Said One Of Our Fair
Entertainers, "When I First Began I Would Think Of Some Sentence Till
I Could Say It Without Stopping, And Courageously Deliver Myself To
Some Guest Or Acquaintance." But It Was Like Pulling The String Of A
Shower Bath.
Delighted at my correct sentence, and supposing me _au
fait_, they poured upon me such a deluge of French that I held my
breath in dismay.
Considering, however, that nothing is to be gained
by half-way measures, I resolved upon a desperate game. Launching in,
I talked away right and left, up hill and down, - jumping over genders,
cases, nouns, and adjectives, floundering through swamps and morasses,
in a perfect steeple chase of words. Thanks to the proverbial
politeness of my friends, I came off covered with glory; the more
mistakes I made the more complacent they grew.
Nothing can surpass the ease, facility, and genial freedom of these
_soirees_. Conceive of our excellent professor of Arabic and
Sanscrit, Count M. fairly cornered by three wicked fairies, and
laughing at their stories and swift witticisms till the tears roll
down his cheeks. Behold yonder tall and scarred veteran, an old
soldier of Napoleon, capitulating now before the witchery of genius
and wit. Here the noble Russian exile forgets his sorrows in those
smiles that, unlike the aurora, warm while they dazzle. And our
celebrated composer is discomposed easily by alert and nimble-footed
mischief. And our professor of Greek and Hebrew roots is rooted to the
ground with astonishment at finding himself put through all the moods
and tenses of fun in a twinkling. Ah, culpable sirens, if the pangs ye
have inflicted were reckoned up unto you, - the heart aches and side
aches, - how could ye repose o' nights?
Saturday, June 11. Versailles! When I have written that one word I
have said all. I ought to stop. Description is out of the question.
Describe nine miles of painting! Describe visions of splendor and
gorgeousness that cannot be examined in months! Suffice it to say that
we walked from hall to hall until there was no more soul left within
us. Then, late in the afternoon we drove away, about three miles, to
the villa of M. Belloc, _directeur de l'Ecole Imperials de
Dessein_. Madame Belloc has produced, assisted by her friend,
Mademoiselle Montgolfier, the best French translation of Uncle Tom's
Cabin. At this little family party we enjoyed ourselves exceedingly,
in the heart of genuine domestic life. Two beautiful married daughters
were there, with their husbands, and the household seemed complete.
Madame B. speaks English well; and thus, with our limited French, we
got on delightfully together. I soon discovered that I had been
sinning against all law in admiring any thing at Versailles. They were
all bad paintings. There might be one or two good paintings at the
Luxembourg, and one or two good modern paintings at the Louvre - the
Meduse, by Gericault, for example: (How I rejoiced that I had admired
it!) But all the rest of the modern paintings M. Belloc declared, with
an inimitable shrug, are poor paintings. There is nothing safely
admirable, I find, but the old masters. All those battles of all
famous French generals, from Charles Hartel to Napoleon, and the
battles in Algiers, by Horace Yernet, are wholly to be snuffed at. In
painting, as in theology, age is the criterion of merit. Yet Vernet's
paintings, though decried by M. le Directeur, I admired, and told him
so. Said I, in French as lawless as the sentiment, "Monsieur, I do not
know the rules of painting, nor whether the picture is according to
them or not; I only know that I like it."
But who shall describe the social charms of our dinner? All wedged
together, as we were, in the snuggest little pigeon hole of a dining
room, pretty little chattering children and all, whom papa held upon
his knee and fed with bonbons, all the while impressing upon them the
absolute necessity of their leaving the table! There the salad was
mixed by acclamation, each member of the party adding a word of
advice, and each, gayly laughing at the advice of the other. There a
gay, red lobster was pulled in pieces among us, with infinite gout;
and Madame Belloc pathetically expressed her fears that we did not
like French cooking. She might have saved herself the trouble; for we
take to it as naturally as ducks take to the water. And then, when we
returned to the parlor, we resolved ourselves into a committee of the
whole on coffee, which was concocted in a trim little hydrostatic
engine of latest modern invention, before the faces of all. And so we
right merrily spent the evening. H. discussed poetry and art with our
kind hosts to her heart's content, and at a late hour we drove to the
railroad, and returned to Paris.
LETTER XXXI.
MY DEAR L.: -
At last I have come into dreamland; into the lotus-eater's paradise;
into the land where it is always afternoon. I am released from care; I
am unknown, unknowing; I live in a house whose arrangements seem to me
strange, old, and dreamy. In the heart of a great city I am as still
as if in a convent; in the burning heats of summer our rooms are
shadowy and cool as a cave. My time is all my own. I may at will lie
on a sofa, and dreamily watch the play of the leaves and flowers, in
the little garden into which my room opens; or I may go into the
parlor adjoining, whence I hear the quick voices of my beautiful and
vivacious young friends. You ought to see these girls. Emma might look
like a Madonna, were it not for her wicked wit; and as to Anna and
Lizzie, as they glance by me, now and then, I seem to think them a
kind of sprite, or elf, made to inhabit shady old houses, just as
twinkling harebells grow in old castles; and then the gracious mamma,
who speaks French, or English, like a stream of silver - is she not,
after all, the fairest of any of them?
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