Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The first impression created by the interior aspect of the Crystal Palace, is one of admiration. Magnificent indeed is the lofty dome of the transept, arching over glorious old trees, oriental shrubbery, statuary, fountains, and masses of gorgeous flowers; the brilliant perspective of the central aisle, with its double lines of galleries, stretching away on either hand, and traversed by countless avenues, every point of the vast expanse presenting its own special subject of interest, and challenging the beholder's gaze. But so extensive and various is this great collection, so striking are the contrasts of form, color, and use, presented by the endless succession of objects that meet the eye in every direction, that the sentiment of admiration soon gives place to a feeling of hopeless bewilderment. A careful study of maps and catalogues, and many visits, spent in making a general survey of the various departments of the building, are indispensable preliminaries to a more intimate acquaintance with the admirable objects contained in each. But the topographic and distributive arrangements of the building understood, the chaos of one's impressions becomes gradually into order; and the work of examination goes on with more success.

The transept and the western wing are occupied by Great Britain and her colonial possessions; the eastern wing is appropriated to foreign nations, the countries lying nearest the tropics being ranged immediately round the transept. Objects of art and artistical industry occupy the central portions of the building; raw materials, machinery, hardware, and carriages being placed nearest to the walls. The objects admitted to the exhibition come under four general categories: raw materials, machinery, manufactures, and fine arts, and are divided into thirty classes, an arrangement which greatly facilitates the business of investigation and comparison.

Many of the Oriental nations are very fully represented, especially India; it would be difficult to cite any department of Indian life and industry not illustrated in the ample collections of her natural and manufactured products, gathered together with the utmost care. China, Tunis, Persia, and the islands of the Indian archipelago, are also here in great force, and make a very brilliant display. The exquisite texture of many of their woven fabrics, the richness of color and effect, the incredible _fineness_ and delicacy of workmanship displayed in many of their manufactured articles, prepared with the aid only of the rudest tools, often surpass all that the enlightened skill of European artisans can accomplish, and may furnish western industry with many valuable models and precious suggestions for future use. But the beauty of eastern productions lies solely in perfection of detail; there is nothing large, generous, or comprehensive in barbaric industry. All that its resources can accomplish is lavished on objects of parade and luxury, often absolutely useless, and always destined for the privileged few; the element of ordinary existence, all that goes to make up the daily life of the masses, is coarse and rudimentary. These shawls, which, for fineness of texture, richness of color, and beauty of design, leave the choicest productions of European looms at an immeasurable distance; these muslins and gauzes, finer than gossamer, yet covered with exquisite traceries in gold and silver thread, fabrics that seem too etherially light to be worn by others than the ladies of Titania's court; these silks and satins, and damasks of admirable texture, and of richest dyes; these magnificent garments, stiff gold embroidery, with precious stones and with tinsel whose glancing hues produce an effect quite as brilliant as that of the jewels; how strangely they contrast, these splendid things intended for the few, with the coarseness of the fabrics destined for the ordinary use of the many. Compare these magnificent housings and accoutrements, these saddles of velvet, stiff with gold, these reins, and swords and daggers, full of pearls and jewels, with those clumsy implements of labor, and those uncouth, heavy utensils of domestic life. Compare the elaborate workmanship of screens, cabinets, vases, lamps, and tables, with the primitive candles and suspicious-looking soaps; the magnificence of carriages and palanquins, luxuriously cushioned, and hung with velvet and gold, in which lazy, bloated grandees are lounging, laden with jewels and finery, with the naked, emaciated bearers, human brutes that replace beasts of burden, and contrast, unfavorably, with average European horses!

In European industry, on the contrary, an ascentional, out-reaching movement is every where visible. Beauty remains no longer in scornful isolation, divorced from use, but descending into the domain of every-day existence, incorporates her divine essence in all the forms of common life, pervading the lowliest spheres, raising and ennobling the humblest details, by her purifying and vivifying presence. This tendency, visible in the industry of all European nations, is still more clearly evident in the manufactures of France and England, whose productions, standing at the head of all others, constitute the highest expression of the industrial spirit of the age. Here the hardest and heaviest materials, wood, iron, and stone, become plastic under the workman's hand, assuming the most brilliant polish, the lightest and most elegant forms; grates, fire-irons, and kitchen-ranges, rival, in lustre and beauty, the attractions of diamonds, goldsmiths' work, and flowers. The admirable construction of machinery shares in the enthusiasm excited by the beautiful fabrics woven by their tireless fingers; and the "Golden Marriage" of use and beauty is every where celebrated under varying forms.

They who imagine that art has died out of the world, and sigh for the chisel of Praxiteles, the pencil of Apelles, and the glorious conceptions of the masters of the middles ages, would do well to visit the Crystal Palace, and contrast the rudeness which shaped all the elements of ordinary life in former periods, with the elegance and beauty which the simplest objects of common use are beginning to assume. Not, however, that the one necessarily precludes the other, or that we are fated to produce no more fine statues and paintings, no more monumental temples and palaces, because we now have, at lower prices than were paid in ancient times for inferior articles, beautiful carpets, and fabrics of silk, wool, and cotton, furniture, porcelain, and glass, in which the thought of the artist and the craft of the artisan are so admirably blended that they seem to be identical. Art is not dead; it is throwing out wider and deeper roots, and will bear richer fruits in the garden of the future, enriched by the mingled detritus of by-gone ages, than it has ever borne in the primitive formations of the past.

One of the most interesting features of the present exhibition, the one which constitutes its distinguishing character, is, undoubtedly, its universality, and the interest which it excites among all nations, and all classes. And it was time that the results of human activity in its various departments, should thus be gathered together from the four corners of the globe, for the world is cut up into so many small fractions, and each fraction lives so much within the limits of its own narrow circle, ignoring, for the most part, all that is going on outside of it, that it is in the highest degree desirable that people should begin to see something of what their neighbors are doing.

It is time that nations met elsewhere than on the field of battle, and measured their strength and dignity by some more rational standard than the relative force of their cannon; time also that the various classes of society, so widely separated by the artificial divisions of caste and fortune, should look, at length, into each other's face and recognize the band of a common nature and of common needs; that the world's, as yet, unhonored workers, beholding the glorious fruits of their prolific energy, should perceive the sublimity of their mission and take fresh heart and fresh hope; that the rich should learn, from the grand results of labor, to appreciate more justly its nobleness and worth.

That the exhibition of 1851, successful as it is evidently destined to be, should fully realize this most desirable end, is hardly to be expected; but that it will do much toward creating a better understanding between classes and countries, and thus pave the way for the bringing in of a future era of universal helpfulness and good-will, may be very confidently predicted.

STELLA.

FRENCH FEUILLETONISTES UPON LONDON.

The leading Parisian journals have correspondents in London during the Great Exhibition, and as the _corps_ of Parisian feuilletonistes comprises much of the richest and rarest talent of the great French metropolis, there is a piquancy and brilliance in these daguerreotypes of London life and the impressions of English character, which is very entertaining. No traveller who remembers dining at any of the recherche cafes upon the Boulevards with a Frenchman, and chatting with him of England and London, can forget the cold chill that curled through the Parisian's conversation, as if he were a Pole, gossipping of Siberia, or the glances of intense satisfaction and pride which he cast upon the lively and lovely groups in the street, inly thanking God that he was not born a child of _perfide Albion_.

But these gentlemen talk not alone of the Exhibition, but of the "town" in general. Their articles wear the air of the journals of heroic adventurers who have penetrated into barbarous lands. They are clearly home-sick, these sybarites. We extract the following from a translation in the London _Literary Gazette_, prefaced with a few editorial remarks. Speaking of the variety of their topics the reviewer says: "Thus the great Jules Janin, in the _Journal des Debats_, notwithstanding the interest of portions of his article, some of which have been translated into our journals, makes the infamy of French republicans, and his own fervent love and devotedness to the royal family of Orleans, the burden of his lucubrations. M. Blanqui, the historian of political economy, and translator of Adam Smith, faithful as becomes an economist to his _idee fixe_, bewails in the _Presse_ the folly of France in rejecting the doctrines of free trade, and clamors loudly for an immediate reform of French tariffs. M. Jules de Premary fills column after column in the _Patrie_ with descriptions of English manners, customs, and peculiarities; and yet he admits that he knows nothing of our language, and has only resided amongst us for a few days. Parisian _litterateurs_ pride themselves on being men of imagination, poets, _penseurs fantasistes_; and it is clear that it would be as reasonable to chain an eagle to a dog-cart, as to expect _them_ to deal with a plain, practical, matter-of-fact thing in the methodical business-like way of the English journalist. Of these, the lines of Miss Fanny Fudge are strikingly true:

"Vain, critics, vain
All your efforts to saddle wit's fire with a chain!!
To blot out the splendor of fancy's young stream,
Or crop in its cradle the newly-fledged beam!!!"

But though our worthy _confreres_ of the Parisian press have thus let their wits go a wool-gathering, and left the poor Exhibition in the lurch, it is but just to state that one and all display on the whole a most friendly feeling towards the English; and even in quizzing us, as most of them do, display great good nature. They feel, perhaps, a little sore at having been outstripped by us in the establishment of the first great Universal Exhibition; but this was only natural, and they console themselves by stating that it was in France that the idea was first conceived, and by solemnly promising that France will some day _prendre sa revanche_. The most amusing of the _feuilletonistes_ is unquestionably M. Jules de Premary, of the _Patrie_; and we have thought it worth while to translate a portion of his last letter, as a specimen of what an intelligent man of letters feels on visiting us for the first time, and before he becomes well acquainted with us:

"One of the principal causes of surprise to me in walking
along the streets of London, has been to see myself all at
once become a curious animal. I did not think that I had any
of the qualities necessary for such a thing, being neither
humpbacked nor club-footed, neither a giant nor a dwarf.
Thus, then, on the day of my arrival I went along Regent
Street, and heard the exclamations and laughter of the crowd
on seeing me, I examined myself from head to foot, to
ascertain the cause of the unhoped-for success which I
obtained in England. I even felt all up my back, thinking
that perhaps some facetious boy might have transformed me
into a walking placard. There was nothing, however; but I
had moustachios and a foreign air! A foreign air! That is
one of the little miseries on which you do not count, O
simple and inexperienced travellers!

"At home you may have the dignity and nobleness of the
Cid--you may be another Talma: but pass the Channel--show
yourself to the English, and in spite of yourself you will
become as comic as Arnal. Arnal! do I say? why, he would not
make them laugh so much as you do; and they would consider
our inimitable comedians Levassor and Hoffmann as serious
personages. Do not be angry, then, or cry with Alceste,--

'Par la sambleu! Messieurs, je ne croyais pas etre
Si plaisant que je suis!'

