Hester Lynch Piozzi - "Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I"

Various - "The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 4, April, 1895"

Laura Lee Hope - "Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show"

Frank Marzials - "Life of Charles Dickens"

Author of ‘Conversations With God’ Admits Essay Wasn’t His
Steve Knopper’s stark accounting of the mistakes major record labels have made in the digital era suggests they are largely responsible for their own demise.

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Oprah.com, the Web site of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” has posted a disclaimer acknowledging that Herman Rosenblat admitted he had invented portions of his Holocaust memoir.

Arts, Briefly: Winfrey Web Site Notes Fabricated Memoir
Mr. Seaver defied censorship and conventional literary standards to bring works by rabble-rousing authors like Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller and William Burroughs to American readers.

Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

M >> Margaret Fuller Ossoli >> At Home And Abroad




Within the citadel, a tower half ruined and ivy-clad, is life that
has been growing up while the exterior bulwarks of the old feudal time
crumbled to ruin. George Fox, while a prisoner at York for obedience
to the dictates of his conscience, planted here a walnut, and the tall
tree that grew from it still "bears testimony" to his living presence
on that spot. The tree is old, but still bears nuts; one of them was
taken away by my companions, and may perhaps be the parent of a tree
somewhere in America, that shall shade those who inherit the spirit,
if they do not attach importance to the etiquettes, of Quakerism.

In Sheffield I saw the sooty servitors tending their furnaces. I saw
them, also on Saturday night, after their work was done, going to
receive its poor wages, looking pallid and dull, as if they had spent
on tempering the steel that vital force that should have tempered
themselves to manhood.

We saw, also, Chatsworth, with its park and mock wilderness, and
immense conservatory, and really splendid fountains and wealth of
marbles. It is a fine expression of modern luxury and splendor, but
did not interest me; I found little there of true beauty or grandeur.

Warwick Castle is a place entirely to my mind, a real representative
of the English aristocracy in the day of its nobler life. The grandeur
of the pile itself, and its beauty of position, introduce you fitly
to the noble company with which the genius of Vandyke has peopled
its walls. But a short time was allowed to look upon these nobles,
warriors, statesmen, and ladies, who gaze upon us in turn with such a
majesty of historic association, yet was I very well satisfied. It
is not difficult to see men through the eyes of Vandyke. His way of
viewing character seems superficial, though commanding; he sees the
man in his action on the crowd, not in his hidden life; he does not,
like some painters, amaze and engross us by his revelations as to the
secret springs of conduct. I know not by what hallucination I forebore
to look at the picture I most desired to see,--that of Lucy, Countess
of Carlisle. I was looking at something else, and when the fat,
pompous butler announced her, I did not recognize her name from his
mouth. Afterward it flashed across me, that I had really been standing
before her and forgotten to look. But repentance was too late; I had
passed the castle gate to return no more.

Pretty Leamington and Stratford are hackneyed ground. Of the latter
I only observed what, if I knew, I had forgotten, that the room where
Shakespeare was born has been an object of devotion only for forty
years. England has learned much of her appreciation of Shakespeare
from the Germans. In the days of innocence, I fondly supposed that
every one who could understand English, and was not a cannibal, adored
Shakespeare and read him on Sundays always for an hour or more, and on
week days a considerable portion of the time. But I have lived to know
some hundreds of persons in my native land, without finding ten who
had any direct acquaintance with their greatest benefactor, and I dare
say in England as large an experience would not end more honorably
to its subjects. So vast a treasure is left untouched, while men are
complaining of being poor, because they have not toothpicks exactly to
their mind.

At Stratford I handled, too, the poker used to such good purpose by
Geoffrey Crayon. The muse had fled, the fire was out, and the poker
rusty, yet a pleasant influence lingered even in that cold little
room, and seemed to lend a transient glow to the poker under the
influence of sympathy.

In Birmingham I heard two discourses from one of the rising lights of
England, George Dawson, a young man of whom I had earlier heard much
in praise. He is a friend of the people, in the sense of brotherhood,
not of a social convenience or patronage; in literature catholic; in
matters of religion antisectarian, seeking truth in aspiration and
love. He is eloquent, with good method in his discourse, fire and
dignity when wanted, with a frequent homeliness in enforcement and
illustration which offends the etiquettes of England, but fits him the
better for the class he has to address. His powers are uncommon and
unfettered in their play; his aim is worthy. He is fulfilling and will
fulfil an important task as an educator of the people, if all be
not marred by a taint of self-love and arrogance now obvious in his
discourse. This taint is not surprising in one so young, who has
done so much, and in order to do it has been compelled to great
self-confidence and light heed of the authority of other minds, and
who is surrounded almost exclusively by admirers; neither is it,
at present, a large speck; it may be quite purged from him by the
influence of nobler motives and the rise of his ideal standard; but,
on the other hand, should it spread, all must be vitiated. Let us hope
the best, for he is one that could ill be spared from the band who
have taken up the cause of Progress in England.

