselves; and the ingenuity of the -arrangements permanently going forward to disembarrass them of their -superfluous leisure is as yet in America an undeveloped branch of -civilisation. The young men who are preparing for the stem realities of -life among the gray-green cloisters of Oxford are obliged to keep their -terms but half the year; and the rosy little cricketers of Eton and -Harrow are let loose upon the parental home for an embarrassing number -of months. Happily the parental home is apt to be an affair of gardens, -lawns, and parks. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -Passion Week, in London, is distinctly an ascetic period; there is -really an approach to sackcloth and ashes. Private dissipation is -suspended; most of the theatres and music-halls are closed; the huge -dusky city seems to take on a still sadder colouring and a sort of hush -steals over its mighty uproar. At such a time, for a stranger, London is -not cheerful. Arriving there, during the past winter, about -Christmas-time, I encountered three British Sundays in a row—a -spectacle to strike terror into the stoutest heart. A Sunday and a -"bank-holiday," if I remember aright, had joined hands with a -Christmas-day, and produced the portentous phenomenon to which I allude. -I betrayed, I suppose, some apprehension of its oppressive character, -for I remember being told in a consolatory way that I needn't fear; it -would not come round again for another year. This information was given -me on the occasion of that surprising interruption of one's relations -with the laundress which is apparently characteristic of the period. I -was told that all the washerwomen were intoxicated, and that, as it -would take them some time to revive, I must not count upon a relay of -"fresh things." I shall not forget the impression made upon me by this -statement; I had just come from Paris and it almost sent me spinning -back. One of the incidental <i>agréments</i> of life in the latter city had -been the knock at my door on Saturday evenings of a charming young woman -with a large basket covered with a snowy napkin on her arm, and on her -head a frilled and fluted muslin cap, which was an irresistible -advertisement of her art. To say that my admirable <i>blanchisseuse</i> was -not in liquor is altogether too gross a compliment; but I was always -grateful to her for her russet cheek, her frank, expressive eye, her -talkative smile, for the way her charming cap was poised upon her crisp, -dense hair, and her well-made dress was fitted to her well-made waist. I -talked with her; I <i>could</i> talk with her; and as she talked she moved -about and laid out her linen with a delightful modest ease. Then her -light step carried her off again, talking, to the door, and with a -brighter smile and an "Adieu, monsieur!" she closed it behind her, -leaving one to think how stupid is prejudice and how poetic a creature a -washerwoman may be. London, in December, was livid with sleet and fog, -and against this dismal background was offered me the vision of a -horrible old woman in a smoky bonnet, lying prone in a puddle of whisky! -She seemed to assume a kind of symbolic significance, and she almost -frightened me away. -</p> -<p> -I mention this trifle, which is doubtless not creditable to my -fortitude, because I found that the information given me was not -strictly accurate, and that at the end of three months I had another -array of London Sundays to face. On this occasion, however, nothing -occurred to suggest again the dreadful image I have just sketched, -though I devoted a good deal of time to observing the manners of the -lower orders. From Good Friday to Easter Monday, inclusive, they were -very much <i>en évidence</i>, and it was an excellent occasion for getting -an impression of the British populace. Gentility had retired to the -background, and in the West End all the blinds were lowered; the streets -were void of carriages, and well-dressed pedestrians were rare; but the -"masses" were all abroad and making the most of their holiday, and I -strolled about and watched them at their gambols. The heavens were most -unfavourable, but in an English "outing" there is always a margin left -for a drenching, and throughout the vast smoky city, beneath the -shifting gloom of the sky, the grimy crowds trooped about with a kind of -weatherproof stolidity. The parks were full of them, the railway -stations overflowed, and the Thames embankment was covered. The -"masses," I think, are usually an entertaining spectacle, even when -observed through the distorting medium of London bad weather. There are -indeed few things in their way more impressive than a dusky London -holiday; it suggests a variety of reflections. Even looked at -superficially, the British capital is one of the most interesting of -cities, and it is perhaps on such occasions as this that I have most -felt its interest. London is ugly, dusky, dreary, more destitute than -any European city of graceful and decorative incident; and though on -festal days, like those I speak of, the populace is massed in large -numbers at certain points, many of the streets are empty enough of human -life to enable you to perceive their intrinsic want of charm. A -Christmas-day or a Good Friday uncovers the ugliness of London. As you -walk along the streets, having no fellow-pedestrians to look at, you -look up at the brown brick house-walls, corroded with soot and fog, -pierced with their straight stiff window-slits, and finished, by way of -a cornice, with a little black line resembling a slice of curbstone. -There is not an accessory, not a touch of architectural fancy, not the -narrowest concession to beauty. If I were a foreigner it would make me -rabid; being an Anglo-Saxon I find in it what Thackeray found in Baker -Street—a delightful proof of English domestic virtue, of the sanctity -of the British home. There are miles and miles of these edifying -monuments, and it would seem that a city made up of them should have no -claim to that larger effectiveness of which I just now spoke. London, -however, is not made up of them; there are architectural combinations of -a statelier kind, and the impression moreover does not rest on details. -London is pictorial in spite of details—from its dark-green, misty -parks, the way the light comes down leaking and filtering from its -cloud-ceiling, and the softness and richness of tone which objects put -on in such an atmosphere as soon as they begin to recede. Nowhere is -there such a play of light and shade, such a struggle of sun and smoke, -such aërial gradations and confusions. To eyes addicted to such -contemplations this is a constant diversion, and yet this is only part -of it. What completes the effect of the place is its appeal to the -feelings, made in so many ways, but made above all by agglomerated -immensity. At any given point London looks huge; even in narrow corners -you have a sense of its hugeness, and petty places acquire a certain -interest from their being parts of so mighty a whole. Nowhere else is so -much human life gathered together, and nowhere does it press upon you -with so many suggestions. These are not all of an exhilarating kind; far -from it. But they are of every possible kind, and that is the interest -of London. Those that were most forcible during the showery Easter -season were certain of the more perplexing and depressing ones; but even -with these was mingled a brighter strain. -</p> -<p> -I walked down to Westminster Abbey on Good Friday afternoon—walked -from Piccadilly across the Green Park and through that of St. James. The -parks were densely filled with the populace—the elder people -shuffling about the walks and the poor little smutty-faced children -sprawling over the dark damp turf. When I reached the Abbey I found a -dense group of people about the entrance, but I squeezed my way through -them and succeeded in reaching the threshold. Beyond this it was -impossible to advance, and I may add that it was not desirable. I put my -nose into the church and promptly withdrew it. The crowd was terribly -compact, and beneath the gothic arches the odour was not that of -incense. I slowly eliminated myself, with that very modified sense of -disappointment that one feels in London at being crowded out of a place. -This is a frequent disappointment, for you very soon find out that there -are, selfishly speaking, too many people. Human life is cheap; your -fellow-mortals are too numerous. Wherever you go you make the -observation. Go to the theatre, to a concert, to an exhibition, to a -reception; you always find that, before you arrive, there are people -enough in the field. You are a tight fit in your place, wherever you -find it; you have too many companions and competitors. You feel yourself -at times in danger of thinking meanly of the human personality; -numerosity, as it were, swallows up quality, and perpetual association -is rather irritating. This is the reason why the perfection of luxury in -England is to own a "park"—an artificial solitude. To get one's -self into the middle of a few hundred acres of oak-studded turf and to -keep off the crowd by the breadth, at least, of this grassy cincture, is -to enjoy a comfort which circumstances make peculiarly precious. But I -walked back through the profane pleasure-grounds of London, in the midst -of "superfluous herds," and I found that entertainment which I never -fail to derive from a great English assemblage. The English are, to my -eyes, so much the handsomest people in Europe that it takes some effort -of the imagination to believe that the fact requires proof. I never see -a large number of them without feeling this impression confirmed; though -I hasten to add that I have sometimes felt it to be rather shaken in the -presence of a limited group. I suspect that a great English crowd would -yield a larger percentage of handsome faces and figures than any other. -With regard to the upper class I suppose this is generally granted; but -I should extend it to the whole people. Certainly, if the English -populace strike the observer by their good looks, they must be very -good-looking indeed. They are as ill-dressed as their betters are -well-dressed, and their garments have that sooty-looking surface which -has nothing in common with some of the more romantic forms of poverty. -It is the hard prose of misery—an ugly and hopeless imitation of -respectable attire. This is especially noticeable in the battered and -bedraggled bonnets of the women, which look as if their husbands had -stamped on them in hobnailed boots, as a hint of what is in store for -their wearers. Then it is not too much to say that two-thirds of the -London faces, among the "masses," bear in some degree or other the -traces of alcoholic action. The proportion of flushed, empurpled, -eruptive countenances is very striking; and the ugliness of the sight is -not diminished by the fact that many of the faces thus disfigured were -evidently meant to please. A very large allowance is to be made, too, -for the people who bear the distinctive stamp of that physical and -mental degradation which comes from the slums and purlieus of this dusky -Babylon—the pallid, stunted, misbegotten, and in every way -miserable figures. These people swarm in every London crowd, and I know -of none in any other place that suggest an equal degree of misery. But -when these abatements are made, the observer is still liable to be -struck by the frequency of well-moulded faces and bodies well put -together; of strong, straight brows and handsome mouths and noses, of -rounded, finished chins and well-poised heads, of admirable complexions -and well-disposed limbs. -</p> -<p> -The capacity of an Englishwoman for being handsome strikes me as -absolutely unlimited, and even if (I repeat) it is in the luxurious -class that it is most freely exercised, yet among the daughters of the -people one sees a great many fine points. Among the men fine points are -strikingly numerous—especially among the younger ones. Here the same -distinction is to be made—the gentlemen are certainly handsomer than -the vulgarians. But taking one young Englishman with another, they are -physically very well turned out. Their features are finished, composed, -as it were, more harmoniously than those of many of their nearer and -remoter neighbours, and their figures are apt to be both powerful and -compact. They present to view very much fewer accidental noses and -inexpressive mouths, fewer sloping shoulders and ill-planted heads of -hair, than their American kinsmen. Speaking always from the sidewalk, it -may be said that as the spring increases in London and the symptoms of -the season multiply, the beautiful young men who adorn the West End -pavements, and who advance before you in couples, arm-in-arm, -fair-haired, gray-eyed, athletic, slow-strolling, ambrosial, are among -the most brilliant features of the brilliant period. I have, it at heart -to add that if the English are handsomer than ourselves, they are also -very much uglier. Indeed I think that all the European peoples are -uglier than the American; we are far from producing those magnificent -types of facial eccentricity which flourish among older civilisations. -American ugliness is on the side of physical poverty and meanness; -English on that of redundancy and monstrosity. In America there are few -grotesques; in England there are many—and some of them have a high -pictorial value. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<p> -The element of the grotesque was very noticeable to me in the most -striking collection of the shabbier English types that I had seen since -I came to London. The occasion of my seeing them was the funeral of Mr. -George Odger, which befell some four or five weeks before the Easter -period. Mr. George Odger, it will be remembered, was an English radical -agitator of humble origin, who had distinguished himself by a perverse -desire to get into Parliament. He exercised, I believe, the useful -profession of shoemaker, and he knocked in vain at the door that opens -but to the refined. But he was a useful and honourable man, and his own -people gave him an honourable burial I emerged accidentally into -Piccadilly at the moment they were so engaged, and the spectacle was one -I should have been sorry to miss. The crowd was enormous, but I managed -to squeeze through it and to get into a hansom cab that was drawn up -beside the pavement, and here I looked on as from a box at the play. -Though it was a funeral that was going on I will not call it a tragedy; -but it was a very serious comedy. The day happened to be -magnificent—the finest of the year. The funeral had been taken in -hand by the classes who are socially unrepresented in Parliament, and it -had the character of a great popular "manifestation" The hearse was -followed by very few carriages, but the <i>cortège</i>, of pedestrians -stretched away in the sunshine, up and down the classic gentility of -Piccadilly, on a scale that was highly impressive. Here and there the -line was broken by a small brass band—apparently one of those -bands of itinerant Germans that play for coppers beneath lodging-house -windows; but for the rest it was compactly made up of what the -newspapers call the dregs of the population. It was the London rabble, -the metropolitan mob, men and women, boys and girls, the decent poor and -the indecent, who had scrambled into the ranks as they gathered them up -on their passage, and were making a sort of solemn "lark" of it. Very -solemn it all was—perfectly proper and undemonstrative. They -shuffled along in an interminable line, and as I looked at them out of -the front of my hansom I seemed to be having a sort of panoramic view of -the under side, the wrong side, of the London world. The procession was -filled with figures which seemed never to have "shown out," as the -English say, before; of strange, pale, mouldy paupers who blinked and -stumbled in the Piccadilly sunshine. I have no space to describe them -more minutely, but I found the whole affair rather suggestive. My -impression rose not simply from the radical, or, as I may say for the -sake of colour, the revolutionary, emanation of this dingy concourse, -lighted up by the ironical sky; but from the same causes that I had -observed a short time before, on the day the Queen went to open -Parliament, when in Trafalgar Square, looking straight down into -Westminster and over the royal procession, were gathered a group of -banners and festoons inscribed in big staring letters with mottoes and -sentiments which a sensitive police department might easily have found -seditious. They were mostly in allusion to the Tichborne claimant, whose -release from his dungeon they peremptorily demanded, and whose cruel -fate was taken as a pretext for several sweeping reflections on the -social arrangements of the time and country. These impertinent standards -were allowed to sun themselves as freely as if they had been the -manifestoes of the Irish Giant or the Oriental Dwarf at a fair. I had -lately come from Paris, where the police-department is more sensitive, -and where revolutionary placards are not observed to adorn the base of -the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. I was, therefore, the more -struck on both of the occasions I speak of with the admirable English -practice of letting people alone—with the good sense and the good -humour and even the good taste of it. It was this that I found -impressive, as I watched the "manifestation" of Mr. Odger's underfed -partisans—the fact that the mighty mob could march along and do -its errand, while the excellent quiet policemen stood by simply to see -that the channel was kept clear and comfortable. -</p> -<p> -When Easter Monday came it was obvious that every one (save Mr. Odger's -friends—three or four million or so) had gone out of town. There -was hardly a pair of shutters in the West End that was not closed; there -was not a bell that it was any use to pull. The weather was detestable, -the rain incessant, and the fact that all one's friends were away gave -one plenty of leisure to reflect that the country must be the reverse of -enlivening. But all one's friends had gone thither (this is the -unanimity I began by talking about), and to restrict as much as possible -the proportions of that game of hide-and-seek of which, at the best, so -much of London social life consists, it seemed wise to bring within the -limits of the dull season any such excursion as one might have projected -in commemoration of the first days of spring. After due cogitation I -paid a little visit to Canterbury and Dover, taking Rochester by the -way, and it was of this momentous journey that I proposed, in beginning -these remarks, to give an account. But I have dallied so much by the way -that I have come almost to my rope's end without reaching my first -stage. I should have begun, artistically, by relating that I put myself -in the humour for remote adventure by going down the Thames on a penny -steamboat to—the Tower. This was on the Saturday before Easter, -and the City was as silent as the grave. The Tower was a memory of my -childhood, and having a theory that from such memories the dust of the -ages had better not be shaken, I had not retraced my steps to its -venerable walls. But the Tower is very good—much less cockneyfied -than I supposed it would seem to my maturer vision; very gray and -historical, with the look that vivifies—rather lividly -indeed—the past I could not get into it, as it had been closed for -Passion Week, but I was consequently relieved from the obligation to -march about with a dozen fellow-starers in the train of a didactic -beef-eater, and I strolled at will through the courts and the garden, -sharing them only with the lounging soldiers of the garrison, who seemed -to connect the place with important events. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<p> -At Rochester I stopped for the sake of its castle, which I espied from -the railway-train, perched on a grassy bank beside the widening Medway. -There were other reasons as well; the place has a small cathedral, and -one has read about it in Dickens, whose house of Gadshill was a couple -of miles from the town. All this Kentish country, between London and -Dover, figures indeed repeatedly in Dickens; he is to a certain extent, -for our own time, the spirit of the land. I found this to be quite the -case at Rochester. I had occasion to go into a little shop kept by a -talkative old woman who had a photograph of Gadshill lying on her -counter. This led to my asking her whether the illustrious master of the -house often made his appearance in the town "Oh, bless you, sir," she -said, "we every one of us knew him to speak to. He was in this very shop -on the Tuesday with a party of foreigners—as he was dead in his bed -on the Friday." (I should remark that I probably do not repeat the days of -the week as she gave them.) "He 'ad on his black velvet suit, and it -always made him look so 'andsome. I said to my 'usband, 'I <i>do</i> think -Charles Dickens looks so nice in that black velvet suit.' But he said he -couldn't see as he looked any way particular. He was in this very shop -on the Tuesday, with a party of foreigners." Rochester consists of -little more than one long street, stretching away from the castle and -the river toward neighbouring Chatham, and edged with low brick houses, -of intensely provincial aspect, most of which have some small, dull -quaintness of gable or window. Nearly opposite to the shop of the old -lady with the dissentient husband is a little dwelling with an inscribed -slab set into its face, which must often have provoked a smile in the -great master of laughter. The slab relates that in the year 1579 Richard -Watts here established a charity which should furnish "six poor -travellers, not rogues or proctors," one night's lodging and -entertainment gratis, and fourpence in the morning to go on their way -withal, and that in memory of his "munificence" the stone has lately -been renewed. The inn at Rochester was poor, and I felt strongly tempted -to knock at the door of Mr. Watts's asylum, under plea of being neither -a rogue nor a proctor. The poor traveller who avails himself of the -testamentary fourpence may easily resume his journey as far as Chatham -without breaking his treasure. Is not this the place where little Davy -Copperfield slept under a cannon on his journey from London to Dover to -join his aunt, Miss Trotwood? The two towns are really but one, which -forms an interminable crooked thoroughfare, lighted up in the dusk, as I -measured it up and down, with the red coats of the vespertinal soldier -quartered at the various barracks of Chatham. -</p> -<p> -The cathedral of Rochester is small and plain, hidden away in rather an -awkward corner, without a verdant close to set it off. It is dwarfed and -effaced by the great square Norman keep of the adjacent castle. But -within it is very charming, especially beyond the detestable wall, the -vice of almost all the English cathedrals, which shuts in the choir and -breaks the sacred perspective of the aisle. Here, as at Canterbury, you -ascend a high range of steps, to pass through the small door in this -wall. When I speak slightingly, by the way, of the outside of Rochester -cathedral, I intend my faint praise in a relative sense. If we were so -happy as to possess this inferior edifice in America, we should go -barefoot to see it; but here it stands in the great shadow of -Canterbury, and that makes it humble. I remember, however, an old priory -gateway which leads you to the church, out of the main street; I -remember a kind of haunted-looking deanery, if that be the technical -name, at the base of the eastern walls; I remember a fluted tower that -took the afternoon light and let the rooks and the swallows come -circling and clamouring around it. Better than these things, however, I -remember the ivy-draped mass of the castle—a very noble and imposing -ruin. The old walled precinct has been converted into a little public -garden, with flowers and benches, and a pavilion for a band, and the -place was not empty, as such places in England never are. The result is -agreeable, but I believe the process was barbarous, involving the -destruction and dispersion of many interesting portions of the ruin. I -sat there for a long time, however, looking in the fading light at what -was left. This rugged pile of Norman masonry will be left when a great -many solid things have departed; it is a sort of satire on destruction -or decay. Its walls are fantastically thick; their great time-bleached -expanses and all their rounded roughnesses, their strange mixture of -softness and grimness, have an undefinable fascination for the eye. -English ruins always come out peculiarly when the day begins to fail. -Weather-bleached, as I say they are, they turn even paler in the -twilight and grow consciously solemn and spectral I have seen many a -mouldering castle, but I remember in no single mass of ruin more of the -helpless, amputated look. -</p> -<p> -It is not the absence of a close that damages Canterbury; the cathedral -stands amid grass and trees, with a cultivated margin all round it, and -is placed in such a way that, as you pass out from under the gatehouse, -you appreciate immediately its grand feature—its extraordinary and -magnificent length. None of the English cathedrals seems more -beautifully isolated, more shut up to itself. It is a long walk, beneath -the walls, from the gateway of the close to the farther end of the last -chapel. Of all that there is to observe in this upward-gazing stroll I -can give no detailed account; I can speak only of the general -impression. This is altogether delightful. None of the rivals of -Canterbury has a more complicated and elaborate architecture, a more -perplexing intermixture of periods, a more charming jumble of Norman -arches and English points and perpendiculars. What makes the side-view -superb, moreover, is the double transepts, which produce a fine -agglomeration of gables and buttresses. It is as if two great churches -had joined forces toward the middle—one giving its nave and the other -its choir, and each keeping its own great cross-aisles. Astride of the -roof, between them, sits a huge gothic tower, which is one of the latest -portions of the building, though it looks like one of the earliest, so -crumbled and blunted and suffused is it by time and weather, like the -rest of the structure it has a magnificent colour—a sort of rich dull -yellow, a something that is neither brown nor gray. This is particularly -appreciable from the cloisters on the farther side of the church—the -side, I mean, away from the town and the open garden-sweep I spoke of; -the side that looks toward a damp old clerical house, lurking behind a -brown archway, through which you see young ladies in Gainsborough hats -playing something on a patch of velvet turf; the side, in short, that is -somehow intermingled with a green quadrangle—a quadrangle serving as -a playground to a King's School, and adorned externally with a very -precious and picturesque old fragment of Norman staircase. This -cloisters is not "kept up;" is very dusky and mouldy and dilapidated, -and of course very sketchable. The old black arches and capitals are -various and handsome, and in the centre are tumbled together a group of -crooked grave-stones, themselves almost buried in the deep soft grass. -Out of the cloisters opens the chapter-house, which is not kept up -either, but which is none the less a magnificent structure; a noble, -lofty hall, with a beautiful wooden roof, simply arched like that of a -tunnel, without columns or brackets. The place is now given up to dust -and echoes; but it looks more like a banqueting-hall than a council-room -of priests, and as you sit on the old wooden bench, which, raised on two -or three steps, runs round the base of the four walls, you may gaze up -and make out the faint ghostly traces of decorative paint and gold upon -the brown ceiling. A little patch of this has been restored, "to give an -idea." From one of the angles of the cloisters you are recommended by -the verger to take a view of the great tower, which indeed detaches -itself with tremendous effect. You see it base itself upon the roof as -broadly as if it were striking roots in earth, and then pile itself away -to a height which seems to make the very swallows dizzy, as they drop -from the topmost shelf. Within the cathedral you hear a great deal, of -course, about poor Thomas A'Becket, and the great sensation of the place -is to stand on the particular spot where he was murdered and look down -at a small fragmentary slab which the verger points out to you as a bit -of the pavement that caught the blood-drops of the struggle. It was late -in the afternoon when I first entered the church; there had been a -service in the choir, but that was well over, and I had the place to -myself. The verger, who had some pushing-about of benches to attend to, -turned me into the locked gates and left me to wander through the -side-aisles of the choir and into the great chapel beyond it. I say I -had the place to myself; but it would be more decent to affirm that I -shared it, in particular, with another gentleman. This personage was -stretched upon a couch of stone, beneath a quaint old canopy of wood; -his hands were crossed upon his breast, and his pointed toes rested upon -a little griffin or leopard. He was a very handsome fellow and the image -of a gallant knight His name was Edward Plantagenet, and his sobriquet -was the Black Prince. "<i>De la mort ne pensai-je mye</i>," he says in the -beautiful inscription embossed upon the bronze base of his image; and I -too, as I stood there, lost the sense of death in a momentary impression -of personal nearness to him. One had been farther off, after all, from -other famous knights. In this same chapel for many a year stood the -shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, one of the richest and most potent -in Christendom. The pavement which lay before it has kept its place, but -Henry VIII. swept away everything else in his famous short cut to -reform. Becket was originally buried in the crypt of the church; his -ashes lay there for fifty years, and it was only little by little that -his martyrdom was, as the French say, "exploited." Then he was -transplanted into the Lady Chapel; every grain of his dust became a -priceless relic, and the pavement was hollowed by the knees of pilgrims. -It was on this errand of course that Chaucer's story-telling cavalcade -came to Canterbury. I made my way down into the crypt, which is a -magnificent maze of low, dark arches and pillars, and groped about till -I found the place where the frightened monks had first shuffled the -inanimate victim of Moreville and Fitzurse out of the reach of further -desecration. While I stood there a violent thunderstorm broke over the -cathedral; great rumbling gusts and rain-drifts came sweeping through -the open sides of the crypt, and, mingling with the darkness which -seemed to deepen and flash in corners, and with the potent mouldy smell, -made me feel as if I had descended into the very bowels of history. I -emerged again, but the rain had settled down and spoiled the evening, -and I splashed back to my inn and sat in an uncomfortable chair by the -coffee-room fire, reading Dean Stanley's agreeable <i>Memorials of -Canterbury</i>, and wondering over the musty appointments and meagre -resources of English hostels. This establishment had entitled itself (in -compliment to the Black Prince, I suppose) the "Fleur-de-lis" The name -was very pretty (I had been foolish enough to let it attract me to the -inn), but the lily was sadly deflowered. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap10"></a></p> - -<h4>X -<br /><br /> -LONDON AT MIDSUMMER -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<p> -I believe it is supposed to require a good deal of courage to confess -that one has spent the month of August in London; and I will therefore, -taking the bull by the horns, plead guilty at the very outset to this -dishonourable weakness. I might attempt some ingenious extenuation of -it. I might say that my remaining in town had been the most unexpected -necessity or the merest inadvertence; I might pretend I liked it—that -I had done it, in fact, for the love of the thing; I might claim that you -don't really know the charms of London until on one of the dog-days you -have imprinted your boot-sole in the slumbering dust of Belgravia, or, -gazing along the empty vista of the Drive, in Hyde Park, have beheld, -for almost the first time in England, a landscape without figures. But -little would remain of these specious apologies save the naked fact that -I had distinctly failed to retire from the metropolis—either on the -first of August with the ladies and children, or on the thirteenth with -the members of Parliament, or on the twelfth when the grouse-shooting -began. (I am not sure that I have got my dates right to a day, but these -were about the proper opportunities.) I have, in fact, survived the -departure of everything genteel, and the three millions of persons who -remained behind with me have been witnesses of my shame. -</p> -<p> -I cannot pretend, on the other hand, that, having lingered in town, I -have found it a very odious or painful experience. Being a stranger, I -have not felt it necessary to incarcerate myself during the day and steal -abroad only under cover of the darkness—a line of conduct imposed -by public opinion, if I am to trust the social criticism of the weekly -papers (which I am far from doing), upon the native residents who allow -themselves to be overtaken by the unfashionable season. I have indeed -always had a theory that few things are pleasanter than during the hot -weather to have a great city, and a large house within it, quite to -one's self. -</p> -<p> -These majestic conditions have not been combined in my own metropolitan -sojourn, and I have received an impression that in London it would be -rather difficult for a person not having the command of a good deal of -powerful machinery to find them united. English summer weather is rarely -hot enough to make it necessary to darken one's house and disrobe. The -present year has indeed in this respect been "exceptional," as any year -is, for that matter, that one spends anywhere. But the manners of the -people are, to American eyes, a sufficient indication that at the best -(or the worst) even the highest flights of the thermometer in the -British Islands betray a broken wing. People live with closed windows in -August, very much as they do in January, and there is to the eye no -appreciable difference in the character of their apparel. A "bath" in -England, for the most part all the year round, means a little portable -tin tub and a sponge. Peaches and pears, grapes and melons, are not a -more obvious ornament of the market at midsummer than at Christmas. This -matter of peaches and melons, by the way, offers one of the best -examples of that fact to which a foreign commentator on English manners -finds himself constantly recurring, and to which he grows at last almost -ashamed of alluding—the fact that the beauty and luxury of the -country—that elaborate system known and revered all over the world -as "English comfort"—is a limited and restricted, an essentially -private, affair. I am not one of those irreverent strangers who talk of -English fruit as a rather audacious <i>plaisanterie</i>, though I could -see very well what was meant a short time since by an anecdote related -to me in a tone of contemptuous generalisation by a couple of my -fellow-countrywomen. They had arrived in London in the dog-days, and, -lunching at their hotel, had asked to be served with some fruit. The -hotel was of the stateliest pattern, and they were waited upon by a -functionary whose grandeur was proportionate. This gentleman bowed and -retired, and, after a long delay reappearing, placed before them, with -an inimitable gesture, a dish of gooseberries and currants. It appeared -upon investigation that these acrid vegetables were the only things of -succulence that the establishment could undertake to supply; and it -seemed to increase the irony of the situation that the establishment was -as near as possible to Buckingham Palace. I say that the heroines of my -anecdote seemed disposed to generalise: this was sufficiently the case, -I mean, to give me a pretext for assuring them that on a thousand -charming estates the most beautiful peaches and melons were at that -moment ripening under glass. My auditors tossed their heads, of course, -at the beautiful estates and the glass; and indeed at their ascetic -hostelry close to Buckingham Palace such a piece of knowledge was but -scantily consoling. -</p> -<p> -It is to a more public fund of entertainment that the desultory stranger -in any country chiefly appeals, especially in summer weather; and as I -have implied that there is little encouragement in England to such an -appeal, it may appear remarkable that I should not have found London, at -this season, at least as uncongenial as orthodoxy pronounces it. But one's -liking for London—a stranger's liking at least—is at the best -an anomalous and illogical sentiment, of which he may feel it hardly less -difficult to give a categorical account at one time than at another. I -am far from meaning by this that there are not in this mighty metropolis -a thousand sources of interest, entertainment, and delight: what I mean -is, that for one reason and another, with all its social resources, the -place lies heavy on the foreign consciousness. It seems grim and dusky, -fierce and unmerciful. And yet the foreign consciousness accepts it at -last with an active satisfaction, and finds something warm and -comfortable, something that if removed would be greatly missed, in its -tremendous pressure. It must be admitted, however, that, granting that -every one is out of town, your choice of pastimes is not embarrassing. -If it has been your fortune to spend a certain amount of time in foreign -cities, London will seem to you but slenderly provided with innocent -diversions. This, indeed, brings us back simply to that question of the -absence of a "public fund" of amusement to which reference was just now -made. You must give up the idea of going to sit somewhere in the open -air, to eat an ice and listen to a band of music. You will find neither -the seat, the ice, nor the band; but, on the other hand, faithful to -your profession of observant foreigner, you may supply the place of -these delights by a little private meditation upon the deep-lying causes -of the English indifference to them. In such reflections nothing is -idle—every grain of testimony counts; and one need therefore not be -accused of jumping too suddenly from small things to great if one traces -a connection between the absence of ices and music and the aristocratic -constitution of English society. This aristocratic constitution of -English society is the great and ever-present fact to the mind of a -stranger: there is hardly a detail of English life that does not appear -in some degree to point to it. It is really only in a country in which a -good deal of democratic feeling prevails that people of "refinement," as -we say in America, will be willing to sit at little round tables, on a -pavement or a gravel-walk, at the door of a café. The upper classes are -too refined, and the lower classes are too miserable. One must hasten to -add too, in justice, that the upper classes are, as a general thing, -quite too well furnished with entertainments of their own; they have -those special resources to which I alluded a moment since. They are -people of fortune, and are naturally independent of communistic -pleasures. If you can sit on a terrace in a high-walled garden and have -your <i>café noir</i> handed to you in Pompadour cups by servants in powder -and plush, you have hardly a decent pretext for going to a public-house. -In France and Italy, in Germany and Spain, the count and countess will -sally forth and encamp for the evening, under a row of coloured lamps, -upon the paving-stones, but it is ten to one that the count and countess -live on a single floor, up several pair of stairs. They are, however, I -think, not appreciably affected by considerations which operate potently -in England. An Englishman who should propose to sit down at a café-door -would find himself remembering that he is exposing himself to the danger -of meeting his social inferiors. The danger is great, because his social -inferiors are so numerous; and I suspect that if we could look straight -into the English consciousness we should be interested to find how serious -a danger it appears, and how good—given the texture of English -life—are some of his reasons for wishing not to expose himself. -</p> -<p> -The consideration of these reasons, however, would lead us very far from -the potential little tables for ices in—where shall I say?—in -Oxford Street; but, after all, there is no reason why our imagination -should hover about these articles of furniture. I am afraid they would not -strike us as happily situated. In such matters everything hangs -together, and I am certain that the customs of the Boulevard des -Italiens and the Piazza Colonna would not harmonise with the scenery of -the great London thoroughfare. A gin-palace right and left and a -detachment of the London rabble in an admiring semicircle—these, I -confess, strike me as some of the more obvious features of the affair. -Yet at the season of which I write, one's social studies must at the -least be studies of low life, for wherever one may go for a stroll or to -spend the summer afternoon, the unfashionable side of things is -uppermost. There is no one in the parks save the rough characters who -are lying on their faces in the sheep-polluted grass. These people are -always tolerably numerous in the Green Park, through which I frequently -pass, and I never fail to drop a wondering glance upon them. But your -wonder will go far if it begins to bestir itself on behalf of the -recumbent British tramp. You perceive among them some rich -possibilities. Their velveteen legs and their colossal high-lows, their -purple necks and ear-tips, their knotted sticks and little greasy hats, -make them look like stage-villains in a realistic melodrama. I may do -them great injustice, but I always assume that they have had a taste of -penal servitude—that they have paid the penalty of stamping on some -weaker human head with those huge square heels that are turned up to the -summer sky. But, actually, they are innocent enough, for they are -sleeping as peacefully as the most accomplished philanthropist, and it -is their look of having walked over half England, and of being -confoundedly hungry and thirsty, that constitutes their romantic -attractiveness. These six square feet of brown grass are their present -sufficiency; but how long will they sleep, whither will they go next, -and whence did they come last? You permit yourself to wish that they -might sleep for ever and go nowhere else at all. -</p> -<p> -The month of August is so uncountenanced in London that going a few days -since to Greenwich, that famous resort, I found it possible to get but -half a dinner. The celebrated hotel had put out its stoves and locked up -its pantry. But for this discovery I should have mentioned the little -expedition to Greenwich as a charming relief to the monotony of a London -August. Greenwich and Richmond are, classically, the two suburban -dining-places. I know not how it may be at this time with Richmond, but -the Greenwich incident brings me back (I hope not once too often) to the -element of what has lately been called "particularism" in English -pleasures. It was in obedience to a perfectly logical argument that the -Greenwich hotel had, as I say, locked up its pantry. All well-bred -people leave London after the first week in August, <i>ergo</i> those who -remain behind are not well-bred, and cannot therefore rise to the -conception of a "fish dinner." Why, then, should we have anything ready? -I had other impressions, fortunately, of this interesting suburb, and I -hasten to declare that during the period of good-breeding the dinner at -Greenwich is the most amusing of all dinners. It begins with fish and it -continues with fish: what it ends with—except songs and speeches and -affectionate partings—I hesitate to affirm. It is a kind of mermaid -reversed; for I do know, in a vague way, that the tail of the creature -is elaborately and interminably fleshy. If it were not grossly -indiscreet, I should risk an allusion to the particular banquet which -was the occasion of my becoming acquainted with the Greenwich cuisine. -I would affirm that it is very pleasant to sit in a company of clever -and distinguished men, before the large windows that look out upon the -broad brown Thames. The ships swim by confidently, as if they were part -of the entertainment and put down in the bill; the light of the -afternoon fades ever so slowly. We eat all the fish of the sea, and wash -them down with liquids that bear no resemblance to salt water. We -partake of any number of those sauces with which, according to the -French adage, one could swallow one's grandmother with a good -conscience. To speak of the particular merits of my companions would -indeed be indiscreet, but there is nothing indelicate in expressing a -high appreciation of the frankness and robustness of English conviviality. -The stranger—the American at least—who finds himself in -the company of a number of Englishmen assembled for a convivial purpose -becomes conscious of a certain indefinable and delectable something -which, for want of a better name, he will call their superior richness -of temperament. He takes note of the liberal share of the individual in -the magnificent temperament of the people. This seems to him one of the -finest things in the world, and his satisfaction will take a keener edge -from such an incident as the single one I may permit myself to mention. -It was one of those little incidents which can occur only in an old -society—a society in which every one that a newly-arrived observer -meets strikes him as having in some degree or other a sort of historic -identity, being connected with some one or something that he has heard -of. If they are not the rose, they have lived more or less near it. -There is an old English song-writer whom we all know and admire—whose -songs are sung wherever the language is spoken. Of course, according to -the law I just hinted at, one of the gentlemen sitting opposite must -needs be his great-grandson. After dinner there are songs, and the -gentleman trolls out one of his ancestral ditties with the most charming -voice and the most finished art. -</p> -<p> -I have still other memories of Greenwich, where there is a charming old -park, on a summit of one of whose grassy undulations the famous -observatory is perched. To do the thing completely, you must take -passage upon one of the little grimy sixpenny steamers that ply upon the -Thames, perform the journey by water, and then, disembarking, take a -stroll in the park to get up an appetite for dinner. I find an -irresistible charm in any sort of river-navigation, but I am rather at a -loss how to speak of the little voyage from Westminster Bridge to -Greenwich. It is in truth the most prosaic possible form of being -afloat, and to be recommended rather to the inquiring than to the -fastidious mind. It initiates you into the duskiness, the blackness, the -crowdedness, the intensely commercial character of London. Few European -cities have a finer river than the Thames, but none certainly has -expended more ingenuity in producing an ugly river-front. For miles and -miles you see nothing but the sooty backs of warehouses, or perhaps they -are the sooty fronts: in buildings so very expressionless it is -impossible to distinguish. They stand massed together on the banks of -the wide, turbid stream, which is fortunately of too opaque a quality to -reflect the dismal image. A damp-looking, dirty blackness is the -universal tone. The river is almost black, and is covered with black -barges; above the black housetops, from among the far-stretching docks -and basins, rises a dusky wilderness of masts. The little puffing -steamer is dingy and gritty—it belches a sable cloud that keeps you -company as you go. In this carboniferous shower your companions, who -belong chiefly, indeed, to the less brilliant classes, assume an -harmonious grayness; and the whole picture, glazed over with the -glutinous London mist, becomes a masterly composition. But it is very -impressive in spite of its want of lightness and brightness, and though -it is ugly it is not insignificant. Like so many of the aspects of -English civilisation that are untouched by elegance or grace, it has the -merit of expressing something very serious. Viewed in this intellectual -light, the polluted river, the sprawling barges, the dead-faced -warehouses, the frowsy people, the atmospheric impurities, become richly -suggestive. It sounds rather absurd to say so, but all this sordid -detail reminds me of nothing less than the wealth and power of the -British empire at large; so that a kind of metaphysical magnificence -hovers over the scene, and supplies what may be literally wanting. I -don't exactly understand the association, but I know that when I look -off to the left at the East India Docks, or pass under the dark, -hugely-piled bridges, where the railway trains and the human processions -are for ever moving, I feel a kind of imaginative thrill. The tremendous -piers of the bridges, in especial, seem the very pillars of the British -empire aforesaid. -</p> -<p> -It is doubtless owing to this habit of obtrusive and unprofitable -reverie that the sentimental tourist thinks it very fine to see the -Greenwich observatory lifting its two modest little brick towers. The -sight of this useful edifice gave me an amount of pleasure which may at -first seem unreasonable. The reason was, simply, that I used to see it -as a child, in woodcuts, in school-geographies, and in the corners of -large maps which had a glazed, sallow surface, and which were suspended -in unexpected places, in dark halls and behind doors. The maps were hung -so high that my eyes could reach only to the lower corners, and these -corners usually contained a print of a strange-looking house, standing -among trees upon a grassy bank that swept down before it with the most -engaging steepness. I used always to think that it must be an immense -pleasure to hurl one's self down this curving precipice. Close at hand -was usually something printed about something being at such and such a -number of degrees "east of Greenwich." Why east of Greenwich? The vague -wonder that the childish mind felt on this point gave the place a -mysterious importance, and seemed to put it into relation with the -difficult and fascinating parts of geography—the countries of -unintentional outline and the lonely-looking pages of the atlas. Yet -there it stood the other day, the precise point from which the great -globe is measured; there was the plain little façade, with the -old-fashioned cupolas; there was the bank on which it would be so -delightful not to be able to stop running. It made me feel terribly old -to find that I was not even tempted to begin. There are indeed a great -many steep banks in Greenwich Park, which tumbles up and down in the -most picturesque fashion. It is a charming place, rather shabby and -footworn, as befits a strictly popular resort, but with a character all -its own. It is filled with magnificent foreign-looking trees, of which I -know nothing but that they have a vain appearance of being chestnuts, -planted in long, convergent avenues, with trunks of extraordinary girth -and limbs that fling a dusky shadow far over the grass; there are plenty -of benches, and there are deer as tame as sleepy children; and from the -tops of the bosky hillocks there are views of the widening Thames, and -the moving ships, and the two classic inns by the water-side, and the -great pompous buildings, designed by Inigo Jones, of the old Hospital, -which have been despoiled of their ancient pensioners and converted into -a kind of naval academy. -</p> -<p> -Taking note of all this, I arrived at a far-away angle in the wall of -the park, where a little postern door stood ajar. I pushed the door -open, and found myself, by a picturesque transition, upon Blackheath -Common. One had often heard of Blackheath: well, here it was—a -great green, breezy place, where various lads in corduroys were playing -cricket I always admire an English common; it may be curtailed and -cockneyfied, as this one was—which had lamp-posts stuck about on -its turf and a fresh-painted banister all around—but it is sure to -be one of the places that remind you vividly that you are in England. -Even if the turf is too much trodden, there is, to foreign eyes, an -English greenness about it, and there is something peculiarly insular in -the way the high-piled, weather-bearing clouds hang over it and drizzle -down their gray light. Still further to identify this spot, here was the -British soldier emerging from two or three of the roads, with his cap -upon his ear, his white gloves in one hand and his foppish little cane -in the other. He wore the uniform of the artillery, and I asked him -where he had come from. I learned that he had walked over from Woolwich, -and that this feat might be accomplished in half an hour. Inspired again -by vague associations, I proceeded to accomplish its equivalent. I bent -my steps to Woolwich, a place which I knew, in a general way, to be a -nursery of British valour. At the end of my half hour I emerged upon -another common, where local colour was still more intense. The scene was -very entertaining. The open grassy expanse was immense, and, the evening -being beautiful, it was dotted with strolling soldiers and townsfolk. -There were half a dozen cricket matches, both civil and military. At one -end of this peaceful <i>campus martius</i>, which stretches over a -hill-top, rises an interminable façade—one of the fronts of the -artillery barracks. It has a very honourable air, and more windows and -doors, I imagine, than any building in Britain. There is a great clean -parade before it, and there are many sentinels pacing in front of -neatly-kept places of ingress to officers' quarters. Everything it looks -out upon is military—the distinguished college (where the poor -young man whom it would perhaps be premature to call the last of the -Bonapartes lately studied the art of war) on one side; a sort of model -camp—a collection of the tidiest plank huts—on the other; a -hospital, on a well-ventilated site, at the remoter end. And then in the -town below there are a great many more military matters—barracks -on an immense scale; a dock-yard that presents an interminable dead wall -to the street; an arsenal which the gatekeeper (who refused to admit me) -declared to be "five miles" in circumference; and, lastly, grogshops -enough to inflame the most craven spirit. These latter institutions I -glanced at on my way to the railway station at the bottom of the hill; -but before departing I had spent half an hour in strolling about the -common in vague consciousness of certain emotions that are called into -play (I speak but for myself) by almost any glimpse of the imperial -machinery of this great country. The glimpse may be of the slightest; it -stirs a peculiar sentiment. I know not what to call this sentiment -unless it be simply an admiration for the greatness of England. The -greatness of England; that is a very off-hand phrase, and of course I -don't pretend to use it analytically. I use it sentimentally—as it -sounds in the ears of any American who finds in English history the -sacred source of his own national affection. I think of the great part -that England has played in human affairs, the great space she has -occupied, her tremendous might, her far-stretching sway. That these -clumsily-general ideas should be suggested by the sight of some -infinitesimal fraction of the English administrative system may seem to -indicate a cast of fancy too hysterical; but if so, I must plead guilty -to the weakness. Why should a sentry-box more or less set one thinking -of the glory of this little island, which has found in her bosom the -means of so vast a dominion? This is more than I can say; and all I -shall attempt to say is, that in the difficult days that are now -elapsing a sympathetic stranger finds his meditations singularly -quickened. It is the dramatic element in English history that he has -chiefly cared for, sand he finds himself wondering whether the dramatic -epoch is completely closed. It is a moment when all the nations of -Europe seem to be doing something, and he waits to see what England, who -has done so much, will do. He has been meeting of late a good many of -his country-people—Americans who live on the Continent and pretend -to speak with assurance of continental ways of feeling. These people -have been passing through London, and many of them are in that irritated -condition of mind which appears to be the portion of the American -sojourner in the British metropolis when he is not given up to the -delights of the historic sentiment. They have affirmed with emphasis -that the continental nations have ceased to care a straw for what -England thinks, that her traditional prestige is completely extinct, and -that the affairs of Europe will be settled quite independently of the -power whose capital is on the Thames. England will do nothing, will risk -nothing; there is no cause bad enough for her not to find a selfish -interest in it—there is no cause good enough for her to fight -about it. Poor old England is exploded; it is about time she should haul -in her nets. To all this the sympathetic stranger replies that, in the -first place, he doesn't believe a word of it; and, in the second place, -he doesn't care a fig for it—care, that is, what the continental -nations think. If the greatness of England were really waning, it would -be to him as a personal grief; and as he strolls about the breezy common -of Woolwich, with all those mementoes of British dominion around him, he -is quite too keenly exhilarated to be distracted by such vapours. -</p> -<p> -He wishes, nevertheless, as I said before, that England would do -something—something striking and powerful, which should be at once -characteristic and unexpected. He asks himself what she can do, and he -remembers that this greatness of England which he so much admires was -formerly much exemplified in her "taking" something. Can't she "take" -something now? There is the <i>Spectator</i>, who wants her to occupy -Egypt: can't she occupy Egypt? The <i>Spectator</i> considers this her -moral duty—inquires even whether she has a right not to bestow the -blessings of her beneficent rule upon the down-trodden Fellaheen, I -found myself in company with an acute young Frenchman a day or two after -this eloquent plea for a partial annexation of the Nile had appeared in -the most ingenious of journals. Some allusion was made to it, and my -companion proceeded to pronounce it a finished example of British -hypocrisy. I don't know how powerful a defence I made of it, but while I -read it I certainly had been carried away by it. I recalled it while I -pursued my contemplations, but I recalled at the same time that sadly -prosaic speech of Mr. Gladstone's to which it had been a reply. Mr. -Gladstone had said that England had much more urgent duties than the -occupation of Egypt: she had to attend to the great questions -of——What were the great questions? Those of local taxation -and the liquor-laws! Local taxation and the liquor-laws! The phrase, to -my ears, just then made a painful discord. These were not the things I -had been thinking of; it was not as she should bend anxiously over these -doubtless interesting subjects that the sympathetic stranger would seem -to see England in his favourite posture—that, as Macaulay says, of -hurling defiance at her foes. Of course, Mr. Gladstone was probably -right, but Mr. Gladstone was not a sympathetic stranger. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap11"></a></p> - -<h4>XI -<br /><br /> -TWO EXCURSIONS -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -They differed greatly from each other, but each had an interest of its -own. There seemed (as regards the first) a general consensus of opinion -as to its being a great pity that a stranger in England should miss the -Derby day. Every one assured me that this was the great festival of the -English people, and the most characteristic of national holidays. So -much, since it had to do with horse-flesh, I could readily believe. Had -not the newspapers been filled for weeks with recurrent dissertations -upon the animals concerned in the ceremony? and was not the event, to -the nation at large, only imperceptibly less momentous than the other -great question of the day—the fate of empires and the -reapportionment of the East? The space allotted to sporting intelligence -in a compact, eclectic, "intellectual" journal like the <i>Pall Mall -Gazette</i>, had seemed to me for some time past a measure of the hold -of such questions upon the British mind. These things, however, are very -natural in a country in which in "society" you are liable to make the -acquaintance of some such syllogism as the following. You are seated at -dinner next a foreign lady, who has on her other hand a native -gentleman, by whom she is being instructed in the art of getting the -light point-of-view for looking at English life. I profit by their -conversation, and I learn that this point-of-view is apparently the -saddle. "You see, English life," says the gentleman, "is really English -country life. It's the country that is the basis of English society. And -you see, country life is—well, it's the <i>hunting</i>. It's the -hunting that is at the bottom of it all." In other words, "the hunting" -is the basis of English society. Duly initiated into this interpretation -of things, the American observer is prepared for the colossal -proportions of the annual pilgrimage to Epsom. This pilgrimage, however, -I was assured, though still well worth taking part in, is by no means so -characteristic as in former days. It is now performed in a large measure -by rail, and the spectacle on the road has lost its ancient brilliancy. -The road has been given up more and more to the populace and the -strangers, and has ceased to be graced by the presence of ladies. -Nevertheless, as a man and a stranger, I was strongly recommended to -take it; for the return from the Derby is still, with all its -abatements, a classic spectacle. -</p> -<p> -I mounted upon a four-horse coach, a charming coach, with a yellow body, -and handsome, clean-flanked leaders; placing myself beside the coachman, -as I had been told this was the point of vantage. The coach was one of -the vehicles of the new fashion—the fashion of public conveyances -driven, for the entertainment of themselves and of the public, by -gentlemen of leisure. On the Derby day all the coaches that start from -the classic headquarters—the "White Horse," in -Piccadilly—and stretch away from London toward a dozen different -and well-selected goals, had been dedicated to the Epsom road. The body -of the vehicle is empty, as no one thinks of occupying any but one of -the thirteen places on the top. On the Derby day, however, a properly -laden coach carries a company of hampers and champagne-baskets in its -inside places. I must add that on this occasion my companion was by -exception a professional whip, who proved an entertaining cicerone. -Other companions there were, perched in the twelve places behind me, -whose social quality I made less of a point of testing—though in -the course of the expedition their various characteristics, under the -influence of champagne, expanded so freely as greatly to facilitate the -operation. We were a society of exotics—Spaniards, Frenchmen, -Germans. There were only two Britons, and these, according to my theory, -were Australians—an antipodal bride and groom, on a centripetal -wedding-tour. -</p> -<p> -The drive to Epsom, when you get well out of London, is sufficiently -pretty; but the part of it which most took my fancy was a suburban -district—the classic neighbourhood of Clapham. The vision of Clapham -had been a part of the furniture of my imagination—the vision of its -respectable common, its evangelical society, and its goodly brick -mansions of the Georgian era. I now beheld these objects for the first -time, and I thought them very charming. This epithet, indeed, scarcely -applies to the evangelical society, which naturally, on the morning of -the Derby day, and during the desecrating progress of the Epsom -revellers, was not much in the foreground. But all around the verdant, -if cockneyfied common, are ranged commodious houses of a sober red -complexion, from under whose neoclassic pediments you expect to see a -mild-faced lady emerge—a lady in a cottage-bonnet and mittens, -distributing tracts from a little satchel. It would take an energetic -piety, however, to stem the current of heterogeneous vehicles which at -about this point takes up its metropolitan affluents and bears them in -its rumbling, rattling tide. The concourse of wheeled conveyances of -every possible order here becomes dense, and the spectacle from the top -of the coach proportionately absorbing. You begin to perceive that the -brilliancy of the road has in truth departed, and that well-appointed -elegance is not the prevailing characteristic. But when once you have -grasped this fact your entertainment is continuous. You perceive that -you are "in," as the phrase is, for something vulgar, something -colossally, unimaginably, heroically vulgar; all that is necessary is to -accept this situation and look out for illustrations. Beside you, before -you, behind you, is the mighty London populace, taking its <i>ébats</i>. -You get for the first time a notion of the London population at large. It -has piled itself into carts, into omnibuses, into every possible and -impossible species of "trap." A large proportion of it is of course on -foot, trudging along the perilous margin of the middle way, in such -comfort as may be gathered from fifteen miles' dodging of broken shins. -The smaller the vehicle, the more rat-like the animal that drags it, the -more numerous and ponderous its human freight; and as every one is -nursing in his lap a parcel of provender as big as himself, wrapped in -ragged newspapers, it is not surprising that roadside halts are -frequent, and that the taverns all the way to Epsom (it is wonderful how -many there are) are encompassed by dense groups of dusty pilgrims, -indulging liberally in refreshment for man and beast. And when I say man -I must by no means be understood to exclude woman. The female contingent -on the Derby day is not the least remarkable part of the London -multitude. Every one is prepared for an "outing," but the women are even -more brilliantly and resolutely prepared than the men; it is the best -possible chance to observe the various types of the British female of -the lower orders. The lady in question is usually not ornamental. She is -useful, robust, prolific, excellently fitted to play the somewhat -arduous part allotted to her in the great scheme of English -civilisation. But she has not those graces which enable her to become -easily and harmoniously festal. On smaller holidays—or on simple -working-days—in London crowds, I have often thought her handsome; -thought, that is, that she has handsome points, and that it was not -impossible to see how it is that she helps to make the English race, on -the whole, the comeliest in the world. But at Epsom she is too stout, -too hot, too red, too thirsty, too boisterous, too strangely accoutred. -And yet I wish to do her justice; so I must add that if there is -something to which an American cannot refuse a tribute of admiration in -the gross plebeian jollity of the Derby day, it is not evident why these -lusty she-revellers should not get part of the credit of it. The -striking thing, the interesting thing, both on the outward drive and on -the return, was that the holiday was so frankly, heartily, -good-humouredly taken. The people that of all peoples is habitually the -most governed by decencies, proprieties, rigidities of conduct, was, for -one happy day, unbuttoning its respectable straight-jacket and letting -its powerful, carnal, healthy temperament take the air. In such a -spectacle there was inevitably much that was unlucky and unprofitable; -these things came uppermost chiefly on the return, when demoralisation -was supreme, when the temperament in question had quite taken what the -French call the key of the fields, and seemed in no mood to come back -and give an account of itself. For the rest, to be dressed with a kind -of brutal gaudiness, to be very thirsty and violently flushed, to laugh -perpetually at everything and at nothing, thoroughly to enjoy, in short, -a momentous occasion—all this is not, in simple persons of the more -susceptible sex, an unpardonable crime. -</p> -<p> -The course at Epsom is in itself very pretty, and disposed by nature -herself in sympathetic prevision of the sporting passion. It is -something like the crater of a volcano, without the mountain. The outer -rim is the course proper; the space within it is a vast, shallow, grassy -concavity in which vehicles are drawn up and beasts tethered, and in -which the greater part of the multitude—the mountebanks, the -betting-men, and the myriad hangers-on of the scene—are congregated. -The outer margin of the uplifted rim in question is occupied by the -grand stand, the small stands, the paddock. The day was exceptionally -beautiful; the charming sky was spotted over with little idle-looking, -loafing, irresponsible clouds; the Epsom Downs went swelling away as -greenly as in a coloured sporting-print, and the wooded uplands, in the -middle distance, looked as innocent and pastoral as if they had never -seen a policeman or a rowdy. The crowd that spread itself over this -immense expanse was the richest representation of human life that I have -ever looked upon. One's first fate after arriving, if one is perched -upon a coach, is to see the coach guided, by means best known to the -coachman himself, through the tremendous press of vehicles and -pedestrians, introduced into a precinct roped off and guarded from -intrusion save under payment of a fee, and then drawn up alongside of -the course, as nearly as possible opposite the grand stand and the -winning post. Here you have only to stand up in your place—on tiptoe, -it is true, and with a good deal of stretching—to see the race fairly -well. But I hasten to add that seeing the race is indifferent -entertainment. If I might be Irish on the occasion of a frolic, I would -say that in the first place you do not see it at all, and in the second -place you perceive it to be not much worth the seeing. It may be very -fine in quality, but in quantity it is inappreciable. The horses and -their jockeys first go dandling and cantering along the course to the -starting-point, looking as insubstantial as sifted sunbeams. Then there -is a long wait, during which, of the sixty thousand people present (my -figures are imaginary) thirty thousand affirm positively that they have -started, and thirty thousand as positively deny it. Then the whole sixty -thousand are suddenly resolved into unanimity by the sight of a dozen -small jockey-heads whizzing along a very distant sky-line. In a shorter -space of time than it takes me to write it, the whole thing is before -you, and for the instant it is anything but beautiful. A dozen furiously -revolving arms—pink, green, orange, scarlet, white—whacking the -flanks of as many straining steeds; a glimpse of this, and the spectacle is -over. The spectacle, however, is of course an infinitesimally small part -of the purpose of Epsom and the interest of the Derby. The interest is -in having money in the affair, and doubtless those most interested do -not trouble themselves particularly to watch the race. They learn soon -enough whether they are, in the English phrase, to the good or to the -bad. -</p> -<p> -When the Derby stakes had been carried off by a horse of which I confess -I am barbarous enough to have forgotten the name, I turned my back to -the running, for all the world as if I too were largely "interested," -and sought entertainment in looking at the crowd. The crowd was very -animated; that is the most succinct description I can give of it. The -horses of course had been removed from the vehicles, so that the -pedestrians were free to surge against the wheels and even to a certain -extent to scale and overrun the carriages. This tendency became most -pronounced when, as the mid-period of the day was reached, the process -of lunching began to unfold itself and every coach-top to become the -scene of a picnic. From this moment, at the Derby, demoralisation -begins. I was in a position to observe it, all around