NOTES.
Wellnigh half a century has elapsed since the discovery of the beautiful Venus of Milo (the exact year was 1825), and yet now, for the first time, the endless discussions regarding two doubtful and interesting points in its history have been set at rest. These two points are—first, the original pose of the statue; and, secondly, the reason of its being armless. After so many years of dispute over these questions, it occurred at length to M. Jules Ferry to do what of course ought to have been done long ago—namely, go to the very spot whence the statue was exhumed, and there talk with all the surviving witnesses of the exhumation. M. Ferry not long since put his idea into execution, went to Milo, took into consultation with him M. Brest, son of the consul who procured the statue for France, and found and cross-questioned two Greeks who were present at the unearthing of the statue. M. Ferry has collected the details of his labors in an elaborate communication to the Académie des Beaux Arts, but a brief indication of the results obtained may be made as follows:
First, then, the Venus was found in 1825 at the foot of a little hill, where it had been covered up by successive crumblings of the earth above. The proprietor of the ground, wishing to clear a little more of the soil for his planting, chanced to strike the statue with his shovel. "It was on its base, erect," said the two Greek peasants to the French minister. "With one hand she held together her draperies, and in the other an apple"—the same, doubtless, that Paris had just given her. Such, very briefly, is the clear, short, definite, decisive story which puts an end to ten thousand disquisitions and hypotheses about the pose. The evidence thus given is that of people who actually saw what they describe. But, secondly, what of those "long-lost arms"? and how came they to be lost? The body of the Venus was formed of two blocks, and the arms were afterward fastened upon the trunk. When discovered, it was intact. M. Brest, the French consul, instantly bought the Venus for five hundred dollars, while the Turkish government on its part hurried off a small vessel to bring it away, offering the owner of the farm fivefold the French price, or something like two thousand five hundred dollars. A French aviso, sent by M. de Rivière, the ambassador at Constantinople, arrived on the scene at the very moment when the Turks had got possession of the statue, and were embarking it on their vessel. A dispute arose at once, and in the material as well as legal confusion the arms of the Venus, which had been detached for safer transportation, were missed. The people of the neighborhood got up a story that the arms were carried off by the Turkish vessel out of chagrin and spite, but this seems to be mere surmise where all else is clear.
The story of Demosthenes and the pebbles is familiar. Less familiar, we venture to say, is the theory that declamation is sometimes the cause of stammering; or, rather, that stuttering impels a man to talkativeness, and the yielding to this tendency fixes the habit of stammering and makes it worse. Hence it might plausibly be argued that it is the rostrum, or the very emotion of speaking in public, which makes some orators become stammerers. At all events, in Paris an institution has been founded expressly to remedy stuttering; and M. Chervin, its director, not long ago presented before a meeting of the learned societies at the Sorbonne some interesting statistics on his specialty. These statistics seem to show that stuttering is in direct proportion with the habit of speaking, and that the more one speaks the more one stutters. This is certainly an unexpected result of the restoration of freedom of speech in France. M. Chervin mentions a village of eighteen hundred souls where everybody, without exception, undeniably stutters. What strange dialogues, says Jules Claretie (who cites these points in l'Indépendance Belge), must take place there! A very curious fact is, that stammering is less frequent in the north of France than in the south. In the north-east it is least known, and most in the south-east. For example, all things being equal, for six stammerers in Paris there would be twenty-five in Lyons and seventy in Marseilles. The admitted garrulity or fluency of southern speaking is often the cause or the preface to stammering. Thus, comically concludes M. Claretie, oratorical habits threaten to make stammering become the order of the day, and for one Vergniaud there will be ten stutterers, and ten more stutterers for one General Foy. Nevertheless, in earlier days, Camille Desmoulins stammered, and yet spoke but little at the Convention. It does not appear that Charles Lamb was a garrulous person, and in the familiar experience of daily life we rarely find stutterers to be rapid talkers. Still, this latter fact really helps M. Chervin's theory, since we may conclude it is precisely because stammerers find that a very rapid utterance increases their defect that they force themselves to speak deliberately, and also not to tire the vocal muscles. Hence, apart from the jesting inference which M. Claretie, in French journalist's fashion, is bent son twisting out of the scientific statistics, there would appear to be a mutual influence, perfectly comprehensible, of rapidity in utterance and a tendency to stammering. We could not safely go on to generalize that only voluble people become stutterers, or that all stutterers are unusually garrulous and unusually eager in enunciation; but we may conclude that if they are thus careless and rattling in delivery, their peculiarity will be likely to grow more marked, and that accordingly a natural tendency to the same defect is developed by the same habits or necessities of much and rapid talking.