They would only laugh the more. In this respect the English
are wanting in good taste and indulgence. Their astonishment
is silly and their mockery puerile. The sight of a pair of
moustachios makes them roar with laughter, and they are in
an ecstasy of fun at the sight of a rather broad-brimmed
hat. A people must be very much bored to seize such
occasions for amusing themselves. However, all the
_travers_, like all the qualities of the English, arise from
the national spirit carried to exaggeration. They consider
themselves the _beau ideal_ of human kind. Their stiffness
of bearing, their pale faces, their hair, their whiskers cut
into the shape of mutton chops, the excessive height of
their shirt collars, and the inelegant cut of their
coats--all that makes them as proud as Trafalgar and
Waterloo.

"In our theatres we laugh at them as they laugh at us, and
on that score we are quits. But in our great towns they are
much better and more seriously received than we Frenchmen
are in England.

"At Paris now-a-days nobody laughs at an Englishman; but at
London every body laughs at a Frenchman. We do not make this
remark from any feeling of ill-will; in fact, we think that
to cause a smile on the thin and pinched-up lips of old
England is not a small triumph for our beards and
moustachios. After all, too, the astonishment which the
Englishman manifests at the sight of a newly disembarked
Frenchman (an astonishment which appears singular when we
call to mind the frequent communications between the two
nations), is less inexplicable than may be thought.
Geographically speaking, France and England touch each
other--morally, they are at an immeasurable distance.
Nothing is done at Calais as at Dover, nothing at London as
at Paris. There is as much difference between the two races
as between white and black. In France, the Englishman
conforms willingly to our customs, and quickly adopts our
manner of acting; but in England we are like a stain on a
harmonious picture.

"Our fashion of sauntering along the streets, smiling at the
pretty girls we meet, looking at the shops, or stopping to
chat with a friend, fills the English with stupefaction.
They always walk straight before them like mad dogs. In
conversation there is the same difference. In England it is
always solemn. Left alone after dinner, the men adopt a
subject of conversation, which never varies during all the
rest of the evening. Each one is allowed to develop his
argument without interruption. Perhaps he is not understood,
but he is listened to. When he has ended, it becomes the
turn of another, who is heard with the same respect. The
thing resembles a quiet sitting of the Parliament. But in
France, conversation is a veritable _melee_--it is the
contrary excess. A subject is left and taken up twenty
times, amidst joyous and unforeseen interruptions. We throw
words at each other's heads without doing ourselves any
harm; smart sallies break forth, and _bon mots_ roll under
the table. In short, the Englishman reflects before
speaking; the Frenchman speaks first and reflects
afterwards--if he has time. The Frenchman converses, the
Englishman talks: and it is the same with respect to
pleasure. Place a Frenchman, who feels _ennui_, by the side
of an Englishman who amuses himself, and it will be the
former who will have the gayest air. From love, the
Englishman only demands its brutal joys; whereas the
Frenchman pays court to a woman. The Englishman, at table,
drinks to repletion; the Frenchman never exceeds
intoxication.

"A difference equally striking exists between the females of
the two countries. I do not now speak of the beauty of the
type of the one, or the elegance and good taste of the
others; but I will notice one or two great contrasts. In
France, a young girl is reserved, is timid, and as it were
hidden under the shade of the family: but the married woman
has every liberty, and many husbands can tell you that she
does not always use it with extreme moderation! In England,
you are surprised at the confident bearing of young girls,
and the chaste reserve of married women. The former not only
willingly listen to gallant compliments, but even excite
them; whilst the latter, by the simple propriety of their
bearing, impose on the boldest.

"The boldness of young girls in England was explained to me
by the great emigration of young men--in other words, by the
scarcity of husbands. The French girl who wants a husband is
ordinarily rather disdainful; the English girl is by no
means difficult.

"A Frenchwoman walks negligently leaning on our arm, and we
regulate our steps by the timidity and uncertainty of hers:
the Englishwoman walks with the head erect, and takes large
strides like a soldier charging. An accident made me
acquainted with the secret of the strange way of walking
which Englishwomen have. I was lately on a visit to the
family of a merchant, whose three daughters are receiving a
costly education. The French master, the drawing master, and
the music master had each given his lesson, when I saw a
sergeant of the grenadiers of the guard arrive. He went into
the garden, and was followed by the young ladies.

"'Ah! mon Dieu!" I cried to the father, 'these young ladies
are surely not going to learn the military exercise!'

"'No,' said he, with a smile.

"'What, then, has this professor in a red coat come for?'

"'He is the _master of grace_."

"'What! that grenadier, who is as long as the column in
Trafalgar-square?'

"'Yes, or rather he is the _walking master_.'

"I looked out of the window, and saw the three young ladies
drawn up and immovable as soldiers, and presently they began
to march to the step of the grenadier. They formed a
charming platoon, and trod the military step with a
precision worthy of admiration. I asked for an explanation
of such a strange thing.

"'We in England,' said my host, 'understand better the duty
of women than you Frenchmen do. We cannot regulate our
manner of walking on that of a being subjected to us. Our
dignity forbids it. It is the woman's duty to follow us.
Consequently she must walk as we do,--we can't walk as she
does.'