me, in the most -characteristic forms. The whole affair, as regards the conventional -rigidities I spoke of a while since, becomes a real <i>dégringolade</i>. -The shabbier pedestrians bustle about the vehicles, staring up at the lucky -mortals who are perched in a kind of tormentingly near empyrean—a -region in which dishes of lobster-salad are passed about and -champagne-corks cleave the air like celestial meteors. There are -nigger-minstrels and beggars and mountebanks and spangled persons on -stilts, and gipsy matrons, as genuine as possible, with glowing Oriental -eyes and dropping their <i>h</i>'s; these last offer you for sixpence the -promise of everything genteel in life except the aspirate. On a coach -drawn up beside the one on which I had a place, a party of opulent young -men were passing from one stage of exhilaration to another with a -punctuality which excited my admiration. They were accompanied by two or -three young ladies of the kind that usually shares the choicest -pleasures of youthful British opulence—young ladies in whom nothing -has been neglected that can make a complexion Titianesque. The whole party -had been drinking deep, and one of the young men, a pretty lad of -twenty, had in an indiscreet moment staggered down as best he could to -the ground. Here his cups proved too many for him, and he collapsed and -rolled over. In plain English, he was beastly drunk. It was the scene -that followed that arrested my observation. His companions on the top of -the coach called down to the people herding under the wheels to pick him -up and put him away inside. These people were the grimiest of the -rabble, and a couple of men who looked like coal-heavers out of work -undertook to handle this hapless youth. But their task was difficult; it -was impossible to imagine a young man more drunk. He was a mere bag of -liquor—at once too ponderous and too flaccid to be lifted. He lay in -a helpless heap under the feet of the crowd—the best intoxicated -young man in England. His extemporised chamberlains took him first in one -way and then in another; but he was like water in a sieve. The crowd -hustled over him; every one wanted to see; he was pulled and shoved and -fumbled. The spectacle had a grotesque side, and this it was that seemed to -strike the fancy of the young man's comrades. They had not done -lunching, so they were unable to bestow upon the incident the whole of -that consideration which its high comicality deserved. But they did what -they could. They looked down very often, glass in hand, during the -half-hour that it went on, and they stinted neither their generous, -joyous laughter, nor their appreciative comments. Women are said to have -no sense of humour; but the Titianesque young ladies did liberal justice -to the pleasantry of the scene. Toward the last, indeed, their attention -rather flagged; for even the best joke suffers by reiteration, and when -you have seen a stupefied young man, infinitely bedusted, slip out of -the embrace of a couple of clumsy paupers for the twentieth time, you -may very properly suppose that you have arrived at the farthest limits -of the ludicrous. -</p> -<p> -After the great race had been run I quitted my perch and spent the rest -of the afternoon in wandering about that grassy concave I have -mentioned. It was amusing and picturesque; it was like a huge Bohemian -encampment. Here also a great number of carriages were stationed, -freighted in like manner with free-handed youths and young ladies with -gilded tresses. These young ladies were almost the only representatives -of their sex with pretensions to elegance; they were often pretty and -always exhilarated. Gentlemen in pairs, mounted on stools, habited in -fantastic sporting garments, and offering bets to whomsoever listed, -were a conspicuous feature of the scene. It was equally striking that -they were not preaching in the desert and that they found plenty of -patrons among the baser sort. I returned to my place in time to assist -at the rather complicated operation of starting for the drive back to -London. Putting in horses and getting vehicles into line seemed in the -midst of the general crush and entanglement a process not to be -facilitated even by the most liberal swearing on the part of those -engaged in it. But little by little we came to the end of it; and as by -this time a kind of mellow cheerfulness pervaded the upper -atmosphere—the region of the perpendicular whip—even those -interruptions most trying to patience were somehow made to minister to -jollity. It was for people below to not get trampled to death or -crunched between opposing wheel-hubs, if they could manage it. Above, -the carnival of "chaff" had set in, and it deepened as the lock of -vehicles grew denser. As they were all locked together (with a -comfortable padding of pedestrians at points of acutest contact), they -contrived somehow to move together; so that we gradually got away and -into the road. The four or five hours consumed on the road were simply -as I say, a carnival of "chaff," the profusely good-humoured savour of -which, on the whole, was certainly striking. The chaff was not brilliant -nor subtle nor especially graceful; and here and there it was quite too -tipsy to be even articulate. But as an expression of that unbuttoning of -the popular straight-jacket of which I spoke awhile since, it had its -wholesome and even innocent side. It took, indeed, frequently an -importunate physical form; it sought emphasis in the use of pea-shooters -and water-squirts. At its best, too, it was extremely low and rowdyish. -But a stranger even of the most refined tastes might be glad to have a -glimpse of this popular revel, for it would make him feel that he was -learning something more about the English people. It would give a -meaning to the old words "merry England." It would remind him that the -natives of that country are subject to some of the most frolicsome of -the human passions, and that the decent, dusky vistas of the London -residential streets—those discreet creations of which Thackeray's -"Baker Street" is the type—are not a complete symbol of the -complicated race that erected them. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -It seemed to me such a piece of good fortune to have been asked down to -Oxford at Commemoration by a gentleman implicated in the remarkable -ceremony which goes on under that name, who kindly offered me the -hospitality of his college, that I scarcely waited even to thank him, I -simply took the first train. I had had a glimpse of Oxford in former -years, but I had never slept in a low-browed room looking out on a -grassy quadrangle, opposite a mediæval clock-tower. This satisfaction -was vouchsafed me on the night of my arrival; I was inducted into the -rooms of an absent undergraduate. I sat in his deep arm-chairs; I burned -his candles and read his books. I hereby thank him as tenderly as -possible. Before going to bed I took a turn through the streets and -renewed in the silent darkness that impression of the charm imparted to -them by the quiet college-fronts, which I had gathered in former years. -The college-fronts were now quieter than ever, the streets were empty, -and the old scholastic city was sleeping in the warm starlight. The -undergraduates had retired in large numbers, encouraged in this impulse -by the collegiate authorities, who deprecate their presence at -Commemoration. However many young gownsmen may be sent away, there -always remain enough to make a noise. There can be no better indication -of the resources of Oxford in a spectacular way than this fact that the -first step toward preparing an impressive ceremony is to get rid of the -undergraduates. -</p> -<p> -In the morning I breakfasted with a young American who, in common with a -number of his countrymen, had come hither to seek stimulus for a finer -quality of study. I know not whether he would have reckoned as such -stimulus the conversation of a couple of those ingenuous youths of -Britain whose society I always find charming; but it added, from my own -point of view, to the local colour of the entertainment. After this was -over I repaired, in company with a crowd of ladies and elderly people, -interspersed with gownsmen, to the hoary rotunda of the Sheldonian -theatre, which every visitor to Oxford will remember, with its curious -cincture of clumsily-carven heads of warriors and sages perched upon -stone posts. The interior of this edifice is the scene of the classic -hooting, stamping, and cat-calling by which the undergraduates confer -the last consecration upon the distinguished gentlemen who come up for -the honorary degree of D.C.L. It is with the design of attenuating as -much as possible this incongruous chorus, that the heads of colleges, on -the close of the term, a few days before Commemoration, speed their too -demonstrative disciples upon the homeward way. As I have already hinted, -however, the contingent of irreverent lads was on this occasion quite -large enough to produce a very handsome specimen of the traditional -rumpus. This made the scene a very singular one. An American of course, -with his fondness for antiquity, his relish for picturesqueness, his -"emotional" attitude at historic shrines, takes Oxford much more -seriously than its customary denizens can be expected to do. These -people are not always upon the high horse; they are not always in an -acutely sentient condition. Nevertheless, there is a certain maximum of -disaccord with their beautiful circumstances which the ecstatic -Occidental vaguely expects them not to transcend. No effort of the -intellect beforehand would enable him to imagine one of those -silver-gray temples of learning converted into a semblance of the Bowery -Theatre when the Bowery Theatre is being trifled with. -</p> -<p> -The Sheldonian edifice, like everything at Oxford, is more or less -monumental. There is a double tier of galleries, with sculptured pulpits -protruding from them; there are full-length portraits of kings and -worthies; there is a general air of antiquity and dignity, which, on the -occasion of which I speak, was enhanced by the presence of certain -ancient scholars, seated in crimson robes in high-backed chairs. -Formerly, I believe, the undergraduates were placed apart—packed -together in a corner of one of the galleries. But now they are scattered -among the general spectators, a large number of whom are ladies. They -muster in especial force, however, on the floor of the theatre, which -has been cleared of its benches. Here the dense mass is at last severed -in twain by the entrance of the prospective D.C.L.'s walking in single -file, clad in crimson gowns, preceded by mace-bearers and accompanied by -the Regius professor of Civil Law, who presents them individually to the -Vice-Chancellor of the university, in a Latin speech which is of course -a glowing eulogy. The five gentlemen to whom this distinction had been -offered in 1877 were not among those whom fame has trumpeted most -loudly; but there was something very pretty in their standing in their -honourable robes, with heads modestly bent, while the orator, equally -brilliant in aspect, recited their titles sonorously to the venerable -dignitary in the high-backed chair. Each of them, when the little speech -is ended, ascends the steps leading to the chair; the Vice-Chancellor -bends forward and shakes his hand, and the new D.C.L. goes and sits in -the blushing row of his fellow-doctors. The impressiveness of all this -is much diminished by the boisterous conduct of the collegians, who -superabound in extravagant applause, in impertinent interrogation, and -in lively disparagement of the orator's Latinity. Of the scene that -precedes the episode I have just described I have given no account; -vivid portrayal of it is not easy. Like the return from the Derby, it is -a carnival of "chaff"; and it is a singular fact that the scholastic -festival should have forcibly reminded me of the great popular "lark." -In each case it is the same race enjoying a certain definitely chartered -license; in the young votaries of a liberal education and the London -rabble on the Epsom road it is the same perfect good-humour, the same -muscular jocosity. -</p> -<p> -After the presentation of the doctors came a series of those collegiate -exercises which have a generic resemblance all the world over: a reading -of Latin verses and English essays, a spouting of prize poems and Greek -paraphrases. The prize poem alone was somewhat attentively listened to; -the other things were received with an infinite variety of critical -ejaculation. But after all, I reflected, as the ceremony drew to a dose, -this discordant racket is more characteristic than it seems; it is at -bottom only another expression of the venerable and historic side of -Oxford. It is tolerated because it is traditional; it is possible -because it is classical. Looking at it in this light, one might manage -at last to find it impressive and romantic. -</p> -<p> -I was not obliged to find ingenious pretexts for thinking well of -another ceremony of which I was witness after we adjourned from the -Sheldonian theatre. This was a lunch-party at the particular college in -which I should find it the highest privilege to reside. I may not -further specify it. Perhaps, indeed, I may go so far as to say that the -reason for my dreaming of this privilege is that it is deemed by persons -of a reforming turn the best-appointed abuse in a nest of abuses. A -commission for the expurgation of the universities has lately been -appointed by Parliament to look into it—a commission armed with a -gigantic broom, which is to sweep away all the fine old ivied and -cobwebbed improprieties. Pending these righteous changes, one would like -while one is about it—about, that is, this business of admiring -Oxford—to attach one's self to the abuse, to bury one's nostrils in -the rose before it is plucked. At the college in question there are no -undergraduates. I found it agreeable to reflect that those gray-green -cloisters had sent no delegates to the slangy congregation I had just -quitted. This delightful spot exists for the satisfaction of a small -society of Fellows who, having no dreary instruction to administer, no -noisy hobbledehoys to govern, no obligations but toward their own -culture, no care save for learning as learning and truth as truth, are -presumably the happiest and most charming people in the world. The party -invited to lunch assembled first in the library of the college, a cool, -gray hall, of very great length and height, with vast wall-spaces of -rich-looking book-titles and statues of noble scholars set in the midst. -Had the charming Fellows ever anything more disagreeable to do than to -finger these precious volumes and then to stroll about together in the -grassy courts, in learned comradeship, discussing their precious -contents? Nothing, apparently, unless it were to give a lunch at -Commemoration in the dining-hall of the college. When lunch was ready -there was a very pretty procession to go to it. Learned gentlemen in -crimson gowns, ladies in brilliant toilets, paired slowly off and -marched in a stately diagonal across the fine, smooth lawn of the -quadrangle, in a corner of which they passed through a hospitable door. -But here we cross the threshold of privacy; I remained on the farther -side of it during the rest of the day. But I brought back with me -certain memories of which, if I were not at the end of my space, I -should attempt a discreet adumbration: memories of a fête champêtre in -the beautiful gardens of one of the other colleges—charming lawns and -spreading trees, music of Grenadier Guards, ices in striped marquees, -mild flirtation of youthful gownsmen and bemuslined maidens; memories, -too, of quiet dinner in common-room, a decorous, excellent repast; old -portraits on the walls and great windows open upon the ancient court, -where the afternoon light was fading in the stillness; superior talk -upon current topics, and over all the peculiar air of Oxford—the air -of liberty to care for intellectual things, assured and secured by -machinery which is in itself a satisfaction to sense. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap12"></a></p> - -<h4>XII -<br /><br /> -IN WARWICKSHIRE -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<p> -There is no better way for the stranger who wishes to know something of -England, to plunge in <i>medias res</i>, than to spend a fortnight in -Warwickshire. It is the core and centre of the English world; midmost -England, unmitigated England. The place has taught me a great many -English secrets; I have interviewed the genius of pastoral Britain. From -a charming lawn—a lawn delicious to one's sentient -boot-sole—I looked without obstruction at a sombre, soft, romantic -mass, whose outline was blurred by mantling ivy. It made a perfect -picture; and in the foreground the great trees overarched their boughs -from right and left, so as to give it a majestic frame. This interesting -object was the castle of Kenilworth. It was within distance of an easy -walk, but one hardly thought of walking to it, any more than one would -have thought of walking to a purple-shadowed tower in the background of -a Berghem or a Claude. Here there were purple shadows, and -slowly-shifting lights, and a soft-hued, bosky country in the middle -distance. -</p> -<p> -Of course, however, I did walk over to the castle; and of course the -walk led me through leafy lanes, and beside the hedgerows that make a -tangled screen for lawn-like meadows. Of course too, I am bound to add, -there was a row of ancient pedlars outside the castle-wall, hawking -twopenny pamphlets and photographs. Of course, equally, at the foot of -the grassy mound on which the ruin stands, there were half a dozen -public houses; and, always of course, there were half a dozen beery -vagrants sprawling on the grass in the moist sunshine. There was the -usual respectable young woman to open the castle-gate and to receive the -usual sixpenny fee. And there were the usual squares of printed -cardboard, suspended upon venerable surfaces, with further enumeration -of twopence, threepence, fourpence. I do not allude to these things -querulously, for Kenilworth is a very tame lion—a lion that, in -former years, I had stroked more than once. I remember perfectly my -first visit to this romantic spot; how I chanced upon a picnic; how I -stumbled over beer-bottles; how the very echoes of the beautiful ruin -seemed to have dropped all their <i>h</i>'s. That was a sultry -afternoon; I allowed my spirits to sink, and I came away hanging my -head. This was a beautiful fresh morning, and in the interval I had -grown philosophic. I had learned that, with regard to most romantic -sites in England, there is a sort of average cockneyfication with which -you must make your account. There are always people on the field before -you, and there is generally something being drunk on the premises. -</p> -<p> -I hoped, on the occasion of which I am now speaking, that the average -would be low; and indeed, for the first five minutes I flattered myself -that this was the case. In the beautiful grassy court of the castle, on -my entrance, there were not more than eight or ten fellow-intruders. -There were a couple of old ladies on a bench, eating something out of a -newspaper; there was a dissenting minister, also on a bench, reading the -guide-book aloud to his wife and sister-in-law; there were three or four -children pushing each other up and down the turfy hillocks. This was -sweet seclusion indeed; and I got a capital start with the various noble -square-windowed fragments of the stately pile. They are extremely -majestic, with their even, pale-red colour, their deep-green drapery, -their princely vastness of scale. But presently the tranquil ruin began -to swarm like a startled hive. There were plenty of people, if they -chose to show themselves. They emerged from crumbling doorways and -gaping chambers, with the best conscience in the world; but I know not, -after all, why I should bear them a grudge, for they gave me a pretext -for wandering about in search of a quiet point of view. I cannot say -that I found my point of view, but in looking for it I saw the castle, -which is certainly an admirable ruin. And when the respectable young -woman had let me out of the gate again, and I had shaken my head at the -civil-spoken pedlars who form a little avenue for the arriving and -departing visitor, I found it in my good-nature to linger a moment on -the trodden, grassy slope, and to think that in spite of the hawkers, -the paupers, and the beer-shops, there was still a good deal of old -England in the scene. I say in spite of these things, but it may have -been, in some degree, because of them. Who shall resolve into its -component parts any impression of this richly complex English world, -where the present is always seen, as it were, in profile, and the past -presents a full face? At all events the solid red castle rose behind me, -towering above its small old ladies and its investigating parsons; -before me, across the patch of common, was a row of ancient cottages, -black-timbered, red-gabled, pictorial, which evidently had a memory of -the castle in its better days. A quaintish village straggled away on the -right, and on the left the dark, fat meadows were lighted up with misty -sun-spots and browsing sheep. I looked about for the village stocks; I -was ready to take the modern vagrants for Shakespearean clowns; and I -was on the point of going into one of the ale-houses to ask Mrs. Quickly -for a cup of sack. -</p> -<p> -I began these remarks, however, with no intention of talking about the -celebrated curiosities in which this region abounds, but with a design, -rather, of noting a few impressions of some of the shyer and more -elusive ornaments of the show. Stratford, of course, is a very sacred -place, but I prefer to say a word, for instance, about a charming old -rectory, a good many miles distant, and to mention the pleasant picture -it made of a summer afternoon, during a domestic festival. These are the -happiest of a stranger's memories of English life, and he feels that he -need make no apology for lifting the corner of the curtain. I drove -through the leafy lanes I spoke of just now, and peeped over the hedges -into fields where the yellow harvest stood waiting. In some places they -were already shorn, and while the light began to redden in the west and -to make a horizontal glow behind the dense wayside foliage, the -gleaners, here and there, came brushing through gaps in the hedges with -enormous sheaves upon their shoulders. The rectory was an ancient, -gabled building, of pale red brick, with facings of white stone and -creepers that wrapped it up. It dates, I imagine, from the early -Hanoverian time; and as it stood there upon its cushiony lawn, among its -ordered gardens, cheek to cheek with its little Norman church, it seemed -to me the model of a quiet, spacious, easy English home. The cushiony -lawn, as I have called it, stretched away to the edge of a brook, and -afforded to a number of very amiable people an opportunity of playing -lawn-tennis. There were half a dozen games going forward at once, and at -each of them a great many "nice girls," as they say in England, were -distinguishing themselves. These young ladies kept the ball going with -an agility worthy of the sisters and sweethearts of a race of -cricketers, and gave me a chance to admire their flexibility of figure -and their freedom of action. When they came back to the house, after the -games, flushed a little and a little dishevelled, they might have passed -for the attendant nymphs of Diana, flocking in from the chase. There -had, indeed, been a chance for them to wear the quiver, a target for -archery being erected on the lawn. I remembered George Eliot's -Gwendolen, and waited to see her step out of the muslin groups; but she -was not forthcoming, and it was plain that if lawn-tennis had been -invented in Gwendolen's day, this young lady would have captivated Mr. -Grandcourt by her exploits with the racket. She certainly would have -been a mistress of the game; and, if the suggestion is not too gross, -the alertness that she would have learned from it might have proved an -inducement to her boxing the ears of the insupportable Deronda. -</p> -<p> -After a while it grew too dark for lawn-tennis; but while the twilight -was still mildly brilliant I wandered away, out of the grounds of the -charming parsonage, and turned into the little churchyard beside it. The -small weather-worn, rust-coloured church had an appearance of high -antiquity; there were some curious Norman windows in the apse. -Unfortunately I could not get inside; I could only glance into the open -door across the interval of an old-timbered, heavy-hooded, padlocked -porch. But the sweetest evening stillness hung over the place, and the -sunset was red behind a dark row of rook-haunted elms. The stillness -seemed the greater because three or four rustic children were playing, -with little soft cries, among the crooked, deep-buried grave-stones. One -poor little girl, who seemed deformed, had climbed some steps that -served as a pedestal for a tall, mediæval-looking cross. She sat -perched there, staring at me through the gloaming. This was the heart of -England, unmistakably; it might have been the very pivot of the wheel on -which her fortune revolves. One need not be a rabid Anglican to be -extremely sensible of the charm of an English country church—and -indeed of some of the features of an English rural Sunday. In London -there is a certain flatness in the observance of this festival; but in -the country some of the ceremonies that accompany it have an indefinable -harmony with an ancient, pastoral landscape. I made this reflection on -an occasion that is still very fresh in my memory. I said to myself that -the walk to church from a beautiful country-house, of a lovely summer -afternoon, may be the prettiest possible adventure. The house stands -perched upon a pedestal of rock, and looks down from its windows and -terraces upon a shadier spot in the wooded meadows, of which the blunted -tip of a spire explains the character. A little company of people, whose -costume denotes the highest pitch of civilisation, winds down through -the blooming gardens, passes out of a couple of small gates, and reaches -the footpath in the fields. This is especially what takes the fancy of -the sympathetic stranger; the level, deep-green meadows, studded here -and there with a sturdy oak; the denser grassiness of the footpath, the -lily-sheeted pool beside which it passes, the rustic stiles, where he -stops and looks back at the great house and its wooded background. It is -in the highest degree probable that he has the privilege of walking with -a very pretty girl, and it is morally certain that he thinks a pretty -English girl the prettiest creature in the world. He knows that she -doesn't know how lovely is this walk of theirs; she has been taking -it—or taking another quite as good—any time these twenty -years. But her quiet-eyed unsuspectingness only makes her the more a -part of his delicate entertainment. The latter continues unbroken while -they reach the little churchyard, and pass up to the ancient porch, -round which the rosy rustics are standing decently and deferentially, to -watch the arrival of the smarter contingent. This party takes its place -in a great square pew, as large as a small room, and with seats all -round, and while he listens to the respectable intonings the sympathetic -stranger reads over the inscriptions on the mural tablets before him, -all to the honour of the earlier bearers of a name which is, for -himself, a symbol of hospitality. -</p> -<p> -When I came back to the parsonage the entertainment had been transferred -to the interior, and I had occasion to admire the maidenly vigour of -those charming young girls who, after playing lawn-tennis all the -afternoon, were modestly expecting to dance all the evening. And in -regard to this it is not impertinent to say that from almost any group -of English maidens—though preferably from such as have passed -their lives in quiet country homes—an American observer receives a -delightful impression of something that he can best describe as an -intimate salubrity. He notices face after face in which this rosy -absence of a morbid strain—this simple, natural, affectionate -development—amounts to positive beauty. If the young lady have no -other beauty, the look I speak of is a sufficient charm; but when it is -united, as it so often is, to real perfection of feature and colour, the -result is the most delightful thing in nature. It makes the highest type -of English beauty, and to my sense there is nothing so high as that. Not -long since I heard a clever foreigner indulge, in conversation with an -English lady—a very wise and liberal woman—in a little -lightly restrictive criticism of her countrywomen. "It is possible," she -answered, in regard to one of his objections; "but such as they are, -they are inexpressibly dear to their husbands." This is doubtless true -of good wives all over the world; but I felt, as I listened to these -words of my friend, that there is often something in an English -girl-face which gives it an extra touch of <i>justesse</i>. Such as the -woman is, she has here, more than elsewhere, the look of being -completely and profoundly at the service of the man she loves. This -look, after one has been a while in England, comes to seem so much a -proper and indispensable part of a "nice" face, that the absence of it -appears a sign of irritability or of shallowness. Depth of tenderness as -regards a masculine counterpart—that is what it means; and I -confess that seems to me a very agreeable meaning. -</p> -<p> -As for the prettiness, I cannot forbear, in the face of a fresh -reminiscence, to give it another word. And yet in regard to prettiness, -what do words avail? This was what I asked myself the other day as I -looked at a young girl who stood in an old oaken parlour, the rugged -panels of which made a background for her lovely head, in simple -conversation with a handsome lad. I said to myself that the faces of -English young people had often a singular charm, but that this same -charm is too soft and shy a thing to talk about. The face of this fair -creature had a pure oval, and her clear brown eyes a quiet warmth. Her -complexion was as bright as a sunbeam after rain, and she smiled in a -way that made any other way of smiling than that seem a shallow -grimace—a mere creaking of the facial muscles. The young man stood -facing her, slowly scratching his thigh and shifting from one foot to -the other. He was tall and very well made, and so sun-burned that his -fair hair was lighter than his complexion. He had honest, stupid blue -eyes, and a simple smile that showed his handsome teeth. He was very -well dressed. Presently I heard what they were saying. "I suppose it's -pretty big," said the beautiful young girl. "Yes; it's pretty big," said -the handsome young man. "It's nicer when they are big," said his -interlocutress. The young man looked at her, and at everything in -general, with his slowly-apprehending blue eye, and for some time no -further remark was made. "It draws ten feet of water," he at last went -on. "How much water is there?" said the young girl. She spoke in a -charming voice. "There are thirty feet of water," said the young man. -"Oh, that's enough," rejoined the damsel. I had had an idea they were -flirting, and perhaps indeed that is the way it is done. It was an -ancient room and extremely delightful; everything was polished over with -the brownness of centuries. The chimney-piece was carved a foot thick, -and the windows bore, in coloured glass, the quarterings of ancestral -couples. These had stopped two hundred years before; there was nothing -newer than that date. Outside the windows was a deep, broad moat, which -washed the base of gray walls—gray walls spotted over with the most -delicate yellow lichens. -</p> -<p> -In such a region as this mellow, conservative Warwickshire an -appreciative American finds the small things quite as suggestive as the -great. Everything, indeed, is suggestive, and impressions are constantly -melting into each other and doing their work before he has had time to -ask them whence they came. He cannot go into a cottage muffled in -plants, to see a genial gentlewoman and a "nice girl," without being -reminded forsooth of "The Small House at Arlington" Why of "The Small -House at Arlington?" There is a larger house at which the ladies come up -to dine; but that is surely an insufficient reason. That the ladies are -charming—even that is not reason enough; for there have been other -nice girls in the world than lily Dale, and other mellow matrons than her -mamma. Reminded, however, he is—especially when he goes out upon the -lawn. Of course there is lawn-tennis, and it seems all ready for Mr. -Crosbie to come and play. This is a small example of the way in which in -the presence of English life the imagination must be constantly at play, -on the part of members of a race in whom it has necessarily been trained -to do extra service. In driving and walking, in looking and listening, -everything seemed to me in some degree or other characteristic of a -rich, powerful, old-fashioned society. One had no need of being told -that this is a conservative county; the fact seemed written in the -hedgerows and in the verdant acres behind them. Of course the owners of -these things were conservative; of course they were stubbornly unwilling -to see the harmonious edifice of Church and State the least bit shaken. -I had a feeling, as I went about, that I should find some very ancient -and curious opinions still comfortably domiciled in the fine old houses -whose clustered gables and chimneys appeared here and there, at a -distance, above their ornamental woods. Self-complacent British Toryism, -viewed in this vague and conjectural fashion—across the fields and -behind the oaks and beeches—is by no means a thing the irresponsible -stranger would wish away; it deepens the local colour; it may be said to -enhance the landscape. I got a sort of constructive sense of its -presence in the picturesque old towns of Coventry and Warwick, which appear -to be filled with those institutions—chiefly of an eleemosynary -order—that Toryism takes a genial comfort in. There are ancient -charities in these places—hospitals, almshouses, asylums, -infant-schools—so quaint and venerable that they almost make the -existence of poverty a delectable and satisfying thought. In Coventry in -especial, I believe, these pious foundations are so numerous as almost -to place a premium upon misery. Invidious reflections apart, however, -there are few things that speak more quaintly and suggestively of the -old England that an American loves than these clumsy little monuments of -ancient benevolence. Such an institution as Leicester's Hospital at -Warwick seems indeed to exist primarily for the sake of its spectacular -effect upon the American tourists, who, with the dozen rheumatic old -soldiers maintained in affluence there, constitute its principal -<i>clientèle</i>. -</p> -<p> -The American tourist usually comes straight to this quarter of -England—chiefly for the purpose of paying his respects to the -birthplace of Shakespeare. Being here, he comes to Warwick to see the -castle; and being at Warwick, he comes to see the odd little -theatrical-looking refuge for superannuated warriors which lurks in the -shadow of one of the old gate-towers. Every one will remember -Hawthorne's account of the place, which has left no touch of charming -taste to be added to any reference to it. The hospital struck me as a -little museum kept up for the amusement and confusion of those inquiring -Occidentals who are used to seeing charity more dryly and practically -administered. The old hospitallers—I am not sure, after all, whether -they are necessarily soldiers, but some of them happen to be—are at -once the curiosities and the keepers. They sit on benches outside of -their door, at the receipt of custom, all neatly brushed and darned, and -ready, like Mr. Cook, to conduct you personally. They are only twelve in -number, but their picturesque dwelling, perched upon the old city -rampart, and full of dusky little courts, cross-timbered gable-ends and -deeply sunken lattices, seems a wonderfully elaborate piece of machinery -for its humble purpose. Each of the old gentlemen must be provided with -a wife or "housekeeper;" each of them has a dusky parlour