The Art Union is coming in for its share of the autumn love of warm tints and glowing colors; and if we might trust a hasty look-in on our way to office duties, we should say there was a scalding brightness about some of the coloring which needs an autumn haze to subdue it to a healthy tone. For all this there are gems scattered up and down, which will woo the eye to a repeated study, and, if we may judge from the flocking crowds, educate the public taste to an increasing love of whatever is lovable in Art.
Leutze's great picture of Washington, will, before this shall have reached the eye of our readers, have won new honors to the name of the painter of the Puritan iconoclasts; and we count it a most healthful augury for American art, that the great painting should have created in advance such glowing expectations.
We wish to touch with our pen nib—as the observant reader has before this seen—whatever is hanging upon the lip of the town; and with this wish lighting us, we can not of a surety pass by that new burst of exultation, which is just now fanning our clipper vessels, of all rig and build, into an ocean triumph.
Nine hundred and ninety odd miles of ocean way within three days' time, is not a speed to be passed over with mere newspaper mention; and it promises—if our steam-men do not look to their oars—a return to the old and wholesome service of wind and sail. We are chronicling here no imaginary run of a "Flying Dutchman," but the actual performance of the A Number One, clipper-built, and copper-fastened ship, Flying Cloud—Cressy, commander! And if the clipper-men can give us a line, Atlantic-wise, which will bowl us over the ocean toward the Lizard, at a fourteen-knot pace, and not too much spray to the quarter deck—they will give even the Collins' monsters a scramble for a triumph. There is a quiet exultation after all, in bounding over the heaving blue wave-backs, with no impelling power, but the swift breath of the god of winds, which steam-driven decks can never give. It is taking nature in the fulness of her bounty, and not cramping her gifts into boiling water-pots; it is a trust to the god of storms, that makes the breezes our helpers, and every gale to touch the cheek with the wanton and the welcome of an aiding brother!
Leaving now the matters of gossip around us, we propose to luxuriate in that atmosphere of gossip, which pervades the Paris world, and which comes wafted to us on the gauze feuilletons of such as Jules Janin, and of Eugene Guinot. They tell us that the city world of France has withdrawn lazily and longingly from the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle and the beaches of Dieppe and Boulogne; and that the freshened beauties of the metropolis, are taking their first autumn-ing upon the shaded asphalte of the Champs Elysées. A little fraction of the beau monde has just now taken its usual turn to the sporting ground of Dauphiny and Bretagne; but it is only for carrying out in retired quarters the series of flirtations, which the watering places have set on foot. The French have none of that relish for covers and moor shooting, which enters so largely into the English habit; and a French lady in a land-locked chateau—without a lover in the case—would be the sorriest Nekayah imaginable.
But, says Guinot, the country recluses are just now acquiring a taste for the races and for horsemanship; and he signalizes, in his way, a fairly-run match of ladies, well-known in the salons of Paris, which came off not long since in the grounds of some old country chateau. Among the other whim-whams, which this veteran wonder-teller sets down, is the story of an old Hollander, who every year makes his appearance at the springs of Ems, and devotes himself to rouge et noir with the greatest assiduity, until he has won from the bank the sum of twenty-five thousand francs, when he gathers up his gold and disappears for another season. No run of good luck will induce him to increase his earnings, and no bad fortune in the early part of his visit will break down his purpose, until he has won his usual quota. The managers have even proposed to buy him off for half his usual earnings in advance, but he accepts of no compromise; and stolidly taking his seat at the table, with a bag of rouleaux at his side, he stakes his money, and records upon a card the run of the colors—nor quits his place, until his bag is exhausted, or the rooms closed for the night.
As is usual with these tit-bits of French talk, no name is given to the Hollander, and he may live, for aught we know, only in the pestilent brain of the easy paragraphist.