Her Translation Of Uncle Tom Has To Me All The Merit And All
The Interest Of An Original Composition.
In perusing it I enjoy the
pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its
ever having been mine.
In the evening Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall called.
They are admirably matched - he artist, she author. The one writes
stories, the other illustrates them. Madame M. also called. English by
birth, she is a true _Parisienne,_ or, rather, seems to have both
minds, as she speaks both languages, perfectly. Her husband being a
learned Oriental scholar, she, like some other women enjoying similar
privileges, has picked up a deal of information, which she tosses
about in conversation, in a gay, piquant manner, much as a kitten
plays with a pin ball.
Madame remembers Mesdames Recamier and De Stael, and told me several
funny anecdotes of the former. Madame R., she said, was always
coquetting with her own funeral; conversed with different artists on
the arrangements of its details, and tempting now one, now another,
with the brilliant hope of the "composition" of the scene. Madame M.
offered me her services as _cicerone_ to Paris, and so to-day out
we went - first to the Pantheon, of which, in her gay and piquant
style, she gave me the history.
Begun first in the time of Louis XVI. as a church, in the revolution
its destination was altered, and it was to be a temple to the manes of
great men, and accordingly Rousseau, Voltaire, and many more are
buried here. Well, after the revolution, the Bourbons said it should
not be a temple for great men, it should be a church. The next popular
upset tipped it back to the great men again; and it staid under their
jurisdiction until Louis Napoleon, who is very pious, restored it to
the church. It is not possible to say how much further this very
characteristic rivalry between great men and their Creator is going to
extend. All I have to say is, that I should not think the church much
of an acquisition to either party. He that sitteth in the heavens must
laugh sometimes at what man calls worship. This Pantheon is, as one
might suppose from its history, a hybrid between a church and a
theatre, and of course good for neither - purposeless and aimless. The
Madeleine is another of these hybrid churches, begun by D'Ivry as a
church, completed as a temple to victory by Napoleon, and on second
thoughts, re-dedicated to God.
After strolling about a while, the sexton, or some official of the
church, asked us if we did not want to go down into the vaults below.
As a large party seemed to be going to do the same, I said, "0, yes,
by all means; let us see it out." Our guide, with his cocked hat and
lantern, walked ahead, apparently in a now of excellent spirits. These
caverns and tombs appeared to be his particular forte, and he
magnified his office in showing them.
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