of his own; -and they pass their latter days in their scoured and polished little -refuge as softly and honourably as a company of retired lawgivers or -pensioned soothsayers. -</p> -<p> -At Coventry I went to see a couple of old charities of a similar -pattern—places with black-timbered fronts, little clean-swept courts -and Elizabethan windows. One of them was a romantic residence for a -handful of old women, who sat, each of them, in a cosy little bower, in -a sort of mediæval darkness; the other was a school for little boys of -humble origin, and this last establishment was charming. I found the -little boys playing at "top" in a gravelled court, in front of the -prettiest old building of tender-coloured stucco and painted timber, -ornamented with two delicate little galleries and a fantastic porch. -They were dressed in small blue tunics and odd caps, like those worn by -sailors, but, if I remember rightly, with little yellow tags affixed to -them. I was free, apparently, to wander all over the establishment; -there was no sign of pastor or master anywhere; nothing but the little -yellow-headed boys playing before the ancient house, and practising most -correctly the Warwickshire accent. I went indoors and looked at a fine -old oaken staircase; I even ascended it, and walked along a gallery and -peeped into a dormitory at a row of very short beds; and then I came -down and sat for five minutes on a bench hardly wider than the top rail -of a fence, in a little, cold, dim refectory, where there was not a -crumb to be seen, nor any lingering odour of bygone repasts to be -perceived. And yet I wondered how it was that the sense of many -generations of boyish feeders seemed to abide there. It came, I suppose, -from the very bareness and, if I may be allowed the expression, the -clean-licked aspect of the place, which wore the appearance of the -famous platter of Jack Sprat and his wife. -</p> -<p> -Inevitably, of course, the sentimental tourist has a great deal to say -to himself about this being Shakespeare's county—about these densely -verdant meadows and parks having been, to his musing eyes, the normal -landscape. In Shakespeare's day, doubtless, the coat of nature was far -from being so prettily trimmed as it is now; but there is one place, -nevertheless, which, as he passes it in the summer twilight, the -traveller does his best to believe unaltered. I allude, of course, to -Charlecote park, whose venerable verdure seems a survival from an -earlier England, and whose innumerable acres, stretching away, in the -early evening, to vaguely seen Tudor walls, lie there like the backward -years receding to the age of Elizabeth. It was, however, no part of my -design in these remarks to pause before so thickly besieged a shrine as -this; and if I were to allude to Stratford, it would not be in -connection with the fact that Shakespeare came into the world there. It -would be rather to speak of a delightful old house near the Avon which -struck me as the ideal home for a Shakespearean scholar, or indeed for -any passionate lover of the poet. Here, with books, and memories, and -the recurring reflection that he had taken his daily walk across the -bridge, at which you look from your windows straight down an avenue of -fine old trees, with an ever-closed gate at the end of them and a carpet -of turf stretched over the decent drive—here, I say, with old brown -wainscotted chambers to live in, old polished doorsteps to lead you from -one to the other, deep window-seats to sit in, with a play in your -lap—here a person for whom the cares of life should have resolved -themselves into a care for the greatest genius who has represented and -ornamented life, might find a very congruous asylum. Or, speaking a -little wider of the mark, the charming, rambling, low-gabled, -many-staired, much-panelled mansion would be a very agreeable home for -any person of taste who should prefer an old house to a new. I find I am -talking about it quite like an auctioneer; but what I chiefly had at -heart was to commemorate the fact that I had lunched there, and while I -lunched kept saying to myself that there is nothing in the world so -delightful as the happy accidents of old English houses. -</p> -<p> -And yet that same day, on the edge of the Avon, I found it in me to say -that a new house too may be a very charming affair. But I must add that -the new house I speak of had really such exceptional advantages that it -could not fairly be placed in the scale. Besides, was it new after all? -I suppose that it was, and yet one's impression there was all of a kind -of silvery antiquity. The place stood upon a decent Stratford street, -from which it looked usual enough; but when, after sitting a while in a -charming modern drawing-room, one stepped thoughtlessly through an open -window upon a verandah, one found that the horizon of the morning-call -had been wonderfully widened. I will not pretend to relate all that I -saw after I stepped off the verandah; suffice it that the spire and -chancel of the beautiful old church in which Shakespeare is buried, with -the Avon sweeping its base, were one of the elements of the vision. Then -there were the smoothest lawns in the world stretching down to the edge -of this lovely stream, and making, where the water touched them, a line -as even as the rim of a champagne-glass—a verge near which you -inevitably lingered to see the spire and the chancel—the church was -close at hand—among the well-grouped trees, and look for their -reflection in the river. The place was a garden of delight; it was a stage -set for one of Shakespeare's comedies—for <i>Twelfth Night</i> or -<i>Much Ado</i>. Just across the river was a level meadow, which rivalled -the lawn on which I stood, and this meadow seemed only the more essentially -a part of the scene by reason of the voluminous sheep that were grazing -on it. These sheep were by no means mere edible mutton; they were -poetic, historic, romantic sheep; they were there to be picturesque, and -they knew it. And yet, knowing as they were, I doubt whether the wisest -old ram of the flock could have told me how to explain why it was that -this happy mixture of lawn and river and mirrored spire and blooming -garden seemed to me for a quarter of an hour the prettiest corner of -England. -</p> -<p> -If Warwickshire is Shakespeare's country, I found myself remembering -that it is also George Eliot's. The author of <i>Adam Bede</i> and -<i>Middlemarch</i> has called the rural background of those admirable -fictions by another name, but I believe it long ago ceased to be a -secret that her native Warwickshire had been in her intention. The -stranger who wanders over its velvety surface recognises at every turn -the elements of George Eliot's novels—especially when he carries -himself back in imagination to the Warwickshire of forty years ago. He -says to himself that it would be impossible to conceive anything more -conservatively bucolic, more respectably pastoral. It was in one of the -old nestling farmhouses, beyond a hundred hedgerows, that Hetty Sorrel -smiled into her milk-pans, as if she were looking for a reflection of -her pretty face; it was at the end of one of the leafy-pillared avenues -that poor Mrs. Casaubon paced up and down in fervid disappointment. The -country suggests, in especial, both the social and the natural scenery of -<i>Middlemarch</i>. There must be many a genially perverse old Mr. Brooke -there yet, and whether there are many Dorotheas or not, there must be -many a well-featured and well-acred young country gentleman, of the -pattern of Sir James Chettam, who, as he rides along the leafy lanes, -softly cudgels his brain to know why a clever girl shouldn't wish to -marry him. But I doubt whether there are many Dorotheas, and I suspect -that the Sir James Chettams of the county are not often pushed to that -intensity of meditation. You feel, however, that George Eliot could not -have placed her heroine in a local medium better fitted to throw her -fine impatience into relief—a community more likely to be startled -and perplexed by a questioning attitude on the part of a well-housed and -well-fed young gentlewoman. -</p> -<p> -Among the edifying days that I spent in these neighbourhoods there is -one in especial of which I should like to give a detailed account. But I -find on consulting my memory that the details have melted away into the -single deep impression of a perfect ripeness of civilisation. It was a -long excursion, by rail and by carriage, for the purpose of seeing three -extremely interesting old country-houses. Our errand led us, in the -first place, into Oxfordshire, through the ancient market-town of -Banbury, where of course we made a point of looking out for the Cross -referred to in the famous nursery-rhyme. It stood there in the most -natural manner—though I am afraid it has been "done up"—with -various antique gables around it, from one of whose exiguous windows the -young person appealed to in the rhyme may have looked at the old woman -as she rode and heard the music of her bells. The houses we went to see -have not a national reputation; they are simply interwoven figures in -the rich pattern of the Midlands. They have, indeed, a local renown, but -they are not thought to be very exceptionally curious or beautiful, and -the stranger has a feeling that his surprises and ecstasies are held to -betray a meagre bringing-up. Such places, to a Warwickshire mind of good -habits, must appear to be the pillars and props of a heaven-appointed -order of things; and accordingly, in a land on which heaven smiles, they -are as natural as the geology of the county or the supply of mutton. But -nothing could well give a stranger a stronger impression of the wealth -of England in such matters—of the interminable list of her -territorial homes—than this fact that the enchanting old mansions -I speak of should have but a limited fame—should not be lions of -the first magnitude. Of one of them, the finest in the group, one of my -companions, who lived but twenty miles away, had never even heard. Such -a place was not thought a matter to boast about. Its peers and its mates -are scattered all over the country; half of them are not even mentioned -in the county guide-books. You stumble upon them in a drive or a walk. -You catch a glimpse of an ivied front at the midmost point of a great -estate, and taking your way, by leave of a serious old woman at a -lodge-gate, along an overarching avenue, you find yourself introduced to -an edifice so human-looking in its beauty, that it seems for the -occasion to reconcile art and morality. -</p> -<p> -To Broughton Castle, the first seen in this beautiful group, I must do -no more than allude; but this is not because I failed to think it, as I -think every house I see, the most delightful residence in England. It -lies rather low, and its woods and pastures slope down to it; it has a -deep, clear moat all around it, spanned by a bridge that passes under a -charming old gate-tower, and nothing can be prettier than to see its -clustered walls of yellow-brown stone so sharply islanded, while its -gardens bloom on the other side of the water. Like several other houses -in this part of the country, Broughton Castle played a part (on the -Parliamentary side) in the civil wars, and not the least interesting -features of its beautiful interior are the several mementoes of -Cromwell's station there. It was within a moderate drive of this place -that in 1642 the battle of Edgehill was fought—the first great -battle of the war—and gained by neither party. We went to see the -battlefield, where an ancient tower and an artificial ruin (of all -things in the world) have been erected for the entertainment of -convivial visitors. These ornaments are perched upon the edge of a slope -which commands a view of the exact scene of the contest, upwards of a -mile away. I looked in the direction indicated, and saw misty meadows, a -little greener perhaps than usual, and colonnades of elms, a trifle -denser. After this we paid our respects to another old house which is -full of memories and suggestions of that most dramatic period of English -history. But of Compton Wyniates (the name of this enchanting domicile), -I despair of giving any coherent or adequate account. It belongs to the -Marquis of Northampton, and it stands empty all the year round. It sits -on the grass at the bottom of a wooded hollow, and the glades of a -superb old park go wandering upward, away from it. When I came out in -front of the house from a short and steep but stately avenue, I said to -myself that here surely we had arrived at the farthest limits of what -ivy-smothered brickwork and weather-beaten gables, conscious old windows -and clustered mossy roofs, can accomplish for the eye. It is impossible -to imagine a more perfect picture. And its air of solitude and delicate -decay—of having been dropped into its grassy hollow as an ancient -jewel is deposited upon a cushion, and being shut in from the world and -back into the past by its circling woods—all this highly increased -its impressiveness. The house is not large, as great houses go, and it -sits, as I have said, upon the grass, without even a flagging or a -footpath to conduct you from the point where the avenue stops to the -beautiful sculptured doorway which admits you into the small, quaint, -inner court. From this court you are at liberty to pass through the -crookedest series of oaken halls and chambers, adorned with treasures of -old wainscotting and elaborate doors and chimney-pieces. Outside, you -may walk all round the house on a grassy bank, which is raised above the -level on which it stands, and find it from every point of view a more -charming composition. I should not omit to mention that Compton Wyniates -is supposed to have been in Scott's eye when he described the dwelling -of the old royalist knight in Woodstock. In this case he simply -transferred the house to the other side of the county. He has indeed -given several of the features of the place, but he has not given what -one may call its colour. I must add that if Sir Walter could not give -the colour of Compton Wyniates, it is useless for any other writer to -attempt it It is a matter for the brush and not for the pen. -</p> -<p> -And what shall I say of the colour of Wroxton Abbey, which we visited -last in order, and which in the thickening twilight, as we approached -its great ivy-muffled face, made an ineffaceable impression on my fancy? -Wroxton Abbey, as it stands, is a house of about the same period as Compton -Wyniates—the latter years, I suppose, of the sixteenth century. -But it is quite another affair. The place is inhabited, "kept up," and -full of the most interesting and most splendid detail. Its happy -occupants, however, were fortunately not actually staying there (happy -occupants, in England, are almost always absent), and the house was -exhibited with a civility worthy of its merit. Everything that in the -material line can render life noble and charming has been gathered into -it with a profusion which makes the whole place a monument to past -opportunity. As I wandered from one rich room to another, looking at -these things, that ineffaceable impression upon my fancy which I just -mentioned was delightfully deepened. But who can tell the pleasures of -fancy when fancy takes her ease in an old English country-house, while -the twilight darkens the corners of expressive rooms, and the -appreciative intruder, pausing at the window, turns his glance from the -observing portrait of a handsome ancestral face and sees the great soft -billows of the lawn melt away into the park? -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap13"></a></p> - -<h4>XIII -<br /><br /> -ABBEYS AND CASTLES -<br /><br /> -1877</h4> - -<p> -It is a frequent reflection with the stranger in England that the beauty -and interest of the country are private property, and that to get access -to them a key is always needed. The key may be large or it may be small, -but it must be something that will turn a lock. Of the things that -contribute to the happiness of an American observer in the country of -parks and castles, I can think of very few that do not come under this -definition of private property. When I have mentioned the hedgerows and -the churches I have almost exhausted the list. You can enjoy a hedgerow -from the public road, and I suppose that even if you are a Dissenter you -may enjoy a Norman abbey from the street. If, therefore, one talk of -anything beautiful in England, the presumption will be that it is -private; and indeed such is my admiration of this delightful country -that I feel inclined to say that if one talk of anything private the -presumption will be that it is beautiful. This is something of a -dilemma. If the observer permit himself to commemorate charming -impressions, he is in danger of giving to the world the fruits of -friendship and hospitality. If, on the other hand, he withhold his -impression, he lets something admirable slip away without having marked -its passage, without having done it proper honour. He ends by mingling -discretion with enthusiasm, and he says to himself that it is not -treating a country ill to talk of its treasures when the mention of each -has tacit reference to an act of private courtesy. -</p> -<p> -The impressions I have in mind in writing these lines were gathered in a -part of England of which I had not before had even a traveller's -glimpse; but as to which, after a day or two, I found myself quite ready -to agree with a friend who lived there, and who knew and loved it well, -when he said very frankly, "I do believe it is the loveliest corner of -the world!" This was not a dictum to quarrel about, and while I was in -the neighbourhood I was quite of his opinion. I felt that it would not -take a great deal to make me care for it very much as he cared for it; I -had a glimpse of the peculiar tenderness with which such a country may -be loved. It is a capital example of the great characteristic of English -scenery—of what I should call density of feature. There are no waste -details; everything in the landscape is something particular—has a -history, has played a part, has a value to the imagination. It is a -region of hills and blue undulations, and, though none of the hills are -high, all of them are interesting—interesting as such things are -interesting in an old, small country, by a kind of exquisite modulation, -something suggesting that outline and colouring have been retouched and -refined by the hand of time. Independently of its castles and abbeys, -the definite relics of the ages, such a landscape seems historic. It has -human relations, and it is intimately conscious of them. That little -speech about the loveliness of his county, or of his own part of his -county, was made to me by my companion as we walked up the grassy slope -of a hill, or "edge," as it is called there, from the crest of which we -seemed in an instant to look away over most of the remainder of England. -Certainly I should have grown affectionate with regard to such a view as -that. The "edge" plunged down suddenly, as if the corresponding slope on -the other side had been excavated, and one might follow the long ridge -for the space of an afternoon's walk with this vast, charming prospect -before one's eyes. Looking across an English county into the next but -one is a very pretty entertainment, the county seeming by no means so -small as might be supposed. How can a county seem small in which, from -such a vantage-point as the one I speak of, you see, as a darker patch -across the lighter green, the great estate of one of their lordships? -Beyond these are blue undulations of varying tone, and then another -bosky-looking spot, which constitutes, as you are told, the residential -umbrage of another peer. And to right and left of these, in wooded -expanses, lie other domains of equal consequence. It was therefore not -the smallness but the vastness of the country that struck me, and I was -not at all in the mood of a certain American who once, in my hearing, -burst out laughing at an English answer to my inquiry as to whether my -interlocutor often saw Mr. B——. "Oh no," the answer had been, -"we never see him: he lives away off in the West." It was the western part -of his county our friend meant, and my American humorist found matter -for infinite jest in his meaning. "I should as soon think of saying my -western hand and my eastern," he declared. -</p> -<p> -I do not think, even, that my disposition to form a sentimental -attachment for this delightful region—for its hillside prospect of -old red farmhouses lighting up the dark-green bottoms, of gables and -chimney-tops of great houses peeping above miles of woodland, and, in -the vague places of the horizon, of far away towns and sites that one -had always heard of—was conditioned upon having "property" in the -neighbourhood, so that the little girls in the town should suddenly drop -curtsies to me in the street; though that too would certainly have been -pleasant. At the same time, having a little property would without doubt -have made the sentiment stronger. People who wander about the world -without money in their pockets indulge in dreams—dreams of the things -they would buy if their pockets were complete. These dreams are very apt -to have relation to a good estate in any neighbourhood in which the -wanderer may happen to find himself. For myself, I have never been in a -country so unattractive that it did not seem a peculiar felicity to be -able to purchase the most considerable house it contained. In New -England and other portions of the United States I have coveted the large -mansion with Doric columns and a pediment of white-painted timber; in -Italy I have made imaginary proposals for the yellow-walled villa with -statues on the roof. In England I have rarely gone so far as to fancy -myself in treaty for the best house, but, failing this, I have rarely -failed to feel that ideal comfort for the time would be to call one's -self owner of what is denominated here a "good" place. Is it that -English country life seems to possess such irresistible charms? I have -not always thought so; I have sometimes suspected that it is dull; I -have remembered that there is a whole literature devoted to exposing it -(that of the English novel "of manners"); and that its recorded -occupations and conversations occasionally strike one as lacking a -certain indispensable salt. But, for all that, when, in the region to -which I allude, my companion spoke of this and that place being likely -sooner or later to come to the hammer, it seemed as if nothing could be -more delightful than to see the hammer hanging upon one's own -liberality. And this in spite of the fact that the owners of the places -in question would part with them because they could no longer afford to -keep them up. I found it interesting to learn, in so far as was -possible, what sort of income was implied by the possession of -country-seats such as are not in America a concomitant of even the -largest fortunes; and if in these revelations I sometimes heard of a -very long rent-roll, on the other hand I was frequently surprised at the -shortness of purse attributed to people living in the depths of an -oak-studded park. Then, certainly, English country-life seemed to me the -most advantageous thing in the world; on conditions such as these one -would gladly be dull; surrounded by luxury of so moderate a cost one -would joyfully stagnate. -</p> -<p> -There was one place in particular of which I said to myself that if I -had the money to buy it, I would "move in" on the morrow. I saw this -place, unfortunately, to small advantage; I saw it in the rain. But I am -rather glad that fine weather did not meddle with the affair, for I -think that in this case the irritation of envy might have made me ill. -It was a long, wet Sunday, and the waters were deep. I had been in the -house all day, for the weather can best be described by my saying that -it had been deemed to exonerate me from church-going. But in the -afternoon, the prospective interval between lunch and tea assuming -formidable proportions, my host took me out to walk, and in the course -of our walk he led me into a park which he described as "the paradise of -a small English country-gentleman." It was indeed a modern Eden, and the -trees might have been trees of knowledge. They were of high antiquity -and magnificent girth and stature; they were strewn over the grassy -levels in extraordinary profusion, and scattered upon and down the -slopes in a fashion than which I have seen nothing more charming since I -last looked at the chestnuts on the Lake of Como. It appears that the -place was not very large, but I was unable to perceive its limits. -Shortly before we turned into the park the rain had renewed itself, so -that we were awkwardly wet and muddy; but, being near the house, my -companion proposed to leave his card in a neighbourly way. The house was -most agreeable; it stood on a kind of terrace, in the middle of a lawn -and garden, and the terrace overlooked one of the most copious rivers in -England, and across to those blue undulations of which I have already -spoken. On the terrace also was a piece of ornamental water, and there -was a small iron paling to divide the lawn from the park. All this I -beheld in the rain. My companion gave his card to the butler, with the -remark that we were too much bespattered to come in, and we turned away -to complete our circuit. As we turned away I became acutely conscious of -what I should have been tempted to call the cruelty of this proceeding. -My imagination gauged the whole position. It was a Sunday afternoon, and -it was raining. The house was charming, the terrace delightful, the oaks -magnificent, the view most interesting. But the whole thing -was—not to repeat the invidious epithet of which just now I made -too gross a use—the whole thing was quiet. In the house was a -drawing-room, and in the drawing-room was—by which I meant must -be—a lady, a charming English lady. It seemed to me that there was -nothing fatuous in believing that on this rainy Sunday afternoon it -would not please her to be told that two gentlemen had walked across the -country to her door only to go through the ceremony of leaving a card. -Therefore, when, before we had gone many yards, I heard the butler -hurrying after us, I felt how just my sentiment of the situation had -been. Of course we went back, and I carried my muddy boots into the -drawing-room—just the drawing-room I had imagined—where I -found—I will not say just the lady I had imagined, but a lady even -more charming. Indeed, there were two ladies, one of whom was staying in -the house. In whatever company you find yourself in England, you may -always be sure that some one present is "staying." I seldom hear this -participle nowadays without remembering an observation made to me in -France by a lady who had seen much of English manners. "Ah, that -dreadful word <i>staying</i>! I think we are so happy in France not to -be able to translate it—not to have any word that answers to it." -The large windows of the drawing-room I speak of looked away over the -river to the blurred and blotted hills, where the rain was drizzling and -drifting. It was very quiet, as I say; there was an air of large -leisure. If one wanted to do something here, there was evidently plenty -of time—and indeed of every other appliance—to do it. The -two ladies talked about "town:" that is what people talk about in the -country. If I were disposed I might represent them as talking about it -with a certain air of yearning. At all events, I asked myself how it was -possible that one should live in this charming place and trouble one's -head about what was going on in London in July. Then we had excellent -tea. -</p> -<p> -I returned to the habitation of my companion—for I too was guilty -of "staying"—through an old Norman portal, massively arched and -quaintly sculptured, across whose hollow threshold the eye of fancy -might see the ghosts of monks and the shadows of abbots pass noiselessly -to and fro. This aperture admits you to a beautiful ambulatory of the -thirteenth century—a long stone gallery or cloister, repeated in -two stories, with the interstices of its traceries now glazed, but with -its long, low, narrow, charming vista still perfect and -picturesque—with its flags worn away by monkish sandals, and with -huge round-arched doorways opening from its inner side into great rooms -roofed like cathedrals. These rooms are furnished with narrow windows, -of almost defensive aspect, set in embrasures three feet deep, and -ornamented with little grotesque mediæval faces. To see one of the -small monkish masks grinning at you while you dress and undress, or -while you look up in the intervals of inspiration from your letter -writing, is a mere detail in the entertainment of living in a -<i>ci-devant</i> priory. This entertainment is inexhaustible; for every -step you take in such a house confronts you in one way or another with -the remote past. You feast upon the pictorial, you inhale the historic. -Adjoining the house is a beautiful ruin, part of the walls and windows -and bases of the piers of the magnificent church administered by the -predecessor of your host, the abbot. These relics are very desultory, -but they are still abundant, and they testify to the great scale and the -stately beauty of the abbey. You may lie upon the grass at the base of -an ivied fragment, measure the girth of the great stumps of the central -columns, half smothered in soft creepers, and think how strange it is -that in this quiet hollow, in the midst of lonely hills, so exquisite -and elaborate a work of art should have arisen. It is but an hour's walk -to another great ruin, which has held together more completely. There -the central tower stands erect to half its altitude, and the round -arches and massive pillars of the nave make a perfect vista on the -unencumbered turf. You get an impression that when catholic England was -in her prime, great abbeys were as thick as milestones. By native -amateurs, even now, the region is called "wild," though to American eyes -it seems almost suburban in its smoothness and finish. There is a -noiseless little railway running through the valley, and there is an -ancient little town at the abbey-gates—a town, indeed, with no -great din of vehicles, but with goodly brick houses, with a dozen -"publics," with tidy, whitewashed cottages, and with little girls, as I -have said, bobbing curtsies in the street. But even now, if one had -wound one's way into the valley by the railroad, it would be rather a -surprise to find a small ornamental cathedral in a spot on the whole so -natural and pastoral. How impressive then must the beautiful church have -been in the days of its prosperity, when the pilgrim came down to it -from the grassy hillside and its bells made the stillness sensible! The -abbey was in those days a great affair; as my companion said, it -sprawled all over the place. As you walk away from it you think you have -got to the end of its geography, but you encounter it still in the shape -of a rugged outhouse enriched with an early-English arch, or an ancient -well, hidden in a kind of sculptured cavern. It is noticeable that even -if you are a traveller from a land where there are no -early-English—and indeed few late-English—arches, and where -the well-covers are, at their hoariest, of fresh-looking shingles, you -grow used with little delay to all this antiquity. Anything very old -seems extremely natural; there is nothing we accept so implicitly as -transmitted associations. It is not too much to say that after spending -twenty-four hours in a house that is six hundred years old, you seem -yourself to have lived in it for six hundred years. You seem yourself to -have hollowed the flags with your tread, and to have polished the oak -with your touch. You walk along the little stone gallery where the monks -used to pace, looking out of the gothic window-places at their beautiful -church, and you pause at the big round, rugged doorway that admits you -to what is now the drawing-room. The massive step by which you ascend to -the threshold is a trifle crooked, as it should be; the lintels are -cracked and worn by the myriad-fingered years. This strikes your casual -glance. You look up and down the miniature cloister before you pass in; -it seems wonderfully old and queer. Then you turn into the drawing-room, -where you find modern conversation and late publications and the -prospect of dinner. The new life and the old have melted together; there -is no dividing-line. In the drawing-room wall is a queer funnel-shaped -hole, with the broad end inward, like a small casemate. You ask what it -is, but people have forgotten. It is something of the monks; it is a -mere detail. After dinner you are told that there is of course a -ghost—a gray friar who is seen in the dusky hours at the end of -passages. Sometimes the servants see him; they afterwards go -surreptitiously to sleep in the village. Then, when you take your -chamber-candle and go wandering bedward by a short cut through empty -rooms, you are conscious of a peculiar sentiment toward the gray friar -which you hardly know whether to interpret as a hope or a reluctance. -</p> -<p> -A friend of mine, an American, who knew this country, had told me not to -fail, while I was in the neighbourhood, to go to S—— and two -or three other places. "Edward IV. and Elizabeth," he said, "are still -hanging about there." So admonished, I made a point of going at least to -S——, and I saw quite what my friend meant. Edward IV. and -Elizabeth, indeed, are still to be met almost anywhere in the county; as -regards domestic architecture, few parts of England are still more -vividly old-English. I have rarely had, for a couple of hours, the -sensation of dropping back personally into the past in a higher degree -than while I lay on the grass beside the well in the little sunny court -of this small castle, and lazily appreciated the still definite details -of mediæval life. The place is a capital example of what the French -call a small <i>gentilhommière</i> of the thirteenth century. It has a -good deep moat, now filled with wild verdure, and a curious gatehouse of -a much later period—the period when the defensive attitude had -been well-nigh abandoned. This gatehouse, which is not in the least in -the style of the habitation, but gabled and heavily timbered, with -quaint cross-beams protruding from surfaces of coarse white plaster, is -a very effective anomaly in regard to the little gray fortress on the -other side of the court. I call this a fortress, but it is a fortress -which might easily have been taken, and it must have assumed its present -shape at a time when people had ceased to peer through narrow slits at -possible besiegers. There are slits in the outer walls for such peering, -but they are noticeably broad and not particularly oblique, and might -easily have been applied to the uses of a peaceful parley. This is part -of the charm of the place; human life there must have lost an earlier -grimness; it was lived in by people who were beginning to believe in -good intentions. They must have lived very much together; that is one of -the most obvious reflections in the court of a mediæval dwelling. The -court was not always grassy and empty, as it is now, with only a couple -of gentlemen in search of impressions lying at their length, one of whom -has taken a wine-flask out of his pocket and has coloured the clear -water drawn for them out of the well in a couple of tumblers by a -decent, rosy, smiling, talking old woman, who has come bustling out of -the gatehouse, and who has a large, dropsical, innocent husband standing -about on crutches in the sun, and making no sign when you ask after his -health. This poor man has reached that ultimate depth of human -simplicity at which even a chance to talk about one's ailments is not -appreciated. But the civil old woman talks for every one, even for an -artist who has come out of one of the rooms, where I see him afterward -reproducing its mouldering repose. The rooms are all unoccupied and in a -state of extreme decay, though the castle is, as yet, far from being a -ruin. From one of the windows I see a young lady sitting under a tree, -across a meadow, with her knees up, dipping something into her mouth. It -is a camel's hair paint-brush; the young lady is sketching. These are -the only besiegers to which the place is exposed now, and they can do no -great harm, as I doubt whether the young lady's aim is