Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 70, No. 433, November 1851
'Mein schónes Fräulein, darf ich wagen,
Arm und Geleite anzutragen?'
are thus rendered in M. Carré's French: Oserai-je, Mademoiselle, vous offrir mon bras, pour vous conduire jusqu'à chez vous? For Gretchen's exquisitely graceful and saucy reply —
'Bin weder Fräulein, weder schön,
Kann ungeleitet nach Hause gehn!'
which so completely captivates Goethe's Faust, this Frenchman has been able to discover no better equivalent than, 'Pardon, Monsieur, je puis fort bien rentrer seule à la maison' – an answer too flat and insipid even for a Paris Lorette of the present day." Mr Stahr was tolerably well pleased with the bearing of the audience who had come to partake of this pitiable French hash. They may have felt a natural curiosity to know something about the Faust and Margaret whose acquaintance they had made in the print-shop windows, but their sympathy with the piece went no farther. Even the Rose of the Gymnase, the Rose Chéri, so cherished by the Parisian public, failed to extract applause as M. Carré's Margaret. "It is very romantic," Mr Stahr heard some of his neighbours remark, "but it is a little too German; Monsieur Goethe's poetry does not suit the French taste." Poor public! Poor Goethe! introduced to each other under such dismal auspices. It must have been a relief to Mr Stahr to quit this miserable travesty, and turn to the native drama; although even by this, judging from a letter on theatrical subjects addressed to his friend Julius Mosen, he does not appear to have been much gratified. "I know not," he says, "whether my taste for theatres is gone by, or what is the reason, but as yet I have been scarcely half-a-dozen times to the play. Beginning with the Théatre Français, I might place as a motto at the beginning of this letter the words of Courier: 'The fact is that the Théatre Français, and all the old theatres of Paris, the Opera included, are excessively wearisome.' To be sure, Rachel is not here. She is gathering laurels in Germany; and when I complained confidentially to an acquaintance that the tragedy of the Théatre Français did not move me, he endeavoured to console me by telling me of Madlle. Rachel, and of her speedy return to Paris. She stands alone, incomparable, a phenomenon. But the phenomenon is absent; and the Paris stage is consequently darkened. It is always a bad sign for the condition of an art when it thus entirely depends upon one of its professors." Mr Stahr was better pleased with the lively performances at the four Vaudeville theatres, and gives an amusing analysis of La Fille bien gardée, the little one-act piece which, for many weeks of last year, nightly drew crowds to the Théatre Montansier. It belongs to a class of dramatic trifles in which French playwrights and actors are perfect and inimitable; trifles which only grow upon French soil, and will not bear transplanting.
After his savage attacks upon Louis Philippe and the French President, it would be quite out of character if Mr Stahr – who evidently bears monarchy a grudge, and will tolerate no government that can possibly be identified with the cause of order – had not a fling at Henri Cinq. Perhaps it is because he deems the Legitimist interest less formidable to his views than the Orleanist or Buonapartist, that he adopts a different mode of attack, and exchanges ferocity for raillery. The German tongue being but indifferently adapted to the lighter manner of warfare, he glides into French, in which language he writes nearly a whole chapter. Stepping one day into a hair-dresser's rooms, he was so fortunate as to come under the hands of the master of the establishment, an eager politician and a red-hot Legitimist, voluble and communicative as only a Frenchman and a barber can be. With the very first clip of the scissors an animated conversation began, which Mr Stahr has set down so far as his memory serves him, although he much doubts that his pen has conveyed all the minuter comical touches of the dialogue. This began with the usual exordium of Frenchmen of all classes since the revolution – "You, Monsieur," said the man of wigs, "are a foreigner, and consequently uninterested in our quarrels. Tell me what you think of our situation?"
"I think," replied I, "that the President will never willingly resign power."
"But, Monsieur, what is to be hoped for from such an imbécile?"
"I do not say he will succeed; I say he will make the attempt."
"And I say that he will fail. Henry the Fifth for me! à la bonne heure! There is a man for you."
"What do you know about him? You are very anxious, then, to make tonsures?"
"What do I know about him? But, Monsieur, I have seen him, I am acquainted with him, I have spoken to him, and I tell you he is a charming man!"
"Where did you see him?"
