Part 19 (1/2)
Again I started up, fancying that once more he had not dared to extract the tooth, but it was gone. What is worth, noticing is the mental translation I made of his words, which, my ear must have caught, for my companion tells me he said, ”_C'est le moment_,” a phrase of just as many syllables, but conveying just the opposite sense.
Ah! I how I wished then, that you had settled, there in the United States, who really brought this means of evading a portion of the misery of life into use. But as it was, I remained at a loss whom to apostrophize with my benedictions, whether Dr. Jackson, Morton, or Wells, and somebody thus was robbed of his clue;--neither does Europe know to whom to address her medals.
However, there is no evading the heavier part of these miseries. You avoid the moment of suffering, and escape the effort of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up your courage for one of these moments, but not the jar to the whole system. I found the effect of having taken the ether bad for me. I seemed to taste it all the time, and neuralgic pain continued; this lasted three days. For the evening of the third, I had taken a ticket to _Don Giovanni_, and could not bear to give up this opera, which I had always been longing to hear; still I was in much suffering, and, as it was the sixth day I had been so, much weakened. However, I went, expecting to be obliged to come out; but the music soothed the nerves at once. I hardly suffered at all during the opera; however, I supposed the pain would return as soon as I came out; but no! it left me from that time. Ah! if physicians only understood the influence of the mind over the body, instead of treating, as they so often do, their patients like machines, and according to precedent! But I must pause here for to-day.
LETTER XII.
ADIEU TO PARIS.--ITS SCENES.--THE PROCESSION OF THE FAT OX.--DESt.i.tUTION OF THE POORER CLa.s.sES.--NEED OF A REFORM.--THE DOCTRINES OF FOURIER MAKING PROGRESS.--REVIEW OF FOURIER'S LIFE AND CHARACTER.--THE PARISIAN PRESS ON THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.--GUIZOT'S POLICY.--NAPOLEON.--THE Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS OF ROUSSEAU IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--HIS CHARACTER.--SPEECH OF M. BERRYER IN THE CHAMBER.--AMERICAN AND FRENCH ORATORY.--THE AFFAIR OF CRACOW.--DULL SPEAKERS IN THE CHAMBER.--FRENCH VIVACITY.--AMUSING SCENE.--GUIZOT SPEAKING.--INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE OF BOOKS.--THE EVENING SCHOOL OF THE _FReRES CHRETIENS_.--THE GREAT GOOD ACCOMPLISHED BY THEM.--SUGGESTIONS FOR THE LIKE IN AMERICA.--THE INSt.i.tUTION OF THE DEACONESSES.--THE NEW YORK ”HOME.”--SCHOOL FOR IDIOTS NEAR PARIS.--THE RECLAMATION OF IDIOTS.
I bade adieu to Paris on the 25th of February, just as we had had one fine day. It was the only one of really delightful weather, from morning till night, that I had to enjoy all the while I was at Paris, from the 13th of November till the 25th of February. Let no one abuse our climate; even in winter it is delightful, compared to the Parisian winter of mud and mist.
This one day brought out the Parisian world in its gayest colors. I never saw anything more animated or prettier, of the kind, than the promenade that day in the _Champs Elysees_. Such crowds of gay equipages, with _cavaliers_ and their _amazons_ flying through their midst on handsome and swift horses! On the promenade, what groups of pa.s.sably pretty ladies, with excessively pretty bonnets, announcing in their hues of light green, peach-blossom, and primrose the approach of spring, and charming children, for French children are charming! I cannot speak with equal approbation of the files of men sauntering arm in arm. One sees few fine-looking men in Paris: the air, half-military, half-dandy, of self-esteem and _savoir-faire_, is not particularly interesting; nor are the gla.s.sy stare and fumes of bad cigars exactly what one most desires to encounter, when the heart is opened by the breath of spring zephyrs and the hope of buds and blossoms.
But a French crowd is always gay, full of quick turns and drolleries; most amusing when most petulant, it represents what is so agreeable in the character of the nation. We have now seen it on two good occasions, the festivities of the new year, and just after we came was the procession of the _Fat Ox_, described, if I mistake not, by Eugene Sue. An immense crowd thronged the streets this year to see it, but few figures and little invention followed the emblem of plenty; indeed, few among the people could have had the heart for such a sham, knowing how the poorer cla.s.ses have suffered from hunger this winter.
