that follows. Its few characteristic features can be briefly given.
Introductions are not general; and even in case the occasion should have
been invoked and invited for you, the greater part of your fellow-guests
may not directly make your acquaintance. Servants are graver than
senators with us. Dishes follow each other in bewildering and rather
oppressive variety. You could be very happy with any one of them alone,
but with a dozen you fear even to touch and taste. Conversation is not
loud nor general, scarcely audible across the table. As in marriage,
your partner is your fate. One would be very glad to present one brick
so that another could be laid on top of it, or even to attempt an angle
and a corner adjustment. But this conversation is not architectonic. It
aims at nothing more than the requisite small change. If by chance the
society be assembled at an informal house, and composed of artists and
authors, we shall hear jests and laughter, but the themes of these will
scarcely go beyond the most familiar matters. Having told thus much we
have told all, except that ice is not served, as with us, upon the
table, in picturesque variety of form and color, but is usually bestowed
in spoonfuls, one of either kind to each person, the quality being
excellent, and the quantity, after all else that has been offered, quite
sufficient. It is here one of the most expensive articles of
_luxe_--costing thrice its Yankee prices. The ladies leave the table a
little before the gentlemen; but these arrive with no symptoms of
inordinate drinking. The latter, as is well known, is long gone out of
fashion, and with it, we imagine, the description of wit and anecdote,
whose special enjoyment used to be reserved for the time "after the
ladies had left the table." This is all that can be told of the dinner,
which is the _ne plus ultra_ of English social enjoyments; for balls
everywhere are stale affairs, save to the dancing neophytes, and the
enjoyment to be had at them is either official or gymnastic. At a
"select" _soiree_ following a state dinner, we hear Mr. Ap Thomas, the
renowned harpist, whose execution is indeed brilliant and remarkable.
The harp, however, is an instrument that owes its prestige partly to its
beauty of form, partly to the romance of its traditions, from King David
to the Welsh bards. In tone and temper it remains greatly inferior to
the piano-forte, the finger governing the strings far better with than
without the intervention of the keys and hammers.
But while we thankfully accept the offered opportunities of meeting
those whom we desire to see, we are forced, as hygienists and
economists, to enter our protest against the English dinner--this last
joint in the back-bone of luxury. After hearty luncheon and social tea,
it would seem to be a mere superfluity, not needed, a danger if partaken
of, a mockery if neglected. So let New England cherish while she can the
early dinner; for with the extended areas of business and society,
dinner grows ever later, and the man and his family wider apart. By the
time that tea and coffee are got through with, it may well be half past
ten o'clock, and by eleven, at latest, unless there should be music or
some special after-entertainment, you take leave.
Hoping to revisit more fully this ancestral isle before the tocsin of
depart for home, we will now, with a little more of our sketchiness,
take leave of it, which we should do with heartier regret but for the
prospect of a not distant return.
In philosophy, England at the present day does not seem to go beyond
Mill on the one hand, and Stewart on the other. The word "science" is
still used, as it was ten years ago with us, to express the rules and
observances of physical and mathematical study. Science, as the mother
of the rules of thought, generating logic, building metaphysics, and
devising the rules of coherence by which human cogitation is at once
promoted and measured,--this conception of science I did not recognize
in those with whom I spoke, unless I except Rev. H. Martineau, with whom
I had only general conversation, but whose intellectual position is at
once without the walls of form, and within the sanctuary of freedom. I
was referred to Jowett and his friends as the authorities under this
head, but this was not the moment in which to find them. In religion,
Miss Cobbe leads the van, her partial method assuming as an original
conception what the Germans have done, and much better done, before her.
Theodore Parker is, I gather, her great man; and in her case, as in his,
largeness of nature, force and geniality of temperament, take the place
of scientific construction and responsible labor. Mr. Martineau's
position is well known, and is for us New Englanders beyond controversy.
The broad church is best known to us by Kingsley and Maurice. To those
who still stand within the limits of an absolute authority in spiritual
matters, its achievements may appear worthy of surprise and of
gratulation. To those who have passed that barrier they present no
intellectual feature worth remarking.