"Did I not go to see him at Wiesbaden! Sir, there were thirty-nine of us – workmen, we called ourselves, though we were all masters – who went of our own accord to pay our respects to Henry V. The thing was briskly done, I beg you to believe. I spoke to him as I speak to you, sir, at this moment. At first I was received by M. de la Ferronnaye, his aide-de-camp. 'Good morning, Monsieur R.,' said he, 'how do you do?' – 'Very well, sir, I thank you,' answered I; and far from making me wait whole hours at the door, like those republicans of the Veille, he made me sit down beside him on the sofa, as affable as could be."
Mr Stahr inquired of the worthy coiffeur what had been the motive of his journey to Wiesbaden, which he seemed to look upon as a sort of North Pole expedition, and of whose fatigues and privations he drew a vivid picture. He wished to judge for himself, he said; to see whether the rightful heir to the throne was as ill-favoured as his enemies represented him to be. He found him, on the contrary, full of amiable qualities. He was a little lame, but his smile was irresistible. Warming with his subject, the enthusiastic Henriquinquist asked his customer's permission to relate all the particulars of his reception at Wiesbaden. This was just what Mr Stahr wished, and he duly encouraged his interlocutor.
"On our arrival," continued the hairdresser, "we presented ourselves to the aide-de-camp, as I have had the honour of informing you. He took down our names, and gave us each a number of rotation, according to which we were arranged in the afternoon at the general audience. We were formed in three ranks. The prince was informed beforehand of the name and trade of each number, so that he was able to address a few well-chosen words to everybody. When we were all drawn up in order, he came in, placed himself in the midst of us, at a few paces distance, and addressed us. 'Good day to you, my friends,' he said: 'believe me when I say that I am most sensible of the mark of sympathy you have so spontaneously given me, by quitting your families and occupations, and undertaking a journey into a foreign country to see and console me in my exile. Be sure that I will never forget what you have done for me.' Then he said, 'Come nearer, my friends!' We advanced a step. 'Nearer yet, my friends. You come from too far not to come nearer! I hope to see you all at eight o'clock to-night!'"
The hairdresser acted this scene as he related it, addressing himself and Mr Stahr alternately as the prince, by whose mandate to draw a step nearer he was evidently vastly flattered. The professor, immensely amused by the performance, still fancied he saw that the main cause of the fascination which Henry V. had exercised upon his devoted adherent was still undivulged. The sequel showed that he was not mistaken.
"In the evening," continued the coiffeur, "we returned to the Prince's residence; there we partook of refreshments, and the Prince had an amiable word for each and all of us. He talked about the state of affairs in France, and wished to know all our opinions of it. The next day some of us were received in private audience. I was of the number. But as we were numerous, and the Prince was very busy, I could not have much conversation with him. However, he gave me a silver medal, and – 'Mr R.,' said he, 'have you a comfortable bed at your hotel?' 'Monseigneur,' I replied, 'since you deign to ask the question, I am accustomed to sleep between two sheets, and as I do not understand a word of German, I have been unable to make them understand this at my hotel. They put the sheet sometimes over and sometimes under the blanket, but never more than one.' Sir," continued the delighted barber, addressing himself to Mr Stahr, whilst his face beamed with triumph, "that night I had two sheets upon my bed. Could anything be more amiable? Ah, sir, I have seen them from very near, those republicans of the Mountain, those members of the Provisional Government! – what blockheads! what boors! They aspired to command, and in their whole lives scarcely one of them had had as much as a servant at his orders! Sir, it was pitiable to behold."
Mr Stahr observed to the loyal hair-curler that he had seen the persons in question only after they had attained power, and that there are few more amiable people in the world than a pretender, before he has gained his object. He thought it possible that, once at the Tuileries, Henry V. might show himself in a less agreeable light, and trouble himself less about his adherent's bedlinen. The barber's sensible reply did him honour. But barbers, from Don Quixote's day downwards, have been men of good counsel.
"Monsieur," said the coiffeur, "I am not a fool. Do you suppose I shall go and plague him, when he is king? He will have other matters to mind then. I have no pretensions to be made minister or prefect, when there are people who have studied those things all their lives. I am a hairdresser, and I shall remain one. But I want to dress a great deal of hair, and under the republic I dress none."