"'_Ma foi!_' said I, 'I must admit that in progress you are
decidedly our masters. In France the law, it is true,
commands the wife to follow her husband; but it does not, I
confess, say that she must do so at the rate of a _quick
march_!'

"The contrasts between the two countries are in truth
inexhaustible. Indeed I defy the most patient observer, to
find any point of resemblance between them. In France,
houses are gay in appearance; in London, with the exception
of some streets in the centre, such as Regent-street or
Oxford-street, they are as dark and dismal as prisons. Our
windows open from the left to the right; windows in England
open from top to bottom. At Paris, to ring or knock too loud
is vulgar and ill-bred; at London, if you don't execute a
tattoo with the knocker or a symphony with the bell, you are
considered a poor wretch, and are left an hour at the door.
Our hack cabs take their stand on one side of the street; in
England they occupy the middle. Our coachmen get up in front
of their vehicles; in England they go behind. In Paris,
Englishmen are charming; at home they are--Englishmen. One
thing astonishes me greatly--that the English don't walk on
their hands, since we walk on our feet."

But the French gentlemen do not have it all their own way. The London _Leader_ attacks them pleasantly in a similar spirit, yet it is always tinged, upon both sides, with a shade of caustic feeling: "Jules Janin, who has fallen in love with our fog and kindliness, announces to all France the joyful news that there will be no Waterloo banquet this June: the flag of France floating over the Crystal Palace suggests to the Duke that the banquet would be a breach of hospitality, because it would recall such "cruel souvenirs!" Janin believes that report; or at least prints it, which is to give journalistic credence to it. We are sorry to think how "cruelly" France will be disappointed; and we are amused at the excessive pre-occupation of Frenchmen with this said battle of Waterloo. It is the ineradicable belief of every Frenchman that we in England are in a perpetual self-swagger about Waterloo. We are prodigal of the word upon omnibus, shop, street, and road, because we wish to humble France at every corner. Waterloo-house is an insult! Waterloo-bridge a defiance! Wellington boots an outrage! Every step you take you trample on the national pride of France, for with "insular arrogance" you walk in boots named of Wellington or of Blucher! We are intoxicated with our success at having beaten the French--never having drubbed them before, from the times of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, down to the Peninsular Campaign! This one success of Waterloo--(which, after all, was _not_ a success, as France clearly gained the battle, only she quitted the field in disgust!)--we cannot forget; we cherish it, we riot in it; we blazon the name everywhere to flatter our national pride and humiliate the foreigner. And, curious enough, the foreigner _is_ humiliated! He turns his head away as he passes Waterloo-house; he declines crossing Waterloo-bridge, or crosses it in a passion; and even his national dread of rain cannot induce him to ride in a Waterloo omnibus. Of all the many profound misconceptions of English society current in France, none, we venture to say, is more completely baseless than the belief in the English feeling about Waterloo. Though it would be impossible to persuade a Frenchman that omnibus proprietors, hotel keepers, and builders were guilty of no national swagger in using the offending word 'Waterloo.'"

SCHALKEN THE PAINTER.--A GHOST STORY.

We take the following from a volume of of ghost stories, with illustrations by Phiz, which has lately been published in London. One Minheer Vanderhausen, through the means of a certain persuasive eloquence, backed by money, becomes the husband of Rose, the niece of Gerard Douw, and with whom Schalken, the celebrated painter's pupil, was in love. Vanderhausen and his wife set out ostensibly for Rotterdam, but receiving no communication from either for a long time, Gerard resolves upon a journey to the city. No such individual as Vanderhausen is known there, and the fate of the poor wife is told as follows:--

"One evening, the painter and his pupil were sitting by the
fire, having accomplished a comfortable meal, and had
yielded to the silent and delicious melancholy of digestion,
when their ruminations were disturbed by a loud sound at the
street door, as if occasioned by some person rushing and
scrambling vehemently against it. A domestic had run without
delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they
heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for
admission, but without eliciting any other answer but a
sustained reiteration of the sounds. They heard him then
open the hall-door, and immediately there followed a light
and rapid tread upon the staircase. Schalken advanced
towards the door. It opened before he reached it, and Rose
rushed into the room. She looked wild, fierce, and haggard
with terror and exhaustion; but her dress surprised them as
much even as her unexpected appearance. It consisted of a
kind of white woollen wrapper, made close about the neck,
and descending to the very ground. It was much deranged and
travel soiled. The poor creature had hardly entered the
chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. With some
difficulty they succeeded in reviving her; and on recovering
her senses she instantly exclaimed, in a tone of terror
rather than mere impatience, 'Wine! wine!--quickly, or I'm
lost!"

"Astonished, and almost scared, at the strange agitation in
which the call was made, they at once administered to her
wishes, and she drank some wine with a haste and eagerness
which surprised them. She had hardly swallowed it, when she
exclaimed, with the same urgency, 'Food, for God's sake;
food at once, or I perish!'

"A large fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and
Schalken immediately began to cut some; but he was
anticipated; for no sooner did she see it than she caught
it, a more than mortal image of famine, and with her hands,
and even with her teeth, she tore off the flesh, and
swallowed it. When the paroxysm of hunger had been a little
appeased, she was on a sudden overcome with shame; or it may
have been that other more agitating thoughts overpowered and
scared her, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her
hands.

"'Oh! send for a minister of God!' said she; 'I am not safe
till he comes; send for him speedily.'

"Gerard Douw dispatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed
on his niece to allow him to surrender his bedchamber to her
use. He also persuaded her to retire there at once to rest:
her consent was extorted upon the condition that they would
not leave her for a moment.

"'Oh, that the holy man were here!' she said; 'he can
deliver me: the dead and the living can never be one; God
has forbidden it.'

"With these mysterious words she surrendered herself to
their guidance, and they proceeded to the chamber which
Gerard Douw had assigned to her use.

"'Do not, do not leave me for a moment!' she said; 'I am
lost for ever if you do.'

"Gerard Douw's chamber was approached through a spacious
apartment, which they were now about to enter. He and
Schalken each carried a candle, so that a sufficiency of
light was cast upon all surrounding objects. They were now
entering the large chamber, which, as I have said,
communicated with Douw's apartment, when Rose suddenly
stopped, and, in a whisper which thrilled them both with
horror, she said, 'O God! he is here! he is here! See, see!
there he goes!'

"She pointed towards the door of the inner room, and
Schalken thought he saw a shadowy and ill-defined form
gliding into that apartment. He drew his sword, and raising
the candle so as to throw its light with increased
distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the
chamber into which the shadow had glided. No figure was
there--nothing but the furniture which belonged to the room;
and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that
something had moved before them into the chamber. A
sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration
broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he more
composed when he heard the increased urgency and agony of
entreaty with which Rose implored them not to leave her for
a moment.

"'I saw him,' said she, 'he's here. I cannot be deceived; I
know him; he's by me; he is with me; he's in the room. Then,
for God's sake, as you would save me, do not stir from
beside me.'

"They at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed,
where she continued to urge them to stay by her. She
frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and
again, 'The dead and the living cannot be one; God has
forbidden it:' and then again, 'Rest to the wakeful--sleep
to the sleep-walkers.' These and such mysterious and broken
sentences she continued to utter until the clergyman
arrived. Gerard Douw began to fear, naturally enough, that
terror or ill-treatment had unsettled the poor girl's
intellect; and he half suspected, from the suddenness of her
appearance, the unseasonableness of the hour, and, above
all, from the wildness and terror of her manner, that she
had made her escape from some place of confinement for
lunatics, and was in imminent fear of pursuit. He resolved
to summon medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece
had been in some measure set at rest by the offices of the
clergyman whose attendance she had so earnestly desired; and
until this object had been attained, he did not venture to
put any questions to her which might possibly, by reviving
painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation.
The clergyman soon arrived; a man of ascetic countenance and
venerable age--one whom Gerard Douw respected much,
forasmuch as he was a veteran polemic, though one perhaps
more dreaded as a combatant, than beloved as a Christian--of
pure morality, subtile brain, and frozen heart. He entered
the chamber which communicated with that in which Rose
reclined; and immediately on his arrival she requested him
to pray for her, as for one who lay in the hands of Satan,
and who could hope for deliverance only from heaven.

"That you may distinctly understand all the circumstances of
the event which I am going to describe, it is necessary to
state the relative position of the parties who were engaged
in it. The old clergyman and Schalken were in the anteroom
of which I have already spoken; Rose lay in the inner
chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the
bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian; a candle
burned in the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the
outer apartment. The old man now cleared his voice, as if
about to commence; but before he had time to begin, a sudden
gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate
the room in which the poor girl lay, and she with hurried
alarm exclaimed, 'Godfrey, bring in another candle; the
darkness is unsafe.'

"Gerard Douw, forgetting for the moment her repeated
injunctions, in the immediate impulse, stepped from the
bedchamber into the other, in order to supply what she
desired.

"'O God! do not go dear uncle,' shrieked the unhappy girl;
and at the same time she sprang from the bed and darted
after him, in order by her grasp to detain him. But the
warning came too late; for scarcely had he passed the
threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the
startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two
rooms closed violently after him, as if swung to by a strong
blast of wind. Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but
their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much
as to shake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner
chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing
terror. Schalken and Douw strained every nerve to force open
the door; but all in vain. There was no sound of struggling
from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness,
and at the same time they heard the bolts of the latticed
window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill
as if thrown open. One _last_ shriek, so long, and piercing,
and agonized, as to be scarcely human, swelled from the
room, and suddenly there followed a death-like silence. A
light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed
to the window, and almost at the same instant the door gave
way, and yielding to the pressure of the external
applicants, they were nearly precipitated into the room. It
was empty. The window was open, and Schalken sprang to a
chair, and gazed out upon the street and canal below. There
was no one there; but he saw, or thought he saw, the waters
of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring, in
heavy circles, as if a moment before disturbed by the
submersion of some ponderous body."

SKETCHES OF LIFE IN SWEDEN.

Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish poet and story-teller, whose _Improvisatore_ is one of the most beautiful and intrinsically truthful of the myriad beautiful books upon Italian life, has published a new work, _Pictures of Sweden_. It is very genial summer reading, consisting of detached sketches of Swedish life and scenery, with interludes of poetic reverie. The London journals complain that it is not sufficiently well translated, but we quote the following characteristic passages in which the same weird child-likeness of feeling which his readers will recall, is expressed in the peculiar, subdued strain of northern sentimentalism, which is more the complexion, than the substance of his style. Here is the prelude to the book:

"It is a delightful spring: the birds warble, but you do not
understand their song! Well, hear it in a free translation.

