There is a superb bust of D’Orsay’s father in this collection—by the Count himself. It represents a magnificent man. My letter is getting long.
LETTER VIII.
There is little need of widening the ditch of prejudice over which American books must jump, to be read in England, but one of the most original and readable books ever published in our country, (Mr. Poe’s Tales,) “is fixed,” for the present, on the nether side of popularity, by the use of a single Americanism. The word bug, which with us, may mean an honorable insect, as well as an unclean one, is hardly nameable in England, to ears polite. The first story opened to, in Mr. Poe’s book, is “The Golden Bug,” and the publisher informs me that his English brethren of the craft turn their backs upon it for this disqualification only. The work is too full of genius to be kept, finally, from English admiration, but a word on the first page which makes publishers shut the book without looking farther, will retard its departure from the shelf.
And, apropos—I see that our brilliant contributor “Fanny Forrester,” is about to collect her stories, letters, etc., into a volume. You will remember the confidence with which I hailed the advent of genius in the first letter we received from this now well-known pet of the periodicals. I saw, even in that hasty production, the rare quality of playfulness ever constant to good sense—a frolicsome gayety that was rememberable for its wisdom when the laugh had died away. The playfulness is common enough, and the good sense is common enough, but they are not often found together; and, apart, they form the two large classes of writers, the trivial and the heavy. With one quality to relieve the other, however, as is seen in all the productions of charming “Fanny Forrester,” a style is formed which is eminently captivating to the casual reader, and therefore the very best for a contributor to periodicals. But hers is a style, also, the charm of which is lasting. For the thoughts it is freighted with, are from one of the most gifted and most loveable of female natures—thoughts first schooled by heavenly purity and tenderness, and then loosed to play with the freedom of birds on the wing. I take no small pride in having been the first to pronounce the “Eureka” at the discovery of this bright star. And she has risen rapidly in the literary firmament, for it is but a year since “Fanny Forrester” was first heard of, through our columns, and there are few readers now in our wide country who do not know her well.
I have been shivering about town to-day, as usual, in a great-coat—scarce having seen a day this summer when I was comfortable without it. What do you mean by keeping the upper end of the thermometer all to yourselves? The English live in overcoats and under umbrellas, while you are recording the dropping down of people in the street with the heat of the weather! Among other pastimes I went over the river and spent a chilly hour in that vast village of wild beasts and birds, the Surrey Zoological Gardens. It is enough to give one the heart ache to see the many shapes of the agony of imprisonment undergone within these pretty shrubberies and hedges. The expression of distress by all manner of creatures except monkeys, is so painful, that I wonder it should be popular as a place of resort for ladies. But there they lounge out the day in great numbers, feeding the elephants, tormenting the monkeys, and gazing in upon the howling bears, tigers and lions, as if the poor creatures were as happy as parlor poodles. I saw, by the way, that most of the names upon the cages had the word American before them, which helps account for the common English wonder at seeing a white man from New York! I was very glad to get out of the “Gardens!” It would be better named a Hell of wild animals.
I see the dark complexions of the East Indies plentifully sprinkled among the beggars and street sweepers in London. People in turbans and Hindoo coats walk in the crowd unnoticed. The subjugated nations of this modern Rome, are represented among the wretched, though half the globe lies between their begging place and their home. These Asiatics are a symmetrical little people by the way, and their graceful Oriental touch to the turban, when they ask alms, looks strangely out of place amid a populace of such angular rudeness.
London for once, really looks deserted. It is often said to be, when there is very little sign of it to a stranger’s eye. But the Queen’s trip to Germany has taken off an unusual number to the land of beer, and Bond-street is gloomy.
LETTER IX.
London has been enshrouded to-day in what they call a ‘blight’—a blanket-like atmosphere which dulls the sun without the aid of clouds. By taking the pains to hold your arm close to your eye, on days like this you find it covered with small insects, and the trees, in the course of a week will show what is their errand from the morasses. Why these leaf-eaters did not come before, or why they did not stay longer where they were, seems to be a mystery, even to the newspapers.
I saw a new combination this morning—a whip and a parasol. A lady most unhappily plain, (whose impression, however, was very much mollified by the beautiful equipage she drove,) came very near running me down at the crowded corner of Oxford and Regent streets. She was driving a pair of snow-white ponies at a famous pace, and, as she laid the lash on very vigorously, in passing me by, I discovered that the whip was but a continuation of the handle of the parasol.—In holding up the protector for her own skin, therefore, she held up the terror of the skins of her ponies! It was like so many other things in this world, that I went on my way moralizing.