"But," remarked Mr Stahr, "you dress more under the President."
The barber, however, was no admirer of the President, whom he had also been to see, before his election, and upon the appearance of whose head he passed a most unfavourable opinion. He was sulky, he said, and not conversable. The affairs of France could never go on well under a man who knew not how to talk. Moreover, nothing could suit him but Henry V. He was neither Buonapartist nor Republican. But when things were at the worst, he said, his cry had always been "Vive la France!" "Stick to that!" said a customer who just then stepped in. "France has a tough existence, and will outlive your Henri Dieudonné and all his kin, and the President to boot. And now have the goodness to curl my hair."
Whether fact or invention, this sketch has one truthful point: it gives a sound enough notion of the manner of reasoning of the French shopkeeper and petit bourgeois– a numerous and weighty class, without whose concurrence no state of things can long be permanent in France. With them the whole question, since they first awoke from the shock and folly of the February revolution, has been one of two sheets on their bed and more hair to dress. They will support any government under which they can sleep in peace and drive a good trade. Some of our readers will not have forgotten the sufferings and fate of poor Monsieur Bonardin.4 The disasters and commercial depression of 1848 were a severe but perhaps a wholesome and necessary lesson to many thousands of Frenchmen. Unfortunately, as illustrated in M. Bonardin's case, the lesson was given to many who neither required nor deserved it. Wandering near Versailles, in the pleasant valley of Jouy, Mr Stahr and his companions were invited by a friendly dame, whose acquaintance they had made in the omnibus, to walk into her house and taste her grapes. She perhaps thought the object of the foreigners' pedestrian stroll was to purchase one of the pleasant country houses, surrounded by vineyards and orchards, which there abound; for she took them all through her kitchen-garden and vineyard, and through the copse of chestnuts and hazel bushes, to the fish-pond, and to the pleasant grotto, fitted up as a chapel, and even to the vine-dresser's cottage, from whose windows a lovely view repaid the ascent of the numerous terraces. During this tour of inspection the good lady's tongue was not altogether idle, and a melancholy page out of a Paris citizen's life was laid open to the Germans' eyes. The pleasant little domain they were rambling over was the fruit of five-and-twenty years' toil. "Monsieur Cendrell, a skilful gilder, had bought it a few years before the last revolution, and had laid out considerable sums in building and embellishment. The revolution broke out just as he had given up his business to a friend and assistant. He suffered heavy losses, and was now compelled, in spite of the general depreciation of all landed property, to part with his little estate. It was to be had for only thirty thousand francs, as it stood – garden and vineyard, dwelling-house and garden-cottage, shady copse, and pond well stocked with carp, and right of shooting over I know not how many acres. And how neatly and comfortably arranged was the house, with its bath and billiard-rooms, and its library with portraits of Louis Philippe and the Count de Paris – how cleanly kept was every room from the kitchen to the attics, the gardener's house and the stable included! There was nothing wanting, but – thirty thousand francs to buy it with, and as much more to live there quietly till the end of one's days. We sat full half-an-hour in the cottage on the hill, refreshing ourselves with the sweet grapes that clustered round the windows of the rush-matted room, whilst the kindly Frenchwoman told us her story. It is that of thousands of her class in Paris since the February revolution. Truly it grieved us, both for her sake and our own, that we could not purchase the pleasant country house." This, it will be said, is a common-place incident. There is certainly nothing in it very striking or dramatic. Every day somebody or other suffers losses, and is compelled to reduce his establishment, or to put it down altogether; to sell his last acre of sunny meadow and vineyard, and toil in an obscure lodging for daily bread. But there will be found in the picture something deeply affecting, if we suffer the mind to dwell upon it for a moment, recalling, at the same time, the well-known fact referred to by Mr Stahr, that, since the dreary days of 1848, the fate of the frame-gilder of Jouy has been that of multitudes of others who, like him, had passed a laborious manhood in earning, for their old age, a competency and a right to repose. Thus we obtain a glimpse of a mass of misery, of domestic happiness broken up, if not destroyed, of hallowed associations rudely ruptured – by no fault of the victims, but as a melancholy effect of the obstinacy of a selfish king, and of the rashness and precipitancy of a section of his subjects. But these material evils, deplorable as they are, sink, in our opinion, into insignificance, contrasted with the moral results of the last most ill-omened French revolution. These strike Mr Stahr in a very different light. The early part of the month of October was passed by him at the pretty village of Loges, near Versailles, whither he went to enjoy the beautiful scenery and the mellow autumnal