In this connection I may as well speak of James Martineau, whom I
heard in Liverpool, and W.J. Fox, whom I heard in London.

Mr. Martineau looks like the over-intellectual, the partially
developed man, and his speech confirms this impression. He is
sometimes conservative, sometimes reformer, not in the sense of
eclecticism, but because his powers and views do not find a true
harmony. On the conservative side he is scholarly, acute,--on the
other, pathetic, pictorial, generous. He is no prophet and no sage,
yet a man full of fine affections and thoughts, always suggestive,
sometimes satisfactory; he is well adapted to the wants of that class,
a large one in the present day, who love the new wine, but do not feel
that they can afford to throw away _all_ their old bottles.

Mr. Fox is the reverse of all this: he is homogeneous in his materials
and harmonious in the results he produces. He has great persuasive
power; it is the persuasive power of a mind warmly engaged in seeking
truth for itself. He sometimes carries homeward convictions with great
energy, driving in the thought as with golden nails. A glow of kindly
human sympathy enlivens his argument, and the whole presents thought
in a well-proportioned, animated body. But I am told he is far
superior in speech on political or social problems, than on such as I
heard him discuss.

I was reminded, in hearing all three, of men similarly engaged in our
country, W.H. Charming and Theodore Parker. None of them compare
in the symmetrical arrangement of extempore discourse, or in pure
eloquence and communication of spiritual beauty, with Charming, nor in
fulness and sustained flow with Parker, but, in power of practical and
homely adaptation of their thought to common wants, they are superior
to the former, and all have more variety, finer perceptions, and are
more powerful in single passages, than Parker.

And now my pen has run to 1st October, and still I have such
notabilities as fell to my lot to observe while in London, and these
that are thronging upon me here in Paris to record for you. I am sadly
in arrears, but 't is comfort to think that such meats as I have to
serve up are as good cold as hot. At any rate, it is just impossible
to do any better, and I shall comfort myself, as often before, with
the triplet which I heard in childhood from a sage (if only sages wear
wigs!):--

"As said the great Prince Fernando,
What _can_ a man do,
More than he can do?"




LETTER VIII.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LONDON.--THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN.--LONDON CLIMATE.--OUT
OF SEASON.--LUXURY AND MISERY.--A DIFFICULT PROBLEM.--TERRORS
OF POVERTY.--JOANNA BAILLIE AND MADAME ROLAND.--HAMPSTEAD.--MISS
BERRY.--FEMALE ARTISTS.--MARGARET GILLIES.--THE PEOPLE'S
JOURNAL.--THE TIMES.--THE HOWITTS.--SOUTH WOOD SMITH.--HOUSES FOR THE
POOR.--SKELETON OF JEREMY BENTHAM.--COOPER THE POET.--THOM.


Paris, December, 1846.

I sit down here in Paris to narrate some recollections of London.
The distance in space and time is not great, yet I seem in wholly a
different world. Here in the region of wax-lights, mirrors, bright
wood fires, shrugs, vivacious ejaculations, wreathed smiles, and
adroit courtesies, it is hard to remember John Bull, with his
coal-smoke, hands in pockets, except when extended for ungracious
demand of the perpetual half-crown, or to pay for the all but
perpetual mug of beer. John, seen on that side, is certainly the most
churlish of clowns, and the most clownish of churls. But then
there are so many other sides! When a gentleman, he is so truly the
gentleman, when a man, so truly the man of honor! His graces, when he
has any, grow up from his inmost heart.

Not that he is free from humbug; on the contrary, he is prone to the
most solemn humbug, generally of the philanthrophic or otherwise moral
kind. But he is always awkward beneath the mask, and can never impose
upon anybody--but himself. Nature meant him to be noble, generous,
sincere, and has furnished him with no faculties to make himself
agreeable in any other way or mode of being. 'Tis not so with your
Frenchman, who can cheat you pleasantly, and move with grace in the
devious and slippery path. You would be almost sorry to see him quite
disinterested and straightforward, so much of agreeable talent and
naughty wit would thus lie hid for want of use. But John, O John, we
must admire, esteem, or be disgusted with thee.

