The Knickerbocker, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 1861

The Knickerbocker, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 1861

PARIS: AND LIFE THERE. A MEMORY. HESPERUS. REVELATIONS OF WALL-STREET: A WINTER SCENE. THE OBSERVATIONS OF MACE SLOPER, ESQ. LIVING ALONE. THE TAXIDERMIST. THE LITTLE PEASANT. FAUNTLEROY VERRIAN'S FATE. THE MAN AT THE DOOR. THE VAN GELDERS OF MATINECOCK. THE RAIN. SONNETS: LITERARY NOTICES. EDITOR'S TABLE. There is a subtle relation between the mere spectacle of Parisian life and French history, like that which exists between physiognomy and character. Careful observation of this sparkling tide on the surface will reveal the hidden currents that direct its play. The success of a man in France has been justly described as achieved moiti par son savoir, moiti par son savoir-faire. Two characteristics at once impress an American in Paristhe provision for life independent of homes, and the excessive tendency to system and detail: from the one comes a diffusive habit of feeling well adapted to pastime, but most unfavorable to efficient individuality; and from the other, a devotion to routine which secures results brilliant in themselves but limited in their consequences. The bare fact that we of England and America, however wide and intense be the sphere of our activity, instinctively revolve about a permanent centre, hallowed and held by the triple bond of habit, love, and religion, gives a certain dignity and permanence to our interests and aims which nourish political as well as personal consistency. Imagine the case reversed: suppose, like civilized Ishmaelites, we dwelt in a kind of metropolitan encampment, requiring no domicile except a bed-room for seven hours in the twenty-four, and passing the remainder of each day and night as nomadic cosmopolites: going to a caf to breakfast, a restaurant to dine, an estaminet to smoke, a national library to study, a cabinet de lecture to read the gazettes, a public bath for ablution, an open church to pray, a free lecture-room to be instructed, a thronged garden to promenade, a theatre to be amused, a museum for science, a royal gallery for art, a municipal ball, literary soire, or suburban rendezvous for society. Would not the very custom of enacting all the functions of mundane existence, apart from the idea and the retirement of home, generalize our ways of thinking, make us more children of the time, and weaken the tenacity,[2] as well as diminish the scope, whereby the reflective man becomes the practical citizen? And if the regime under which our education was initiated, had for its great principles, skill, knowledge, and aptitude for specialties, would not the natural fruit of such culture be a fragmentary excellence? Herein, at least, some of the causes may be found of that extraordinary union of genius and childhood in the French nation; the ability to declaim like philosophers about freedom, while an immense standing armythe most available resource of tyrannyis recognized as the basis of civil power; an unrivalled taste in the ornamental, and a savage ignorance of the comfortable; a most profound and reliable insight in diagnosis, with a pitiable incapacity for remedial applications; a prompt adaptation to the moment, almost infantile, with a hackneyed insensibility to experience; vivid aspirations, with little sense of what really constitutes glory; making fine arts of cookery, talk, and dress, while a battle-field and a caricature are their most popular limning; deifying their military heroes, and, at the same time, giving vent to their own enthusiasm in the lively figures of a new dance. The social economy of Paris is based on a combination of narrow means, with bright conceptions; we see it in the graceful but frail upholstery, the exquisite fit of a plain muslin robe, the bewitching trim of a cheap bonnet, the variety of a two-franc dinner, the bon-mot which atones for inability to read, the absorption over a game of dominoes, the philosophic air with which a cigarette is smoked, and the artistic ruffle of a chemisette; the prolific fun educed from an anecdote, and the slight impression made by a revolution; the incurious notice of what is comprehensive, and the intense desire to make capital of the frivolous. To cultivate illusions is apparently the science of Parisian life; vanity must have its pabulum and fancy her triumph, though pride is sacrificed and sense violated thereby; hence a concidence of thrift and wit, shrewdness and sentimentality, love of excitement and patient endurance, superficial enjoyment and essential deprivationin the mind, the life, and the development of France, wonderful to behold and perplexing to consider. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

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Ebook Number: 47866
Author: Various
Release Date: Jan 3, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English