"O England! with all thy faults, I can't help loving thee still."
And I am quite of the linen-draper's mind: I cannot help loving those smooth-shaven lawns, those untrimmed flowing shrubs, those meandering walks, now seen, now lost amidst a cool green labyrinth of shade, which are so truly English. You have all this at the Zoological Gardens—we have none of it in the Jardin des Plantes; and, therefore, I like the Zoological Gardens best.
We must not say a word, my friend, about the lectures, or the free admission to them—that is not our forte; and if the bourgeoisie go on much longer as they do at present, becoming greater and more powerful with every passing day, and learning to know, as their mercantile neighbours have long known, that it is quite necessary both governments and individuals should turn all things to profit;—
"Car dans le siècle où nous sommes,
On ne donne rien pour rien;"—
if this happens, as I strongly suspect it will, then we shall have no more lectures gratis even in Paris.
From the Jardin des Plantes, we visited that very magnificent hospital, La Salpêtrière. I will spare you, however, all the fine things that might be said about it, and only give you a little anecdote which occurred while we stood looking into the open court where the imbecile and the mad are permitted to take their exercise. By the way, without at all presuming to doubt that there may be reasons which the managers of this establishment conceive to be satisfactory, why these wretched objects, in different stages of their dreadful calamity, should be thus for ever placed before each other's eyes, I cannot but observe, that the effect upon the spectator is painful beyond anything I ever witnessed.
With my usual love for the terrible, I remained immovable for above twenty minutes, watching the manner in which they appeared to notice each other. If fancy did not cheat me, those who were least wildly deranged looked with a sort of triumph and the consciousness of superiority on those who were most so: some looked on the mad movements of the others and laughed distractedly;—in short, the scene is terribly full of horror.
But to return to my anecdote. A stout girl, who looked more imbecile than mad, was playing tricks, that a woman who appeared to have some authority among them endeavoured to stop. The girl evidently understood her, but with a sort of dogged obstinacy persevered, till the nurse, or matron, or whatever she was, took hold of her arm, and endeavoured to lead her into the house. Upon this the girl resisted; and it was not without some degree of violence that she was at last conquered and led away.
"What dreadful cruelty!" exclaimed a woman who like ourselves was indulging her curiosity by watching the patients. An old crone, a very aged and decrepid pensioner of the establishment, was passing by on her crutches as she spoke. She stopped in her hobbling walk, and addressing the stranger in the gentle voice of quiet good sense, and in a tone which made me fancy she had seen better days, said—"Dreadful cruelty, good woman?... She is preventing her from doing what ought not to be done. If you had the charge of her, you would think it your duty to do the same, and then it would be right. But 'dreadful cruelty!' is easily said, and sounds good-hearted; and those who know not what it is to govern, generally think it is a sin and a shame to use authority in any way." And so saying, the old woman hobbled on, leaving me convinced that La Salpêtrière did not give its shelter to fools only.