"'Get on my back,' says the stork, our green island's sacred
bird, 'and I will carry thee over the Sound. Sweden also has
fresh and fragrant beech woods, green meadows and
cornfields. In Scania, with the flowering apple-trees behind
the peasant's house, you will think that you are still in
Denmark.'

"'Fly with me,' says the swallow; 'I fly over Holland's
mountain ridge, where the beech-trees cease to grow; I fly
further towards the north than the stork. You shall see the
vegetable mould pass over into rocky ground; see snug, neat
towns, old churches and mansions, where all is good and
comfortable, where the family stand in a circle around the
table and say grace at meals, where the least of the
children says a prayer, and, morning and evening, sings a
psalm. I have heard it, I have seen it, when little, from my
nest under the eaves.'

"'Come with me! come with me!' screams the restless
sea-gull, and flies in an expecting circle. 'Come with me to
the Skjaergaards, where rocky isles by thousands, with fir
and pine, lie like flower beds along the coast; where the
fishermen draw the well-filled nets!'

"'Rest thee between our extended wings,' sing the wild
swans. 'Let us bear thee up to the great lakes, the
perpetually roaring elves (rivers), that rush on with arrowy
swiftness; where the oak forest has long ceased, and the
birch-tree becomes stunted. Rest thee between our extended
wings: we fly up to Sulitelma, the island's eye, as the
mountain is called; we fly from the vernal green valley, up
over the snow-drifts, to the mountain's top, whence thou
canst see the North Sea, on yonder side of Norway.

"'We fly to Jemteland, where the rocky mountains are high
and blue; where the Foss roars and rushes; where the torches
are lighted as _budstikke,_ to announce that the ferryman is
expected. Up to the deep, cold-running waters, where the
midsummer sun does not set; where the rosy hue of eve is
that of morn."

Stockholm is thus pictured, with an allusion, at the close, to a building dear to us all, now--as that which was first enriched by the voice, whose recent lapse into silence has made our hearts heavy:

"It is but the work of one night; the same night when Oluf
Hakonson, with iron and with fire, burst his onward way
through the stubborn ground; before the day breaks the
waters of the Maelar roll there; the Norwegian prince, Oluf,
sailed through the royal channel he had cut in the east. The
stockades, where the iron chains hang, must bear the
defences; the citizens from the burnt-down Sigtuna erect
themselves a bulwark here, and build their new little town
on stock-holms.[A] The clouds go, and the years go! Do you
see how the gables grow? there rise towers and forts. Birger
Jarl makes the town of Stockholm a fortress; the warders
stand with bow and arrow on the walls, reconnoitring over
lake and fiord, over Brunkaberg sand-ridge. There where the
sand slopes upwards from Roerstrand's Lake they build Clara
cloister, and between it and the town a street springs up:
several more appear; they form an extensive city, which soon
becomes the place of contest for different partisans, where
Ladelaas's sons plant the banner, and where the German
Albrecht's retainers burn the Swedes alive within its walls.
Stockholm is, however, the heart of the kingdom: that the
Danes know well; that the Swedes know too, and there is
strife and bloody combating. Blood flows by the
executioner's hand, Denmark's Christian the Second, Sweden's
executioner, stands in the market-place. Roll, ye runes! see
over Brunkaberg sand-ridge, where the Swedish people
conquered the Danish host, there they raise the May-pole: it
is midsummer-eve--Gustavus Vasa makes his entry into
Stockholm. Around the May-pole there grow fruit and
kitchen-gardens, houses and streets; they vanish in flames,
they rise again; that gloomy fortress towards the tower is
transformed into a palace, and the city stands magnificently
with towers and draw-bridges. There grows a town by itself
on the sand-ridge, a third springs up on the rock towards
the south; the old walls fall at Gustavus Adolphus's
command; the three towns are one, large and extensive,
picturesquely varied with old stone houses, wooden shops,
and grass-roofed huts; the sun shines on the brass balls of
the towers, and a forest of masts stands in that secure
harbor. * * *

"It is a very little semicircular island, on which the
arches of the bridge rest: a garden full of flowers and
trees, which we overlook from the high parapet of the
bridge. Ladies and gentlemen promenade there; musicians
play, families sit there in groups, and take refreshments in
the vaulted halls under the bridge, and look out between the
green trees over the open water, to the houses and mansions,
and also to the woods and rocks: we forget that we are in
the midst of the city. It is the bridge here that unites
Stockholm with Nordmalen, where the greatest part of the
fashionable world live, in two long Berlin-like streets; yet
amongst all the great houses we will only visit one, and
that is the theatre. We will go on the stage itself--it has
an historical signification. Here by the third side-scene
from the stage-lights, to the right, as we look down towards
the audience, Gustavus the Third was assassinated at a
masquerade; and he was borne into that little chamber there,
close by the scene, whilst all the outlets were closed, and
the motley group of harlequins, polichinellos, wild men,
gods and goddesses, with unmasked faces, pale and terrified,
crept together; the dancing ballet-farce had become a real
tragedy. This theatre is Jenny Lind's childhood's home. Here
she has sung in the choruses when a little girl; here she
first made her appearance in public, and was cheeringly
encouraged when a child; here, poor and sorrowful, she has
shed tears, when her voice left her, and sent up pious
prayers to her Maker. From hence the world's nightingale
flew out over distant lands, and proclaimed the purity and
holiness of art."