weather, and to escape for a few days from the whirl and rattle of Paris. In the course of his walks, he and his friends not unfrequently visited a little rural inn on the way to Jouy, kept by a corpulent but active dame, who usually favoured them with her society and conversation, whilst they consumed a glass of her country wine and a slice of her fromage de Brie. She read no newspapers – none were received in her modest tavern – and knew but little of the intricacies of her country's dissensions; but she had political notions of her own, and was a warm republican. "We French," said she to Mr Stahr, "soon get tired of governments. They have driven away all that have been chosen since Napoleon; and when they were driven away the consequence always was a terrible shock, affecting all kinds of property. Now, in a republic, there is no one person to drive away with so much clatter, and that is why, for my part, I desire neither a Napoleon nor a king." "Query," exclaims Mr Stahr, "whether the woman is so much in the wrong? For my part, from no French politician have I yet heard a more striking remark with respect to the present circumstances of France. That France has no longer any king, any family ruling her by right divine, that is the chief thing won by the February revolution. The dynastic and monarchical illusion is completely eradicated from the people's mind, never again to take firm root." This prospect, in which the German radical exults, we, as staunch upholders of the monarchical principle, should of course deplore, did we attach any value to his predictions. But, after what has passed, we think anything possible in France, and should be no more astonished at a Bourbon restoration, than at a consolidation of the republic; at Joinville's presidency, than at Louis Napoleon's re-election. It needs more temerity than judgment to hazard a prophecy concerning what will or will not take place in a country which, as far as politics go, has become, above all others, le pays de l'imprévu. The title used to belong to Spain; and in the years of Continental tranquillity that preceded 1848, it was amusement for unoccupied politicians to watch the unforeseen crises constantly occurring in the Peninsula. It is infinitely more exciting to wait upon the caprices of a great and powerful country, whose decisions, however unreasonable, may influence the state of all Europe. They can but be waited upon, they cannot be foretold. Since the memorable 10th of December 1848, this has been our conviction. Before that date there was at least a certain logical sequence in the conduct of the French nation. Although often impossible to approve, it had always been possible to account for it. But the common sense of Europe certainly stood aghast when Louis Napoleon Buonaparte was elected ruler of France, by a majority so great as to attach a sort of ridicule to the petty minorities obtained by men who, in ability and energy, and, as far as two of them were concerned, in respectability, were infinitely his superiors. At that period, Louis Napoleon had never given one proof of talent, or rendered the slightest service, civil or military, to the nation that thus elected him its head. Twice he had violated, by armed and unjustifiable aggression, resulting in bloodshed and disgrace, the laws of his country. Pardoned the first time, on a pledge of future good conduct, he took an early opportunity of forfeiting his word. Notwithstanding the stigma thus incurred, four districts, when universal suffrage became the law of France, elected him their representative to the National Assembly. This may not be worth dwelling upon. There were stranger elections to the Assembly than that, after the February revolution. But when, out of seven millions of voters, five and a half millions gave their voices to a man whose sole recommendation was a name, – then did wonder reach its perigee. And thenceforward bold indeed must be the politician who attempts to foreshadow the possible whims of the fickle people of France.
THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH
Who will venture to make catalogue of the possible results of the "Submarine Electric Telegraph?" The more we meditate, the more new wonders open before us. We are running a race with Time; we outstrip the sun, with the round world for the race-course. – Yet, let us not boast: we do not run the race, but that more than a hundred million horse-power invisible to us, which was created with the sun. We are but the atoms involved, and borne about in the secrets of nature. And the secrets – what know we of them? – The facts only of a few of them: the main-springs of their action are, and perhaps ever will be, hidden. The world progresses; it has its infant state, its manhood state, and its old age – in what state are we now? and what is the world's age? Madame de Stael considered it quite in its youth – only fifteen – scarcely responsible! It seems, however, making rapid growth. Is it past the conceited epoch, and now cutting its wise teeth? We stand like spectators at the old fair-show; we see the motley, the ever busy, ever running harlequin and columbine; we are astonished at the fooleries, and are amazed at the wit, the practical wisdom, the magical wand power of the fantastic descendants of Adam and Eve, the masculine, and the feminine; and we laugh to behold the shuffling step of old Grandfather Time, as —
"Panting Time toiled after them in vain."
