Around The Walls Of The
Room, In Some Places, Were Arranged Cases Of Books About Three Feet
High.
I liked this arrangement particularly, because it gives you the
companionship of books in an apartment without occupying that space of
the wall which is advantageous for pictures.
Moreover, books placed
high against the walls of a room give a gloomy appearance to the
apartment.
The whole air of these rooms was very charming, suggestive of refined
taste and domestic habits. The idea of home, which pervades every
thing in England, from the cottage to the palace, was as much
suggested here as in any apartments I have seen. The walls of the
different rooms were decorated with portraits of the members of the
royal family, and those of other European princes.
After this we went through the kitchen department - saw the silver and
gold plate of the table; among the latter were some designs which I
thought particularly graceful. To conclude all, we went through the
stables. The man who showed them told us that several of the queen's
favorite horses were taken to Osborne; but there were many beautiful
creatures left, which I regarded with great complacency. The stables
and stalls were perfectly clean, and neatly kept; and one, in short,
derives from the whole view of the economics of Windsor that
satisfaction which results from seeing a thing thoroughly done in the
best conceivable manner.
The management of the estate of Windsor is, I am told, a model for all
landholders in the kingdom. A society has been formed there, within a
few years, under the patronage of the queen, Prince Albert, and the
Duchess of Kent, in which the clergy and gentry of the principal
parishes in this vicinity are interested, for improving the condition
of the laboring classes in this region. The queen and Prince Albert
have taken much interest in the planning and arranging of model houses
for the laboring people, which combine cheapness, neatness,
ventilation, and all the facilities for the formation of good personal
habits. There is a school kept on the estate at Windsor, in which the
queen takes a very practical interest, regulating the books and
studies, and paying frequent visits to it during the time of her
sojourn here. The young girls are instructed in fine needlework; but
the queen discourages embroidery and ornamental work, meaning to make
practical, efficient wives for laboring men. These particulars, with
regard to this school, were related to me by a lady living in the
vicinity of Windsor.
We went into St. George's Chapel, and there we were all exceedingly
interested and enchained in view of the marble monument to the
Princess Charlotte. It consists of two groups, and is designed to
express, in one view, both the celestial and the terrestrial aspect of
death - the visible and the invisible part of dying. For the visible
part, you have the body of the princess in all the desolation and
abandonment of death. The attitude of the figure is as if she had
thrown herself over in a convulsion, and died. The body is lying
listless, simply covered with a sheet, through every fold of which you
can see the utter relaxation of that moment when vitality departs, but
the limbs have not yet stiffened. Her hand and a part of the arm are
hanging down, exposed to view beneath the sheet.
Four figures, with bowed heads, covered with drapery, are represented
as sitting around in mute despair. The idea meant to be conveyed by
the whole group is that of utter desolation and abandonment. All is
over; there is not even heart enough left in the mourners to
straighten the corpse for the burial. The mute marble says, as plainly
as marble can speak, "Let all go; 'tis no matter now; there is no more
use in living - nothing to be done, nothing to be hoped!"
Above this group rises the form of the princess, springing buoyant and
elastic, on angel wings, a smile of triumph and aspiration lighting up
her countenance. Her drapery floats behind her as she rises. Two
angels, one carrying her infant child and the other with clasped hands
of exultant joy, are rising with her, in serene and solemn triumph.
Now, I simply put it to you, or to any one who can judge of poetry, if
this is not a poetical conception. I ask any one who has a heart, if
there is not pathos in it. Is there not a high poetic merit in the
mere conception of these two scenes, thus presented? And had we seen
it rudely chipped and chiselled out by some artist of the middle ages,
whose hand had not yet been practised to do justice to his
conceptions, should we not have said this sculptor had a glorious
thought within him? But the chiselling of this piece is not unworthy
the conception. Nothing can be more exquisite than the turn of the
head, neck, and shoulders; nothing more finely wrought than the
triumphant smile of the angel princess; nothing could be more artistic
than the representation of death in all its hopelessness, in the lower
figure. The poor, dead hand, that shows itself beneath the sheet, has
an unutterable pathos and beauty in it. As to the working of the
drapery, - an inferior consideration, of course, - I see no reason why
it should not compare advantageously with any in the British Museum.
Well, you will ask, why are you going on in this argumentative style?
Who doubts you? Let me tell you, then, a little fragment of my
experience. We saw this group of statuary the last thing before
dinner, after a most fatiguing forenoon of sightseeing, when we were
both tired and hungry, - a most unpropitious time, certainly, - and yet
it enchanted our whole company; what is more, it made us all cry - a
fact of which I am not ashamed, yet. But, only the next day, when I
was expressing my admiration to an artist, who is one of the
authorities, and knows all that is proper to be admired, I was met
with, -
"O, you have seen that, have you?
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