As to climate, there is not much to choose at this time of year. In
London, for six weeks, we never saw the sun for coal-smoke and fog. In
Paris we have not been blessed with its cheering rays above three or
four days in the same length of time, and are, beside, tormented with
an oily and tenacious mud beneath the feet, which makes it almost
impossible to walk. This year, indeed, is an uncommonly severe one at
Paris; but then, if they have their share of dark, cold days, it must
be admitted that they do all they can to enliven them.

But to dwell first on London,--London, in itself a world. We arrived
at a time which the well-bred Englishman considers as no time at
all,--quite out of "the season," when Parliament is in session, and
London thronged with the equipages of her aristocracy, her titled
wealthy nobles. I was listened to with a smile of contempt when I
declared that the stock shows of London would yield me amusement and
employment more than sufficient for the time I had to stay. But
I found that, with my way of viewing things, it would be to me an
inexhaustible studio, and that, if life were only long enough, I would
live there for years obscure in some corner, from which I could issue
forth day by day to watch unobserved the vast stream of life, or to
decipher the hieroglyphics which ages have been inscribing on the
walls of this vast palace (I may not call it a temple), which human
effort has reared for means, not yet used efficaciously, of human
culture.

And though I wish to return to London in "the season," when that city
is an adequate representative of the state of things in England, I
am glad I did not at first see all that pomp and parade of wealth and
luxury in contrast with the misery, squalid, agonizing, ruffianly,
which stares one in the face in every street of London, and hoots at
the gates of her palaces more ominous a note than ever was that of owl
or raven in the portentous times when empires and races have crumbled
and fallen from inward decay.

It is impossible, however, to take a near view of the treasures
created by English genius, accumulated by English industry, without a
prayer, daily more fervent, that the needful changes in the condition
of this people may be effected by peaceful revolution, which shall
destroy nothing except the shocking inhumanity of exclusiveness,
which now prevents their being used, for the benefit of all. May their
present possessors look to it in time! A few already are earnest in
a good spirit. For myself, much as I pitied the poor, abandoned,
hopeless wretches that swarm in the roads and streets of England, I
pity far more the English noble, with this difficult problem before
him, and such need of a speedy solution. Sad is his life, if a
conscientious man; sadder still, if not. Poverty in England has
terrors of which I never dreamed at home. I felt that it would be
terrible to be poor there, but far more so to be the possessor of that
for which so many thousands are perishing. And the middle class, too,
cannot here enjoy that serenity which the sages have described as
naturally their peculiar blessing. Too close, too dark throng the
evils they cannot obviate, the sorrows they cannot relieve. To a man
of good heart, each day must bring purgatory which he knows not how to
bear, yet to which he fears to become insensible.

From these clouds of the Present, it is pleasant to turn the thoughts
to some objects which have cast a light upon the Past, and which, by
the virtue of their very nature, prescribe hope for the Future. I have
mentioned with satisfaction seeing some persons who illustrated
the past dynasty in the progress of thought here: Wordsworth, Dr.
Chalmers, De Quincey, Andrew Combe. With a still higher pleasure,
because to one of my own sex, whom I have honored almost above any,
I went to pay my court to Joanna Baillie. I found on her brow, not
indeed a coronal of gold, but a serenity and strength undimmed and
unbroken by the weight of more than fourscore years, or by the scanty
appreciation which her thoughts have received.

I prize Joanna Baillie and Madame Roland as the best specimens which
have been hitherto offered of women of a Roman strength and singleness
of mind, adorned by the various culture and capable of the various
action opened to them by the progress of the Christian Idea. They are
not sentimental; they do not sigh and write of withered flowers of
fond affection, and woman's heart born to be misunderstood by the
object or objects of her fond, inevitable choice. Love (the passion),
when spoken of at all by them, seems a thing noble, religious, worthy
to be felt. They do not write of it always; they did not think of it
always; they saw other things in this great, rich, suffering world. In
superior delicacy of touch, they show the woman, but the hand is firm;
nor was all their speech, one continued utterance of mere personal
experience. It contained things which are good, intellectually,
universally.

I regret that the writings of Joanna Baillie are not more known in
the United States. The Plays on the Passions are faulty in their
plan,--all attempts at comic, even at truly dramatic effect, fail; but
there are masterly sketches of character, vigorous expressions of wise
thought, deep, fervent ejaculations of an aspiring soul!