It is through the agency of mind that a few secrets are disclosed to us, and for our use. We call the recipient and the inventor Genius. It is given, as it is wanted, at the right time, and for the preordained purpose. We are sceptical as to "mute inglorious Miltons." Where the gift is bestowed it is used; and if it appear to be partially used, it is where partially given, that one man may advance one step, his successor another – and thus invention leads to invention. Genius for one thing arises in one age, and sleeps after his deed is done; genius for another thing succeeds him. Who shall dare to limit the number? One thing only we pause to admire – how seldom does the gift fall upon bad men!
There have been, perhaps, those who have had thrown in upon their minds a wondrous vision of things to come, which they were not allowed, themselves, to put forth in manifest action to the world. There have been seers of knowledge; and, perhaps, prophesiers in facts. No one will credit the assertion, therefore we make it not, that thousands of years ago steam was known, and applied to the purposes of life. We call, then, certain records the prophecies of Facts; that is, there was a certain practical knowledge, which in its description is prophetic of a new knowledge to be developed. Semiramis set up a pillar on which it was written, "I, Semiramis, by means of iron made roads over impassable mountains, where no beasts [of burthen] come." Did Semiramis prophecy a railroad – or were there Brunells and Stephensons then? When Homer spake, of the ships of the Phæcians, how they go direct to the place of their venture, "knowing the mind" of the navigator, "covered with cloud and vapour," had the old blind bard a mind's-eye vision of our steam-ships? Many more may be the prophecies of Facts; for in these cases doubtless there were facts, the prophecy being in the telling.
But there have been visions also without facts – that is, without the practical visions of an inward knowledge – wherein nature had given a mirror and bade genius look into it. Friar Bacon's prophecy is an example.
"Bridges," says he, "unsupported by arches, can be made to span the foaming current; man shall descend to the bottom of the ocean safely breathing, and treading with firm step on the golden sands never brightened by the light of day. Call but the secret powers of Sol and Luna into action, and behold a single steersman, sitting at the helm, guiding the vessel which divides the waves with greater rapidity than if she had been filled with a crew of mariners tolling at the oars. And the loaded chariot, no longer encumbered by the panting steeds, darts on its course with relentless force and rapidity. Let the pure and simple elements do thy labour; bind the eternal elements, and yoke them to the same plough."
Here is poetry and philosophy wound together, making a wondrous chain of prophecy. Who shall adventure upon a solution of that golden chain, which the oldest of poets told us descended from heaven to earth, linking them as it were together? Was it an electric fluid in which mind and matter were in indissoluble union?
What prophetic truths may yet be extracted from myth and fable, and come blazing like comets we know not whence, into the world's field! Hermes "the inventor," what is his wand, serpent-twined, and its meaning, brought into vulgar translation, and seen in the buffoonery of harlequinade? of what new power may it not be the poetical prototype? Who shall contemplate the multiplicity of nature's facts, and the myriads of multiplicities in their combination? Knowing that all that has ever been written or spoken, in all languages, is but the combination of a few sounds transferred to the alphabet of twenty-four letters, or even less, are we not lost in the contemplation of the possibilities of the myriads of facts, in their interchangings, combinations, and wonderful dove-tailings?
Perhaps, that we may not know too much before our time, facts are withdrawn from us as others are protruded. Memory may sleep, that invention may awake. Did we know by what machinery Stonehenge was built, we might have rested satisfied with a power inadequate to other and new wants, for which that power might have been no help. Archimedes did that which we cannot do, in order that we might do that which he did not. Who shall lift the veil of possibility?
Of this we may be sure, as the mind is made inventive, (and there is no seeming probability that a faculty once given will be taken away from our created nature,) there is a large and inexhaustible store-house, wherefrom it shall have liberty to gather and to combine. We do not believe that steam itself, the miracle of our age, is anything more than a stepping-stone to the discovery of another power – means superseding means. There is and will be no end, as long as the fabric of the world lasts.
