no trace has been found to indicate that a church existed in its
vicinity. It is ninety-three feet high, and about fifty-three feet in
circumference at its base, is built of rough stone, and has a stone
flooring, underneath which it is supposed a sepulchre, as at Ardmore,
exists. Above the door-way is a bas-relief like a Maltese cross. I
climbed into the tower through the entrance, two feet by four. Its width
inside is about eight feet, but narrows gradually to the top. The ivy
which clung affectionately to its outside had grown into several of the
windows and lay in decayed brambles inside. Up at the very top the
jackdaws had a gloriously independent life of it all to themselves. The
grass outside was as level as a century's care and rolling could make
it. And hark! "Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo!" "No, you don't, my dear fellow!"
I replied. "You are a relative of our cuckoo of Green-Castle." "Cuckoo!"
he replied in denial; and I found out that it was a live cuckoo coaxing
me to play at hide-and-seek. I started to accept the challenge,--when
"Trespassers will be Prosecuted" stared me in the face as I mounted an
innocent stile. Forty jackdaws--the Forty Thieves--got together on the
topmost boughs of trees near by and discussed my intentions: Was I
loading a gun, or only making a sketch? Was I painter or poacher? I
followed the cuckoo's cry in spite of the trespass, but caught no second
glimpse of him.
Coming back and crossing a picturesque stream, a short walk brought me
to the famous Lough Neagh, the fourth largest lake in Europe, twenty
miles in length and fifteen in breadth. In size it seemed a mere pond,
compared to the great inland seas of America; but the legend of its
buried glories, and the belief of the fishermen that when the water is
clear they can see round towers and high steeples and churches of the
land below, would waken any one's interest. Wonderful petrifactions are
found along its margins, referable to some remote geological era, and no
doubt these fossil woods gave rise to the fishermen's superstition. On
the borders of the lake you see the ruins of the seat of Lord O'Neill,
"Shane's Castle," which is surrounded by as much superstition as the
lake. The banshee of the O'Neills was a firm article of faith of mine
host in Antrim, who told me that his father had heard its wail.
As I came back to the town I saw a characteristic scene which reminded
me of Father Prout's remark, that "the pig is as essential an inmate of
the Irish cabin as the Arab steed of the shepherd's tent on the plains
of Mesopotamia." At the door of a thatched mud hut there was a fierce
tooth-and-nail contest between two pigs. Out sallied the good woman of
the house and belabored the nearest one gently with stick, roughly with
tongue: "Whist wid ye! Take that, now! _Come into the house wid ye!_"
With well-trained docility Piggy obeyed. A short distance away I saw a
crowd gathered about a cart covered with a pure white sheet. The look of
delight upon the faces of those who had peeped under the cover tempted
my curiosity, and I lifted the linen. It was a young pig, as white as
snow and as fresh as a daisy.
But I intended only to take a peep at the northern coast of Ireland, and
here I am _en route_ to Belfast. As you go farther you fare better in
the way of fine scenery and interesting people. There is something about
the greenness of Ireland which sanctifies its claim to be called the
Emerald Isle. I have seen nothing anywhere else to rival the soft
luxuriance of nature here. Grass, ivy, and flowers seem as indigenous as
hospitable hearts. I was told that if you flung a clean-cut stick in a
County Meath meadow, you might pick it up in a day or two covered with
young lichens and moss; but this reminded me too much of the crow-bar
planted in some other fertile country in the evening which sprouted out
tenpenny nails in the morning. The very primroses have a depth of mellow
beauty I never saw in England. Walking through the country you get a
good insight into its social and political questions, and, whatever
preconceptions you may have, you will be sure--if you have no bigotry in
your bones and do not excite people about the burning questions of the
hour--to carry from Ireland memories of its lovely scenery which nothing
on earth can ever dispel.
PARIS AND ITS ATTRACTIONS.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
[The city of Paris, the cynosure of European eyes, and the
paradise of good Americans, calls loudly for a description at
our hands. It is a call which can readily be answered. We
suffer, indeed, from a superfluity of riches. Descriptions of
every sort, shape, and complexion are so numerous that it is
not easy to select with discretion. We take one that has the
quality of enthusiastic admiration from the "Sunny Memories of
Foreign Lands" of the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It begins
with her entrance into the city, after passing the easy ordeal
of the custom-house officials.]