We ramble a moment in the garden of Linnaeus, and contemplate his monument. It is withered and wasted now; it appears not unlike that grave garden of Ferney, with the close bower in which Voltaire used to walk and meditate:

"The walls shine brightly, and with varied hues, in the
great chapel behind the high altar. The fresco paintings
present to us the most eventful circumstances of Gustavus
Vasa's life. Here his clay moulders, with that of his three
consorts. Yonder, a work in marble, by Sargel, solicits our
attention: it adorns the burial-chapel of the De Geers; and
here, in the centre aisle, under that flat stone, rests
Linnaeus. In the side chapel, is his monument, erected by
_amici_ and _discipuli_; a sufficient sum was quickly raised
for its erection, and the King, Gustavus the Third, himself
brought his royal gift. The projector of the subscription
then explained to him, that the purposed inscription was,
that the monument was erected only by friends and disciples,
and King Gustavus answered: 'And am not I also one of
Linnaeus's disciples?' The monument was raised, and a hall
built in the botanical garden, under splendid trees. There
stands his bust; but the remembrance of himself, his home,
his own little garden--where is it most vivid? Lead us
thither. On yonder side of Fyri's rivulet, where the street
forms a declivity, where red-painted wooden houses boast
their living grass roofs, as fresh as if they were planted
terraces, lies Linnaeus's garden. We stand within it. How
solitary! how overgrown! Tall nettles shoot up between the
old, untrimmed, rank hedges. No water-plants appear more in
that little dried-up basin; the hedges that were formerly
clipped, put forth fresh leaves without being checked by the
gardener's shears. It was between these hedges that Linnaeus
at times saw his own double--that optical illusion which
presents the express image of a second self--from the hat to
the boots. Where a great man has lived and worked, the place
itself becomes, as it were, a part and parcel of him: the
whole, as well as a part, has mirrored itself in his eye; it
has entered into his soul, and becomes linked with it and
the whole world. We enter the orangeries: they are now
transformed into assembly-rooms; the blooming winter-garden
has disappeared; but the walls yet show a sort of herbarium.
They are hung round with the portraits of learned Swedes--a
herbarium from the garden of science and knowledge. Unknown
faces--and, to the stranger, the greatest part are unknown
names--meet us here."

A palace of Gustavus Vasa's:

"There yet stands a stone outline of Vadstene's rich palace
which he (Gustavus Vasa) erected, with towers and spires,
close by the cloister. At a far distance on the Vettern, it
looks as if it still stood in all its splendor; near, in
moonlight nights, it appears the same unchanged edifice, for
the fathom-thick walls yet remain; the carvings over the
windows and gates stand forth in light and shade, and the
moat round about, which is only separated from the Vettern
by the narrow carriage road, takes the reflection of the
immense building as a mirrored image.

"We now stand before it in daylight. Not a pane of glass is
to be found in it; planks and old doors are nailed fast to
the window frames; the balls alone still stand on the two
towers, broad, heavy, and resembling colossal toadstools.
The iron spire of the one still towers aloft in the air; the
other spire is bent: like the hands on a sundial it shows
the time--the time that is gone. The other two balls are
half fallen down; lambs frisk about between the beams, and
the space below is used as a cow-stall.

"The arms over the gateway have neither spot nor blemish:
they seem as if carved yesterday; the walls are firm, and
the stairs look like new. In the palace yard, far above the
gateway, the great folding door was opened, whence once the
minstrels stepped out and played a welcome greeting from the
balcony, but even this is broken down: we go through the
spacious kitchen, from whose white walls, a sketch of
Vadstene palace, ships, and flowering trees, in red chalk,
still attract the eye.

"Here where they cooked and roasted, is now a large empty
space; even the chimney is gone; and from the ceiling where
thick, heavy beams of timber have been placed close to one
another, there hangs the dust-covered cobweb, as if the
whole were a mass of dark gray dropping stones.

"We walk from hall to hall, and the wooden shutters are
opened to admit daylight. All is vast, lofty, spacious, and
adorned with antique chimney-pieces, and from every window
there is a charming prospect over the clear, deep Vettern.
In one of the chambers in the ground floor sat the insane
Duke Magnus (whose stone image we lately saw conspicuous in
the church), horrified at having signed his own brother's
death-warrant; dreamingly in love with the portrait of
Scotland's Queen, Mary Stuart; paying court to her and
expecting to see the ship, with her, glide over the sea
towards Vadstene. And she came--he thought she came--in the
form of a mermaid, raising herself aloft on the water: she
nodded and called to him, and the unfortunate Duke sprang
out of the window down to her. We gazed out of this window,
and below it we saw the deep moat in which he sank."

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "Stock, signifies bulks, or beams; holms, _i.e._ islets, or river islands; hence, Stockholm."

A FRENCHMAN'S OPINIONS OF AMERICAN FEMALE POETS.