We found her in her little calm retreat at Hampstead, surrounded by
marks of love and reverence from distinguished and excellent friends.
Near her was the sister, older than herself, yet still sprightly and
full of active kindness, whose character and their mutual relation she
has, in one of her last poems, indicated with such a happy mixture of
sagacity, humor, and tender pathos, and with so absolute a truth of
outline. Although no autograph collector, I asked for theirs, and when
the elder gave hers as "sister to Joanna Baillie," it drew a tear from
my eye,--a good tear, a genuine pearl,--fit homage to that fairest
product of the soul of man, humble, disinterested tenderness.

Hampstead has still a good deal of romantic beauty. I was told it was
the favorite sketching-ground of London artists, till the railroads
gave them easy means of spending a few hours to advantage farther
off. But, indeed, there is a wonderful deal of natural beauty lying in
untouched sweetness near London. Near one of our cities it would all
have been grabbed up the first thing. But we, too, are beginning to
grow wiser.

At Richmond I went to see another lady of more than threescore years'
celebrity, more than fourscore in age, Miss Berry the friend of Horace
Walpole, and for her charms of manner and conversation long and still
a reigning power. She has still the vivacity, the careless nature, or
refined art, that made her please so much in earlier days,--still is
girlish, and gracefully so. Verily, with her was no sign of labor or
sorrow.

From the older turning to the young, I must speak with pleasure
of several girls I know in London, who are devoting themselves to
painting as a profession. They have really wise and worthy views of
the artist's avocation; if they remain true to them, they will enjoy
a free, serene existence, unprofaned by undue care or sentimental
sorrow. Among these, Margaret Gillies has attained some celebrity;
she may be known to some in America by engravings in the "People's
Journal" from her pictures; but, if I remember right, these are
coarse things, and give no just notion of her pictures, which are
distinguished for elegance and refinement; a little mannerized, but
she is improving in that respect.

The "People's Journal" comes nearer being a fair sign of the times
than any other publication of England, apparently, if we except Punch.
As for the Times, on which you all use your scissors so industriously,
it is managed with vast ability, no doubt, but the blood would tingle
many a time to the fingers' ends of the body politic, before that
solemn organ which claims to represent the heart would dare to beat in
unison. Still it would require all the wise management of the Times,
or wisdom enough to do without it, and a wide range and diversity of
talent, indeed, almost sweeping the circle, to make a People's Journal
for England. The present is only a bud of the future flower.

Mary and William Howitt are its main support. I saw them several times
at their cheerful and elegant home. In Mary Howitt I found the same
engaging traits of character we are led to expect from her books
for children. Her husband is full of the same agreeable information,
communicated in the same lively yet precise manner we find in his
books; it was like talking with old friends, except that now the
eloquence of the eye was added. At their house I became acquainted
with Dr. Southwood Smith, the well-known philanthropist. He is at
present engaged on the construction of good tenements calculated to
improve the condition of the working people. His plans look promising,
and should they succeed, you shall have a detailed account of them. On
visiting him, we saw an object which I had often heard celebrated,
and had thought would be revolting, but found, on the contrary, an
agreeable sight; this is the skeleton of Jeremy Bentham. It was at
Bentham's request that the skeleton, dressed in the same dress he
habitually wore, stuffed out to an exact resemblance of life, and with
a portrait mark in wax, the best I ever saw, sits there, as assistant
to Dr. Smith in the entertainment of his guests and companion of his
studies. The figure leans a little forward, resting the hands on a,
stout stick which Bentham always carried, and had named "Dapple";
the attitude is quite easy, the expression of the whole quite mild,
winning, yet highly individual. It is a pleasing mark of that unity
of aim and tendency to be expected throughout the life of such a mind,
that Bentham, while quite a young man, had made a will, in which, to
oppose in the most convincing manner the prejudice against dissection
of the human subject, he had given his body after death to be used in
service of the cause of science. "I have not yet been able," said the
will, "to do much service to my fellow-men by my life, but perhaps I
may in this manner by my death." Many years after, reading a pamphlet
by Dr. Smith on the same subject, he was much pleased with it,
became his friend, and bequeathed his body to his care and use, with
directions that the skeleton should finally be disposed of in the way
I have described.

The countenance of Dr. Smith has an expression of expansive, sweet,
almost childlike goodness. Miss Gillies has made a charming picture of
him, with a favorite little granddaughter nestling in his arms.