very good. We -wandered about the empty interior, thinking it a pity such things should -fall to pieces. There is a beautiful great hall—great, that is, -for a small castle (it would be extremely handsome in a modern -house)—with tall, ecclesiastical-looking windows, and a long -staircase at one end, climbing against the wall into a spacious bedroom. -You may still apprehend very well the main lines of that simpler life; -and it must be said that, simpler though it was, it was apparently by no -means destitute of many of our own conveniences. The chamber at the top -of the staircase ascending from the hall is charming still, with its -irregular shape, its low-browed ceiling, its cupboards in the walls, and -its deep bay window formed of a series of small lattices. You can fancy -people stepping out from it upon the platform of the staircase, whose -rugged wooden logs, by way of steps, and solid, deeply-guttered -hand-rail, still remain. They looked down into the hall, where, I take -it, there was always a congregation of retainers, much lounging and -waiting and passing to and fro, with a door open into the court. The -court, as I said just now, was not the grassy, aesthetic spot which you -may find it at present of a summer's day; there were beasts tethered in -it, and hustling men-at-arms, and the earth was trampled into puddles. -But my lord or my lady, looking down from the chamber-door, commanded -the position and, no doubt, issued their orders accordingly. The sight -of the groups on the floor beneath, the calling up and down, the oaken -tables spread, and the brazier in the middle—all this seemed -present again; and it was not difficult to pursue the historic vision -through the rest of the building—through the portion which -connected the great hall with the tower (here the confederate of the -sketching young lady without had set up the peaceful three-legged engine -of his craft); through the dusky, roughly circular rooms of the tower -itself, and up the corkscrew staircase of the same to that most charming -part of every old castle, where visions must leap away off the -battlements to elude you—the bright, dizzy platform at the -tower-top, the place where the castle-standard hung and the vigilant -inmates surveyed the approaches. Here, always, you really overtake the -impression of the place—here, in the sunny stillness, it seems to -pause, panting a little, and give itself up. -</p> -<p> -It was not only at Stokesay—I have written the name at last, and I -will not efface it—that I lingered a while on the summit of the -keep to enjoy the complete impression so overtaken. I spent such another -half hour at Ludlow, which is a much grander and more famous monument. -Ludlow, however, is a ruin—the most impressive and magnificent of -ruins. The charming old town and the admirable castle form a capital -object of pilgrimage. Ludlow is an excellent example of a small English -provincial town that has not been soiled and disfigured by industry; it -exhibits no tall chimneys and smoke-streamers, with their attendant -purlieus and slums. The little city is perched upon a hill near which -the goodly Severn wanders, and it has a remarkable air of civic dignity. -Its streets are wide and clean, empty and a little grass-grown, and -bordered with spacious, mildly-ornamental brick houses, which look as if -there had been more going on in them in the first decade of the century -than there is in the present, but which can still, nevertheless, hold up -their heads and keep their window-panes clear, their knockers brilliant -and their door steps whitened. The place seems to say that a hundred -years, and less, ago it was the centre of a large provincial society, -and that this society was very "good" of its kind. It must have -transported itself to Ludlow for the season—in rumbling coaches -and heavy curricles—and there entertained itself in decent -emulation of that metropolis which a choice of railway lines had not as -yet placed within its immediate reach. It had balls at the assembly -rooms; it had Mrs. Siddons to play; it had Catalani to sing. Miss -Burney's and Miss Austen's heroines might perfectly well have had their -first love-affair there; a journey to Ludlow would certainly have been a -great event to Fanny Price or Emma Woodhouse, or even to those more -exalted young ladies, Evelina and Cecilia. It is a place on which a -provincial "gentry" has left a sensible stamp. I have seldom seen so -good a collection of houses of the period between the elder -picturesqueness and the modern baldness. Such places, such houses, such -relics and intimations, always carry me back to the near antiquity of -that pre-Victorian England which it is still easy for a stranger to -picture with a certain vividness, thanks to the partial survival of many -of its characteristics. It is still easier for a stranger who has stayed -a while in England to form an idea of the tone, the habits, the aspect -of English social life before its classic insularity had begun to wane, -as all observers agree that it did, about thirty years ago. It is true -that the mental operation in this matter reduces itself to fancying some -of the things which form what Mr. Matthew Arnold would call the peculiar -"notes" of England infinitely exaggerated—the rigidly aristocratic -constitution of society, for instance; the unæsthetic temper of the -people; the private character of most kinds of comfort and -entertainment. Let an old gentleman of conservative tastes, who can -remember the century's youth, talk to you at a club <i>temporis -acti</i>—tell you wherein it is that from his own point of view -London, as a residence for a gentleman, has done nothing but fall off -for the last forty years. You will listen, of course, with an air of -decent sympathy, but privately you will say to yourself how difficult a -place of sojourn London must have been in those days for a -stranger—how little cosmopolitan, how bound in a thousand ways, -with narrowness of custom. What is true of the metropolis at that time -is of course doubly true of the provinces; and a genteel little city -like the one I am speaking of must have been a kind of focus of insular -propriety. Even then, however, the irritated alien would have had the -magnificent ruins of the castle to dream himself back into good humour -in. They would effectually have transported him beyond all waning or -waxing Philistinisms. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap14"></a></p> - -<h4>XIV -<br /><br /> -ENGLISH VIGNETTES -<br /><br /> -1879</h4> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -Toward the last of April, in Monmouthshire, the primroses were as big as -your fist. I say "in Monmouthshire," because I believe that a certain -grassy mountain which I gave myself the pleasure of climbing, and to -which I took my way across the charming country, through lanes where the -hedges were perched upon blooming banks, lay within the borders of this -ancient province. It was the festive Eastertide, and a pretext for -leaving London had not been wanting. Of course it rained,—it rained a -good deal,—for man and the weather are usually at cross-purposes. But -there were intervals of light and warmth, and in England a couple of -hours of fine weather, islanded in moisture, assert their independence -and leave an uncompromised memory. These bright episodes were even of -longer duration; that whole morning, for instance, on which, with a -companion, I scrambled up the little Skirrid. One had a feeling that one -was very far from London; as, in fact, one was, after six or seven hours -in a smooth, swift English train. In England this is a great remoteness; -it seemed to justify the half-reluctant confession which I heard -constantly made, that the country was extremely "wild." There is -wildness and wildness, I thought; and though I had not been a great -explorer, I compared this rough district with several neighbourhoods in -another part of the world that passed for tame. I went even so far as to -wish that some of its ruder features might be transplanted to that -relatively unregulated landscape and commingled with its suburban -savagery. I went over the elements of this English prospect and of human -life in the midst of it, and wondered whether, if I were to enumerate -them and leave them to be added up by the dwellers beyond the sea, the -total would be set down as a wilderness. We were close to the Welsh -border, and a dozen little mountains in the distance were peeping over -each other's shoulders. But nature was open to the charge of no worse -disorder than this. The Skirrid (I like to repeat the name) wore, it is -true, at a distance, the aspect of a magnified extinguisher; but when, -after a bright, breezy walk through lane and meadow, we had scrambled -over the last of the thickly-flowering hedges which lay around its -shoulders like loosened strings of coral and began to ascend the grassy -cone (very much in the attitude of Nebuchadnezzar), it proved as -smooth-faced as a garden-mound. Hard by, on the flanks of other hills, -were troops of browsing sheep, and the only thing in which there was any -harshness of suggestion was the strong, damp wind. But even this had a -good deal of softness in it, and ministered to my sense of the agreeable -in scenery by the way it blew about the pearly morning mists that were -airing themselves upon neighbouring ridges, and kept shaking the -vaporous veil that fluttered down in the valley over the picturesque -little town of Abergavenny. A breezy, grassy English hill-top, looking -down on a country full of suggestive names and ancient memories, belongs -(especially if you are exhilarated by a beautiful walk, and you have a -flask in your pocket) decidedly to the category of smooth scenery. And -so with all the rest of it. -</p> -<p> -On Sunday I stayed away from church, because I learned that the sacred -edifice had a mediæval chill, and that if I should sit there for a -couple of hours I might inherit a lumbago three hundred years old. The -fact was formidable, but the idea was, in a certain way, attractive; -there was nothing crude in a rheumatism which descended from the Norman -times. Practical considerations, however, determined me not to expose -myself to this venerable pain; so in the still hours, when the roads and -lanes were empty, I simply walked to the churchyard and sat upon one of -the sun-warmed grave-stones. I say the roads were empty, but they were -peopled with the big primroses I just now spoke of—primroses of the -size of ripe apples, and yet, in spite of their rank growth, of as pale -and tender a yellow as if their gold had been diluted with silver. It -was indeed a mixture of gold and silver, for there was a wealth of the -white wood-anemone as well, and these delicate flowers, each of so -perfect a coinage, were tumbled along the green wayside as if a prince -had been scattering largesse. The outside of an old English -country-church in service-time is a very pleasant place; and this is as -near as I often care to approach to the celebration of the Anglican -mysteries. A just sufficient sense of their august character may be -gathered from that vague sound of village-music which makes its way out -into the stillness, and from the perusal of those portions of the -Prayer-Book which are inscribed upon mouldering slabs and dislocated -headstones. The church I speak of was a beautiful specimen of its -kind—intensely aged, variously patched, but still solid and useful, -and with no touch of restoration. It was very big and massive, and, hidden -away in the fields, it had a kind of lonely grandeur; there was nothing -in particular near it but its out-of-the-world little parsonage. It was -only one of ten thousand; I had seen a hundred such before. But I -watched the watery sunshine upon the rugosities of its ancient masonry; -I stood a while in the shade of two or three spreading yews which -stretched their black arms over graves decorated for Easter, according -to the custom of that country, with garlands of primrose and dog-violet; -and I reflected that in a wild region it was a blessing to have so quiet -a place of refuge as that. -</p> -<p> -Later, I chanced upon a couple of other asylums which were more spacious -and no less tranquil Both of them were old country-houses, and each in -its way was charming. One was a half-modernised feudal dwelling, lying in -a wooded hollow—a large concavity filled with a delightful old park. -The house had a long gray façade and half a dozen towers, and the usual -supply of ivy and of clustered chimneys relieved against a background of -rook-haunted elms. But the windows were all closed and the avenue was -untrodden; the house was the property of a lady who could not afford to -live in it in becoming state, and who had let it, famished, to a rich -young man "for the shooting." The rich young man occupied it but for -three weeks in the year, and for the rest of the time left it a prey to -the hungry gaze of the passing stranger, the would-be redresser of -æsthetic wrongs. It seemed a great æsthetic wrong that so charming a -place should not be a conscious, sentient home. But in England all this -is very common. It takes a great many plain people to keep a gentleman -going; it takes a great deal of wasted sweetness to make up a property. -It is true that, in the other case I speak of, the sweetness, which here -was even greater, was less sensibly squandered. If there was no one else -in the house, at least there were ghosts. It had a dark red front and -grim-looking gables; it was perched upon a sort of terrace, quite high -in the air, which was reached by steep, crooked, mossy steps. Beneath -these steps was an ancient bit of garden, and from the hither side of -the garden stretched a great expanse of turf. Out of the midst of the -turf sprang a magnificent avenue of Scotch firs—a perfect imitation -of the Italian stone-pine. It looked like the Villa Borghese transplanted -to the Welsh hills. The huge, smooth stems, in their double row, were -crowned with dark parasols. In the Scotch fir or the Italian pine there -is always an element of grotesqueness; the open umbrella in a rainy -country is not a poetical analogy, and the case is not better if you -compare the tree to a colossal mushroom. But, without analogies, there -was something very striking in the effect of this enormous, rigid vista, -and in the grassy carpet of the avenue, with the dusky, lonely, -high-featured house looking down upon it. There was something solemn and -tragical; the place was made to the hand of a romancer, and he might -have found his characters within; the leaden lattices were open. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -The Isle of Wight is disappointing at first. I wondered why it should -be, and then I found the reason in the influence of the detestable -little railway. There can be no doubt that a railway in the Isle of -Wight is a gross impertinence; it is in evident contravention to the -natural style of the place. The place is minutely, delicately -picturesque, or it is nothing at all. It is purely ornamental; it exists -for the entertainment of tourists. It is separated by nature from the -dense railway-system of the less diminutive island, and it is the corner -of the world where a good carriage-road is most in keeping. Never was -there a better place for sacrificing to prettiness; never was there a -better chance for not making, a railway. But now there are twenty trains -a day, and the prettiness is twenty times less. The island is so small -that the hideous embankments and tunnels are obtrusive; the sight of -them is as painful as it would be to see a pedlar's pack on the -shoulders of a pretty woman. This is your first impression as you travel -(naturally by the objectionable conveyance) from Ryde to Ventnor; and -the fact that the train rumbles along very smoothly, and stops at half a -dozen little stations, where the groups on the platform enable you to -perceive that the population consists almost exclusively of gentlemen in -costumes suggestive of unlimited leisure for attention to cravats and -trousers (an immensely large class in England), of old ladies of the -species denominated in France <i>rentières</i>, of young ladies of the -highly-educated and sketching variety, this circumstance fails to -reconcile you to the chartered cicatrix which forms your course. At -Ventnor, however, face to face with the sea, and with the blooming -shoulder of the Undercliff close behind you, you lose sight to a certain -extent of the superfluities of civilisation. Not, indeed, that Ventnor -has not been diligently civilised. It is a well-regulated little -watering-place, and it has been subjected to a due measure of -cockneyfication. But the glittering ocean remains, shimmering at moments -with blue and silver, and the large gorse-covered downs rise superbly -above it. Ventnor hangs upon the side of a steep hill, and here and -there it clings and scrambles, it is propped and terraced, like one of the -bright—faced little towns that look down upon the Mediterranean. To -add to the Italian effect, the houses are all denominated villas, though -it must be added that nothing is less like an Italian villa than an -English one. Those which ornament the successive ledges at Ventnor are -for the most part small semi-detached boxes, predestined, even before -they had fairly come into the world, to the entertainment of lodgers. -They stand in serried rows all over the place, with the finest names in -the British <i>Peerage</i> painted upon their gate-posts. Their severe -similarity of aspect, however, is such that even the difference between -Plantagenet and Percival, between Montgomery and Montmorency, is hardly -sufficient to enlighten the puzzled visitor. An English watering-place -is much more comfortable than an American; in a Plantagenet villa the -art of receiving "summer guests" has usually been brought to a higher -perfection than in an American rural hotel. But what strikes an -American, with regard to even so charmingly-nestled a little town as -Ventnor, is that it is far less natural, less pastoral and bosky, than -his own fond image of a summer-retreat. There is too much brick and -mortar; there are too many smoking chimneys and shops and public-houses; -there are no woods nor brooks, nor lonely headlands; there is none of -the virginal stillness of Nature. Instead of these things, there is an -esplanade, mostly paved with asphalt, bordered with benches and little -shops, and provided with a German band. To be just to Ventnor, however, -I must hasten to add that once you get away from the asphalt there is a -great deal of vegetation. The little village of Bonchurch, which closely -adjoins it, is buried in the most elaborate verdure, muffled in the -smoothest lawns and the densest shrubbery. Bonchurch is simply -delicious, and indeed in a manner quite absurd. It is like a model -village in imitative substances, kept in a big glass case; the turf -might be of green velvet and the foliage of cut paper. The villagers are -all happy gentlefolk, the cottages have plate-glass windows, and the -rose-trees on their walls are tended by an under-gardener. Passing from -Ventnor through the elegant umbrage of Bonchurch, and keeping along the -coast toward Shanklin, you come to the prettiest part of the Undercliff, -or, in other words, to the prettiest place in the world. The immense -grassy cliffs which form the coast of the island make what the French -would call a "false descent" to the sea. At a certain point the descent -is broken, and a wide natural terrace, all overtangled with wild shrubs -and flowers, hangs there in mid-air, half-way above the ocean. It is -impossible to imagine anything more charming than this long, blooming -platform, protected from the north by huge green bluffs and plunging on -the other side into the murmuring tides. This delightful arrangement -constitutes for a distance of some fifteen miles the south shore of the -Isle of Wight; but the best of it, as I have said, is to be found in the -four or five miles that separate Ventnor from Shanklin. Of a lovely -afternoon in April these four or five miles are an enchanting walk. -</p> -<p> -Of course you must first catch your lovely afternoon. I caught one; in -fact, I caught two. On the second I climbed up the downs, and perceived -that it was possible to put their gorse-covered stretches to still other -than pedestrian uses—to devote them to sedentary pleasures. A long -lounge in the lee of a stone wall, the lingering, fading afternoon -light, the reddening sky, the band of blue sea above the level-topped -bunches of gorse—these things, enjoyed as an undertone to the -conversation of an amiable compatriot, seemed indeed a very sufficient -substitute for that primitive stillness of the absence of which I -ventured just now to complain. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>III</h4> - -<p> -It was probably a mistake to stop at Portsmouth. I had done so, however, -in obedience to a familiar theory that seaport-towns abound in local -colour, in curious types, in the quaint and the strange. But these -charms, it must be confessed, were signally wanting to Portsmouth, along -whose sordid streets I strolled for an hour, vainly glancing about me -for an overhanging façade or a group of Maltese sailors. I was -distressed to perceive that a famous seaport could be at once untidy and -prosaic. Portsmouth is dirty, but it is also dull. It may be roughly -divided into the dock-yard and the public-houses. The dock-yard, into -which I was unable to penetrate, is a colossal enclosure, signalised -externally by a grim brick wall, as featureless as an empty blackboard. -The dock-yard eats up the town, as it were, and there is nothing left -over but the gin-shops, which the town drinks up. There is not even a -crooked old quay of any consequence, with brightly patched houses -looking out upon a forest of masts. To begin with, there are no masts; -and then there are no polyglot sign-boards, no overhanging upper -stories, no outlandish parrots and macaws perched in open lattices. I -had another hour or so before my train departed, and it would have gone -hard with me if I had not bethought myself of hiring a boat and being -pulled about in the harbour. Here a certain amount of entertainment was -to be found. There were great iron-clads, and white troopships that -looked vague and spectral, like the floating home of the Flying -Dutchman, and small, devilish vessels whose mission was to project the -infernal torpedo. I coasted about these metallic islets; and then, to -eke out my entertainment, I boarded the <i>Victory</i>. The -<i>Victory</i> is an ancient frigate of enormous size, which in the days -of her glory carried I know not how many hundred guns, but whose only -function now is to stand year after year in Portsmouth waters and -exhibit herself to the festive cockney. Bank-holiday is now her great -date; once upon a time it was Trafalgar. The <i>Victory</i>, in short, -was Nelson's ship; it was on her huge deck that he was struck and in her -deep bowels he breathed his last. The venerable vessel is provided with -a company of ushers, like the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey, and -it is hardly less solid and spacious than either of those edifices. A -good man in uniform did me the honours of the ship with a terrible -displacement of <i>h</i>'s, and there seemed something strange in the -way it had lapsed from its heroic part. It had carried two hundred guns -and a mighty warrior, and boomed against the enemies of England; it had -been the scene of one of the most thrilling and touching events in -English history. Now, it was hardly more than a mere source of income to -the Portsmouth watermen—an objective point for Whitsuntide -excursionists—a thing that a foreign observer must allude to very -casually, for fear of seeming vulgar, or even serious. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>IV</h4> - -<p> -But I recouped myself, as they say in England, by stopping afterwards at -Chichester. In this dense and various old England two places may be very -near together and yet strike a very different note. I knew in a general -way that there was a cathedral at Chichester; indeed, I had seen its -beautiful spire from the window of the train. I had always regarded an -afternoon in a little cathedral-town as a high order of entertainment, -and a morning at Portsmouth had left me in the mood for not missing such -an exhibition. The spire of Chichester at a little distance greatly -resembles that of Salisbury. It is on a smaller scale, but it tapers -upward with a delicate slimness which, like that of its famous rival, -makes a picture of the level landscape in which it stands. Unlike the -spire of Salisbury, however, it has not at present the charm of -antiquity. A few years ago the old steeple collapsed and tumbled into -the church, and the present structure is but a modern facsimile. The -cathedral is not of the highest interest; it is rather plain and bare, -and, except a curious old detached bell-tower which stands beside it, -has no particular element of unexpectedness. But an English cathedral of -restricted grandeur may yet be a very charming affair; and I spent an -hour or so lounging around this highly respectable edifice, without the -spell of contemplation being broken by satiety. I approached it, from -the station, by the usual quiet red-brick street of the usual cathedral -town—a street of small, excellent shops, before which, here and -there, one of the vehicles of the neighbouring gentry was drawn up beside -the curbstone, while the grocer or the bookseller, who had hurried out -obsequiously, was waiting upon the comfortable occupant. I went into a -bookseller's to buy a Chichester guide, which I perceived in the window; -I found the shopkeeper talking to a young curate in a soft hat. The -guide seemed very desirable, though it appeared to have been but -scantily desired; it had been published in the year 1841, and a very -large remnant of the edition, with a muslin back and a little white -label and paper-covered boards, was piled up on the counter. It was -dedicated, with terrible humility, to the Duke of Richmond, and -ornamented with primitive woodcuts and steel plates; the ink had turned -brown and the page musty; and the style itself—that of a provincial -antiquary of upwards of forty years ago penetrated with the grandeur of -the aristocracy—had grown rather sallow and stale. Nothing could have -been more mellifluous and urbane than the young curate: he was arranging -to have the <i>Times</i> newspaper sent him every morning for perusal. "So -it will be a penny if it is fetched away at noon?" he said, smiling very -sweetly and with the most gentlemanly voice possible; "and it will be -three halfpence if it is fetched away at four o'clock?" At the top of -the street, into which, with my guide-book, I relapsed, was an old -market-cross, of the fifteenth century—a florid, romantic little -structure. It consists of a stone pavilion, with open sides and a number -of pinnacles and crockets and buttresses, besides a goodly medallion of -the high-nosed visage of Charles I., which was placed above one of the -arches, at the Restoration, in compensation for the violent havoc -wrought upon the little town by the Parliamentary soldiers, who had -wrested the place from the Royalists, and who amused themselves, in -their grim fashion, with infinite hacking and hewing in the cathedral. -Here, to the left, the cathedral discloses itself, lifting its smart -gray steeple out of a pleasant garden. Opposite to the garden was the -Dolphin or the Dragon—in fine, the most eligible inn. I must confess -that for a time it divided my attention with the cathedral, in virtue of -an ancient, musty parlour on the second floor, with hunting-pictures -hung above haircloth sofas; of a red-faced waiter, in evening dress; of -a big round of cold beef and a tankard of ale. The prettiest thing at -Chichester is a charming little three-sided cloister, attached to the -cathedral, where, as is usual in such places, you may sit upon a -gravestone amid the deep grass in the middle, and measure the great -central mass of the church—the large gray sides, the high foundations -of the spire, the parting of the nave and transept. From this point the -greatness of a cathedral seems more complex and impressive. You watch -the big shadows slowly change their relations; you listen to the cawing -of rooks and the twittering of swallows; you hear a slow footstep -echoing in the cloisters. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>V</h4> - -<p> -If Oxford were not the finest thing in England, Cambridge would -certainly be. Cambridge was so, for that matter, to my imagination, for -thirty-six hours. To the barbaric mind, ambitious of culture, Oxford is -the usual image of the happy reconciliation between research and -acceptance. It typifies, to an American, the union of science and -sense—of aspiration and ease. A German university gives a greater -impression of science, and an English country-house or an Italian villa -a greater impression of idle enjoyment; but in these cases, on one side, -knowledge is too rugged, and, on the other, satisfaction is too trivial. -Oxford lends sweetness to labour and dignity to leisure. When I say -Oxford, I mean Cambridge, for a barbarian is not in the least obliged to -know the difference, and it suddenly strikes me as being both very -pedantic and very good-natured in him to pretend to know it. What -institution is more majestic than Trinity College? what can be more -touching to an American than the hospitality of such an institution? The -first quadrangle is of immense extent, and the buildings that surround -it, with their long, rich fronts of time-deepened gray, are the -stateliest in the world. In the centre of the court are two or three -acres of close-shaven lawn, in the midst of which rises a splendid -gothic fountain, where the serving-men fill up their buckets. There are -towers and battlements and statues, and besides these things there are -cloisters and gardens and bridges. There are charming rooms in a kind of -stately gate-tower, and the rooms, occupying the thickness of the -building, have windows looking out on one side over the magnificent -quadrangle, with half a mile or so of Decorated architecture, and on the -other into deep-bosomed trees. And in the rooms is the best company -conceivable—distinguished men who are remarkably good fellows. I -spent a beautiful Sunday morning walking about Cambridge, with one of these -gentlemen, and attempting, as the French say, to <i>débrouiller</i> its -charms. These are a very complicated affair, and I do not pretend, in -memory, to keep the colleges apart. There are, however, half a dozen -points that make ineffaceable pictures. Six or eight of the colleges -stand in a row, turning their backs to the river; and hereupon ensues -the loveliest confusion of gothic windows and ancient trees, of grassy -banks and mossy balustrades, of sun-chequered avenues and groves, of -lawns and gardens and terraces, of single-arched bridges spanning the -little stream, which is small and shallow, and looks as if it had been -"turned on" for ornamental purposes. The scantily-flowing Cam appears to -exist simply as an occasion for these enchanting little bridges—the -beautiful covered gallery of John's or the slightly-collapsing arch of -Clare. In the way of college-courts and quiet scholastic porticoes, of -gray-walled gardens and ivied nooks of study, in all the pictorial -accidents of a great English university, Cambridge is delightfully and -inexhaustibly rich. I looked at these one by one, and said to myself -always that the last was the best. If I were called upon, however, to -mention the prettiest corner of the world, I should heave a tender sigh -and point the way to the garden of Trinity Hall. My companion, who was -very competent to judge (but who spoke, indeed, with the partiality of a -son of the house), declared, as he ushered me into it, that it was, to -his mind, the most beautiful <i>small</i> garden in Europe. I freely -accepted, and I promptly repeat, an affirmation so ingeniously -conditioned. The little garden at Trinity Hall is narrow and crooked; it -leans upon the river, from which a low parapet, all muffled in ivy, -divides it; it has an ancient wall, adorned with a thousand matted -creepers on one side, and on the other a group of extraordinary -horse-chestnuts. These trees are of prodigious size; they occupy half -the garden, and they are remarkable for the fact that their giant limbs -strike down into the earth, take root again, and emulate, as they rise, -the majesty of the parent tree. The manner in which this magnificent -group of horse-chestnuts sprawls about over the grass, out into the -middle of the lawn, is one of the most picturesque features of the -garden of Trinity Hall. Of course the single object at Cambridge that -makes the most abiding impression is the famous chapel of King's -College—the most beautiful chapel in England. The effect it attempts -to produce within belongs to the order of sublimity. The attempt succeeds, -and the success is attained by means so light and elegant that at first -it almost defeats itself. The sublime usually has more of a frown and -straddle, and it is not until after you have looked about you for ten -minutes that you perceive that the chapel is saved from being the -prettiest church in England by the accident of its being one of the -noblest. It is a cathedral without aisles or columns or transepts, but -(as a compensation) with such a beautiful slimness of clustered tracery -soaring along the walls, and spreading, bending and commingling in the -roof, that its simplicity seems only a richness the more. I stood there -for a quarter of an hour on a Sunday morning; there was no service, but -in the choir behind the great screen which divides the chapel in half, -the young choristers were rehearsing for the afternoon. The beautiful -boy-voices rose together and touched the splendid vault; they hung -there, expanding and resounding, and then, like a rocket that spends -itself, they faded and melted toward the end of the building. The sound -was angelic. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>VI</h4> - -<p> -Cambridgeshire is one of the so-called ugly counties; which means that -it is observably flat. It is for this reason that Newmarket is, in its -own peculiar fashion, so thriving a locality. The country is like a -board of green cloth; the turf presents itself as a friendly provision -of nature. Nature offers her gentle bosom as a gaming-table; -card-tables, billiard-tables are but a humble imitation of Newmarket -Heath. It was odd to think that amid this gentle, pastoral scenery, -there is more betting than anywhere else in the world. The large, neat -English meadows roll away to a humid-looking sky, the young partridges -jump about in the hedges, and nature does not look in the least as if -she were offering you odds. The gentlemen do, though—the gentlemen -whom you meet on the roads and in the railway carriage; they have that -indefinable look—it pervades a man from the cut of his whisker to -the shape of his boot-toe—which denotes a familiarity with the -turf. It is brought home to you that to an immense number of people in -England the events in the <i>Racing Calendar</i> constitute the most -important portion of contemporary history. The very air about Newmarket -appears to contain a vague echo of stable-talk, and you perceive that -this is the landscape depicted in those large coloured prints of the -"sporting" genus which you have admired in inn-parlours. -</p> -<p> -The destruction of partridges is, if an equally classical, a less -licentious pursuit, for which, I believe, Cambridgeshire offers peculiar -facilities. Among these is a certain shooting-box, which is a triumph of -accidental picturesqueness (the highest order) and a temple of delicate -hospitality. The shooting belongs to the autumn, not to this vernal -period; but as I have spoken of echoes, I suppose that if I had listened -attentively I might have heard the ghostly crack of some of the famous -shots that have been discharged there. The air, I believe, had vibrated -to several august rifles, but all that I happened to hear by listening -was some excellent talk. -</p> -<p> -In England, I said just now, a couple of places may be very near -together, and yet have what the philosophers call a connotation -strangely different. Only a few miles beyond Newmarket lies Bury St. -Edmunds, a town whose tranquil antiquity makes horse-racing, and even -partridge-shooting, appear a restless and fidgety mode of passing the -time. I confess that I went to Bury St. Edmunds simply on the strength -of its name, which I had often encountered, and which had always seemed -to me to have a high value for the tourist I knew that St. Edmund had -been an Anglo-Saxon worthy, but my conviction that the little town that -bore his name would afford entertainment between trains had nothing -definite to rest upon. The event, however, rewarded my faith—rewarded -it with the sight of a magnificent old gatehouse of the thirteenth -century, the most substantial of many relics of the great abbey which -once flourished there. There are many others; they are scattered about -the old precinct of the abbey, a large portion of which has been -converted into a rambling botanic garden, the resort at Whitsuntide of a -thousand very modern merrymakers. The monument I speak of has the -proportions of a triumphal arch; it is at once a gateway and a fortress; -it is covered with beautiful ornament, and is altogether the lion of -Bury. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap15"></a></p> - -<h4>XV -<br /><br /> -AN ENGLISH NEW YEAR -<br /><br /> -1879</h4> - -<p> -It will hardly be pretended this year that the English Christmas has -been a merry one, or that the New Year has the promise of being -particularly happy. The winter is proving very cold and vicious—as if -nature herself were loath to be left out of the general conspiracy -against the comfort and self-complacency of man. The country at large -has a sense of embarrassment and depression, which is brought home more -or less to every class in the closely-graduated social hierarchy, and -the light of Christmas firesides has by no means dispelled the gloom. -Not that I mean to overstate the gloom. It is difficult to imagine any -combination of adverse circumstances powerful enough to infringe very -sensibly upon the appearance of activity and prosperity, social -stability and luxury, which English life must always present to a -stranger. Nevertheless, the times are distinctly hard—there is plenty -of evidence of it—and the spirits of the public are not high. The -depression of business is extreme and universal; I am ignorant whether -it has reached so calamitous a point as that almost hopeless prostration -of every industry which you have lately witnessed in America, and I -believe things are by no means so bad as they have been on two or three -occasions within the present century. The possibility of distress among -the lower classes has been minimised by the gigantic poor-relief system, -which is so characteristic a feature of English civilisation, and which -on particular occasions is supplemented (as is the case at present) by -private charity proportionately huge. I notice, too, that in some parts -of the country discriminating groups of work-people have selected these -dismal days as a happy time for striking. When the labouring classes are -able to indulge in the luxury of a strike I suppose the situation may be -said to have its cheerful side. There is, however, great distress in the -North, and there is a general feeling of impecuniosity throughout the -country. The <i>Daily News</i> has sent a correspondent to the great -industrial regions, and almost every morning for the last three weeks a -very cleverly-executed picture of the misery of certain parts of -Yorkshire and Lancashire has been served up with the matutinal tea and -toast. The work is a good one and, I take it, eminently worth doing, as -it appears to have had a visible effect upon the purse-strings of the -well-to-do. There is nothing more striking in England than the success -with which an "appeal" is always made. Whatever the season or whatever -the cause, there always appears to be enough money and enough -benevolence in the country to respond to it in sufficient measure—a -remarkable fact when one remembers that there is never a moment of the -year when the custom of "appealing" intermits. Equally striking, -perhaps, is the perfection to which the science of distributing charity -has been raised—the way it has been analysed and explored and made -one of the exact sciences. One perceives that it has occupied for a long -time a foremost place among administrative questions, and has received -all the light that experience and practice can throw upon it. The -journal I quoted just now may perhaps, without reproach, be credited -with a political <i>arrière-pensée</i>. It would obviously like its readers -to supply in this matter of the stagnation of trade the missing link -between effect and cause—or the link which, if not absolutely -missing, is at any rate difficult to lay one's hand upon. The majority in -Parliament were not apparently of the opinion that the disorganisation -of business is the fault of Lord Beaconsfield; but there is no doubt -that it is a misfortune for the Conservative party that this bad state -of things coincides very much with its tenure of office. When an -Administration may be invidiously described as "restless," "reckless," -and "adventurous," and when at the same time business is very bad and -distress increasing, it requires no great ingenuity to represent the -former fact as responsible for the latter. -</p> -<p> -I have spoken of the rigour of the time in the lower walks of English -life; and it is not out of place to say that among those happier people -who stand above the reach of material incommodity, the Christmas season -has been overshadowed sentimentally—or at least -conventionally—by the death of Princess Alice. If I had written to -you at the moment this event occurred I should have been tempted to make -some general reflections upon it, and it is even now perhaps not too -late to say that there was, to an observer, something very interesting -and characteristic in the manner in which the news was received. Broadly -speaking, it produced much more commotion than I should have expected; -the papers overflowed with articles on the subject, the virtues of the -deceased lady and the grief of the Queen were elaborately commemorated; -many shops, on the day of the Princess's funeral, were partially closed, -and the whole nation, it may be said—or the whole of what -professes, in any degree whatever, to be "society"—went into -mourning. There was enough in all this to make a stranger consider and -interrogate; and the result of his reflections would, I think, have been -that, after all abatements are made, the monarchy has still a great hold -upon the affections of the people. The people takes great comfort in its -royal family. The love of social greatness is extraordinarily strong in -England, and the royal family appeals very conveniently to this -sentiment. People in the immense obscurity of that middle class which -constitutes the bulk of the English world like to feel that they are -related in some degree to something that is socially great. They cannot -pretend that they are related to dukes and earls and people of that -sort; but they are able to cultivate a certain sense of being related to -the royal family. They may talk of "our" princes and -princesses—and the most exalted members of the peerage may do no -more than that; they may possess photographs of the Queen's children, -and read of their daily comings and goings with an agreeable sense of -property, and without incurring that reproach of snobbishness which -sometimes attaches to too eager an interest in the doings of the great -nobility. There is no reason to suppose that the Queen takes the -humorous view of this situation; her Majesty is indeed credited with a -comfortable, motherly confidence in the salutary effect of the -court-circle upon the mind of the middle class; and there is a kind of -general feeling that, socially speaking, the Queen and the middle class -understand each other. There was something natural, therefore, in the -great impression made by the death of a princess who was personally -known but to an incalculably small proportion of the people who mourned -for her, and on whose behalf propriety would have resented the idea that -she could personally be missed. It is nevertheless true that Lord -Beaconsfield is felt rather to have overdone his part in announcing the -event to the House of Lords in language in which he might have -proclaimed some great national catastrophe. I was told by a person who -was present that the House felt itself to be at the mercy of his bad -taste—that men looked at each other with a blush and a kind of -shudder, and asked each other what was coming next. He remarked, among -other things, that the manner in which the Princess Alice had contracted -her fatal illness (her tender imprudence in kissing her sick children) -was an act worthy to be commemorated in art—"in painting, in -sculpture, and in gems." I have heard these last two words wittily -quoted in illustration of his Semitic origin. An ordinarily florid -speaker would have contented himself with saying "in painting and in -sculpture." The addition "in gems" betrays the genius of the race which -supplies the world with pawnbrokers. -</p> -<p> -I left town a short time before Christmas and went to spend the festive -season in the North, in a part of the country with which I was -unacquainted. It was quite possible to absent one's self from London -without a sense of sacrifice, for the charms of the metropolis during -the last several weeks have been obscured by peculiarly atrocious -weather. It is, of course, a very old story that London is foggy, and -this simple statement is not of necessity alarming. But there are fogs -and fogs, and these murky visitations, during the present winter, have -been of the least tolerable sort. The fog that draws down and absorbs -the smoke of the housetops, causes it to hang about the streets in -impenetrable density, forces it into one's eyes and down one's throat, -so that one is half-blinded and quite sickened—this atmospheric -abomination has been much more frequent than usual. Just before -Christmas, too, there was a heavy snow-storm, and even a tolerably light -fall of snow has London quite at its mercy. The emblem of purity is -almost immediately converted into a sticky, lead-coloured mush, the cabs -skulk out of sight or take up their stations before the lurid windows of -a public-house, which glares through the sleety darkness at the -desperate wayfarer with an air of vulgar bravado. This state of things -in the London streets made a rather sorry Christmas, though I believe -the Christmas hearth is supposed to burn the more brightly in proportion -as the outer world is less attractive. The wonderful London shops were, -of course, duly transfigured, but they seemed to me, for the most part, -to have an aspect of vain expectation, and I hear that their proprietors -give a melancholy account of the profits of the season. It was only at a -certain charming little French establishment in Bond Street that I -observed any great activity—a little chocolate-shop where -light-fingered young women from Paris dispense the most wonderful -bonbonnières. -</p> -<p> -To keep one's self in good humour with English civilisation, however, -one must do what I alluded to just now—one must go into the -country; one must limit one's horizon, for the time, to the spacious -walls of one of those admirable homes which at this season overflow with -hospitality and good cheer. By this means the result is triumphantly -attained—these are conditions that you cordially appreciate. Of -all the great things that the English have invented and made a part of -the glory of the national character, the most perfect, the most -characteristic, the one they have mastered most completely in all its -details, so that it has become a compendious illustration of their -social genius and their manners, is the well-appointed, -well-administered, well-filled country-house. The grateful stranger -makes these reflections—and others besides—as he wanders -about in the beautiful library of such a dwelling of an inclement winter -afternoon just at the hour when six o'clock tea is impending. Such a -place and such a time abound in agreeable episodes; but I suspect that -the episode from which, a fortnight ago, I received the most -ineffaceable impression was but indirectly connected with the charms of -a luxurious fireside. The country I speak of was a populous -manufacturing region, full of tall chimneys and of an air that is gray -and gritty. A lady had made a present of a Christmas-tree to the -children of a workhouse, and she invited me to go with her and assist at -the distribution of the toys. There was a drive through the early dusk -of a very cold Christmas eve, followed by the drawing-up of a lamp-lit -brougham in the snowy quadrangle of a grim-looking charitable -institution. I had never been in an English workhouse before, and this -one transported me, with the aid of memory, to the early pages of -<i>Oliver Twist</i>. We passed through certain cold, bleak passages, to -which an odour of suet-pudding, the aroma of Christmas cheer, failed to -impart an air of hospitality; and then, after waiting a while in a -little parlour appertaining to the superintendent, where the remainder -of a dinner of by no means eleemosynary simplicity and the attitude of a -gentleman asleep with a flushed face on the sofa seemed to effect a -tacit exchange of references, we were ushered into a large frigid -refectory, chiefly illumined by the twinkling tapers of the -Christmas-tree. Here entered to us some hundred and fifty little -children of charity, who had been making a copious dinner, and who -brought with them an atmosphere of hunger memorably -satisfied—together with other traces of the occasion upon their -pinafores and their small red faces. I have said that the place reminded -me of <i>Oliver Twist</i>, and I glanced through this little herd for an -infant figure that should look as if it were cut out for romantic -adventures. But they were all very prosaic little mortals. They were -made of very common clay indeed, and a certain number of them were -idiotic. They filed up and received their little offerings, and then -they compressed themselves into a tight infantine bunch, and lifting up -their small hoarse voices, directed a melancholy hymn toward their -benefactress. The scene was a picture I shall not forget, with its -curious mixture of poetry and sordid prose—the dying wintry light -in the big, bare, stale room; the beautiful Lady Bountiful, standing in -the twinkling glory of the Christmas-tree; the little multitude of -staring and wondering, yet perfectly expressionless, faces. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap16"></a></p> - -<h4>XVI -<br /><br /> -AN ENGLISH WINTER<br /> -WATERING-PLACE -<br /><br /> -1879</h4> - -<p> -I have just been spending a couple of days at a well-known resort upon -the Kentish coast, and though such an exploit is by no means -unprecedented, yet, as to the truly observing mind no opportunity is -altogether void and no impressions are wholly valueless, I have it on my -conscience to make a note of my excursion. Superficially speaking, it -was certainly wanting in originality; but I am afraid that it afforded -me as much entertainment as if the idea of paying a visit to Hastings -had been an invention of my own. This is so far from being the case that -the most striking feature of the town in question is the immense -provision made there for the entertainment of visitors. Hastings and St. -Leonard's, standing side by side, present a united sea-front of more -miles in length than I shall venture to compute. It is sufficient that -in going from one end of the place to the other I had a greater sense of -having taken a long, straight walk, than I had done since I last -measured the remarkable length of Broadway. This is not a strikingly -picturesque image, and it must be confessed that the beauty of Hastings -does not reside in a soft irregularity or a rural exuberance. Like all -the larger English watering-places it is simply a little London <i>super -mare</i>. The pictorial is always to be found in England if one will -take the trouble of looking for it; but it must be conceded that at -Hastings this element is less obtrusive than it might be. I had heard it -described as a "dull Brighton," and this description had been intended -to dispose of the place. In fact, however—such is the perversity -of the inquiring mind—it had rather quickened than quenched my -interest. It occurred to me that it might be entertaining to follow out -the variations and modifications of Brighton. Four or five miles of -lodging-houses and hotels staring at the sea across a "parade" adorned -with iron benches, with hand-organs and German bands, with nursemaids -and British babies, with ladies and gentleman of leisure—looking -rather embarrassed with it, and trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get -rid of it—this is the great feature which Brighton and Hastings -have in common. At Brighton there is a certain variety and gaiety of -colour—something suggesting crookedness and yellow -paint—which gives the place a kind of cheerful, easy, more or less -vulgar, foreign air. But Hastings is very gray and sober and English, -and, indeed, it is because it seemed to me so English that I gave my -best attention to it. If one is attempting to gather impressions of a -people and to learn to know them, everything is interesting that is -characteristic, quite apart from its being beautiful. English manners -are made up of such a multitude of small details that the portrait a -stranger has privately sketched in is always liable to receive new -touches. And this, indeed, is the explanation of his noting a great many -small points, on the spot, with a degree of relish and appreciation -which must often, to persons who are not in his position, appear -exaggerated. He has formed a mental picture of the civilisation of the -people he lives among, and whom, when he has a great deal of courage, he -makes bold to say he is "studying;" he has drawn up a kind of tabular -view of their manners and customs, their idiosyncrasies, their social -institutions, their general features and properties; and when once he -has suspended this rough cartoon in the chambers of his imagination, he -finds a great deal of occupation in touching it up and filling it in. -Wherever he goes, whatever he sees, he adds a few strokes. That is how I -spent my time at Hastings. -</p> -<p> -I found it, for instance, a question more interesting than it might -superficially appear, to choose between the inns—between the Royal -Hotel upon the Parade and an ancient hostel—a survival of the -posting-days—in a side-street. A Mend had described the latter -establishment to me as "mellow," and this epithet complicated the -problem. The term mellow, as applied to an inn, is the comparative -degree of a state of things of which (say) "musty" would be the -superlative. If you can seize this tendency in its comparative stage you -may do very well indeed; the trouble is that, like all tendencies, it -contains, even in its earlier phases, the germs of excess. I thought it -very possible that the Swan would be over-ripe; but I thought it equally -probable that the Royal would be crude. I could claim a certain -acquaintance with "royal" hotels—I knew just how they were -constituted. I foresaw the superior young woman sitting at a ledger, in -a kind of glass cage, at the bottom of the stairs, and expressing by -refined intonations her contempt for a gentleman who should decline to -"require" a sitting-room. The functionary whom in America we know and -dread as an hotel-clerk belongs in England to the sex which, when need -be, has an even more perfect command of the supercilious. Large hotels -here are almost always owned and carried on by companies, and the -company is represented by a well-shaped female figure belonging to the -class whose members are more particularly known as "persons." The -chambermaid is a young woman, and the female tourist is a lady; but the -occupant of the glass cage, who hands you your key and assigns you your -apartment, is designated in the manner I have mentioned. The "person" -has various methods of revenging herself for her shadowy position in the -social scale, and I think it was from a vague recollection of having on -former occasions felt the weight of her embittered spirit that I -determined to seek the hospitality of the humbler inn, where it was -probable that one who was himself humble would enjoy a certain -consideration. In the event, I was rather oppressed by the featherbed -quality of the welcome extended to me at the Swan. Once established -there, in a sitting-room (after all), the whole affair was as -characteristically English as I could desire. -</p> -<p> -I have sometimes had occasion to repine at the meagreness and mustiness -of the old-fashioned English inn, and to feel that in poetry and in -fiction these defects had been culpably glossed over. But I said to -myself the other evening that there is a kind of venerable decency even -in some of its dingiest idiosyncrasies, and that in an age of -vulgarisation one should do justice to an institution which is still -more or less of a stronghold of the ancient amenities. It is a -satisfaction in moving about the world to be treated as a gentleman, and -this gratification appears to be more than, in the light of modern -science, a Company can profitably undertake to bestow. I have an old -friend, a person of admirably conservative instincts, from whom, a short -time since, I borrowed a hint of this kind. This lady had been staying -at a small inn in the country, with her daughter; the daughter, whom we -shall call Mrs. B., had left the house a few days before the mother. -"Did you like the place?" I asked of my friend; "was it comfortable?" -"No, it was not comfortable; but I liked it. It was shabby, and I was -much overcharged; but it pleased me." "What was the mysterious charm?" -"Well, when I was coming away, the landlady—she had cheated me -horribly—came to my carriage, and dropped a curtsey, and said: 'My -duty to Mrs. B., ma'am.' Que voulez-vous? That pleased me." There was an -old waiter at Hastings who would have been capable of that—an old -waiter who had been in the house for forty years, and who was not so -much an individual waiter as the very spirit and genius, the incarnation -and tradition of waiter-hood. He was faded and weary and rheumatic, but -he had a sort of mixture of the paternal and the deferential, the -philosophic and the punctilious, which seemed but grossly requited by a -present of a small coin. I am not fond of jugged hare for dinner, either -as a light <i>entrée</i> or as a <i>pièce de resistance</i>; but this -accomplished attendant had the art of presenting you such a dish in a -manner that persuaded you, for the time, that it was worthy of your -serious consideration. The hare, by the way, before being subjected to -the mysterious operation of jugging, might have been seen dangling from -a hook in the bar of the inn, together with a choice collection of other -viands. You might peruse the bill of fare in an elementary form as you -passed in and out of the house, and make up your <i>menu</i> for the day -by poking with your stick at a juicy-looking steak or a promising fowl. -The landlord and his spouse were always on the threshold of the bar, -polishing a brass candlestick and paying you their respects; the place -was pervaded by an aroma of rum-and-water and of commercial travellers' -jokes. -</p> -<p> -This description, however, is lacking in the element of gentility, and I -will not pursue it farther, for I should give a very false impression of -Hastings if I were to omit so characteristic a feature. It was, I think, -the element of gentility that most impressed me. I know that the word I -have just ventured to use is under the ban of contemporary taste; so I -may as well say outright that I regard it as indispensable in almost any -attempt at portraiture of English manners. It is vain for an observer of -such things to pretend to get on without it. One may talk of foreign -life indefinitely—of the manners and customs of France, Germany, -and Italy—and never feel the need of this suggestive, yet -mysteriously discredited, epithet. One may survey the remarkable face of -American civilisation without finding occasion to strike this particular -note. But in England no circumlocution will serve—the note must be -definitely struck. To attempt to speak of an English watering-place in -winter and yet pass it over in silence, would be to forfeit all claims -to analytic talent. For a stranger, at any rate, the term is -invaluable—it is more convenient than I should find easy to say. -It is instantly evoked in my mind by long rows of smuttily-plastered -houses, with a card inscribed "Apartments" suspended in the window of -the ground-floor sitting-room—that portion of the dwelling which -is known in lodging-house parlance as "the parlours." Everything, -indeed, suggests it—the bath-chairs, drawn up for hire in a -melancholy row; the innumerable and excellent shops, adorned with the -latest photographs of the royal family and of Mrs. Langtry; the little -reading-room and circulating library on the Parade, where the daily -papers, neatly arranged, may be perused for a trifling fee, and the -novels of the season are stacked away like the honeycombs in an apiary; -the long pier, stretching out into the sea, to which you are admitted by -the payment of a penny at a wicket, and where you may enjoy the music of -an indefatigable band, the enticements of several little stalls for the -sale of fancy-work, and the personal presence of good local society. It -is only the winking, twinkling, easily-rippling sea that is not genteel. -But, really, I was disposed to say at Hastings that if the sea were not -genteel, so much the worse for Neptune; for it was the favourable aspect -of the great British proprieties and solemnities that struck me. -Hastings and St. Leonards, with their long, warm seafront, and their -multitude of small, cheap comforts and conveniences, offer a kind of -résumé of middle-class English civilisation and of advantages of which -it would ill become an American to make light. I don't suppose that life -at Hastings is the most exciting or the most gratifying in the world, -but it must certainly have its advantages. If I were a quiet old lady of -modest income and nice habits—or even a quiet old gentleman of the -same pattern—I should certainly go to Hastings. There, amid the -little shops and the little libraries, the bath-chairs and the German -bands, the Parade and the long Pier, with a mild climate, a moderate -scale of prices, and the consciousness of a high civilisation, I should -enjoy a seclusion which would have nothing primitive or crude. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap17"></a></p> - -<h4>XVII -<br /><br /> -SARATOGA -<br /><br /> -1870</h4> - -<p> -The sentimental tourist makes images in advance; they grow up in his -mind by a logic of their own. He finds himself thinking of an unknown, -unseen place, as having such and such a shape and figure rather than -such another. It assumes in his mind a certain complexion, a certain -colour which frequently turns out to be singularly at variance with -reality. For some reason or other, I had supposed Saratoga to be buried -in a sort of elegant wilderness. I imagined a region of shady forest -drives, with a bright, broad-terraced hotel gleaming here and there -against a background of mysterious groves and glades. I had made a -cruelly small allowance for the stem vulgarities of life—for the -shops and sidewalks and loafers, the complex machinery of a city of -pleasure. The fault was so wholly my own that it is quite without -bitterness that I proceed to affirm that the Saratoga of experience is -sadly different from this. I confess, however, that it has always seemed -to me that one's visions, on the whole, gain more than they lose by -being transmuted into fact. There is an essential indignity in -indefiniteness; you cannot allow for accidents and details until you -have seen them. They give more to the imagination than they receive from -it I frankly admit, therefore, that the Saratoga of reality is a much -more satisfactory place than the all-too-primitive Elysium I had -constructed. It is indeed, as I say, immensely different. There is a -vast number of brick—nay, of asphalt—sidewalks, a great many -shops, and a magnificent array of loafers. But what indeed are you to do -at Saratoga—the morning draught having been achieved—unless -you loaf? "Que faire en un gîte à moins que l'on ne songe?" Loafers -being assumed, of course shops and sidewalks follow. The main avenue of -Saratoga does not scruple to call itself Broadway. The untravelled -reader may form a very accurate idea of it by recalling as distinctly as -possible, not indeed the splendours of that famous thoroughfare, but the -secondary charms of the Sixth Avenue. The place has what the French -would call the "accent" of the Sixth Avenue. Its two main features are -the two monster hotels which stand facing each other along a goodly -portion of its course. One, I believe, is considered much better than -the other,—less of a monster and more of a refuge,—but in -appearance there is little choice between them. Both are immense brick -structures, directly on the crowded, noisy street, with vast covered -piazzas running along the façade, supported by great iron posts. The -piazza of the Union Hotel, I have been repeatedly informed, is the -largest "in the world." There are a number of objects in Saratoga, by -the way, which in their respective kinds are the finest in the world. -One of these is Mr. John Morrissey's casino. I bowed my head -submissively to this statement, but privately I thought of the blue -Mediterranean, and the little white promontory of Monaco, and the -silver-gray verdure of olives, and the view across the outer sea toward -the bosky cliffs of Italy. The Congress waters, too, it is well known, -are excellent in the superlative degree; this I am perfectly willing to -maintain. -</p> -<p> -The piazzas of these great hotels may very well be the biggest of all -piazzas. They have not architectural beauty; but they doubtless serve -their purpose—that of affording sitting-space in the open air to -an immense number of persons. They are, of course, quite the best places -to observe the Saratoga world. In the evening, when the "boarders" have -all come forth and seated themselves in groups, or have begun to stroll -in (not always, I regret to say; to the sad detriment of the dramatic -interest, bisexual) couples, the big heterogeneous scene affords a great -deal of entertainment. Seeing it for the first time, the observer is -likely to assure himself that he has neglected an important item in the -sum of American manners. The rough brick wall of the house, illumined by -a line of flaring gas-lights, forms a natural background to the crude, -impermanent, discordant tone of the assembly. In the larger of the two -hotels, a series of long windows open into an immense parlour—the -largest, I suppose, in the world, and the most scantily furnished in -proportion to its size. A few dozen rocking-chairs, an equal number of -small tables, tripods to the eternal ice-pitcher, serve chiefly to -emphasise the vacuous grandeur of the spot. On the piazza, in the outer -multitude, ladies largely prevail, both by numbers and (you are not slow -to perceive) by distinction of appearance. The good old times of -Saratoga, I believe, as of the world in general, are rapidly passing -away. The time was when it was the chosen resort of none but "nice -people." At the present day, I hear it constantly affirmed, "the company -is dreadfully mixed." What society may have been at Saratoga when its -elements were thus simple and severe, I can only vaguely and mournfully -conjecture. I confine myself to the dense, democratic, vulgar Saratoga -of the current year. You are struck, to begin with, at the hotels, by -the numerical superiority of the women; then, I think, by their personal -superiority. It is incontestably the case that in appearance, in manner, -in grace and completeness of aspect, American women surpass their -husbands and brothers; the relation being reversed among some of the -nations of Europe. Attached to the main entrance of the Union Hotel, and -adjoining the ascent from the street to the piazza, is a "stoop" of -mighty area, which, at most hours of the day and evening, is a favoured -lounging-place of men. I should add, after the remark I have just made, -that even in the appearance of the usual American male there seems to me -to be a certain plastic intention. It is true that the lean, sallow, -angular Yankee of tradition is dignified mainly by a look of decision, a -hint of unimpassioned volition, the air of "smartness." This in some -degree redeems him, but it fails to make him handsome. But in the -average American of the present time, the typical leanness and -sallowness are less than in his fathers, and the individual acuteness is -at once equally marked and more frequently united with merit of form. -Casting your eye over a group of your fellow-citizens in the portico of -the Union Hotel, you will be inclined to admit that, taking the good -with the bad, they are worthy sons of the great Republic. I have found, -at any rate, a great deal of entertainment in watching them. They -suggest to my fancy the swarming vastness—the multifarious -possibilities and activities—of our young civilisation. They come -from the uttermost ends of the Union—from San Francisco, from New -Orleans, from Alaska. As they sit with their white hats tilted forward, -and their chairs tilted back, and their feet tilted up, and their cigars -and toothpicks forming various angles with these various lines, I seem -to see in their faces a tacit reference to the affairs of a continent -They are obviously persons of experience—of a somewhat narrow and -monotonous experience certainly; an experience of which the diamonds and -laces which their wives are exhibiting hard by are, perhaps, the most -substantial and beautiful result; but, at any rate, they have -<i>lived</i>, in every fibre of the will. For the time, they are -lounging with the negro waiters, and the boot-blacks, and the -news-vendors; but it was not in lounging that they gained their hard -wrinkles and the level impartial regard which they direct from beneath -their hat-rims. They are not the mellow fruit of a society which has -walked hand-in-hand with tradition and culture; they are hard nuts, -which have grown and ripened as they could. When they talk among -themselves, I seem to hear the cracking of the shells. -</p> -<p> -If the men are remarkable, the ladies are wonderful Saratoga is famous, -I believe, as the place of all places in America where women adorn -themselves most, or as the place, at least, where the greatest amount of -dressing may be seen by the greatest number of people. Tour first -impression is therefore of the—what shall I call it?