Jan. 16th.
Formerly Anas were the fashion; now it is Amas, ‘et le change est pour le mieux.’ To these Amas I dedicated my morning, and began with the Ama of geography, the Georama. Here you suddenly find yourself in the centre of the globe,—which Dr. Nürnberger has not yet reached with his projected shaft; but in which you find the hypothesis of a sea of light confirmed, for it is so light that the whole crust of the earth is rendered transparent, and you can distinctly see even the political boundaries of countries. The excessive cold somewhat chilled my curiosity, so that I can only tell you that no globe elucidates geography so well as the Georama. It were to be wished that all Lancasterian schools could be thus introduced into the bowels of the earth: such a company too might warm themselves ‘mutuellement.’ The lakes appear, as in reality, beautifully blue and transparent, the volcanoes little fiery points, and the black chains of mountains are easily followed by the eye. I was amused to see that the great lakes in China had the precise outline of the grotesque and frightful faces of Chinese gods. The largest was really, without any effort of the imagination, the exact copy of the flying dragon so frequent on their porcelain. I hug myself amazingly on this discovery;—who knows if it will not throw some light on Chinese mythology? I was much displeased at seeing no notice taken of the recent discoveries at the North Pole, in Africa, and the Himalaya mountains. The whole affair appeared to me somewhat ‘en décadence.’ Instead of the pretty woman who generally sits at the bureau of all exhibitions of this sort in Paris, there was a terrific person who might have passed for the Lépreux d’Aosta.
The Diorama, a mile or so further, on the Boulevards, contains views of St. Gothard and of Venice. The former, on the Italian side, which I have seen ‘in naturâ,’ was well painted and very like; but as there is no change of light and shadow, as in the far superior Diorama in London, there is not the same variety and charm. Venice was a bad painting, and the light so yellow that it looked as if its just indignation at the French, who destroyed its political existence and then did not even keep it, had given it the jaundice.
The Neorama places you in the centre of St. Peter’s; the illusion however is but faint, and the crowd of motionless figures, in a thing which pretends to perfect imitation, tends to break it. Only the sleeping or the dead can be appropriately introduced into such a scene. The festival of St. Peter is represented. Pope, cardinals, priests, and the Pope’s guard ‘en haye,’ fill the church; and are so badly painted to boot, that I took His Holiness for an old dressing-gown hung before the Jove-like statue of Peter.
Passing over the well-known Panoramas and Cosmoramas, I bring you at last to the Uranorama in the new Passage Vivienne. This is a very ingenious piece of mechanism, exhibiting the course of the planets and the solar system. I confess that I never had so clear an idea of these matters as after the hour I spent here. I shall tell you more about it by word of mouth. If you like to spend twelve hundred francs, you can have a small model of the whole machine, which every good library ought to possess.
Thus then I began with the central point of the earth, then admired the various glories of its surface, and after a cursory visit to the planets, left off in the sun. There wanted nothing but a final Ama representing the seventh heaven and the houris, to complete my journey: I should have seen more than the Egyptian dervise in the five seconds during which his head was immersed in the pail of water.
It is better that I drop the curtain here over my sayings and doings. When it is drawn up again in your presence, I shall stand before you. After I have refreshed all the powers of my mind there, I shall tell you my further plans;—to dream away a winter amid pomegranates and oleanders; to wander awhile under the palm-trees of Africa, and to look down on the wonders of Egypt from the summit of her pyramids. Till then, no more letters.
Yours most faithfully,
L——.
THE END.