We find in the Paris _Revue des Deux Mondes_, for May 15, an article, which we translate for _The International_, on "The Female Poets of America,"[B] by M. E. MONTEGUT. This writer's opinions respecting the influence of Protestantism on the cultivation of poetry may amuse those who remember who have been the greatest poets. It is a part of the cant of criticism to point to mediaeval art as a fruit of the Roman Catholic ascendency--as if the Roman Catholics had done more than the Protestants for high art since the Reformation. But M. Montegut is a man of wit, and his criticism, though we confess that it loses some of its point in our version, will entertain the hundred of our countrywomen who make verses.

* * * * *

It is an opinion very generally entertained that the Americans are almost exclusively occupied with material affairs, with commerce, and the varied forms of mechanical industry. The volume of Mr. Griswold will contribute to dispel any such idea, for in its four hundred pages, nearly of the size of quartos, there are quoted ninety of the most celebrated female poets of North America: ninety female poets! and all, with few exceptions, contemporary. Why, all Europe could not count a greater number. If therefore, we bear in mind that this voluminous poetic _flore_ contains only the names of women, and that Mr. Rufus Griswold has consecrated two volumes of similar dimensions, one to the Poets of the masculine gender, and the other to the Prose-Writers of both genders, it is difficult to believe in the literary sterility of the United States. But why is it, that among these three or four hundred writers, only three or four are known beyond the Atlantic? It is, that a literature is not altogether composed of harmonious reveries, of elegant imitations, of agreeable fancies; that poetry does not consist in a melodious rhythm only, nor even in a tasteful choice of words, nor in a perfect knowledge of language. Poetry, as well as all the possible expressions of thought and genius, arises from the very depths of the soul. It is the exterior expression of the national life, the recital,--from the lips of an individual animated and transported with the popular spirit--of the mysteries of his country's existence, and the desires, aspirations and convictions of his countrymen. The poet is the interpreter of the moral character of his country to other nations, and his works are the highest embodiment of the manners and habits of life in his country and his time. The poetry which does not fulfil these conditions is not poetry. Any man writing verse, who does not feel himself agitated in a more lively and distinct manner with the desires which torment his contemporaries as a vague fever, who does not know that his whole mission is to express, in an artistic and harmonious form, the clamors and the incorrect utterance of these desires, is not and cannot be a poet.

If such be the moral necessities which give birth to poetry, how is it that America has not an original literature? How is it that she has no great artists, and that there are but three or four writers--Cooper, Channing, Emerson--who well express her spirit and tendencies? None of the great moral qualities necessary to a poet are wanting to Americans. They have a national pride, approaching even to sensitiveness; they have firm and free religious faiths; life is energetic and manifests itself abundantly every where. How is it, we ask, that we meet no man of genius to tell us of the miracles of triumph over nature and barbarism; of those hardy industrial enterprises, and those wonderful displays of human activity around them; to sing the adventurous heroes of commerce and mechanism, and that singular marriage in domestic life of sedentary virtues with a changing, nomadic disposition--the love of the fireside, which remains undisturbed in the midst of perpetual displacement, as of old the tents of the patriarchs were pitched in the evening and stricken in the morning? Is it that there is no poetry in these subjects? Here, indeed, is a curious phenomenon, and one of the least-studied laws of literary history.

But ought we to regard Americans unfortunate because they have no literature of their own? In some points of view it is a reason for envying them. When true poetry appears among a people, it is not always a prophetic sign of future greatness; it is oftener a reflection of greatness passed away. It announces not new destinies, but recounts a history of the vanished and vanishing. Whenever the voice of a great poet is heard, we are sure that the customs, the institutions, and the religions he sings, are near their decline. Thus, Shakspeare, the most faithful mirror of the middle and feudal ages, came with reform and the sixteenth century; and Calderon, with the decay of Spanish Catholicism. That opinions and manners should partake of poesy, it is necessary that they begin to fade away into the realm of the fabulous past; it is necessary, in order that the ideal should appear, that these cease to exist. It was formerly said, and not without reason, "Happy the people who have no literature!" and in our time we are tempted to say: Happy the people who have no great poets! it is a proof that they enjoy the plentitude of life, that they have nothing to regret, that they are still in all their primal innocency, and the native energy of their being.

It is curious, also, to observe, how men animated by an heroic faith, seldom see that that faith and the deeds which it inspires, belong to the poetic and ideal. The first Puritans, who embarked, without resources, in a frail vessel, to seek in America the enjoyment of a free religion, now appear to us truly poetical. Walter Scott has drawn a thousand original characters of cavaliers and round-heads. Do you know what was the literature of those men full of the spirit of the Bible? Do you know what was the character of the first poetic publications in the United States? We open Mr. Griswold's volume, and the first name is that of Anne Bradstreet, who proceeded thither with her father, an ardent nonconformist. Here is the title under which her poems were printed, in the year 1640, at Boston: "_Several Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight; wherein especially is contained a compleat Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz. the Assyrian, Persian, and Grecian; and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King; with divers other Pleasant and Serious Poems: By a Gentlewoman of New England._" This Mrs. Bradstreet, called by the Americans, at this epoch, the "tenth muse"--probably a very good Protestant--made invocations to Phoebus, and imitated ---- Dubartas! Certainly, the emigrant Americans, who were indeed the most zealous of all Protestants, did not suspect the mournful poetry which Protestantism contains--a poetry which we perceive to-day. It is even a part of the American life of our times. But this absence of real poetry is far from being a bad sign; it is, on the contrary, a proof of strength and energy.