It Seems As Though Only Upon A
Picture As Large As The Side Of A Parlor Could His Exuberant Genius
Find Scope Fully To Lay Itself Out.
When I met II.
At last - after finishing the survey - her cheek was
flushed, and her eye seemed to swim. "Well, H.," said I, "have you
drank deep enough this time?"
"Yes," said she, "I have been _satisfied_, for the first time."
Wednesday, June 8. A day on foot in Paris. Surrendered H. to the care
of our fair hostess. Attempted to hire a boat, at one of the great
bathing establishments, for a pull on the Seine. Why not on the Seine,
as well as on the Thames? But the old Triton demurred. The tide
_marched_ too strong - "_Il marche trop fort._" Onward, then,
along the quays; visiting the curious old book stalls, picture stands,
and flower markets. Lean over the parapet, and gaze upon this modern
Euphrates, rushing between solid walls of masonry through the heart of
another Babylon. The river is the only thing not old. These waters are
as turbid, tumultuous, unbridled, as when forests covered all these
banks - fit symbol of peoples and nations in their mad career,
generation after generation. Institutions, like hewn granite, may wall
them in, and vast arches span their flow, and hierarchies domineer
over the tide; but the scorning waters burst into life unchangeable,
and sweep impetuous through the heart of Vanity Fair, and dash out
again into the future, the same grand, ungovernable Euphrates stream.
I do not wonder Egypt adored her Nile, and Rome her Tiber. Surely, the
life artery of Paris is this Seine beneath my feet! And there is no
scene like this, as I gaze upward and downward, comprehending, in a
glance, the immense panorama of art and architecture - life, motion,
enterprise, pleasure, pomp, and power. Beautiful Paris! What city in
the world can compare with thee?
And is it not chiefly because, either by accident or by instinctive
good taste, her treasures of beauty and art are so disposed along the
Seine as to be visible at a glance to the best effect? As the instinct
of the true Parisienne teaches her the mystery of setting off the
graces of her person by the fascinations of dress, so the instinct of
the nation to set off the city by the fascinations of architecture and
embellishment. Hence a chief superiority of Paris to London. The Seine
is straight, and its banks are laid out in broad terraces on either
side, called _quais,_ lined with her stateliest palaces and
gardens. The Thames forms an elbow, and is enveloped in dense smoke
and fog. London lowers; the Seine sparkles; London shuts down upon the
Thames, and there is no point of view for the whole river panorama.
Paris rises amphitheatrically, on either side the Seine, and the eye
from the Pont d'Austerlitz seems to fly through the immense reach like
an arrow, casting its shadow on every thing of beauty or grandeur
Paris possesses.
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