One of the most interesting features of the present exhibition, the one which constitutes its distinguishing character, is, undoubtedly, its universality, and the interest which it excites among all nations, and all classes. And it was time that the results of human activity in its various departments, should thus be gathered together from the four corners of the globe, for the world is cut up into so many small fractions, and each fraction lives so much within the limits of its own narrow circle, ignoring, for the most part, all that is going on outside of it, that it is in the highest degree desirable that people should begin to see something of what their neighbors are doing.
It is time that nations met elsewhere than on the field of battle, and measured their strength and dignity by some more rational standard than the relative force of their cannon; time also that the various classes of society, so widely separated by the artificial divisions of caste and fortune, should look, at length, into each other's face and recognize the band of a common nature and of common needs; that the world's, as yet, unhonored workers, beholding the glorious fruits of their prolific energy, should perceive the sublimity of their mission and take fresh heart and fresh hope; that the rich should learn, from the grand results of labor, to appreciate more justly its nobleness and worth.
That the exhibition of 1851, successful as it is evidently destined to be, should fully realize this most desirable end, is hardly to be expected; but that it will do much toward creating a better understanding between classes and countries, and thus pave the way for the bringing in of a future era of universal helpfulness and good-will, may be very confidently predicted.
Stella.
FRENCH FEUILLETONISTES UPON LONDON.
The leading Parisian journals have correspondents in London during the Great Exhibition, and as the corps of Parisian feuilletonistes comprises much of the richest and rarest talent of the great French metropolis, there is a piquancy and brilliance in these daguerreotypes of London life and the impressions of English character, which is very entertaining. No traveller who remembers dining at any of the recherché cafés upon the Boulevards with a Frenchman, and chatting with him of England and London, can forget the cold chill that curled through the Parisian's conversation, as if he were a Pole, gossipping of Siberia, or the glances of intense satisfaction and pride which he cast upon the lively and lovely groups in the street, inly thanking God that he was not born a child of perfide Albion.
But these gentlemen talk not alone of the Exhibition, but of the "town" in general. Their articles wear the air of the journals of heroic adventurers who have penetrated into barbarous lands. They are clearly home-sick, these sybarites. We extract the following from a translation in the London Literary Gazette, prefaced with a few editorial remarks. Speaking of the variety of their topics the reviewer says: "Thus the great Jules Janin, in the Journal des Débats, notwithstanding the interest of portions of his article, some of which have been translated into our journals, makes the infamy of French republicans, and his own fervent love and devotedness to the royal family of Orleans, the burden of his lucubrations. M. Blanqui, the historian of political economy, and translator of Adam Smith, faithful as becomes an economist to his idée fixe, bewails in the Presse the folly of France in rejecting the doctrines of free trade, and clamors loudly for an immediate reform of French tariffs. M. Jules de Prémary fills column after column in the Patrie with descriptions of English manners, customs, and peculiarities; and yet he admits that he knows nothing of our language, and has only resided amongst us for a few days. Parisian littérateurs pride themselves on being men of imagination, poets, penseurs fantasistes; and it is clear that it would be as reasonable to chain an eagle to a dog-cart, as to expect them to deal with a plain, practical, matter-of-fact thing in the methodical business-like way of the English journalist. Of these, the lines of Miss Fanny Fudge are strikingly true:
"Vain, critics, vain
All your efforts to saddle wit's fire with a chain!!
To blot out the splendor of fancy's young stream,
Or crop in its cradle the newly-fledged beam!!!"
But though our worthy confrères of the Parisian press have thus let their wits go a wool-gathering, and left the poor Exhibition in the lurch, it is but just to state that one and all display on the whole a most friendly feeling towards the English; and even in quizzing us, as most of them do, display great good nature. They feel, perhaps, a little sore at having been outstripped by us in the establishment of the first great Universal Exhibition; but this was only natural, and they console themselves by stating that it was in France that the idea was first conceived, and by solemnly promising that France will some day prendre sa revanche. The most amusing of the feuilletonistes is unquestionably M. Jules de Prémary, of the Patrie; and we have thought it worth while to translate a portion of his last letter, as a specimen of what an intelligent man of letters feels on visiting us for the first time, and before he becomes well acquainted with us: