Various - The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862 стр 7.

IV.HE DON'T MAKE A HIT IN SIDON, THOUGH SOME PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE DOES

No time for contemplation was left on my hands, however; for as soon as I had articulated the words 'ladies and gentlemen,' an offensive missile hit me between my eyes, exploded, and deluged me with an odor in comparison with which that of Limberger cheese would be mere geranium. I was betrayed. Tyre had sent over a detachment of spies, and the Sidonites were armed. I briskly dodged several companion eggs whose foulness was permitted to adorn the walls of Jones's Hall behind me, and then undertook to escape. Simultaneously with the explosion of the first shot, a howl had burst from the audience, which boded no good for any prospects of comfort and profit I might entertain. Escaping on my part became no joke; and I beg the reader to believe that my chagrin was quite overwhelmed in the all-impressive desire to protect myself from total annihilation. In my subsequent gratitude at having accomplished this feat, I overlooked the little discomforts of an eye in mourning, a broken finger, and garments perfumed throughout in defiance of la mode.

At present, I am engaged in a business which I deem far more respectable and lucrative than lecturing, to wit, explaining the merits and advantages of a patent needle-threader to interested crowds on Broadway. Here my oratorical abilities are advantageously displayed, my audiences are attentive, and my profits are good.

[Exit Brown]

THE WATCHWORD

TINTS AND TONES OF PARIS

It is a curious test of national character to compare the prevalent impressions of one country in regard to another whereof the natural and historical description is quite diverse: and in the case of France and England, there are so many and so constantly renewed incongruities, that we must discriminate between the effect of immediate political jealousy, in such estimates, and the normal and natural bias of instinct and taste. To an American, especially, who may be supposed to occupy a comparatively disinterested position between the two, this mutual criticism is an endless source of amusement. In conversation, at the theatre, on the way from Calais or Dover to either capital, at a Paris café, or a London club-house, he hears these ebullitions of prejudice and partiality, of self-love or generous appreciation, and finds therein an endless illustration of national character as well as of human nature. But perhaps the literature of the two countries most emphatically displays their respective points of view and tone of feeling. While a popular French author sums up the elements of life in England as being la vie de famille, la politique, et les affaires,'domestic life, politics, and business,'he complacently infers that le fond du caractère Anglais, 'the basis of the English character,' is nothing more nor less than le manque de bonheur'a want of anything like happiness.' An English thinker, on the other hand, finds in the very language of France the evidence of superficial emotion and unaspiring, irreverent intelligence. 'How exactly,' writes Julius Ham, 'do esprit and spirituel express what the French deem the highest glory of the human mind! A large part of their literature is mousseux; and whatever is so, soon grows flat. Our national quality is sense, which may, perhaps, betray a tendency to materialism; but which, at all events, comprehends a greater body of thought, that has settled down and become substantiated in maxims.'2 How far a Frenchman is from appreciating this distinction, as unfavorable to his own race, we can realize from the following estimate of the historical evil which an admired modern writer considers that race has suffered from the English, and from the character of the latter as recognized by another equally a favorite:

'Iniquitous England,' writes a popular novelist, 'the vile executioner of all in which France most exulted, murdered grace in Marie Stuart, as it did inspiration in Jeanne d'Arc, and genius in Napoleon;''a race,' says another, 'gifted with a national feeling which well-nigh approaches superstition, yet which has chosen the whole world for its country. The gravity of these beings, accidentally brought together and isolated by mere interest, their life of mechanical activity, and of labor without relaxation as without life, all interest, yet freeze you at the same time.' 'The Englishman has made unto himself a language appropriate to his placid manners and silent habits. This language is a murmur interrupted by subdued hisses,''un murmure entre-coupé de sifflements doux.'

The gregarious hotel life in America commends itself to the time-saving habits of a busy race; but the love of speciality in France modifies this advantage: in our inns a stated price covers all demands except for wine; here each separate necessity is a specific chargethe sheet of writing paper, the cake of soap, and the candle figure among the innumerable items of the bill. Thus an infinite subdivision makes all business tedious, involving so many distinct processes and needless conditions; at every step we realize of how much less comparative value is time in the Old World. On the other hand, the rigid system that governs municipal life, the means adopted to render all public institutions both accessible and attractive, claim perpetually the gratitude of artists, students, and philosophers. A programme of exploration may be arranged at will, yielding a complete insight, and, when achieved, such has been the order, communicativeness and facility, that we have a more distinct and reliable idea of the whole circle of observation than it is possible to obtain elsewhere. We are continually reminded of Buffon's maxim: 'la genie est la patience.' A curious illustration of this systematic habit of the French occurred at Constantinople, during the Crimean war, where they immediately numbered the houses and named the streets, to the discomfiture of the passive Turksone of whom, in his wonder at the mechanical superiority of these Frank allies, asked a soldier if the high fur cap on his head would come off. The concièrge beneath each porte cochére, the social distinction which makes each café and restaurant the nucleus of a particular class, the organized provision for all exigencies of human life in Paris, illustrate the same trait on a larger and more useful scale. If we survey the institutions and the monuments with care, and refer to their origin, associations and purposes, the historical and economical national facts are revealed with the utmost clearness and unity. The old Bastile represented, in its gloomy stolidity, the whole tragedy of the Revolution; and St. Genevieve combines the holy memories of the early church with that of the first French kings; the site of a fosse commune attests the valor of republican martyrs; the Champs Elysées are the popular earthly fields of a French paradise. One café is famed for the beauty of its mistress, another for the great chess-players who make it a resort; one is the daily rendezvous of the liberals, another of royalists, one of military men, another of artists; they flourish and fade with dynasties, and are respectively the favorites of provincials and citizens, gourmands and traders, men of letters and men of state.3 The Monte de Piété acquaints us with the vicissitudes and expedients of fortune; the Hotel Dieu is a temple of ancient charity; the Hospice des Enfants Trouvées startles us with the astounding fact that half the children born in Paris are illegitimate; and the Morgue yields no less appalling statistics of suicide. In Vernet's studio we feel the predominance of military taste and education in France; in the Ecole Polytecnique, the policy by which her youth are bred to serve their country; at the manufactories of the Gobelines and Sévres china, we perceive how naturally the mechanical genius of the race finds development in pottery and fabrics instead of ships and machines, as across the Channel and beyond the ocean; and in the self-possession, knowledge of affairs, and variety of occupation of the middle class of women, we see why they have no occasion to advocate their rights and complain of the inequality of the sexes.