inner light, the steady, deep-hued flame of olive oil, burning in an antique bronze lamp, made the room softly visible, and, shining out into the garden, turned the yellow gold of the jasmine blossoms into red gold here and there, and made the snow-white of the orange-flowers look like a sun-lighted drift of the north.
TO BE CONTINUED.
A JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF MILLIARDS.[199]
There is much in a title. Many an insignificant if not objectionable individual is widely welcomed and sweetly smiled upon because he boasts a “handle to his name”; and that which is true as regards man is equally so of books. Many a shallow and worthless production, like the monstrosities produced in the floral world by fancy horticulturists, becomes “the rage” from its pretentious or, as the case may be, its unpronounceable name.
There is, then, much in the title of a book; and yet, had M. Victor Tissot sent into the world his Voyage au Pays des Milliards under the sober superscription of “Travels in Germany,” although it might not so immediately have attracted the public eye, it must ultimately have secured the attention and interest it so justly merits, and which have necessitated the issue of nine editions in the course of a few weeks.
This interest is sustained throughout the book by the varied information it contains respecting facts connected with Prussianized Germany, which are related not only with that happy fluency of style which is the gift of most literary
Frenchmen, but also with a justice of reasoning and fairness of appreciation of which one of his nation dealing with such a subject might not always be found capable.
The work professes to be simply notes de voyage addressed to a friend; a series of sketches which introduce the reader in a familiar manner—“looking at everything, listening everywhere”—to this new Germany, such as she has sprung forth, sword in hand, from the brain of Herr von Bismarck.
The first part of the book relates to Southern and Central Germany.