—of the -abundance of petticoats. Every woman you meet, young or old, is attired -with a certain amount of richness, and with whatever good taste may be -compatible with such a mode of life. You behold an interesting, indeed a -quite momentous spectacle; the democratisation of elegance. If I am to -believe what I hear—in fact, I may say what I overhear—many -of these sumptuous persons have enjoyed neither the advantages of a -careful education nor the privileges of an introduction to society. She -walks more or less of a queen, however, each uninitiated nobody. She -often has, in dress, an admirable instinct of elegance and even of what -the French call "chic." This instinct occasionally amounts to a sort of -passion; the result then is wonderful. You look at the coarse brick -walls, the rusty iron posts of the piazza, at the shuffling negro -waiters, the great tawdry steamboat-cabin of a drawing-room—you -see the tilted ill-dressed loungers on the steps—and you finally -regret that a figure so exquisite should have so vulgar a setting. Your -resentment, however, is speedily tempered by reflection. You feel the -impertinence of your old reminiscences of English and French novels, and -of the dreary social order in which privacy was the presiding genius and -women arrayed themselves for the appreciation of the few. The crowd, the -tavern-loungers, the surrounding ugliness and tumult and license, -constitute the social medium of the young lady you are so inconsistent -as to admire; she is dressed for publicity. The thought fills you with a -kind of awe. The social order of tradition is far away indeed, and as -for the transatlantic novels, you begin to doubt whether she is so -amiably curious as to read even the silliest of them. To be dressed up -to the eyes is obviously to give pledges to idleness. I have been -forcibly struck with the apparent absence of any warmth and richness of -detail in the lives of these wonderful ladies of the piazzas. We are -freely accused of being an eminently wasteful people; and I know of few -things which so largely warrant the accusation as the fact that these -conspicuous <i>élégantes</i> adorn themselves, socially speaking, to -so little purpose. To dress for every one is, practically, to dress for -no one. There are few prettier sights than a charmingly-dressed woman, -gracefully established in some shady spot, with a piece of needlework or -embroidery, or a book. Nothing very serious is accomplished, probably, -but an æsthetic principle is recognised. The embroidery and the book -are a tribute to culture, and I suppose they really figure somewhere out -of the opening scenes of French comedies. But here at Saratoga, at any -hour of morning or evening, you may see a hundred rustling beauties -whose rustle is their sole occupation. One lady in particular there is, -with whom it appears to be an inexorable fate that she shall be nothing -more than dressed. Her apparel is tremendously modern, and my remarks -would be much illumined if I had the learning necessary for describing -it I can only say that every evening for a fortnight she has revealed -herself as a fresh creation. But she especially, as I say, has struck me -as a person dressed beyond her life and her opportunities. I resent on -her behalf—or on behalf at least of her finery—the extreme -severity of her circumstances. What is she, after all, but a "regular -boarder"? She ought to sit on the terrace of a stately castle, with a -great baronial park shutting out the undressed world, and bandy quiet -small-talk with an ambassador or a duke. My imagination is shocked when -I behold her seated in gorgeous relief against the dusty clapboards of -the hotel, with her beautiful hands folded in her silken lap, her head -drooping slightly beneath the weight of her <i>chignon</i>, her lips -parted in a vague contemplative gaze at Mr. Helmbold's well-known -advertisement on the opposite fence, her husband beside her reading the -New York <i>Herald</i>. -</p> -<p> -I have indeed observed cases of a sort of splendid social isolation here, -which are not without a certain amount of pathos—people who know -no one, who have money and finery and possessions, only no friends. Such -at least is my inference, from the lonely grandeur with which I see them -invested. Women, of course, are the most helpless victims of this cruel -situation, although it must be said that they befriend each other with a -generosity for which we hardly give them credit I have seen women, for -instance, at various "hops," approach their lonely sisters and invite -them to waltz, and I have seen the fair invited surrender themselves -eagerly to this humiliating embrace. Gentlemen at Saratoga are at a much -higher premium than at European watering-places. It is an old story that -in this country we have no "leisure-class"—the class from which the -Saratogas of Europe recruit a large number of their male frequenters. A -few months ago, I paid a visit to an English "bath," commemorated in -various works of fiction, where, among many visible points of difference -from American resorts, the most striking was the multitude of young men -who had the whole day on their hands. While their sweethearts and -sisters are waltzing together, our own young men are rolling up -greenbacks in counting-houses and stores. I was recently reminded in -another way, one evening, of the unlikeness of Saratoga to Cheltenham. -Behind the biggest of the big hotels is a large planted yard, which it -is the fashion at Saratoga to talk of as a "park," and which is perhaps -believed to be the biggest in the world. At one end of it stands a great -ballroom, approached by a range of wooden steps. It was late in the -evening; the room, in spite of the intense heat, was blazing with light -and the orchestra thundering a mighty waltz. A group of loungers, -including myself, were hanging about to watch the ingress of the -festally-minded. In the basement of the edifice, sunk beneath the -ground, a noisy auctioneer, in his shirt and trousers, black in the face -with heat and vociferation, was selling "pools" of the races to a dense -group of frowsy betting-men. At the foot of the steps was stationed a -man in a linen coat and straw hat, without waistcoat or necktie, to take -the tickets of the ball-goers. As the latter failed to arrive in -sufficient numbers, a musician came forth to the top of the steps and -blew a loud summons on a horn. After this they began to straggle along. -On this occasion, certainly, the company promised to be decidedly -"mixed." The women, as usual, were much bedizened, though without any -constant adhesion to the technicalities of full-dress. The men adhered -to it neither in the letter nor the spirit. The possessor of a pair of -satin-shod feet, twinkling beneath an uplifted volume of gauze and lace -and flowers, tripped up the steps with her gloved hand on the sleeve of -a railway "duster." Now and then two ladies arrived alone; generally a -group of them approached under convoy of a single man. Children were -freely scattered among their elders, and frequently a small boy would -deliver his ticket and enter the glittering portal, beautifully -unembarrassed. Of the children of Saratoga there would be wondrous -things to relate. I believe that, in spite of their valuable aid, the -festival of which I speak was rated rather a "fizzle." I see it -advertised that they are soon to have, for their own peculiar benefit, a -"Masquerade and Promenade Concert, beginning at 9 P.M." I observe that -they usually open the "hops," and that it is only after their elders -have borrowed confidence from the sight of their unfaltering paces that -the latter dare to dance. You meet them far into the evening, roaming -over the piazzas and corridors of the hotels—the little girls -especially—lean, pale, formidable. Occasionally childhood confesses -itself, even when maternity resists, and you see at eleven o'clock at -night some poor little bedizened precocity collapsed in slumber in a -lonely wayside chair. The part played by children in society here is -only an additional instance of the wholesale equalisation of the various -social atoms which is the distinctive feature of collective Saratoga. A -man in a "duster" at a ball is as good as a man in regulation-garments; -a young woman dancing with another young woman is as good as a young -woman dancing with a young man; a child of ten is as good as a woman of -thirty; a double negative in conversation is rather better than a -single. -</p> -<p> -An important feature in many a watering-place is the facility for -leaving it a little behind you and tasting of the unmitigated country. -You may wander to some shady hillside and sentimentalise upon the vanity -of a high civilisation. But at Saratoga civilisation holds you fast. The -most important feature of the place, perhaps, is the impossibility of -carrying out any such pastoral dream. The surrounding country is a -charming wilderness, but the roads are so abominably bad that walking -and driving are alike unprofitable. Of course, however, if you are bent -upon a walk, you will take a walk. There is a striking contrast between -the concentrated prodigality of life in the immediate neighbourhood of -the hotels and the pastoral solitudes into which a walk of half an hour -may lead you. You have left the American citizen and his wife, the -orchestras, the pools, the precocious infants, the cocktails, the -importations from Worth, but a mile or two behind, but already the -forest is primeval and the landscape is without figures. Nothing could -be less manipulated than the country about Saratoga. The heavy roads are -little more than sandy wheel-tracks; by the tangled wayside the -blackberries wither unpicked. The horizon undulates with an air of -having it all its own way. There are no white villages gleaming in the -distance, no spires of churches, no salient details. It is all green, -lonely, and vacant. If you wish to enjoy a detail, you must stop beneath -a cluster of pines and listen to the murmur of the softly-troubled air, -or follow upward the scaly straightness of their trunks to where the -afternoon light gives it a colour. Here and there on a slope by the -roadside stands a rough unpainted farmhouse, looking as if its dreary -blackness were the result of its standing dark and lonely amid so many -months—and such a wide expanse—of winter snow. It has turned -black by contrast. The principal feature of the grassy unfurnished yard -is the great wood-pile, telling grimly of the long reversion of the -summer. For the time, however, it looks down contentedly enough over a -goodly appanage of grain-fields and orchards, and I can fancy that it -may be amusing to be a boy there. But to be a man, it must be quite what -the lean, brown, serious farmers physiognomically hint it to be. You -have, however, at the present season, for your additional beguilement, -on the eastern horizon, the vision of the long bold chain of the Green -Mountains, clad in that single coat of simple, candid blue which is the -favourite garment of our American hills. As a visitor, too, you have for -an afternoon's excursion your choice between a couple of lakes. Saratoga -Lake, the larger and more distant of the two, is the goal of the regular -afternoon drive. Above the shore is a well-appointed -tavern—"Moon's" it is called by the voice of fame—where you -may sit upon a broad piazza and partake of fried potatoes and "drinks;" -the latter, if you happen to have come from poor dislicensed Boston, a -peculiarly gratifying privilege. You enjoy the felicity sighed for by -that wanton Italian lady of the anecdote, when, one summer evening, to -the sound of music, she wished that to eat an ice were a sin. The other -lake is small, and its shores are unadorned by any edifice but a -boat-house, where you may hire a skiff and pull yourself out into the -minnow-tickled, wood-circled oval. Here, floating in its darkened half, -while you watch on the opposite shore the tree-stems, white and sharp in -the declining sunlight, and their foliage whitening and whispering in -the breeze, and you feel that this little solitude is part of a greater -and more portentous solitude, you may recall certain passages of Ruskin, -in which he dwells upon the needfulness of some human association, -however remote, to make natural scenery fully impressive. You may recall -that magnificent page in which he relates having tried with such fatal -effect, in a battle-haunted valley of the Jura, to fancy himself in a -nameless solitude of our own continent. You feel around you, with -irresistible force, the eloquent silence of undedicated nature—the -absence of serious associations, the nearness, indeed, of the vulgar and -trivial associations of the least complete of all the cities of -pleasure—you feel this, and you wonder what it is you so deeply -and calmly enjoy. You make up your mind, possibly, that it is a great -advantage to be able at once to enjoy Mr. Ruskin and to enjoy Mr. -Ruskin's alarms. And hereupon you return to your hotel and read the New -York papers on the plan of the French campaign and the Nathan murder. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap18"></a></p> - -<h4>XVIII -<br /><br /> -NEWPORT -<br /><br /> -1870</h4> - -<p> -The season at Newport has an obstinate life. September has fairly begun, -but as yet there is small visible diminution in the steady stream—the -splendid, stupid stream—of carriages which rolls in the afternoon -along the Avenue. There is, I think, a far more intimate fondness between -Newport and its frequenters than that which in most American -watering-places consecrates the somewhat mechanical relation between the -visitors and the visited. This relation here is for the most part -slightly sentimental. I am very far from professing a cynical contempt -for the gaieties and vanities of Newport life: they are, as a spectacle, -extremely amusing; they are full of a certain warmth of social colour -which charms alike the eye and the fancy; they are worth observing, if -only to conclude against them; they possess at least the dignity of all -extreme and emphatic expressions of a social tendency; but they are not -so untouched with Philistinism that I do not seem to overhear at times -the still, small voice of this tender sense of the sweet, superior -beauty of the natural things that surround them, pleading gently in -their favour to the fastidious critic. I feel almost warranted in saying -that here the background of life has sunk less in relative value and -suffered less from the encroachments of pleasure-seeking man than the -scenic dispositions of any other watering-place. For this, perhaps, we -may thank rather the modest, incorruptible integrity of the Newport -landscape than any very intelligent forbearance on the part of the -summer colony. The beauty of this landscape is so subtle, so essential, -so humble, so much a thing of character and expression, so little a -thing of feature and pretension, that it cunningly eludes the grasp of -the destroyer or the reformer, and triumphs in impalpable purity even -when it seems to make concessions. I have sometimes wondered, in -rational moods, why it is that Newport is so much appreciated by the -votaries of idleness and pleasure. Its resources are few in number. It -is extremely circumscribed. It has few drives, few walks, little variety -of scenery. Its charms and its interest are confined to a narrow circle. -It has of course the unlimited ocean, but seafaring idlers are not true -Newporters, for any other sea would suit them as well. Last evening, it -seemed to me, as I drove along the Avenue, that I guessed the answer to -the riddle. The atmospheric tone, the careful selection of ingredients, -your pleasant sense of a certain climatic ripeness—these are the real -charm of Newport, and the secret of her supremacy. You are affected by -the admirable art of the landscape, by seeing so much that is lovely and -impressive achieved with such a frugality of means—with so little -parade of the vast, the various, or the rare, with so narrow a range of -colour and form. I could not help thinking, as I turned from the -harmonies and purities which lay deepening on the breast of nature, with -the various shades of twilight, to the heterogeneous procession in the -Avenue, that, quite in their own line of effect, the usual performers in -this exhibition might learn a few good lessons from the daily prospect -of the great western expanse of rock and ocean in its relations with the -declining sun. But this is asking too much. Many persons of course come -to Newport simply because others come, and in this way the present -brilliant colony has grown up. Let me not be suspected, when I speak of -Newport, of the untasteful heresy of meaning primarily rocks and waves -rather than ladies and gentlemen. -</p> -<p> -The ladies and gentlemen are in great force—the ladies, of course, -especially. It is true everywhere, I suppose, that women are the -animating element of "society;" but you feel this to be especially true -as you pass along Bellevue Avenue. I doubt whether anywhere else so many -women have a "good time" with so small a sacrifice of the luxury of -self-respect. I heard a lady yesterday tell another, with a quiet -ecstasy of tone, that she had been having a "most perfect time." This is -the very poetry of pleasure. It is a part of our complacent tradition -that in those foreign lands where women are supposed to be socially -supreme, they maintain their empire by various clandestine and -reprehensible arts. With us—we say it at Newport without -bravado—they are both conspicuous and unsophisticated. You feel -this most gratefully as you receive a confident bow from a pretty girl -in her basket-phaeton. She is very young and very pretty, but she has a -certain habitual assurance which is only a grace the more. She combines, -you reflect with respectful tenderness, all that is possible in the way -of modesty with all that is delightful in the way of facility. Shyness -is certainly very pretty—when it is not very ugly; but shyness may -often darken the bloom of genuine modesty, and a certain frankness and -confidence may often incline it toward the light. Let us assume, then, -that all the young ladies whom you may meet here are of the highest -modern type. In the course of time they ripen into the delightful -matrons who divide your admiration. It is easy to see that Newport must -be a most agreeable sojourn for the male sex. The gentlemen, indeed, -look wonderfully prosperous and well-conditioned. They gallop on shining -horses or recline in a sort of coaxing Herculean submission beside the -lovely mistress of a curricle. Young men—and young old men—I -have occasion to observe, are far more numerous than at Saratoga, and of -vastly superior quality. There is, indeed, in all things a striking -difference in tone and aspect between these two great centres of -pleasure. After Saratoga, Newport seems really substantial and -civilised. Æsthetically speaking, you may remain at Newport with a -fairly good conscience; at Saratoga you linger under passionate protest. -At Newport life is public, if you will; at Saratoga it is absolutely -common. The difference, in a word, is the difference between a group of -undiscriminating hotels and a series of organised homes. Saratoga -perhaps deserves our greater homage, as being characteristically -democratic and American; let us, then, make Saratoga the heaven of our -aspiration, but let us yet a while content ourselves with Newport as the -lowly earth of our residence. -</p> -<p> -The villas and "cottages," the beautiful idle women, the beautiful idle -men, the brilliant pleasure-fraught days and evenings, impart, perhaps, -to Newport life a faintly European expression, in so far as they suggest -the somewhat alien presence of leisure—"fine old Leisure," as George -Eliot calls it. Nothing, it seems to me, however, can take place in -America without straightway seeming very American; and, after a week at -Newport, you begin to fancy that to live for amusement simply, beyond -the noise of commerce or of care, is a distinctively national trait. -Nowhere else in this country—nowhere, of course, within the range of -our better civilisation—does business seem so remote, so vague, and -unreal. It is the only place in America in which enjoyment is organised. -If there be any poetry in the ignorance of trade and turmoil and the -hard processes of fortune, Newport may claim her share of it. She -knows—or at least appears to know—for the most part nothing but -results. Individuals here, of course, have private cares and burdens to -preserve the balance and the dignity of life; but collective society -conspires to forget everything that worries. It is a singular fact that -a society that does nothing is decidedly more pictorial, more -interesting to the eye of contemplation, than a society which is hard at -work. Newport, in this way, is infinitely more fertile in combinations -than Saratoga. There you feel that idleness is occasional, empirical. -Most of the people you see are asking themselves, you imagine, whether -the game is worth the candle and work is not better than such difficult -play. But here, obviously, the habit of pleasure is formed, and (within -the limits of a severe morality) many of the secrets of pleasure are -known. Do what we will, on certain lines Europe is in advance of us yet. -Newport lags altogether behind Trouville and Brighton in her exhibition -of the unmentionable. All this is markedly absent from the picture, -which is therefore signally destitute of the enhancing tints produced by -the mysteries and fascinations of vice. But idleness per se is vicious, -and of course you may imagine what you please. For my own part, I prefer -to imagine nothing but the graceful and the pure; and with the help of -such imaginings you may construct a very pretty sentimental undercurrent -to the superficial movement of society. This I lately found very -difficult to do at Saratoga. Sentiment there is pitifully shy and -elusive. Here, the multiplied relations of men and women, under the -permanent pressure of luxury and idleness, give it a very fair chance. -Sentiment, indeed, of masterly force and interest, springs up in every -soil, with a sovereign disregard of occasion. People love and hate and -aspire with the greatest intensity when they have to make their time and -opportunity. I should hardly come to Newport for the materials of a -tragedy. Even in their own kind, the social elements are as yet too -light and thin. But I can fancy finding here the motive of a drama which -should depend more on smiles than tears. I can almost imagine, indeed, a -transient observer of the Newport spectacle dreaming momentarily of a -great American novel, in which the heroine might be infinitely realistic -and yet neither a schoolmistress nor an outcast. I say intentionally the -"transient" observer, because it is probable that here the suspicion -only is friendly to dramatic point; the knowledge is hostile. The -observer would discover, on a nearer view, I rather fear, that his -possible heroines have too perfect a time. -</p> -<p> -This will remind the reader of what he must already have heard affirmed, -that to speak of a place with abundance you must know it, but not too -well. I suffer from knowing the natural elements of Newport too well to -attempt to describe them. I have known them so long that I hardly know -what I think of them. I have little more than a simple consciousness of -enjoying them very much. Even this consciousness at times lies dumb and -inert. I wonder at such times whether, to appeal fairly to the general -human sense, the horizon has not too much of that mocking straightness -which is such a misrepresentation of the real character of the sea—as -if, forsooth, it were level. Life seems too short, space too narrow, to -warrant you in giving in an unqualified adhesion to a pay sage which is -two-thirds ocean. For the most part, however, I am willing to take the -landscape as it stands, and to think that, without the water to make it -precious, the land would be much less lovable. It is, in fact, a land -exquisitely modified by marine influences. Indeed, in spite of all the -evil it has done me, I could almost speak well of the ocean when I -remember the charming tricks it plays with the Newport promontories. -</p> -<p> -The place consists, as the reader will know, of an ancient and -honourable town, a goodly harbour, and a long, broad neck of land, -stretching southward into the sea and forming the chief habitation of -the summer colony. Along the greater part of its eastward length, this -projecting coast is bordered with cliffs of no great height, and dotted -with seaward-gazing villas. At the head of the promontory the villas -enjoy a magnificent reach of prospect. The pure Atlantic—the old -world westward tides—expire directly at their feet. Behind the -line of villas runs the Avenue, with more villas yet—of which -there is nothing at all to say but that those built recently are a -hundred times prettier than those built fifteen years ago, and give one -some hope of a revival of the architectural art. Some years ago, when I -first knew Newport, the town proper was considered remarkably quaint. If -an antique shabbiness that amounts almost to squalor is a pertinent -element, as I believe it is, of this celebrated quality, the little main -street at least—Thames Street by name—still deserves the -praise. Here, in their crooked and dwarfish wooden mansions, are the -shops that minister to the daily needs of the expanded city; and here of -a summer morning, jolting over the cobble stones of the narrow roadway, -you may see a hundred superfine ladies seeking with languid eagerness -what they may buy—to "buy something," I believe, being a diurnal -necessity of the conscientious American woman. This busy region -gradually melts away into the grass-grown stillness of the Point, in the -eyes of many persons the pleasantest quarter of Newport. It has -superficially the advantage of being as yet uninvaded by fashion. When I -first knew it, however, its peculiar charm was even more undisturbed -than at present. The Point may be called the old residential, as -distinguished from the commercial, town. It is meagre, shallow and -scanty—a mere pinch of antiquity—but, so far as it goes, it -retains an exquisite tone. It leaves the shops and the little wharves, -and wanders close to the harbour, where the breeze-borne rattle of -shifted sails and spars alone intrudes upon its stillness, till its -mouldy-timbered quiet subsides into the low, tame rocks and beaches -which edge the bay. Several matter-of-course modern houses have recently -been erected on the water-side, absorbing the sober, primitive tenements -which used to maintain the picturesque character of the place. They -improve it, of course, as a residence, but they injure it as an -unexpected corner. Enough of early architecture still remains, however, -to suggest a multitude of thoughts as to the severe simplicity of the -generation which produced it. The plain gray nudity of these little -warped and shingled boxes seems to make it a hopeless task on their part -to present any positive appearance at all. But here, as elsewhere, the -magical Newport atmosphere wins half the battle. It aims at no -mystery—it simply makes them scintillate in their bareness. Their -homely notches and splinters twinkle till the mere friendliness of the -thing makes a surface. Their steep gray roofs, barnacled with lichens, -remind you of old barges, overturned on the beach to dry. -</p> -<p> -One of the more recent monuments of fashion is the long drive which -follows the shore. The Avenue, where the Neck abruptly terminates, has -been made to extend itself to the west, and to wander for a couple of -miles over a lovely region of beach and lowly down and sandy meadow and -salt brown sheep-grass. This region was formerly the most beautiful part -of Newport—the least frequented and the most untamed by fashion. I -by no means regret the creation of the new road, however. A walker may -very soon isolate himself, and the occupants of carriages axe exposed to -a benefit quite superior to their power of injury. The peculiar charm of -this great westward expanse is very difficult to define. It is in an -especial degree the charm of Newport in general—the combined -lowness of tone, as painters call it, in all the elements of <i>terra -firma</i>, and the extraordinary elevation of tone in the air. For miles -and miles you see at your feet, in mingled shades of yellow and gray, a -desolate waste of mossclad rock and sand-starved grass. At your left is -nothing but the shine and surge of the ocean, and over your head that -wonderful sky of Newport, which has such an unexpected resemblance to -the sky of Venice. In spite of the bare simplicity of this prospect, its -beauty is far more a beauty of detail than that of the average American -landscape. Descend into a hollow of the rocks, into one of the little -warm climates, five feet square, which you may find there, beside the -grateful ocean glare, and you will be struck quite as much by their -fineness as by their roughness. From time to time, as you wander, you -will meet a lonely, stunted tree, which is sure to be a charming piece -of the individual grotesque. The region of which I speak is perhaps best -seen in the late afternoon, from the high seat of a carriage on the -Avenue. You seem to stand just outside the threshold of the west. At its -opposite extremity sinks the sun, with such a splendour, perhaps, as I -lately saw—a splendour of the deepest blue, more luminous and -fiery than the usual redness of evening, and all streaked and barred -with blown and drifted gold. The whole large interval, with its rocks -and marshes and ponds, seems bedimmed with a kind of purple glaze. The -near Atlantic fades and turns cold with that desolate look of the ocean -when the day ceases to care for it. In the foreground, a short distance -from the road, an old orchard uplifts its tangled stems and branches -against the violet mists of the west. It seems strangely grotesque and -enchanted. No ancient olive-grove of Italy or Provence was ever more -hoarily romantic. This is what people commonly behold on the last -homeward bend of the drive. For such of them as are happy enough to -occupy one of the villas on the cliffs, the beauty of the day has even -yet not expired. The present summer has been emphatically the summer of -moonlights. Not the nights, however, but the long days, in these -agreeable homes, are what especially appeal to my fancy. Here you find a -solution of the insoluble problem—to combine an abundance of -society with an abundance of solitude. In their charming broad-windowed -drawing-rooms, on their great seaward piazzas, within sight of the -serious Atlantic horizon, which is so familiar to the eye and so -mysterious to the heart, caressed by the gentle breeze which makes all -but simple, social, delightful now and here seem unreal and -untasteful—the sweet fruit of the lotus grows more than ever -succulent and magical. How sensible they ought to be, the denizens of -these pleasant places, of their peculiar felicity and distinction! How -it should purify their temper and refine their tastes! How delicate, how -wise, how discriminating they should become! What excellent -manners—what enlightened opinions—their situation should -produce! How it should purge them of vulgarity! Happy -<i>villeggianti</i> of Newport! -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap19"></a></p> - -<h4>XIX -<br /><br /> -QUEBEC -<br /><br /> -1871</h4> - -<h4>I</h4> - -<p> -A traveller who combines a taste for old towns with a love of letters -ought not, I suppose, to pass through "the most picturesque city in -America" without making an attempt to commemorate his impressions. His -first impression will certainly have been that not America, but Europe, -should have the credit of Quebec. I came, some days since, by a dreary -night-journey, to Point Levi, opposite the town, and as we rattled -toward our goal in the faint raw dawn, and, already attentive to -"effects," I began to consult the misty window-panes and descried -through the moving glass little but crude, monotonous woods, suggestive -of nothing that I had ever heard of in song or story, I felt that the -land would have much to do to give itself a romantic air. And, in fact, -the feat is achieved with almost magical suddenness. The old world rises -in the midst of the new in the manner of a change of scene on the stage. -The St. Lawrence shines at your left, large as a harbour-mouth, gray -with smoke and masts, and edged on its hither verge by a bustling -water-side <i>faubourg</i> which looks French or English, or anything not -local that you please; and beyond it, over against you, on its rocky -promontory, sits the ancient town, belted with its hoary wall and -crowned with its granite citadel. Now that I have been here a while I -find myself wondering how the city would strike one if the imagination -had not been bribed beforehand. The place, after all, is of the soil on -which it stands; yet it appeals to you so cunningly with its little -stock of transatlantic wares that you overlook its flaws and lapses, and -swallow it whole. Fancy lent a willing hand the morning I arrived, and -zealously retouched the picture. The very sky seemed to have been -brushed in like the sky in an English water-colour, the light to filter -down through an atmosphere more dense and more conscious. You cross a -ferry, disembark at the foot of the rock on unmistakably foreign soil, and -then begin to climb into the city proper—the city <i>intra muros</i>. -These walls, to the American vision, are of course the sovereign fact of -Quebec; you take off your hat to them as you clatter through the gate. -They are neither very high nor, after all, very hoary. Our clear -American air is hostile to those mellow deposits and incrustations which -enrich the venerable surfaces of Europe. Still, they are walls; till but -a short time ago they quite encircled the town; they are garnished with -little slits for musketry and big embrasures for cannon; they offer here -and there to the strolling bourgeoisie a stretch of grassy rampart; and -they make the whole place definite and personal. -</p> -<p> -Before you reach the gates, however, you will have been reminded at a -dozen points that you have come abroad. What is the essential difference -of tone between street-life in an old civilisation and in a new? It -seems something subtler and deeper than mere external accidents—than -foreign architecture, than foreign pinks, greens, and yellows plastering -the house-fronts, than the names of the saints on the corners, than all -the pleasant crookedness, narrowness and duskiness, the quaint -economised spaces, the multifarious detail, the brown French faces, the -ruddy English ones. It seems to be the general fact of detail -itself—the hint in the air of a slow, accidental accretion, in -obedience to needs more timidly considered and more sparingly gratified -than the pressing necessities of American progress. But apart from the -metaphysics of the question, Quebec has a great many pleasant little -ripe spots and amenities. You note the small, box-like houses in rugged -stone or in stucco, each painted with uncompromising <i>naïveté</i> in some -bright hue of the owner's fond choice; you note with joy, with envy, -with momentary self-effacement, as a New Yorker, as a Bostonian, the -innumerable calashes and cabs which contend for your selection; and you -observe when you arrive at the hotel, that this is a blank and gloomy -inn, of true provincial aspect, with slender promise of the "American -plan." Perhaps, even the clerk at the office will have the courtesy of -the ages of leisure. I confess that, in my case, he was terribly modern, -so that I was compelled to resort for a lodging to a private house near -by, where I enjoy a transitory glimpse of the <i>vie intime</i> of Quebec. -I fancied, when I came in, that it would be a compensation for worse -quarters to possess the little Canadian vignette I enjoy from my -windows. Certain shabby Yankee sheds, indeed, encumber the foreground, -but they are so near that I can overlook them. Beyond is a piece of -garden, attached to nothing less than a convent of the cloistered nuns -of St. Ursula. The convent chapel rises inside it, crowned with what -seemed to me, in view of the circumstances, a real little <i>clocher de -France</i>. The "circumstances," I confess, are simply a couple of stout -French poplars. I call them French because they are alive and happy; -whereas, if they had been American they would have died of a want of -appreciation, like their brothers in the "States." I do not say that the -little convent-belfry, roofed and coated as it is with quaint scales of -tin, would, by itself, produce any very deep illusion; or that the -whispering poplars, <i>per se</i>, would transport me to the Gallic -mother-land; but poplars and belfry together constitute an -"effect"—strike a musical note in the scale of association. I look -fondly even at the little casements which command this prospect, for -they too are an old-world heritage. They open sidewise, in two wings, -and are screwed together by that bother—some little iron handle over -which we have fumbled so often in European inns. -</p> -<p> -If the windows tell of French dominion, of course larger matters testify -with greater eloquence. In a place so small as Quebec, the bloom of -novelty of course rubs off; but when first I walked abroad I fancied -myself again in a French seaside town where I once spent a year, in -common with a large number of economically disposed English. The French -element offers the groundwork, and the English colony wears, for the -most part, that half-genteel and migratory air which stamps the exiled -and provincial British. They look as if they were still <i>en -voyage</i>—still in search of low prices—the men in woollen -shirts and Scotch bonnets; the ladies with a certain look of being -equipped for dangers and difficulties. Your very first steps will be -likely to lead you to the market-place, which is a genuine bit of -Europeanism. One side of it is occupied by a huge edifice of yellow -plaster, with stone facings painted in blue, and a manner of -<i>porte-cochère</i>, leading into a veritable court—originally, -I believe, a college of the early Jesuits, now a place of military -stores. On the other stands the French cathedral, with an ample stone -façade, a bulky stone tower, and a high-piled, tin-scaled belfry; not -architectural, of course, nor imposing, but with a certain gray -maturity, and, as regards the belfry, a quite adequate quaintness. Bound -about are shops and houses, touching which, I think, it is no mere fancy -that they might, as they stand, look down into some dull and rather -dirty place in France. The stalls and booths in the centre—tended -by genuine peasants of tradition, brown-faced old Frenchwomen, with hard -wrinkles and short petticoats, and white caps beneath their -broad-brimmed hats, and more than one price, as I think you'll -find—these, and the stationed calèches and cabriolets complete a -passably fashionable French picture. It is a proof of how nearly the old -market-women resemble their originals across the sea that you rather -resentfully miss one or two of the proper features of the type—the -sabots for the feet and the donkey for the load. Of course you go into -the cathedral, and how forcibly that swing of the door, as you doff your -hat in the cooler air, recalls the old tourist strayings and pryings -beneath other skies! You find a big garish church, with a cold high -light, a promiscuity of stucco and gilding, and a mild odour of the -seventeenth century. It is, perhaps, a shade or so more sensibly -Catholic than it would be with ourselves; but, in fine, it has pews and -a boarded floor, and the few paintings are rather pale in their badness, -and you are forced to admit that the old-world tone which sustains -itself so comfortably elsewhere falters most where most is asked of it. -</p> -<p> -Among the other lions of Quebec—notably in the Citadel—you -find Protestant England supreme. A robust trooper of her Majesty, with a -pair of very tight trousers and a very small cap, takes charge of you at -the entrance of the fortifications, and conducts you through all kinds -of incomprehensible defences. I cannot speak of the place as an -engineer, but only as a tourist, and the tourist is chiefly concerned -with the view. This is altogether superb, and if Quebec is not the most -picturesque city in America, this is no fault of its incomparable site. -Perched on its mountain of rock, washed by a river as free and ample as -an ocean-gulf, sweeping from its embattled crest, the villages, the -forests, the blue undulations of the imperial province of which it is -warden—as it has managed from our scanty annals to squeeze out a -past, you pray in the name of all that's majestic that it may have a -future. I may add that, to the mind of the reflective visitor, these -idle ramparts and silent courts present other visions than that of the -mighty course of the river and its anchorage for navies. They evoke a -shadowy image of that great English power, the arches of whose empire -were once built strong on foreign soil; and as you stand where they are -highest and look abroad upon a land of alien speech, you seem to hear -the echoed names of other strongholds and provinces—Gibraltar, -Malta, India. Whether these arches are crumbling now, I do not pretend -to say; but the last regular troops (in number lately much diminished) -are just about to be withdrawn from Quebec, and in the private circles -to which I have been admitted I hear sad forebodings of what society -will lose by the departure of the "military." This single word is -eloquent; it reveals a social order distinctly affiliated, in spite of -remoteness, to the society reproduced for the pacific American in novels -in which the hero is a captain of the army or navy, and of which the -scene is therefore necessarily laid in countries provided with these -branches of the public service. Another opportunity for some such -reflections, worthy of a historian or an essayist, as those I have -hinted at, is afforded you on the Plains of Abraham, to which you -probably adjourn directly from the Citadel—another, but I am bound -to say, in my opinion, a less inspiring one. A battlefield remains a -battlefield, whatever may be done to it; but the scene of Wolfe's -victory has been profaned by the erection of a vulgar prison, and this -memento of human infirmities does much to efface the meagre column -which, with its neat inscription, "Here died Wolfe, victorious," stands -there as a symbol of exceptional virtue. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>II</h4> - -<p> -To express the historical interest of the place completely, I should dwell -on the light provincial—French provincial—aspect of some of the -little residential streets. Some of the houses have the staleness of -complexion which Balzac loved to describe. They are chiefly built of -stone or brick, with a stoutness and separateness of structure which -stands in some degree in stead of architecture. I know not that, -externally, they have any greater charm than that they belong to that -category of dwellings which in our own cities were long since pulled -down to make room for brown-stone fronts. I know not, indeed, that I can -express better the picturesque merit of Quebec than by saying that it -has no fronts of this luxurious and horrible substance. The greater -number of houses are built of rough-hewn squares of some more vulgar -mineral, painted with frank chocolate or buff, and adorned with blinds -of a cruder green than we admire. As you pass the low windows of these -abodes, you perceive the walls to be of extraordinary thickness; the -embrasure is of great depth; Quebec was built for winter. Door-plates -are frequent, and you observe that the tenants are of the Gallic -persuasion. Here and there, before a door, stands a comely private -equipage—a fact agreeably suggestive of a low scale of prices; for -evidently in Quebec one need not be a millionaire to keep a carriage, -and one may make a figure on moderate means. The great number of private -carriages visible in the streets is another item, by the way, among the -Europeanisms of the place; and not, as I may say, as regards the simple -fact that they exist, but as regards the fact that they are considered -needful for women, for young persons, for gentility. What does it do -with itself, this gentility, keeping a gig or not, you wonder, as you -stroll past its little multicoloured mansions. You strive almost vainly -to picture the life of this French society, locked up in its small dead -capital, isolated on a heedless continent, and gradually consuming its -principal, as one may say—its vital stock of memories, traditions, -superstitions. Its evenings must be as dull as the evenings described by -Balzac in his <i>Vie de Province</i>; but has it the same ways and means of -dulness? Does it play loto and "boston" in the long winter nights, and -arrange marriages between its sons and daughters, whose education it has -confided to abbés and abbesses? I have met in the streets here little -old Frenchmen who look as if they had stepped out of Balzac—bristling -with the habits of a class, wrinkled with old-world expressions. -Something assures one that Quebec must be a city of gossip; for -evidently it is not a city of culture. A glance at the few booksellers' -windows gives evidence of this. A few Catholic statuettes and prints, -two or three Catholic publications, a festoon or so of rosaries, a -volume of Lamartine, a supply of ink and matches, form the principal -stock. -</p> -<p> -In the lower class of the French population there is a much livelier -vitality. They are a genuine peasantry; you very soon observe it, as you -drive along the pleasant country-roads. Just what it is that makes a -peasantry, it is, perhaps, not easy to determine; but whatever it is, -these good people have it—in their simple, unsharpened faces, in -their narrow patois, in their ignorance and naïveté, and their evident good -terms with the tin-spired parish church, standing there as bright and -clean with ungrudged paint and varnish as a Nürnberg toy. One of them -spoke to me with righteous contempt of the French of France—"They are -worth nothing; they are bad Catholics." These are good Catholics, and I -doubt whether anywhere Catholicism wears a brighter face and maintains -more docility at the cost of less misery. It is, perhaps, not -Longfellow's Evangeline for chapter and verse, but it is a tolerable -prose transcript. There is no visible squalor, there are no rags and no -curses, but there is a most agreeable tinge of gentleness, thrift, and -piety. I am assured that the country-people are in the last degree mild -and peaceable; surely, such neatness and thrift, without the -irritability of the French genius—it is true the genius too is -absent—is a very pleasant type of character. Without being ready to -proclaim, with an enthusiastic friend, that the roadside scenery is more -French than France, I may say that, in its way, it is quite as -picturesque as anything within the city. There is an air of completeness -and maturity in the landscape which suggests an old country. The roads, -to begin with, are decidedly better than our own, and the cottages and -farmhouses would need only a bit of thatch and a few red tiles here and -there to enable them to figure creditably by the waysides of Normandy or -Brittany. The road to Montmorency, on which tourists most congregate, is -also, I think, the prettiest. The rows of poplars, the heavy stone -cottages, seamed and cracked with time, in many cases, and daubed in -coarse, bright hues, the little bourgeois villas, rising middle-aged at -the end of short vistas, the sunburnt women in the fields, the old men -in woollen stockings and red nightcaps, the long-kirtled curé nodding -to doffed hats, the more or less bovine stare which greets you from -cottage-doors, are all so many touches of a local colour reflected from -over the sea. What especially strikes one, however, is the peculiar tone -of the light and the atmospheric effects—the chilly whites and grays, -the steely reflections, the melancholy brightness of a frigid zone. -Winter here gives a stamp to the year, and seems to leave even through -spring and summer a kind of scintillating trail of his presence. To me, -I confess it is terrible, and I fancy I see constantly in the brilliant -sky the hoary genius of the climate brooding grimly over his dominion. -</p> -<p> -The falls of Montmorency, which you reach by the pleasant avenue I speak -of, are great, I believe, among the falls of the earth. They are -certainly very fine, even in the attenuated shape to which they are -reduced at the present season. I doubt whether you obtain anywhere in -simpler and more powerful form the very essence of a cataract—the -wild, fierce, suicidal plunge of a living, sounding flood. A little -platform, lodged in the cliff, enables you to contemplate it with almost -shameful convenience; here you may stand at your leisure and spin -analogies, more or less striking, on the very edge of the white abyss. -The leap of the water begins directly at your feet, and your eye trifles -dizzily with the long, perpendicular shaft of foam, and tries, in the -eternal crash, to effect some vague notation of its successive stages of -sound and fury; but the vaporous sheet, for ever dropping, lapses from -beneath the eye, and leaves the vision distracted in mid-space; and the -vision, in search of a resting-place, sinks in a flurry to the infamous -saw-mill which defaces the very base of the torrent. The falls of -Montmorency are obviously one of the greatest of the beauties of nature; -but I hope it is not beside the mark to say that of all the beauties of -nature, "falls" are to me the least satisfying. A mountain, a precipice, -a river, a forest, a plain, I can enjoy at my ease; they are natural, -normal, self-assured; they make no appeal; they imply no human -admiration, no petty human cranings and shrinkings, head-swimmings and -similes. A cataract, of course, is essentially violent. You are certain, -moreover, to have to approach it through a turnstile, and to enjoy it -from some terribly cockneyfied little booth. The spectacle at -Montmorency appears to be the private property of a negro innkeeper, who -"runs" it evidently with great pecuniary profit. A day or two since I -went so far as to be glad to leave it behind, and drive some five miles -farther along the road, to a village rejoicing in the pretty name of -Château-Richer. The village is so pretty that you count on finding -there the elderly manor which might have baptized it. But, of course, in -such pictorial efforts as this Quebec breaks down; one must not ask too -much of it. You enjoy from here, however, a revelation of the noble -position of the city. The river, finding room in mid-stream for the long -island of Orleans, opens out below you with a peculiar freedom and -serenity, and leads the eye far down to where an azure mountain gazes up -the channel and responds to the dark headland of Quebec. I noted, here -and there, as I went, an extremely sketchable effect. Between the road -and the river stand a succession of ancient peasant-dwellings, with -their back-windows looking toward the stream. Glancing, as I passed, -into the apertures that face the road, I saw, as through a -picture-frame, their dark, rich-toned interiors, played into by the late -river light and making an admirable series of mellow <i>tableaux de -genre</i>. The little curtained alcoves, the big household beds, and -presses, and dressers, the black-mouthed chimney-pieces, the crucifixes, -the old women at their spinning-wheels, the little heads at the -supper-table, around the big French loaf, outlined with a rim of light, -were all as warmly, as richly composed, as French, as Dutch, as worthy -of the brush, as anything in the countries to which artists resort for -subjects. -</p> -<p> -I suppose no patriotic American can look at all these things, however -idly, without reflecting on the ultimate possibility of their becoming -absorbed into his own huge state. Whenever, sooner or later, the change -is wrought, the sentimental tourist will keenly feel that a long stride -has been taken, roughshod, from the past to the present. The largest -appetite in modern civilisation will have swallowed the largest morsel. -What the change may bring of comfort or of grief to the Canadians -themselves, will be for them to say; but, in the breast of this -sentimental tourist of ours, it will produce little but regret. The -foreign elements of eastern Canada, at least, are extremely interesting; -and it is of good profit to us Americans to have near us, and of easy -access, an ample something which is not our expansive selves. Here we -find a hundred mementoes of an older civilisation than our own, of -different manners, of social forces once mighty, and still glowing with -a sort of autumnal warmth. The old-world needs which created the -dark-walled cities of France and Italy seem to reverberate faintly in -the steep and narrow and Catholic streets of Quebec. The little houses -speak to the fancy by rather inexpensive arts; the ramparts are endued -with a sort of silvery innocence; but the historic sense, conscious of a -general solidarity in the picturesque, ekes out the romance and deepens -the colouring. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<p><a id="chap20"></a></p> - -<h4>XX -<br /><br /> -NIAGARA -<br /><br /> -1871</h4> - -<p> -My journey hitherward by a morning's sail from Toronto across Lake -Ontario, seemed to me, as regards a certain dull vacuity in this episode -of travel, a kind of calculated preparation for the uproar of -Niagara—a pause or hush on the threshold of a great impression; -and this, too, in spite of the reverent attention I was mindful to -bestow on the first seen, in my experience, of the great lakes. It has -the merit, from the shore, of producing a slight ambiguity of vision. It -is the sea, and yet just not the sea. The huge expanse, the landless -line of the horizon, suggest the ocean; while an indefinable shortness -of pulse, a kind of fresh-water gentleness of tone, seem to contradict -the idea. What meets the eye is on the scale of the ocean, but you feel -somehow that the lake is a thing of smaller spirit. Lake-navigation, -therefore, seems to me not especially entertaining. The scene tends to -offer, as one may say, a sort of marine-effect missed. It has the -blankness and vacancy of the sea, without that vast essential swell -which, amid the belting brine, so often saves the situation to the eye. -I was occupied, as we crossed, in wondering whether this dull reduction -of the main contained that which could properly be termed "scenery." At -the mouth of the Niagara River, however, after a sail of three hours, -scenery really begins, and very soon crowds upon you in force. The -steamer puts into the narrow channel of the stream, and heads upward -between high embankments. From this point, I think, you really enter -into relations with Niagara. Little by little the elements become a -picture, rich with the shadow of coming events. You have a foretaste of -the great spectacle of colour which you enjoy at the Falls. The even -cliffs of red-brown earth are crusted and spotted with autumnal orange -and crimson, and, laden with this gorgeous decay, they plunge sheer into -the deep-dyed green of the river. As you proceed, the river begins to -tell its tale—at first in broken syllables of foam and flurry, and -then, as it were, in rushing, flashing sentences and passionate -ejaculations. Onwards from Lewiston, where you are transferred from the -boat to the train, you see it from the edge of the American cliff, far -beneath you, now superbly unnavigable. You have a lively sense of -something happening ahead; the river, as a man near me said, has -evidently been in a row. The cliffs here are immense; they form a -vomitorium worthy of the living floods whose exit they protect. This is -the first act of the drama of Niagara; for it is, I believe, one of the -commonplaces of description that you instinctively convert it into a -series of "situations." At the station pertaining to the railway -suspension-bridge, you see in mid-air, beyond an interval of murky -confusion produced at once by the farther bridge, the smoke of the -trains, and the thickened atmosphere of the peopled bank, a huge -far-flashing sheet which glares through the distance as a monstrous -absorbent and irradiant of light. And here, in the interest of the -picturesque, let me note that this obstructive bridge tends in a way to -enhance the first glimpse of the cataract. Its long black span, falling -dead along the shining brow of the Falls, seems shivered and smitten by -their fierce effulgence, and trembles across the field of vision like -some enormous mote in a light too brilliant. A moment later, as the -train proceeds, you plunge into the village, and the cataract, save as a -vague ground-tone to this trivial interlude, is, like so many other -goals of æsthetic pilgrimage, temporarily postponed to the hotel. -</p> -<p> -With this postponement comes, I think, an immediate decline of -expectation; for there is every appearance that the spectacle you have -come so far to see is to be choked in the horribly vulgar shops and -booths and catchpenny artifices which have pushed and elbowed to within -the very spray of the Falls, and ply their importunities in shrill -competition with its thunder. You see a multitude of hotels and taverns -and stores, glaring with white paint; bedizened with placards and -advertisements, and decorated by groups of those gentlemen who flourish -most rankly on the soil of New York and in the vicinage of hotels; who -carry their hands in their pockets, wear their hats always and every -way, and, although of a stationary habit, yet spurn the earth with their -heels. A side-glimpse of the Falls, however, calls out your philosophy; -you reflect that this may be regarded as one of those sordid foregrounds -which Turner liked to use, and which may be effective as a foil; you -hurry to where the roar grows louder, and, I was going to say, you -escape from the village. In fact, however, you don't escape from it; it -is constantly at your elbow, just to the right or the left of the line -of contemplation. It would be paying Niagara a poor compliment to say -that, practically, she does not hurl away this chaffering by-play from -her edge; but as you value the integrity of your impression, you are -bound to affirm that it suffers appreciable abatement from such sources. -You wonder, as you stroll about, whether it is altogether an unrighteous -dream that with the slow progress of taste and the possible or -impossible growth of some larger comprehension of beauty and fitness, -the public conscience may not tend to confer upon such sovereign phases -of nature something of the inviolability and privacy which we are slow -to bestow, indeed, upon fame, but which we do not grudge at least to -art. We place a great picture, a great statue, in a museum: we erect a -great monument in the centre of our largest square, and if we can -suppose ourselves nowadays to build a cathedral, we should certainly -isolate it as much as possible and expose it to no ignoble contact. We -cannot enclose Niagara with walls and a roof, nor girdle it with a -palisade; but the sentimental tourist may muse upon the contingency of -its being guarded by the negative homage of empty spaces and absent -barracks and decent forbearance. The actual abuse of the scene belongs -evidently to that immense class of iniquities which are destined to grow -very much worse in order to grow a very little better. The good humour -engendered by the main spectacle bids you suffer it to run its course. -</p> -<p> -Though hereabouts so much is great, distances are small, and a ramble of -two or three hours enables you to gaze hither and thither from a dozen -standpoints. The one you are likely to choose first is that on the -Canada cliff, a little way above the suspension-bridge. The great fall -faces you, enshrined in its own surging incense. The common feeling just -here, I believe, is one of disappointment at its want of height; the -whole thing appears to many people somewhat smaller than its fame. My -own sense, I confess, was absolutely gratified from the first; and, -indeed, I was not struck with anything being tall or short, but with -everything being perfect. You are, moreover, at some distance, and you -feel that with the lessening interval you will not be cheated of your -chance to be dizzied with mere dimensions. Already you see the -world-famous green, baffling painters, baffling poets, shining on the -lip of the precipice; the more so, of course, for the clouds of silver -and snow into which it speedily resolves itself. The whole picture -before you is admirably simple. The Horseshoe glares and boils and -smokes from the centre to the right, drumming itself into powder and -thunder; in the centre the dark pedestal of Goat Island divides the -double flood; to the left booms in vaporous dimness the minor battery of -the American Fall; while on a level with the eye, above the still crest -of either cataract, appear the white faces of the hithermost rapids. The -circle of weltering froth at the base of the Horseshoe, emerging from the -dead white vapours—absolute white, as moonless midnight is absolute -black—which muffle impenetrably the crash of the river upon the lower -bed, melts slowly into the darker shades of green. It seems in itself a -drama of thrilling interest, this blanched survival and recovery of the -stream. It stretches away like a tired swimmer, struggling from the -snowy scum and the silver drift, and passing slowly from an eddying -foam-sheet, touched with green lights, to a cold, verd-antique, streaked -and marbled with trails and wild arabesques of foam. This is the -beginning of that air of recent distress which marks the river as you -meet it at the lake. It shifts along, tremendously conscious, relieved, -disengaged, knowing the worst is over, with its dignity injured but its -volume undiminished, the most stately, the least turbid of torrents. Its -movement, its sweep and stride, are as admirable as its colour, but as -little as its colour to be made a matter of words. These things are but -part of a spectacle in which nothing is imperfect. As you draw nearer -and nearer, on the Canada cliff, to the right arm of the Horseshoe, the -mass begins in all conscience to be large enough. You are able at last -to stand on the very verge of the shelf from which the leap is taken, -bathing your boot-toes, if you like, in the side-ooze of the glassy -curve. I may say, in parenthesis, that the importunities one suffers -here, amid the central din of the cataract, from hackmen and -photographers and vendors of gimcracks, are simply hideous and infamous. -The road is lined with little drinking-shops and warehouses, and from -these retreats their occupants dart forth upon the hapless traveller -with their competitive attractions. You purchase release at last by the -fury of your indifference, and stand there gazing your fill at the most -beautiful object in the world. -</p> -<p> -The perfect taste of it is the great characteristic. It is not in the -least monstrous; it is thoroughly artistic and, as the phrase is, -thought out. In the matter of line it beats Michael Angelo. One may seem -at first to say the least, but the careful observer will admit that one -says the most, in saying that it pleases—pleases even a spectator who -was not ashamed to write the other day that he didn't care for cataracts. -There are, however, so many more things to say about it—its -multitudinous features crowd so upon the vision as one looks—that it -seems absurd to begin to analyse. The main feature, perhaps, is the -incomparable loveliness of the immense line of the shelf and its lateral -abutments. It neither falters, nor breaks nor stiffens, but maintains -from wing to wing the lightness of its semicircle. This perfect curve -melts into the sheet that seems at once to drop from it and sustain it. -The famous green loses nothing, as you may imagine, on a nearer view. A -green more vividly cool and pure it is impossible to conceive. It is to -the vulgar greens of earth what the blue of a summer sky is to -artificial dyes, and is, in fact, as sacred, as remote, as impalpable as -that. You can fancy it the parent-green, the head-spring of colour to -all the verdant water-caves and all the dear, sub-fluvial haunts and -bowers of naiads and mermen in all the streams of the earth. The lower half -of the watery wall is shrouded in the steam of the boiling gulf—a -veil never rent nor lifted. At its heart this eternal cloud seems fixed -and still with excess of motion—still and intensely white; but, as it -rolls and climbs against its lucent cliff, it tosses little whiffs and -fumes and pants of snowy smoke, which betray the convulsions we never -behold. In the middle of the curve, the depth of the recess, the -converging walls are ground into a dust of foam, which rises in a tall -column, and fills the upper air with its hovering drift. Its summit far -overtops the crest of the cataract, and, as you look down along the -rapids above, you see it hanging over the averted gulf like some -far-flowing signal of danger. Of these things some vulgar verbal hint may -be attempted; but what words can render the rarest charm of all—the -clear-cut brow of the Fall, the very act and figure of the leap, the -rounded passage of the horizontal to the perpendicular? To say it is -simple is to make a phrase about it. Nothing was ever more successfully -executed. It is carved as sharp as an emerald, as one must say and say -again. It arrives, it pauses, it plunges; it comes and goes for ever; it -melts and shifts and changes, all with the sound as of millions of -bass-voices; and yet its outline never varies, never moves with a different -pulse. It is as gentle as the pouring of wine from a flagon—of -melody from the lip of a singer. From the little grove beside -the American Fall you catch this extraordinary profile better than you -are able to do at the Horseshoe. If the line of beauty had vanished from -the earth elsewhere, it would survive on the brow of Niagara. It is -impossible to insist too strongly on the grace of the thing, as seen -from the Canada cliff. The genius who invented it was certainly the -first author of the idea that order, proportion and symmetry are the -conditions of perfect beauty. He applied his faith among the watching -and listening forests, long before the Greeks proclaimed theirs in the -measurements of the Parthenon. Even the roll of the white batteries at -the base seems fixed and poised and ordered, and in the vague middle -zone of difference between the flood as it falls and the mist as it -rises you imagine a mystical meaning—the passage of body to soul, of -matter to spirit, of human to divine. -</p> -<p> -Goat Island, of which every one has heard, is the menagerie of lions, -and the spot where your single stone—or, in plain prose, your -half-dollar—kills most birds. This broad insular strip, which -performs the excellent office of withholding the American shore from -immediate contact with the flood, has been left very much to itself, and -here you may ramble, for the most part, in undiverted contemplation. The -island is owned, I believe, by a family of co-heirs, who have the good -taste to keep it quiet. More than once, however, as I have been told, -they have been offered a "big price" for the privilege of building an -hotel upon this sacred soil. They have been wise, but, after all, they -are human, and the offer may be made once too often. Before this fatal -day dawns, why should not the State buy up the precious acres, as -California has done the Yo-Semite? It is the opinion of a sentimental -tourist that no price would be too great to pay. Otherwise, the only -hope for their integrity is in the possibility of a shrewd provision on -the part of the gentlemen who know how to keep hotels that the music of -the dinner-band would be injured by the roar of the cataract. You -approach from Goat Island the left abutment of the Horseshoe. The little -tower which, with the classic rainbow, figures in all "views" of the -scene, is planted at a dozen feet from the shore, directly on the -shoulder of the Fall. This little tower, I think, deserves a compliment. -One might have said beforehand that it would never do, but, as it -stands, it makes rather a good point. It serves as a unit of -appreciation of the scale of things, and from its spray-blackened summit -it admits you to an almost downward peep into the green gulf. More here, -even, than on the Canada shore, you perceive the unlimited -<i>wateriness</i> of the whole spectacle. Its liquid masses take on at -moments the likeness of walls and pillars and columns, and, to present -any vivid picture of them, we are compelled to talk freely of emerald -and crystal, of silver and marble. But really, all the simplicity of the -Falls, and half their grandeur, reside in their unmitigated fluidity, -which excludes all rocky staging and earthy commixture. It is water -piled on water, pinned on water, hinging and hanging on water, breaking, -crashing, whitening in shocks altogether watery. And yet for all this no -solid was ever so solid as that sculptured shoulder of the Horseshoe. -From this little tower, or, better still, from various points farther -along the island-shore, even to look is to be immersed. Before you -stretches the huge expanse of the upper river, with its belittled -cliffs, now mere black lines of forest, dull as with the sadness of -gazing at perpetual trouble, eternal danger. Anything more horribly -desolate than this boundless livid welter of the rapids it is impossible -to conceive, and you very soon begin to pay it the tribute of your own -suddenly-assumed suspense, in the impulse to people it with human forms. -On this theme you can work out endless analogies. Yes, they are alive, -every fear-blanched billow and eddy of them—alive and frenzied -with the sense of their doom. They see below them that nameless pause of -the arrested current, and the high-tossed drift of sound and spray which -rises up lamenting, like the ghosts of their brothers who have been -dashed to pieces. They shriek, they sob, they clasp their white hands -and toss their long hair; they cling and clutch and wrestle, and, above -all, they appear to <i>bite</i>. Especially tragical is the air they -have of being forced backward, with averted faces, to their fate. Every -pulse of the flood is like the grim stride of a giant, wading huge-kneed -to his purpose, with the white teeth of a victim fastened in his neck. -The outermost of three small islands, interconnected by short bridges, -at the extremity of this shore, places one in singularly intimate -relation with this portentous flurry. To say that hereabouts the water -leaps and plunges and rears and dives, that its uproar makes even one's -own ideas about it inaudible, and its current sweeps those ideas to -perdition, is to give a very pale account of the universal agitation. -</p> -<p> -The great spectacle may be called complete only when you have gone down -the river some four miles, on the American side, to the so-called rapids -of the Whirlpool. Here the unhappy stream tremendously renews its -anguish. Two approaches have been contrived on the cliff—one to the -rapids proper, the other, farther below, to the scene of the sudden -bend. The first consists of a little wooden cage, of the "elevator" -pattern, which slides up and down a gigantic perpendicular shaft of -horrible flimsiness. But a couple of the usual little brides, staggering -beneath the weight of gorgeous cashmeres, entered the conveyance with -their respective consorts at the same time with myself; and, as it thus -carried Hymen and his fortunes, we survived the adventure. You obtain -from below—that is, on the shore of the river—a specimen of the -noblest cliff-scenery. The green embankment at the base of the sheer red -wall is by itself a very fair example of what they call in the Rocky -Mountains a foot-hill; and from this continuous pedestal erects itself a -bristling palisade of earth. As it stands, Gustave Doré might have -drawn it. He would have sketched with especial ardour certain -parasitical shrubs and boskages—lone and dizzy witnesses of autumn; -certain outward-peering wens and warts and other perpendicular -excrescences of rock; and, above all, near the summit, the fantastic -figures of sundry audacious minor cliffs, grafted upon the greater by a -mere lateral attachment and based in the empty air, with great slim -trees rooted on their verges, like the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio at -Florence. The actual whirlpool is a third of a mile farther down the -river, and is best seen from the cliff above. From this point of view, -it seems to me by all odds the finest of the secondary episodes of the -drama of Niagara, and one on which a scribbling tourist, ineffectively -playing at showman, may be content to ring down his curtain. The channel -at this point turns away to the right, at a clean right-angle, and the -river, arriving from the rapids just above with stupendous velocity, -meets the hollow elbow of the Canada shore. The movement with which it -betrays its surprise and bewilderment—the sudden issueless maze of -waters—is, I think, after the Horseshoe Fall, the very finest thing -in its progress. It breaks into no small rage; the offending cliffs receive -no drop of spray; for the flood moves in a body and wastes no vulgar -side-spurts; but you see it shaken to its innermost bowels and panting -hugely, as if smothered in its excessive volume. Pressed back upon its -centre, the current creates a sort of pivot, from which it eddies, -groping for exit in vast slow circles, delicately and irregularly -outlined in foam. The Canada shore, shaggy and gaudy with late September -foliage, closes about it like the rising shelves of an amphitheatre, and -deepens by contrast the strong blue-green of the stream. This -slow-revolving surface—it seems in places perfectly -still—resembles nothing so much as some ancient palace-pavement, -cracked and scratched by the butts of legionary spears and the -gold-stiffened hem of the garments of kings. -</p> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<h4>THE END</h4> - -<p><br /><br /><br /></p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PORTRAITS OF PLACES ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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