We rode through streets whose names were familiar, crossed the
Carrousel, passed the Seine, and stopped before an ancient mansion, in
the Rue de Verneuil, belonging to M. le Marquis de Brige. This Faubourg
St. Germain is the part of Paris where the ancient nobility lived, and
the houses exhibit marks of former splendor. The marquis is one of those
chivalrous legitimists who uphold the claims of Henri V. He lives in the
country, and rents his hotel. Mrs. C. occupies the suite of rooms on the
lower floor. We entered by a ponderous old gate-way, opened by the
_concierge_, passed through a large paved quadrangle, traversed a short
hall, and found ourselves in a large, cheerful parlor, looking out into
a small flower garden. There was no carpet, but what is called here a
parquet floor, or mosaic of oak blocks, waxed and highly polished. The
sofas and chairs were covered with light chintz, and the whole air of
the apartment shady and cool as a grotto. A jardiniere filled with
flowers stood in the centre of the room, and around it a group of living
flowers--mother, sisters, and daughters--scarcely less beautiful. In
five minutes we were at home. French life is different from any other.
Elsewhere you do as the world pleases; here you do as you please
yourself; my spirits always rise when I get among the French....
_Monday, June 6._--This day was consecrated to knick-knacks. Accompanied
by Mrs. C., whom years of residence have converted into a perfect
_Parisienne_, we visited shop after shop and store after store. The
politeness of the shopkeepers is inexhaustible. I felt quite ashamed to
spend a half-hour looking at everything and then depart without buying;
but the civil Frenchman bowed and smiled, and thanked us for coming.
In the evening we rode to L'Arc de Triomphe d'Etoile, an immense pile of
massive masonry, from the top of which we enjoyed a brilliant panorama.
Paris was beneath us, from the Louvre to the Bois de Boulogne, with its
gardens and moving myriads, its sports, and games, and light-hearted
mirth,--a vast Vanity Fair, blazing in the sunlight. A deep and
strangely-blended impression of sadness and gayety sunk into our hearts
as we gazed. All is vivacity, gracefulness, and sparkle to the eye; but
ah, what fires are smouldering below! Are not all these vines rooted in
the lava and ashes of the volcano-side?...
_Wednesday, June 8._--A day on foot in Paris. Surrendered H. to the
care of our fair hostess. Attempted to hire a boat at one of the great
bathing establishments for a pull on the Seine. Why not on the Seine
as well as on the Thames? But the old Triton demurred. The tide
_marched_ too strong,--"_Il marche trop fort._" Onward, then, along
the quays; visiting the curious old book-stalls, picture-stands,
and flower-markets. Lean over the parapet and gaze upon this modern
Euphrates, rushing between solid walls of masonry through the heart
of another Babylon. The river is the only thing not old. These waters
are as turbid, tumultuous, unbridled, as when forests covered all
these banks,--fit symbol of peoples and nations in their mad career,
generation after generation. Institutions, like hewn granite, may wall
them in, and vast arches span their flow, and hierarchies domineer over
the tide; but the scorning waters burst into life unchangeable, and
sweep impetuous through the heart of Vanity Fair, and dash out again
into the future the same grand, ungovernable Euphrates stream. I do not
wonder Egypt adored her Nile and Rome her Tiber. Surely, the life artery
of Paris is this Seine beneath my feet! And there is no scene like this,
as I gaze upward and downward, comprehending in a glance the immense
panorama of art and architecture,--life, motion, enterprise, pleasure,
pomp, and power. Beautiful Paris! What city in the world can compare
with thee?
And is it not chiefly because, either by accident or by instinctive good
taste, her treasures of beauty and art are so disposed along the Seine
as to be visible at a glance to the best effect? As the instinct of
the true _Parisienne_ teaches her the mystery of setting off the graces
of her person by the fascinations of dress, so the instinct of the
nation to set off the city by the fascinations of architecture and
embellishment. Hence a chief superiority of Paris to London. The Seine
is straight, and its banks are laid out in broad terraces on either
side, called _quais_, lined with her stateliest palaces and gardens. The
Thames forms an elbow, and is enveloped in dense fog and smoke. London
lowers; the Seine sparkles; London shuts down upon the Thames, and
there is no point of view for the whole river panorama; Paris rises
amphitheatrically, on either side the Seine, and the eye from the Pont
d'Austerlitz seems to fly through the immense reach like an arrow,
casting its shadow on everything of beauty or grandeur Paris possesses.