Another marked figure that I encountered on this great showboard was
Cooper, the author of "The Purgatory of Luicides," a very remarkable
poem, of which, had there been leisure before my departure, I should
have made a review, and given copious extracts in the Tribune. Cooper
is as strong a man, and probably a milder one, than when in the prison
where that poem was written. The earnestness in seeking freedom
and happiness for all men, which drew upon him that penalty, seems
unabated; he is a very significant type of the new era, and also an
agent in bringing it near. One of the poets of the people, also, I
saw,--the sweetest singer of them all,--Thom. "A Chieftain unknown
to the Queen" is again exacting a cruel tribute from him. I wish much
that some of those of New York who have taken an interest in him would
provide there a nook in which he might find refuge and solace for the
evening of his days, to sing or to work as likes him best, and where
he could bring up two fine boys to happier prospects than the parent
land will afford them. Could and would America but take from other
lands more of the talent, as well as the bone and sinew, she would be
rich.

But the stroke of the clock warns me to stop now, and begin to-morrow
with fresher eye and hand on some interesting topics. My sketches are
slight; still they cannot be made without time, and I find none to be
had in this Europe except late at night. I believe it is what all the
inhabitants use, but I am too sleepy a genius to carry the practice
far.




LETTER IX.

WRITING AT NIGHT.--LONDON.--NATIONAL GALLERY.--MURILLO.--THE FLOWER
GIRL.--NURSERY-MAIDS AND WORKING-MEN.--HAMPTON COURT.--ZOOeLOGICAL
GARDENS.--KING OF ANIMALS.--ENGLISH PIETY.--EAGLES.--SIR JOHN SOANE'S
MUSEUM.--KEW GARDENS.--THE GREAT CACTUS.--THE REFORM CLUB HOUSE.--MEN
COOKS.--ORDERLY KITCHEN.--A GILPIN EXCURSION.--THE BELL AT EDMONTON.--
OMNIBUS.--CHEAPSIDE.--ENGLISH SLOWNESS.--FREILIGRATH.--ARCADIA.--
ITALIAN SCHOOL.--MAZZINI.--ITALY.--ITALIAN REFUGEES.--CORREGGIO.--
HOPE OF ITALIANS.--ADDRESSES.--SUPPER.--CARLYLE, HIS APPEARANCE,
CONVERSATION, &C.


Again I must begin to write late in the evening. I am told it is the
custom of the literati in these large cities to work in the night. It
is easy to see that it must be almost impossible to do otherwise; yet
not only is the practice very bad for the health, and one that brings
on premature old age, but I cannot think this night-work will prove as
firm in texture and as fair of hue as what is done by sunlight. Give
me a lonely chamber, a window from which through the foliage you can
catch glimpses of a beautiful prospect, and the mind finds itself
tuned to action.

But London, London! I have yet some brief notes to make on London. We
had scarcely any sunlight by which to see pictures, and I postponed
all visits to private collections, except one, in the hope of being in
England next time in the long summer days. In the National Gallery I
saw little except the Murillos; they were so beautiful, that with me,
who had no true conception of his kind of genius before, they took
away the desire to look into anything else at the same time. They
did not affect me much either, except with a sense of content in this
genius, so rich and full and strong. It was a cup of sunny wine that
refreshed but brought no intoxicating visions. There is something
very noble in the genius of Spain, there is such an intensity and
singleness; it seems to me it has not half shown itself, and must have
an important part to play yet in the drama of this planet.

At the Dulwich Gallery I saw the Flower Girl of Murillo, an enchanting
picture, the memory of which must always

"Cast a light upon the day,
A light that will not pass away,
A sweet forewarning."

Who can despair when he thinks of a form like that, so full of life
and bliss! Nature, that made such human forms to match the butterfly
and the bee on June mornings when the lime-trees are in blossom, has
surely enough of happiness in store to satisfy us all, somewhere, some
time.

It was pleasant, indeed, to see the treasures of those galleries, of
the British Museum, and of so charming a place as Hampton Court,
open to everybody. In the National Gallery one finds a throng of
nursery-maids, and men just come from their work; true, they make a
great deal of noise thronging to and fro on the uncarpeted floors
in their thick boots, and noise from which, when penetrated by
the atmosphere of Art, men in the thickest boots would know how to
refrain; still I felt that the sight of such objects must be gradually
doing them a great deal of good. The British Museum would, in itself,
be an education for a man who should go there once a week, and think
and read at his leisure moments about what he saw.

Hampton Court I saw in the gloom, and rain, and my chief recollections
are of the magnificent yew-trees beneath whose shelter--the work
of ages--I took refuge from the pelting shower. The expectations
cherished from childhood about the Cartoons were all baffled; there
was no light by which they could be seen. But I must hope to visit
Hampton Court again in the time of roses.

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