There is an old German play, in which the whimsical idea of bringing the Past and Present together in dramatis personæ is amusingly embodied. We forget the particulars, but we think Cæsar or Cicero figure in the dialogue. The ridiculous is their laughable ignorance of the commonest things. The modern takes out his watch and puts it to his ear, and tells the ancient the hour of the day. This is but one out of many puzzling new things; but, even here, how little is told of the real post-Ciceronian inventions; for the object of the play is to show the skill of the Germans only; it is but an offering to the German genius of invention.
Could a tale of Sinbad's voyage have been read to the Roman – how, as he approached the mountain, the nails flew out of the ship, for lack of comprehension of the load-stone – he would have thought it only fantastically stupid; and if he had laughed, it would have been at the narrator's expense. And so, indeed, it has fared with discoverers: they have been before the time of elucidation, like Friar Bacon; and some for fear of ridicule have kept back their knowledge; but not many perhaps; for knowledge, when it is touched by genius, becomes illuminated and illuminating, and will shine though men may shut the door, and stay themselves outside and see it not, while it brightens up only the four walls of a small chamber as it were with the magic lantern in a student's hand. Whereas it ought, according to its power, to gild the universe. The secresy of invention is rather of others' doing – of an envious or doubting world of lookers-on, than of the first perceiving genius. Fortunately the gift of genius, as intended for the use of mankind, comes with an expansive desire of making it known.
If the memory of tradition fails, and some inventions are lost, that their detail may not hamper the faculty that should take altogether a new line, so have we what we may term false lines, that yet, nevertheless, lead into the true. Science may walk in an apparently unnecessary labyrinth, and awhile be lost in the wildest mazes, and yet come out into day at last, and have picked up more than it sought by the way. Wisdom herself may have been seen sometimes wearing the fool's cap. The child's play of tossing up an apple has ended in establishing the law of gravitation. The boy Watt amused himself in watching a kettle on the fire: his genius touched it, and it grew and grew into a steam-engine; and, like the giant in the show, that shook off his limbs, and each became another giant, myriads of gigantic machines, of enormous power, hundred armed Briareuses, are running to and fro in the earth, doing the bidding of the boy observant at his grandam's hearth. Is there an Arabian tale, with all its magic wonders, that can equal this? We said that Wisdom has worn the fool's cap; true, and Foolery was the object – the philosopher's stone; but in the wildest vagaries of her thought, there were wise things said and done, and her secretary, Common Sense, made notes of the good; and all was put down together in a strange shorthand, intelligible to the initiated; and the facts of value were culled, in time, and sifted from the follies, and from the disguises – for there were disguises, that strangers should not pry into them before the allowed hour. Alchemy has been the parent of chemistry – that "[Greek: epistêmê iera]," and its great mysteries, to reveal which was once death!! Secrets were hidden under numbers, letters, signs of the zodiac, animals, plants, and organic substances. Thus in the vocabulary of the alchemists, the basilisk, the dragon, the red and green lions, were the sulphates of copper and of iron; the salamander, the fire; milk of the black cow, mercury; the egg, gold; the red dragon, cinnabar. There is a curious specimen, in the work of the monk Theophilus, translated by Mr Hendrie, how to make Spanish gold: —
"The Gentiles, whose skilfulness in this art is probable, make basilisks in this manner: They have underground a house, walled with stones everywhere, above and below, with two very small windows, so narrow that scarcely any light can appear through them: in this house they place two old cocks, of twelve or fifteen years, and they give them plenty of food. When these have become fat, through the heat of their good condition, they agree together, and lay eggs. Which being laid, the cocks are taken out, and toads are placed in, which may hatch the eggs, and to which bread is given for food. The eggs being hatched, chickens issue out like hens' chickens, to which, after seven days, grow the tails of serpents, and immediately, if there were not a stone pavement, they would enter the earth," &c. &c. – "After this, they uncover them, and apply a copious fire, until the animals' insides are completely burnt. Which done, when they have become cold, they are taken out, and carefully ground, adding to them a third part of the blood of a Red Man, which blood has been dried and ground."