I well remember to-day my childish astonishment when I first learned
that I and my fellows were outside the earth's crust, not within it. In
connection with this came also the fact of a mysterious force binding us
to the surface of the planet, so that, in its voyages and revolutions,
it can lose nothing of its own.
Something akin to this may be the discovery of believers that they and
those whom they follow are, so far as concerns actual opportunity of
knowledge, on the outside of the world of ideal truth. Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived, any absolute form of its
manifestation. A divine, mysterious force binds us to our place on its
smiling borders. Of what lies beyond we construe as we can--Moses
according to his ability, Christ and Paul according to theirs. Unseen
and unmanifested it must ever remain; for though men say that God has
done so and so, God has never said so. Of this we become sure: religion
spiritualizes, inspires, and consoles us. The strait gate and narrow
path are blessed for all who find them, and are the same for all who
seek them. But this oneness of morals is learned experimentally; it
cannot be taught dogmatically.
Proposing to return to this theme, and to see more of the broad church
before I decide upon its position, I take leave of it and of its domain
together. Farewell, England! farewell, London! For three months to come
thou wilt contain the regalia of all wits, of all capabilities. Fain
would we have lingered beside the hospitable tables, and around the
ancient monuments, considering also the steadfast and slowly-developing
institutions. But the chief veteran is in haste for Greece, and on the
very Sunday on which we should have heard Martineau in the forenoon, and
Dean Stanley in the afternoon, with delightful social recreation in the
evening, we break loose from our moorings, reach Folkstone, and embark
for its French antithesis, _Boulogne sur mer_.
THE CHANNEL.
If the devil is not so black as he is painted, it must be because he has
an occasional day of good humor. Some such wondrous interval is hinted
at by people who profess to have seen the Channel sea smooth and calm.
We remember it piled with mountains of anguish--one's poor head
swimming, one's heart sinking, while an organ more important than either
in this connection underwent a sort of turning inside out which seemed
to wrench the very strings of life. But on this broken Sabbath our
wonderful luck still pursues us. It is in favor of the neophytes that
this new dispensation has been granted. The monsters of the deep respect
their innocence, and cannot visit on them the vulgar offences of their
progenitors. They bind the waves with a garland of roses and lilies,
whose freshness proves a spell of peace. We, the elders, embark,
expecting the usual speedy prostration; but, placing ourselves against
the mast, we determine, like Ulysses, to maintain the integrity of our
position. And it so happens that we do. While a few sensitive mortals
about us execute the irregular symphony of despair, we rest in a calm
and upright silence. Never was the Channel so quiet! We were not
uproarious, certainly, but contemplative. A wretch tucked us up with a
tarpaulin, for which he afterwards demanded a trifle. If civility is
sold for its weight in silver anywhere, it is on English soil and in
English dependencies. We, the veterans, took our quiet ferriage in mute
amazement; the neophytes took it as a thing of course.
Arrived, we rush to the _buffet_ of the railroad station, where every
one speaks French-English. Here a very limited dinner costs us five
francs a head. We accept the imposition with melancholy thoughtfulness.
Then comes the whistle of the locomotive. "_En voiture, messieurs!_" And
away, with a shriek, and a groan, and a rattle,--to borrow Mr. Dickens's
refrain, now that he has done with it,--_en route_ for Paris.
PARIS AND THENCE.