[Illustration: GRAND OPERA-HOUSE, PARIS]
Rapidly now I sped onward, paying brief visits to the Palais de Justice,
the Hotel de Ville, and spending a cool half-hour in Notre Dame. I love
to sit in these majestic fanes, abstracting them from the superstition
which does but desecrate them, and gaze upward to their lofty, vaulted
arches, to drink in the impression of architectural sublimity, which I
can neither analyze nor express. Cathedrals do not seem to me to have
been built; they seem, rather, stupendous growths of nature, like
crystals, or cliffs of basalt. There is little ornament here; that roof
looks plain and bare; yet I feel that the air is dense with sublimity.
Onward I sped, crossing a bridge by the Hotel Dieu, and, leaving the
river, plunged into narrow streets, exploring a quadrangular market;
surveyed the old church of St. Genevieve, and the new, now the Pantheon;
went onward to the Jardin des Plantes, and explored its tropical
bowers. Many things remind me to-day of New Orleans and its Levee, its
Mississippi, its Cathedral, and the luxuriant vegetation of the Gulf.
In fact, I seem to be walking in my sleep in a kind of glorified New
Orleans, all the while. Yet I return to the gardens of the Tuileries and
the Place Vendome, and in the shadow of Napoleon's Column the illusion
vanishes. Hundreds of battles look down upon me from their blazonry.
In the evening I rested from the day's fatigue by an hour in the garden
of the Palais Royal. I sat by one of the little tables and called for an
ice. There were hundreds of ladies and gentlemen eating ices, drinking
wine, reading the papers, smoking, chatting; scores of pretty children
were frolicking and enjoying the balmy evening. Here six or eight
midgets were jumping the rope, while papa and mamma swung it for them.
Pretty little things, with their flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, how
they did seem to enjoy themselves! What parent was ever far from home
that did not espy in every group of children his own little ones,--his
Mary or his Nellie, his Henry or Charlie? So it was with me. There was a
ring of twenty or thirty singing and dancing, with a smaller ring in the
centre, while old folks and boys stood outside. But I heard not a single
oath, nor saw a rough or rude action, during the whole time I was there.
The boys standing by looked on quietly, like young gentlemen. The best
finale of such a toilsome day of sight-seeing was a warm bath in the
Rue de Bac, for the trifling sum of fifteen sous. The cheapness and
convenience of bathing here is a great recommendation of Paris life.
They will bring you a hot bath at your house for twenty-five cents,
and that without bustle or disorder. And nothing so effectually as an
evening bath, as my experience testifies, cures fatigue and propitiates
to dreamless slumber....
After visiting the Luxembourg, I resorted to the gardens of the
Tuileries. The thermometer was at about eighty degrees in the shade.
From the number of people assembled, one would have thought, if it had
been in the United States, that some great mass convention was coming
off. Under the impenetrable screen of the trees, in the dark, cool,
refreshing shade, are thousands of chairs, for which one pays two cents
apiece. Whole families come, locking up their door, bringing the baby,
work, dinner, or lunch, take a certain number of chairs, and spend
the day. As far as eye can reach you see a multitude seated, as if in
church, with other multitudes moving to and fro, while boys and girls
without number are frolicking, racing, playing ball, driving hoop, etc.,
but contriving to do it without making a hideous racket.
How French children are taught to play and enjoy themselves without
disturbing everybody else is a mystery. "_C'est gentil_" seems to be a
talismanic spell; and "_Ce n'est pas gentil ca_" is sufficient to check
every rising irregularity. Oh, that some _savant_ would write a book and
tell us how it is done! I gazed for half an hour on the spectacle. A
more charming sight my eyes never beheld. There were gray-headed old
men, and women, and invalids; and there were beautiful demoiselles
working worsted, embroidery, sewing; men reading papers; and, in fact,
people doing everything they would do in their own parlors. And all were
graceful, kind, and obliging; not a word or an act of impoliteness or
indecency. No wonder the French adore Paris, thought I; in no other city
in the world is a scene like this possible. No wonder that their hearts
die within them at thoughts of exile in the fens of Cayenne!
But under all this there lie, as under the cultivated crust of this fair
world, deep abysses of soul, where volcanic masses of molten lava surge
and shake the tremulous earth. In the gay and bustling Boulevards, a
friend, an old resident of Paris, pointed out to me, as we rode, the
bullet-marks that scarred the houses,--significant tokens of what seems,
but is not, forgotten.
