This Seems To Imply A Moral As Well As A
Physical Deterioration.
"They are growing smaller and smaller in stature,"
said the gentleman who made this quotation, "and it is difficult to find
among them men who are of the proper height to serve as soldiers.
The
principal cause no doubt is in the prevailing licentiousness. Among that
class who make the greater part of the population of Paris, the women of
the finest persons rarely become mothers." Whatever may be the cause, I
witnessed a remarkable example of the smallness of the Parisian stature on
the day of my arrival, which was the last of the three days kept in memory
of the revolution of July. I went immediately to the Champs Elysees, to
see the people engaged in their amusements. Some twenty boys, not fully
grown, as it seemed to me at first, were dancing and capering with great
agility, to the music of an instrument. Looking at them nearer, I saw that
those who had seemed to me boys of fourteen or fifteen, were mature young
men, some of them with very fierce mustaches.
Since my arrival I have seen the picture which Vanderlyn is painting for
the Rotunda at Washington. It represents the Landing of Columbus on the
shores of the New World. The great discoverer, accompanied by his
lieutenant and others, is represented as taking possession of the newly
found country. Some of the crew are seen scrambling for what they imagine
to be gold dust in the sands of the shore, and at a little distance among
the trees are the naked natives, in attitudes of wonder and worship. The
grouping is happy, the expression and action skillfully varied - the
coloring, so far as I could judge in the present state of the picture,
agreeable. "Eight or ten weeks hard work," said the artist, "will complete
it." It is Vanderlyn's intention to finish it, and take it to the United
States in the course of the autumn.
Letter XXVIII.
A Journey through The Netherlands.
Arnheim, Guelderland, _August_ 19, 1848.
After writing my last I was early asleep, that I might set out early the
next morning in the diligence for Brussels. This I did, and passing
through Compeigne, where Joan of Arc was made prisoner - a town lying in
the midst of extensive forests, with here and there a noble group of
trees; and through Noyon, where Calvin was born, and in the old Gothic
church of which he doubtless worshiped; and through Cambray, where Fenelon
lived; and through fields of grain and poppy and clover, where women were
at work, reaping the wheat, or mowing and stacking the ripe poppies, or
digging with spades in their wet clothes, for it had rained every day but
one during the thirteen we were in France, we arrived in the afternoon of
the second day at the French frontier. From this a railway took us in a
few hours to Brussels. Imagine a rather clean-looking city, of large
light-colored buildings mostly covered with stucco, situated on an
irregular declivity, with a shady park in the highest part surrounded by
palaces, and a little lower down a fine old Gothic cathedral, and still
lower down, the old Town Hall, also of Gothic architecture, and scarcely
less venerable, standing in a noble paved square, around which are white
and stately edifices, built in the era of the Spanish dominion; - imagine
handsome shops and a good-looking people, with a liberal sprinkling of
priests, in their long-skirted garments, and throw in the usual proportion
of dirt and misery, and mendicancy, in the corners and by-places, and you
have Brussels before you.
It still rained, but we got a tilbury and drove out to see the
battle-ground of Waterloo. It was a dreary drive beside the wood of
Soignes and through a part of it, - that melancholy-looking forest of
tall-stemmed beeches - beech, beech, nothing but beech - and through the
Walloon villages - Waterloo is one of them - and through fields where wet
women were at work, and over roads where dirty children by dozens were
dabbling like ducks in the puddles. At last we stopped at the village of
Mont St. Jean, whence we walked through the slippery mud to the mound
erected in the midst of the battle-field, and climbed to its top,
overlooking a country of gentle declivities and hollows. Here the various
positions of the French and allied armies during the battle which decided
the fate of an empire, were pointed out to us by a young Walloon who sold
wine and drams in a shed beside the monument. The two races which make up
the population of Belgium are still remarkably distinct, notwithstanding
the centuries which have elapsed since they occupied the same country
together. The Flemings of Teutonic origin, keep their blue eyes and fair
hair, and their ancient language - the same nearly as the Dutch of the
sixteenth century. The Walloons, a Celtic race, or Celtic mixed with
Roman, are still known by their dark hair and black eyes, and speak a
dialect derived from the Latin, resembling that of some of the French
provinces. Both languages are uncultivated, and the French has been
adopted as the language of commerce and literature in Belgium.
If you would see a city wholly Flemish in its character, you should visit
Antwerp, to which the railway takes you in an hour and a half. The
population here is almost without Walloon intermixture, and there is
little to remind you of what you have seen in France, except the French
books in the booksellers' windows. The arts themselves have a character of
their own which never came across the Alps. The churches, the interior of
which is always carefully kept fresh with paint and gilding, are crowded
with statues in wood, carved with wonderful skill and spirit by Flemish
artists, in centuries gone by - oaken saints looking down from pedestals,
and Adam and Eve in the remorse of their first transgression supporting,
by the help of the tree of knowledge and the serpent, a curiously wrought
pulpit.
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