Two illustrations of nineteenth-century precocity, rather superior to the generality of anecdotes regarding the wisdom of the rising generation, we find in recent French papers. One of them is originated by the Moulin-à-Parole. Madame de B. was visiting, with her baby, her friend Madame X. After chattering three-quarters of an hour, without giving anybody else a chance to put in a word, Madame X. pauses, when Baby immediately takes up the burden of conversation. Madame X., getting tired at last, says, "Why do you talk so much, mignonne? It isn't nice for a little girl like you to do so." "Oh," replies Baby very graciously, "it is only so that mamma may rest!" A little lad furnishes the other instance of the premature sagacity of modern childhood. A famous merchant has four children, three daughters and a boy named Arthur. Two of the former die successively of consumption, and at the funeral of the second a friend of the family comes to offer his compliments of condolence, and, patting little Arthur's head, tells the poor lad the house must seem lonely to him now. "Yes," briskly replies Arthur, whom his father has brought up to accurate ideas, "here we children are reduced fifty per cent." Worthy to take charge of these children would have been the prudent bonne of whom Charivari speaks. The morning after engaging herself to Madame R. she hastened to that lady with her finger wrapped in a handkerchief, and in an agitated voice asked if the converts were real silver. "Why so, Nannette?" "Because, I just pricked my finger with a fork, and I know that if it is plated copper I ought to take the precaution of having the place bled." "Don't be alarmed," replies the lady, smiling despite herself at the young girl's innocence, "my plate is all solid." "Ah," says the bonne with a sigh of relief, "I am so glad!" The day after, the simple young lady disappeared with all the silver. It is not every bonne that would take such precautions.
Paris has always been famous among modern cities for its genius and industry in adding variety to its cuisine, either by the audacious invention of new dishes or the felicitous combination of old ones—either by discovering new sources of food or new methods of preparing it. It was a curious incident in the late history of the city that what had been a fashionable whim became a hard necessity—that after Saint-Hilaire and the hippophagists had struggled to introduce horseflesh as regular provender, the siege of Paris made horseflesh a prized rarity. But the zest resulting from the enforced diet of dogs, cats, rats and monkeys in bombardment days appears to have been so great that we now hear of an enterprise worthy to have a Brillat-Savarin to celebrate it—namely, the formation of a society under the presidency of the naturalist Lespars, designed to bring into vogue as eatable a great class of living creatures whose presence now inspires ordinary persons only with disgust. A naturalist who devotes himself to eating such creatures with a motive so philanthropic deserves our praise, though we may not be able to personally imitate his heroic example. Among the choice dishes mentioned by one paper as selected to figure at the first public banquet of M. Lespars are a plate of white worms, a bushel of grasshoppers, and a broil of magpies seasoned with the slugs that infest certain green berries. One regards this announcement with more or less incredulity; but little doubt seems to hang over the assertion that the dormouse has just been introduced into the list of French game-dishes. The puzzle for the cooks seems to be with regard to the proper sauce for the new delicacy; but this matter does not trouble the little chimney-sweeps, who find the animal so long associated in poetry and in fact chiefly with their own humble career, now rising to the dignity of game, and commanding a price for the table. Piedmont has thus far furnished the larger part of the displays of marmottes in Paris stalls. The chief trouble in making rats, magpies and other delicacies of that sort really popular amongst the poorer classes is that the latter do not possess adroit cooks to disguise the original flavor under aromatic adjuncts, nor yet the money to buy the necessary spices and side-dishes, nor the high grade of champagne wines with which the wealthy and noble patrons of "food reform" commonly wash down unpalatable viands.