"Ah," said Clara, "the last thing my little darling looked at was the
pictures in Uncle Tom; when she came to the death of Eva, she said,
'Now I am weary, I will go to sleep;' and so closed her eyes, and
never opened them more."
Clara said she had met the Key in Turin and Milan. The Cabin is made a
school reading book in Sardinia, for those who wish to learn English,
with explanatory notes in Italian. The feeling here on the continent
for the slave is no less earnest than in England and Scotland. I have
received most beautiful and feeling letters from many Christians of
Switzerland, which I will show you.
I am grieved to say, that there are American propagandists of slavery
here, who seem to feel it incumbent on them to recognize this hideous
excrescence as a national peculiarity, and to consider any reflection
upon it, on the part of the liberty-loving Swiss, as an insult to the
American nation. The sophisms by which slaveholding has been justified
from the Bible have left their slimy track even here. Alas! is it thus
America fulfils her high destiny? Must she send missionaries abroad to
preach despotism?
Walking the other evening with M. Fazy, who is, of course, French in
education, we talked of our English literature. He. had Hamlet in
French - just think of it. One never feels the national difference so
much as in thinking of Shakspeare in French! Madame de Stael says of
translation, that music written for one instrument cannot be played
upon another. I asked if he had read Milton.
"Yes."
"And how did you like him?"
"0," with a kind of shiver, "he is so cold!"
Now, I felt that the delicate probe of the French mind had dissected
out a shade of feeling of which I had often been conscious. There is a
coldness about all the luscious exuberance of Milton, like the wind
that blows from, the glaciers across these flowery valleys. How serene
his angels in their adamantine virtue! yet what sinning, suffering
soul could find sympathy in them? The utter want of sympathy for the
fallen angels, in the whole celestial circle, is shocking. Satan is
the only one who weeps.
"For millions of spirits for his fault amerced,
And from eternal splendors flung."
God does not care, nor his angels. Ah, quite otherwise is God revealed
in Him who wept over Jerusalem, and is touched with the feeling of our
infirmities.
I went with Mrs. Fazy the other night to call on Mrs. C.'s friend,
Pastor C. They were so affectionate, so full of beautiful kindness!
The French language sounds sweetly as a language of affection and
sympathy: with all its tart vivacity, it has a richness in the gentler
world of feeling. Then, in the evening, I was with a little circle of
friends at the house of the sister of Merle d'Aubigne, and they prayed
and sang together. It was beautiful. The hymn was one on the following
of Jesus, similar to that German one of old Godfrey Arnold, which is
your favorite. These Christians speak with deep sorrow of our slavery;
it grieves, it distresses them, for the American church has been to
them a beloved object. They have leaned towards it as a vine inclines
towards a vigorous elm. To them it looks incomprehensible that such a
thing could gain strength in a free Christian republic.
I feel really sorry that I have had to withdraw so much from proffered
kindness here, and to seem unwilling to meet feeling; but so it has
been. Yet, to me, apparently so cold, many of these kind Genevese have
shown most considerate attention. Fruit and flowers have been sent in
anonymously; and one gentleman offered to place his garden at my
disposal for walks, adding that, if I wished to be entirely private,
neither he nor his family would walk there. This, I thought, was too
much kindness.
One social custom here is new to me. The husband, by marriage, takes
the wife's name. Thus M. Fazy, our host, is known as M. Fazy Meyer -
Meyer being his wife's name - a thing which at first perplexed me. I
was often much puzzled about names, owing to this circumstance.
From the conversation I hear I should think that democracy was not
entirely absolute in Switzerland. I hear much about _patrician_
families, particularly at Berne, and these are said to be quite
exclusive; yet that the old Swiss fire still burns in Switzerland, I
see many indications.
The other day I visited Beautte's celebrated watch and jewelry store,
and saw all the process of making watches, from the time the case is
cut from a sheet of gold, on through the enamelling, engraving, and
finishing. Enamel is metallic paint, burned on in a furnace. Many
women are employed in painting the designs. The workmen looked
intelligent and thoughtful, like men who can both think and do. Some
glimpses showed their sympathy with republicanism - as one should see
fire through a closed door.
I have had full reason to observe that difference between Protestant
and Catholic cantons on which Horace Greeley commented while here.
They are as different as our slave and free states, and in the same
ways. Geneva seems like New England - the country around is well
cultivated, and speaks of thrift. But, still, I find no land, however
beautiful, that can compare with home - Andover Hill, with its arched
elms, its blue distance pointing with spires, its Merrimac crowned
with labor palaces, and, above all, an old stone house, brown and
queer, &c. Good by.
JOURNAL - (CONTINUED.)
Thursday, July 14. Spent a social evening at Mrs. La V.'s, on the lake
shore.