In Paris the fate of Greece still pursues us. Two days the rigid veteran
will grant; no more--the rest promised when the Eastern business shall
have been settled. But those two days suffice to undo our immortal souls
so far as shop windows can do this. The shining sins and vanities of the
world are so insidiously set forth in this Jesuits' college of Satan,
that you catch the contagion of folly and extravagance as you pace the
streets, or saunter through the brilliant arcades. Your purveyor makes a
Sybarite of you, through the inevitable instrumentality of breakfast and
dinner. Your clothier, from boots to bonnet, seduces you into putting
the agreeable before the useful. For if you purchase the latter, you
will be moved to buy by the former, and use becomes an after-thought to
your itching desire and disturbed conscience. Paris is a sweating
furnace in which human beings would turn life everlasting into gold,
provided it were a negotiable value. You, who escape its allurements
solvent, with a franc or two in your pocket, and your resources for a
year to come not mortgaged, should after your own manner cause _Te
Deum_ to be sung or celebrated. Strongly impressed at the time, moved
towards every acquisitive villany, not excluding shop-lifting nor the
picking of pockets, I now regard with a sort of indignation those silken
snares, those diamond, jet, and crystal allurements, which so nearly
brought my self-restraint, and with it my self-respect, to ruin.
Everything in Paris said to me, "Shine, dye your hair, rouge your
cheeks, beggar your purse with real diamonds, or your pride with false
ones. But shine, and, if necessary, beg or steal." Nothing said, "Be
sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, like a roaring lion," etc.,
etc. What a deliverer was therefore the stern Crete-bound veteran, who
cut the Gordian knot of enchantment with, "Pack and begone." And having
ended that inevitable protest against his barbarity with which women
requite the offices of true friendship, I now turn my wrath against
false, fair Paris, and cry, "Avoid thee, _scelestissima_! Away from me,
_nequissima_! I will none of thee; not a franc, not an obolus. Avoid
thee! _Nolo ornari!_"
Touching our journey from Paris to Marseilles, I will only give the
scarce-needed advice that those who have this route to make should
inflict upon themselves a little extra fatigue, and stop only at Lyons,
if at all, rather than risk the damp rooms and musty accommodations of
the smaller places which lie upon the route, offering to the traveller
few objects of interest, or none. For it often happens in travelling
that a choice only of inconveniences is presented to us, and in our
opinion a prolonged day's journey in a luxurious car is far less
grievous to be borne than a succession of stoppages, unpackings, and
plungings into unknown inns and unaired beds. To this opinion, however,
our Greece-bound veteran suffers not himself to be converted, and,
accordingly, we, leaving Paris on the Wednesday at ten A. M., do not
reach Marseilles until four o'clock of the Friday afternoon following.
The features of our first day's journey are those of a country whose
landed possessions are subdivided into the smallest portions cultivable.
Plains and hill-sides are alike covered with the stripes which denote
the limits of property. Fruit trees in blossom abound every where, but
the villages, built of rough stone and lime, are distant from each
other. As we go southward, the vine becomes more apparent, and before we
reach Lyons we see much of that contested gift of God. The trains that
pass us are often loaded with barrels whose precious contents cannot be
bought pure for any money, on the other side of the Atlantic, or even of
the Straits of Dover. To this the procession of the jolly god has come
at last. He leers at us through the two red eyes of the locomotive; its
stout cylinder represents his _embonpoint_. Instead of frantic
Bacchantes, the rattling cars dance after him, and "_Ohe evohe!_"
degenerates into the shrill whew, whew of the engine. At the _buffets_
and hotels _en route_ his mysteries are celebrated. These must be sought
in the labyrinthine state of mind of those who have drunken frequently
and freely. They utter words unintelligible to the sober and uninspired,
sentences of prophetic madness which the prose of modern physiology
condenses into those two words--gout and delirium tremens. Yet these two
dire diseases are rare among the temperate French. They export the
producing medium _au profit de l'etranger_.
We stop the first night at Macon, and sleep in an imposing, chilly room,
without carpets, under down coverlets. The second day's journey brings
us to Lyons an hour before noon. We engage a _fiacre_, drive around the
town, whose growth and improvement in the interval of sixteen years do
not fail to strike us. Fine public squares adorn it, themselves
embellished with bronze statues, among which we observe an equestrian
figure of the first and only Napoleon. The shops are as tormenting as
those of Paris, the Cafe Casati, where we dine, as elegant. Re-embarking
at four P. M., we reach Valence in about four hours.
