We have been favored here with pleasant weather, but I can imagine how grim and black certain parts of the city would look, in bad. They use much coal here, and, as everywhere else, it leaves its mark. We have seen the best of London, and we have had glimpses of her rich citizens and of her poor. There are many rich families here, because their wealth has been inherited, just as the poor have inherited their poverty. Families here keep in about the same groove that their ancestors did before them. The Queen is greatly beloved, and we all know she is a good woman and a gracious sovereign. Of the Prince of Wales, also, I hear many good things. But why should there be such a thing as ‘royalty?’ How much better and higher is the code of self-government, than servile obedience to any king or queen, human beings like ourselves. I could not breathe freely as a citizen of a country where son of mine could not take the highest place in the nation, if he were worthy of it and the people’s choice. Thank God that ‘in the land of the free,’ our own America, we can be whatever we make ourselves, and not what the accident of birth has made us. Of ‘Merrie England,’ however, I shall carry away with me grateful remembrances of her people, and a score of memories of the beautiful land itself, which will ever be a source of enjoyment to summon.
LETTER IV.
June 26, 1888.
From London to New Haven by rail, and there took steamer to cross the English Channel. It was stormy and very rough, and nearly all but our party succumbed to sea-sickness. We could not remain outside, the storm was so severe, and the close proximity of the mal-de-mer victims proved a little contagious. The gong sounded for dinner, but I feared dinner and my stomach would not agree, and remembering my determination not to be sick, turned my back upon those that were, took a bright little story, and soon got so interested in it that I entirely got over my nearness to a capitulation. But we decided we liked the sea better than the choppy Channel.
We landed at Dieppe, and stepped upon French soil! We looked about the queer old French town with our usual enthusiasm and curiosity, and then proceeded to Rouen. Had three hours there. We dined in the garden of our inn, on a table in an arbor covered with yellow roses of a peculiarly sweet fragrance. The people looked at us with as much wonderment in their faces as we at them. And what a bedlam their clatter makes to be sure. Well for us that our escort can understand every language under the sun—good, bad, or indifferent. We took a carriage and were driven about the town. We went inside of three cathedrals, and we saw the spot where Joan of Arc was burned. The streets of the old town are very narrow, the houses queer and foreign. All of the women and children seemed to be sitting out of doors, with knitting work in hand. They wear little close caps and wooden shoes, and the skin of the women looks like shrivelled leather. I am told that the lower class of the citizens of Dieppe are very superstitious, that they believe, if the souls of those drowned are not prayed for by their living relatives, at every midnight, for one year, a terrible storm will arise, and the ghosts of the departed appear to them.
At four P.M. we took train for Paris, running through a pretty country, with fields of red poppies and large orchards of cherry trees, red with ripe fruit. We bought them at every station, and most delicious were they. The many hamlets or clusters of little thatched cottages, so very close together, looked at least social.
At eleven P.M. our train rolled into the station in the city of Paris; and such a babel! Why will these people chatter so fast? We had no trouble with our trunks, and with them were immediately driven to our engaged apartments, in Rue Clement Marot, where we are to remain during our stay. The name of the street has the right sound, at any rate, for Marot was not only a poet but a philosopher, and his philosophy we may need in ‘doing’ Paris.
Paris, Wednesday, June 27th, 1888.—Our hostess and her family have given us a cordial welcome, and we already feel quite at home. Our apartments are convenient and prettily furnished, and we are to be very happy here, I am sure. Our journey of yesterday tempted me to sleep late this morning, but F—— let in the bright daylight, with an exclamation of disapprobation at time in Paris being spent in slumber. So I was soon ready, feeling like ‘a new top,’ for the day’s whirl. We have here, served early in our rooms, or in the breakfast room, as we choose, rolls and coffee. At noon we have ‘déjeuner à la fourchette;’ at five, tea; and at seven a sumptuous dinner. A sweet young lady from Beverly and several New Yorkers are of the household, so we make a pleasant family party. We are near the Champs Elysées, and this part of the city is beautiful—broad, fine streets shaded with trees. We took an early drive in this vicinity, and were later left at the Salon, spending several hours there. What a bewildering collection of pleasing pictures! I do love these paintings of lovely faces, of home scenes, of restful bits of scenery, by these modern artists. We so feel them; we comprehend them; they gladden the heart as well as the eye. The painting which won the first prize this year was a battle-piece by D’Etaille. I recall a picture at the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, by this same artist. Meissonier had been his teacher, and he had also been chosen to award the prizes, but when he attempted to address this man, his successful pupil, he could not speak, and impulsively threw his arms about him and burst into tears and kissed him. Surely there was no envy there. We have seen many of Meissonier’s pictures here, and they are all wonderful in their exactness to nature. His portraits are very life-like, and one almost sees the blood go and come under the skin, so natural are the flesh-tints. Pictures, like poems, must be read to be appreciated. But to me, the most that I have seen of Turner’s I should label ‘Sanscrit,’ not being able to read them. For instance, the one called ‘Tapping the Furnace:’ I searched in vain in it for any object that looked like a furnace, and I thought of the story I had heard of the farmer’s wife, whose city cousin took her to see paintings in London. She looked at Turner’s ‘The Day after the Deluge’—put on her spectacles, and read the title: ‘Well! I should think it wur,’ said she and passed on. Great minds possess an intuition by which they can see farther into things than ordinary minds can, and such minds probably understand and admire Turner.