All signs of this are kept out of sight in Paris. A pamphlet, called ”The Voice of Famine,” stating facts, though in the tone of vulgar and exaggerated declamation, unhappily common to productions on the radical side, was suppressed almost as soon as published; but the fact cannot be suppressed, that the people in the provinces have suffered most terribly amid the vaunted prosperity of France.
While Louis Philippe lives, the gases, compressed by his strong grasp, may not burst up to light; but the need of some radical measures of reform is not less strongly felt in France than elsewhere, and the time will come before long when such will be imperatively demanded.
The doctrines of Fourier are making considerable progress, and wherever they spread, the necessity of some practical application of the precepts of Christ, in lieu of the mummeries of a worn-out ritual, cannot fail to be felt. The more I see of the terrible ills which infest the body politic of Europe, the more indignation I feel at the selfishness or stupidity of those in my own country who oppose an examination of these subjects,--such as is animated by the hope of prevention. The mind of Fourier was, in many respects, uncongenial to mine. Educated in an age of gross materialism, he was tainted by its faults. In attempts to reorganize society, he commits the error of making soul the result of health of body, instead of body the clothing of soul; but his heart was that of a genuine lover of his kind, of a philanthropist in the sense of Jesus,--his views were large and n.o.ble.
His life was one of devout study on these subjects, and I should pity the person who, after the briefest sojourn in Manchester and Lyons,--the most superficial acquaintance with the population of London and Paris,--could seek to hinder a study of his thoughts, or be wanting in reverence for his purposes. But always, always, the unthinking mob has found stones on the highway to throw at the prophets.
Amid so many great causes for thought and anxiety, how childish has seemed the endless gossip of the Parisian press on the subject of the Spanish marriage,--how melancholy the flimsy falsehoods of M.
Guizot,--more melancholy the avowal so navely made, amid those falsehoods, that to his mind expediency is the best policy! This is the policy, said he, that has made France so prosperous. Indeed, the success is correspondent with the means, though in quite another sense than that he meant.
I went to the _Hotel des Invalides_, supposing I should be admitted to the spot where repose the ashes of Napoleon, for though I love not pilgrimages to sepulchres, and prefer paying my homage to the living spirit rather than to the dust it once animated, I should have liked to muse a moment beside his urn; but as yet the visitor is not admitted there. In the library, however, one sees the picture of Napoleon crossing the Alps, opposite to that of the present King of the French. Just as they are, these should serve as frontispieces to two chapters of history. In the first, the seed was sown in a field of blood indeed, yet was it the seed of all that is vital in the present period. By Napoleon the career was really laid open to talent, and all that is really great in France now consists in the possibility that talent finds of struggling to the light.
Paris is a great intellectual centre, and there is a Chamber of Deputies to represent the people, very different from the poor, limited a.s.sembly politically so called. Their tribune is that of literature, and one needs not to beg tickets to mingle with the audience. To the actually so-called Chamber of Deputies I was indebted for two pleasures. First and greatest, a sight of the ma.n.u.scripts of Rousseau treasured in their Library. I saw them and touched them,--those ma.n.u.scripts just as he has celebrated them, written on the fine white paper, tied with ribbon. Yellow and faded age has made them, yet at their touch I seemed to feel the fire of youth, immortally glowing, more and more expansive, with which his soul has pervaded this century. He was the precursor of all we most prize.
True, his blood was mixed with madness, and the course of his actual life made some detours through villanous places, but his spirit was intimate with the fundamental truths of human nature, and fraught with prophecy. There is none who has given birth to more life for this age; his gifts are yet untold; they are too present with us; but he who thinks really must often think with Rousseau, and learn of him even more and more: such is the method of genius, to ripen fruit for the crowd of those rays of whose heat they complain.
The second pleasure was in the speech of M. Berryer, when the Chamber was discussing the Address to the King. Those of Thiers and Guizot had been, so far, more interesting, as they stood for more that was important; but M. Berryer is the most eloquent speaker of the House.
