'And suddenly a flush
Shot o'er her forehead and along her lips,
And through her cheek the rallied color ran;
And the still outline of her graceful form
Stirred in the linen vesture;'
thus changing the sadness of the family assembled round the couch into a lustre sympathetic with that of her own reopened eyes.
These specimens have been given to show that such subjects are incapable of description. The exhibition continued from June to October, and the collection was so extensive that a shorter period would have been scarcely sufficient for the study of works exhibited. During this time the characteristic enthusiasm and jealousies of the artists were variously exemplified. The delightful hours spent in walking through these halls will be among my latest remembrances.
This whole festive period culminated with the closing days of September. The city had been unusually full all summer, but as its great birthday festival approached, the crowds thickened, until its capacity for lodging room had been transcended. All parts of Germany were represented, nor did delegates from the rest of the civilized world fail.
The question naturally arises, whether New York, Boston, or Philadelphia has a history which would appear well in such a drama! Although our history extends back over little more than one fourth of the period occupied by that of Munich, it might afford this material. The annals of public events would be found preserved with great fulness and distinctness—the archives of city and state councils and of the churches would supply the needed facts—but who could furnish the fashions, tools, and implements of each successive age from that of the Pilgrim fathers to that of the great rebellion? Who would perform the labor of research necessary to ascertain what they were? Where is the American court, supported at an expense of several millions per annum, to preserve all these in collections, or to get them up for court theatres? Who would pay for making all these for a procession of twenty thousand persons, with all the necessary horses and carriages? And surely, if we could not feel the confidence that everything was historical, all our interest in the display would be gone. I am apprehensive that we shall be obliged to leave such exhibitions to those countries which have hereditary heads, and, making a virtue of necessity, console ourselves with the thought that we have something better.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Luther was not in Munich at that time, if indeed he ever was.
[9] Catherine Bora, Luther's wife.
[10] Vide Schiller's 'Geschichte des dreisigjährigen Krieges.'