The worst of it is, that, arriving at these quaint little places after
dark, you see none of their features, and taste only of their
discomforts. At Valence our inn was so dreary, that, having bestowed the
neophytes in sound slumber, the veteran and I sallied forth in quest of
any pastime whatever, without being at all fastidious as to its source
and character. Passing along the quiet streets, we observe what would
seem to be a theatre, on the other side of the way. Entering, we find a
youthful guardian, who tells us that there is up stairs a "_conference
de philosophie_." We enter, and find a very respectable assemblage,
listening attentively to an indistinct orator, who rhapsodizes upon the
poets of modern France, with quotations and personal anecdotes. What he
says has little originality, but is delivered with good taste and
feeling. He speaks without notes; for, indeed, such a _causerie_ spins
itself, like a sailor's yarn, though out of finer materials.
Returning to our hostelry, we sleep with open window in a musty room,
and catch cold. The next day's journey still conducts us through a
vine-growing region, in a more and more advanced condition. The constant
presence of the _morus multicaulis_ also makes us aware of the presence
of the silk-worm--so far, only in the egg-condition; for that prime
minister of vanity is not hatched yet. We learn that the disease which
has for some years devastated the worm is on the decline. The world with
us, meanwhile has become somewhat weaned from the absolute necessity of
the article, and the friendly sheep and alpaca have made great progress
in the aesthetics of the toilet. As we approach Marseilles, we cross a
dreary flat of wide extent, covered with stones and saltish grass, and
said to produce the finest cattle in France. The olive, too, makes his
stiff bow to us as we pass, well remembering his dusty green. The olive
trees seem very small, and are, indeed, of comparatively recent growth;
all the larger ones having been killed by a frost, rare in these
latitudes, whose epoch we are inclined to state as posterior to our last
presence in these parts. Our informant places it at twenty years ago.
After three days of piecemeal travelling, the arrival at Marseilles
seems quite a relief.
MARSEILLES.
At Marseilles we find a quasi tropical aspect--long streets, handsome
and well-shaded, tempting shops, luxurious hotels, a motley company,
and, above all, a friend, one of our own countrymen, divided between the
glitter of the new life and the homesick weaning of the old. Half, he
assumes the cicerone, and guides our ignorance about. Half, he sits to
learn, and we expound to him what has befallen at home, so far as we are
conscious of it. We take half a day for resting, the next day for
sight-seeing. On the third, we must sail, for finding that Holy Week is
still to be, we determine to make our reluctant sacrifice to the
Mediterranean, and to trust our precious comfort and delicate
equilibrium to that blue imposture, that sunniest of humbugs.
On the second day, we climb the steep ascent that leads to the chapel of
La Bonne Mere de la Garde. This hot and panting ascent is not made by us
without many pauses for recovered breath and energy. At every convenient
stopping-place in the steep ascent are stationed elderly women presiding
over small booths, who urgently invite us to purchase candles to give to
the Madonna, medals, rosaries, and photographs, to all of whom we oppose
a steadfast resistance. We have twice in our lives brought home from
Europe boat-loads of trash, and we think that, as Paul says, the time
past of our lives may suffice us. Finally, with a degree of perspiration
more than salutary, we reach the top, and enjoy first the view of the
Mediterranean, including a bird's-eye prospect of the town, which looks
so parched and arid as to make the remembrance of London in the rain
soothing and pleasant. A palace is pointed out which was built in the
expectation of a night's sojourn of the emperor, but to which, they tell
us, he never came. Our point of view is the top of one of the towers of
the church. Going inside, we look down upon the aisles and altars from a
lofty gallery. The silver robes of the Madonna glisten, reflecting the
many wax-lights that devotees have kindled around her. The first sight
of these material expressions of devotion is imposing, the second
instructive, the third, commonplace and wearisome. We are at the last
clause, and gaze at these things with the eyes of people who have seen
enough of them.