His oratory is, indeed, very good; not logical, but plausible, full and rapid, with occasional bursts of flame and showers of sparks, though indeed no stone of size and weight enough to crush any man was thrown out of the crater. Although the oratory of our country is very inferior to what might be expected from the perfect freedom and powerful motive for development of genius in this province, it presents several examples of persons superior in both force and scope, and equal in polish, to M. Berryer.
Nothing can be more pitiful than the manner in which the infamous affair of Cracow is treated on all hands. There is not even the affectation of n.o.ble feeling about it. La Mennais and his coadjutors published in _La Reforme_ an honorable and manly protest, which the public rushed to devour the moment it was out of the press;--and no wonder! for it was the only crumb of comfort offered to those who have the n.o.bleness to hope that the confederation of nations may yet be conducted on the basis of divine justice and human right. Most men who touched the subject apparently weary of feigning, appeared in their genuine colors of the calmest, most complacent selfishness. As described by Korner in the prayer of such a man:--
”O G.o.d, save me, My wife, child, and hearth, Then my harvest also; Then will I bless thee, Though thy lightning scorch to blackness All the rest of human kind.”
A sentiment which finds its paraphrase in the following vulgate of our land:--
”O Lord, save me, My wife, child, and brother Sammy, Us four, _and no more_.”
The latter clause, indeed, is not quite frankly avowed as yet by politicians.
It is very amusing to be in the Chamber of Deputies when some dull person is speaking. The French have a truly Greek vivacity; they cannot endure to be bored. Though their conduct is not very dignified, I should like a corps of the same kind of sharp-shooters in our legislative a.s.semblies when honorable gentlemen are addressing their const.i.tuents and not the a.s.sembly, repeating in lengthy, windy, clumsy paragraphs what has been the truism of the newspaper press for months previous, wickedly wasting the time that was given us to learn something for ourselves, and help our fellow-creatures. In the French Chamber, if a man who has nothing to say ascends the tribune, the audience-room is filled with the noise as of myriad beehives; the President rises on his feet, and pa.s.ses the whole time of the speech in taking the most violent exercise, stretching himself to look imposing, ringing his bell every two minutes, shouting to the representatives of the nation to be decorous and attentive. In vain: the more he rings, the more they won't be still. I saw an orator in this situation, fighting against the desires of the audience, as only a Frenchman could,--certainly a man of any other nation would have died of embarra.s.sment rather,--screaming out his sentences, stretching out both arms with an air of injured dignity, panting, growing red in the face; but the hubbub of voices never stopped an instant. At last he pretended to be exhausted, stopped, and took out his snuff-box.
Instantly there was a calm. He seized the occasion, and shouted out a sentence; but it was the only one he was able to make heard. They were not to be trapped so a second time. When any one is speaking that commands interest, as Berryer did, the effect of this vivacity is very pleasing, the murmur of feeling that rushes over the a.s.sembly is so quick and electric,--light, too, as the ripple on the lake. I heard Guizot speak one day for a short time. His manner is very deficient in dignity,--has not even the dignity of station; you see the man of cultivated intellect, but without inward strength; nor is even his panoply of proof.
I saw in the Library of the Deputies some books intended to be sent to our country through M. Vattemare. The French have shown great readiness and generosity with regard to his project, and I earnestly hope that our country, if it accept these tokens of good-will, will show both energy and judgment in making a return. I do not speak from myself alone, but from others whose opinion is ent.i.tled to the highest respect, when I say it is not by sending a great quant.i.ty of doc.u.ments of merely local interest, that would be esteemed lumber in our garrets at home, that you pay respect to a nation able to look beyond, the binding of a book. If anything is to be sent, let persons of ability be deputed to make a selection honorable to us and of value to the French. They would like doc.u.ments from our Congress,--what is important as to commerce and manufactures; they would also like much what can throw light on the history and character of our aborigines.
This project of international exchange could not be carried on to any permanent advantage without accredited agents on either side, but in its present shape it wears an aspect of good feeling that is valuable, and may give a very desirable impulse to thought and knowledge.