At sunset a military band of about seventy performers began playing in
front of the Tuileries. They formed an immense circle, the leader in
the centre. He played the octave flute, which also served as a baton
for marking time. The music was characterized by delicacy, precision,
suppression, and subjugation of rebellious material.
I imagined a congress of horns, clarionets, trumpets, etc., conversing
in low tones on some important theme; nay, rather a conspiracy of
instruments, mourning between whiles their subjugation, and ever and
anon breaking out in a fierce _emeute_, then repressed, hushed, dying
away, as if they had heard of Baron Munchausen's frozen horn, and had
conceived the idea of yielding their harmonies without touch of human
lips, yet were sighing and sobbing at their impotence. Perhaps I
detected the pulses of a nation's palpitating heart, throbbing for
liberty, but trodden down, and sobbing in despair.
[A _salon_ experience is next described, followed by a visit to
Versailles. Then our authoress plunges into the world of art at
the Louvre.]
At last I have come into dream-land; into the lotos-eater's paradise;
into the land where it is always afternoon. I am released from care; I
am unknown, unknowing; I live in a house whose arrangements seem to me
strange, old, and dreamy. In the heart of a great city I am as still as
if in a convent; in the burning heats of summer our rooms are shadowy
and cool as a cave. My time is all my own. I may at will lie on a sofa,
and dreamily watch the play of the leaves and flowers in the little
garden into which my room opens; or I may go into the parlor adjoining,
whence I hear the quick voices of my beautiful and vivacious young
friends.
You ought to see these girls. Emma might look like a Madonna, were it
not for her wicked wit; and as to Anna and Lizzie, as they glance by me,
now and then, I seem to think them a kind of sprite, or elf, made to
inhabit shady old houses, just as twinkling harebells grow in old
castles; and then the gracious mamma, who speaks French or English like
a stream of silver, is she not, after all, the fairest of any of them?
And there is Caroline, piquant, racy, full of conversation, sharp as a
quartz crystal, how I like to hear her talk! These people know Paris,
as we say in America, "like a book." They have studied it aesthetically,
historically, socially. They have studied French people and French
literature, and studied it with enthusiasm, as people ever should who
would truly understand. They are all kindness to me. Whenever I wish to
see anything, I have only to speak; or to know, I have only to ask. At
breakfast every morning we compare notes and make up our lists of wants.
My first, of course, was the Louvre. It is close by us. Think of it. To
one who has starved all a life, in vain imaginings of what art might be,
to know that you are within a stone's throw of a museum full of its
miracles; Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, Roman sculptors and modern
painting, all there!...
It was, then, with a thrill almost of awe that I approached the Louvre.
Here, perhaps, said I to myself, I shall answer fully the question that
has long wrought within my soul. What is art? and what can it do? Here,
perhaps, these yearnings for the ideal will meet their satisfaction. The
ascent to the picture-gallery tends to produce a flutter of excitement
and expectation. Magnificent staircases, dim perspectives of frescoes
and carvings, the glorious hall of Apollo, rooms with mosaic pavements,
antique vases, countless spoils of art, dazzle the eye of the neophyte,
and prepare the mind for some grand enchantment. Then opens on one the
grand hall of paintings arranged by schools, the works of each artist by
themselves, a wilderness of gorgeous growths.
I first walked through the whole, offering my mind up aimlessly to see
if there were any picture there great and glorious enough to seize
and control my whole being, and answer at once the cravings of the
poetic and artistic element. For any such I looked in vain. I saw a
thousand beauties, as also a thousand enormities, but nothing of that
overwhelming, subduing nature which I had conceived. Most of the men
there had painted with dry eyes and cool hearts, thinking only of the
mixing of their colors and the jugglery of their art, thinking little
of heroism, love, faith, or immortality. Yet when I had resigned this
longing, when I was sure I should not meet there what I sought, then I
began to enjoy very heartily what there was.
In the first place, I now saw Claudes worthy of the reputation he bore.
Three or four of these were studied with great delight,--the delight
one feels who, conscientiously bound to be delighted, suddenly comes
into a situation to be so. I saw, now, those atmospheric traits, those
reproductions of the mysteries of air and of light, which are called
so wonderful, and for which all admire Claude, but for which so few
admire Him who made Claude, and who every day creates around us in the
commonest scenes effects far more beautiful. How much, even now, my
admiration of Claude was genuine, I cannot say. How can we ever be sure
on this point, when we admire what has prestige and sanction, not to
admire which is an argument against ourselves? Certainly, however, I did
feel great delight in some of these works.
