Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands - Volume 2 - By Harriet Beecher Stowe




































































































 -  The queen and Prince Albert
have taken much interest in the planning and arranging of model houses
for the laboring - Page 25
Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands - Volume 2 - By Harriet Beecher Stowe - Page 25 of 233 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

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?

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 25 of 233
Words from 12571 to 13074 of 120793


Previous 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 210 220 230 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online