After a good deal of the numerous statues to Wellington, this at English admiration of Waterloo—
"The trumpet of Waterloo which has been sounded in London every where incessantly, and in every tone, during thirty-five years, diminishes the grandeur of the English nation. This intoxication seems that of a people who, never having won more than one battle, and despairing to conquer a second time, cannot recover from their surprise, nor bear in patience an unhoped-for glory."
How the English judge Napoleon—
"Public opinion has avenged the prisoner of St Helena; but does it follow that in 1815 the English protested with sufficient energy against his imprisonment! No. Englishmen are naturally indifferent and indulgent as regards their foreign neighbors, so long as patriotism or private interest is not at stake. Napoleon was the most terrible of their enemies; he placed England within ten steps of bankruptcy, and seriously menaced national manufactures. Not possessed of military instinct, the English do not pretend to chivalrous generosity. On the fall of the Empire, caused by the implacable perseverance of coalitions, the nation remembered that the Hundred Days cost its government a million an hour, and so long as the deficit was not made up, their resentment underwent no diminution. But now if you celebrate his glory before them, they will not display hostility. You must not, however, touch the till of this tribe of tradesmen, or they will be your bitter enemies. And the proof that they are nothing but shopkeepers is that their first functionary sits in a gilded arm chair on a wool-sack."
THE BEAUTIFUL STREAMLET AND THE UTILITARIAN.
Alphonse Karr's new book, Travels in my Garden, is full of social heresies, but quite as full of wit. We find in Fraser's Magazine for May translations of some admirable passages, with specimens of his peculiar speculation. Karr is an ardent lover of Nature; he takes note of all her caprices, and respects them,—remarks under what shade the violet loves to dwell, and tells us how certain plants—the volubulis, the scarlet-runner, and the Westeria, for instance—invariably twine their spiral tendrils from left to right, whereas hops and honeysuckles as infallibly twist theirs from right to left. He knows which are the plants that fold, when evening comes, their leaves in two, lengthwise,—which are those that close them up like fans, and which are the careless ones that crumple them up irregularly with happy impunity, for the next morning's sun smooths them all alike. He loves Nature in all her details, but with disinterested love, and has no idea of making her subservient to his pride, or selfishly monopolizing her; he has evidently no wish to wall in woods and meadows, and call them a park, or to dam up sparkling, bubbling, dancing streams, and turn them into cold, spiritless, aristocratic sheets of water. Indeed, in one of the first chapters of the book, there is a fanciful bit of sentiment about a happy little stream that falls into the hands of a pitiless utilitarian, which we are tempted to quote:—
"That stream which runs through my garden gushes from the side of a furze-covered hill; for a long time it was a happy little stream; it traversed meadows where all sorts of lovely wild flowers bathed and mirrored themselves in its waters, then it entered my garden, and there I was ready to receive it; I had prepared green tanks for it; on its edge and in its very bed I had planted those flowers which all over the world love to bloom on the banks and in the bosom of pure streams; it flowed through my garden, murmuring its plaintive song; then, fragrant with my flowers, it left the garden, crossed another meadow, and flung itself into the sea, over the precipitous sides of the cliff, which it covered with foam.
"It was a happy stream; it had literally nothing to do beyond what I have said,—to flow, to bubble, to look limpid, to murmur, amidst flowers and sweet perfumes. It led the life I have chosen, and that I continue to lead, when people let me alone, and when knaves and fools and wicked men do not force me—who am at once the most pacific and the most battling man on earth—to return to the fight. But heaven and earth are jealous of the happiness of gentle indolence.
"One day my brother Eugene, and Savage, the clever engineer, were talking together on the banks of the stream, and to a certain degree abusing it.