One of my favorites was Rembrandt. I always did admire the gorgeous
and solemn mysteries of his coloring. Rembrandt is like Hawthorne. He
chooses simple and every-day objects, and so arranges light and shadow
as to give them a sombre richness and a mysterious gloom. The House of
the Seven Gables is a succession of Rembrandt pictures, done in words
instead of oils. Now, this pleases us, because our life really is a
haunted one; the simplest thing in it is a mystery, the invisible world
always lies around us like a shadow, and therefore this dreamy golden
gleam of Rembrandt meets somewhat in our inner consciousness, to which
it corresponds. There were no pictures in the gallery which I looked
upon so long, and to which I returned so often and with such growing
pleasure, as these. I found in them, if not a commanding, a drawing
influence, a full satisfaction for one part of my nature.
There were Raphaels there which still disappointed me, because from
Raphael I asked and expected more. I wished to feel his hand on my soul
with a stronger grasp; these were too passionless in their serenity, and
almost effeminate in their tenderness.
But Rubens, the great, joyous, full-souled, all-powerful Rubens! there
he was, full as ever of triumphant, abounding life; disgusting and
pleasing; making me laugh and making me angry; defying me to dislike
him; dragging me at his chariot-wheels; in despite of my protests
forcing me to confess that there was no other but he....
I should compare Rubens to Shakespeare for the wonderful variety and
vital force of his artistic power. I know no other mind he so nearly
resembles. Like Shakespeare, he forces you to accept and to forgive a
thousand excesses, and uses his own faults as musicians use discords,
only to enhance the perfection of harmony. There certainly is some use
even in defects. A faultless style sends you to sleep. Defects rouse
and excite the sensibility to seek and appreciate excellences. Some of
Shakespeare's finest passages explode all grammar and rhetoric like
sky-rockets,--the thought blows the language to shivers....
The halls devoted to painting of which I have spoken give you very
little idea of the treasures of the institution. Gallery after gallery
is filled with Greek, Roman, Assyrian, and Egyptian sculpture, coins,
vases, and antique remains of every description. There is also an
apartment in which I took a deep interest, containing the original
sketches of ancient masters. Here one may see the pen-and-ink drawings
of Claude, divided into squares to prepare them for the copyist. One
compares here with interest the manners of the different artists in
jotting down their ideas as they rose, some by chalk, some by crayon,
some by pencil, some by water-colors, and some by a heterogeneous
mixture of all. Mozart's scrap-bag of musical jottings could not have
been more amusing.
On the whole, cravings of mere ideality have come nearer to meeting
satisfaction by some of these old mutilated remains of Greek sculpture
than anything I have met yet. In the paintings, even of the most
celebrated masters, there are often things which are excessively
annoying to me. I scarcely remember a master in whose works I have not
found a hand, or foot, or face, or feature so distorted, or coloring at
times so unnatural, or something so out of place and proportion in the
picture as very seriously to mar the pleasure that I derived from it. In
this statuary less is attempted and all is more harmonious, and one's
ideas of proportion are never violated.
My favorite among all these remains is a mutilated statue which they
call the Venus de Milo. This is a statue which is so called from having
been dug up some years ago, piecemeal, in the island of Milos. There was
a struggle for her between a French naval officer, the English, and the
Turks. The French officer carried her off like another Helen, and she
was given to Paris, old Louis Philippe being bridegroom by proxy.
_Savans_ refer the statue to the time of Phidias, and as this is a
pleasant idea to me, I go a little further, and ascribe her to Phidias
himself.
The statue is mutilated, both arms being gone, and part of the foot. But
there is a majesty and grace in the head and face, a union of loveliness
with intellectual and moral strength, beyond anything which I have ever
seen. To me she might represent Milton's glorious picture of unfallen,
perfect womanhood, in his Eve.
Compared with this matchless Venus that of Medici seems as inane and
trifling as mere physical beauty always must by the side of beauty
baptized and made sacramental, as the symbol of that which alone is
truly fair.
TRAVEL IN FRANCE FIFTY YEARS AGO.
CHARLES DICKENS.
[It hardly seems to us, to whom the works of Dickens are
household words, that his fame as a writer began more than half
a century ago. Yet such is the case. The "Pictures from Italy,"
from which we make the following selection, was published in
1846, while his first book saw the light ten years earlier. We
give here his story of how France and French life appeared to
him on a journey southward from Paris.]