The remainder of the disposable day we employ in a drive to the Prado,
the fashionable region for the display of equipage and toilet. This is
not, however, the fashionable day, and we meet only a few grumpy-looking
dowagers in all stages of fatitude. The road is planted with double rows
of lindens, and is skirted by country residences and villas to let. We
stop and alight at the Musee, a spacious and handsome building, erected
and owned by a noble of great wealth, long since dead, who committed
celibacy, and left no personal heir. It is now the property of the city
of Marseilles. The hall is fine. Among the spacious salons, the largest
is used as a gallery of pictures, mostly by artists of this
neighborhood, and of very humble merit. In another we find a very good
collection of Egyptian antiquities, while in yet another the old state
furniture is retained, the rich crimson hangings, long divan of gobelin,
and chairs covered with fine worsted needle-work. Beyond is a pretty
Chinese cabinet, with a full-length _squatue_ of Buddh, gayly gilded and
painted. Above stairs, the state bed and hangings are shown, the latter
matching a handsome landscape chintz, with which the walls are covered.
This museum has in it a good deal of instructive and entertaining
matter, and is kept in first-rate order. Returning, we drive around the
outer skirts of the town, and see something of the summer bathing
hotels, the great storehouses, and the streets frequented by the working
and seafaring portion of the community.
In the evening we walk through the streets, which are brilliant with
gas, and visit the cafes, where ices, coffee, and lemonade are enjoyed.
We finally seat ourselves in a casino, a sort of mixed cafe and theatre,
where the most motley groups of people are coming, going, and sitting.
At one end is a small stage, with a curtain, which falls at the end of
each separate performance. Here songs and dances succeed each other,
only half heeded by the public, who drink, smoke, and chatter without
stint. After a hornpipe, a dreadful woman in white, with a blue peplum,
hoarsely shouts a song without music, accompanied by drums and barbaric
cymbals. She makes at last a vile courtesy, matching the insufficiency
of her dress below by its utter absence above the waist, and we take
flight. The next morning witnesses our early departure from Marseilles.
ROME.
With feelings much mingled, I approach, for the third time, the city of
Rome. I pause to collect the experience of sixteen years, the period
intervening between my second visit and the present. I left Rome, after
those days, with entire determination, but with infinite reluctance.
America seemed the place of exile, Rome the home of sympathy and
comfort. To console myself for the termination of my travels, I
undertook a mental pilgrimage, which unfolded to me something of the
spirit of that older world, of which I had found the form so congenial.
To the course of private experience were added great public lessons.
Among these I may name the sublime failure of John Brown, the sorrow and
success of the late war. And now I must confess that, after so many
intense and vivid pages of life, this visit to Rome, once a theme of
fervent and solemn desire, becomes a mere page of embellishment in a
serious and instructive volume. So, while my countrymen and women, and
the Roman world in general, hang intent upon the pages of the
picture-book, let me resume my graver argument, and ask and answer such
questions of the present as may seem useful and not ungenial.
The Roman problem has for the American thinker two clauses: first, that
of state and society; secondly, that of his personal relation to the
same. Arriving here, and becoming in some degree acquainted with things
as they are, he asks, first, What is the theory of this society, and how
long will it continue? secondly, What do my countrymen who consent to
pass their lives here gain? what do they give up? I cannot answer either
of these questions exhaustively. The first would lead me far into social
theorizing; the second into some ungracious criticism. So a word, a
friendly one must stand for good intentions where wisdom is at fault.
The theory of this society in policy and religion is that of a symbolism
whose remote significance has long been lost sight of and forgotten.
Here the rulers, whose derived power should represent the _consensus_ of
the people, affect to be greater than those who constitute them, and the
petty statue, raised by the great artist for the convenience and
instruction of the crowd, spurns at the solid basis of the heaven-born
planet, without which it could not stand. Rank here is not a mere
convenience and classification for the encouragement of virtue and
promotion of order. Rank here takes the place of virtue, and repression,
its tool, takes the place of order. A paralysis of thought characterizes
the whole community, for thought deprived of its legitimate results is
like the human race debarred from its productive functions--it becomes
effete, and soon extinct.