rel, two sorrels! Fast horse's mouth by twisted bit drawn tight into the chest, and slow horse's head hung out at long distance from the body, his feet too lazy to keep up. Crack! crack! go a hundred whips in the strong grasp of the charioteers, warning foot-passengers to clear the way. Click! click! go the swords of the mounted horseguards as they dash past sashed, feathered, and epauletted. that spit white rabbits, and tricks that make the auditor's hat, passed up, breed rats. On your way through the street, you wan der into grottos, where, over colored rocks, the water falls, now becoming blue as the sea, now green as a pond, and now, without miracle, it is turned into wine. There are maiden-hair trees, and Irish yews, and bamboo, and magnolias, and banks of azaleas, and hollies, and you go through a Red Sea of geraniums and dahlias dry-shod. You leave on either hand concert-castles, and party-colored booths, and kiosks inviting to repose, till you come to the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, from the foot of which radiate eleven great avenues, any one of which might well be a national pride, and all of them a-rumble with pomp and wealth, and the shock of quick and resonant laughter. On the broad pavements of this avenue all nations meet and mingle. This is a Chinese with hair in genuine pig-tail twist, and this a Turk with trowsers enough for seven. Here, an Englishman built up solid from the foundation, buttressed with strength; the apotheosization of roast-beef and plum-pudding; you can tell by his looks that he never ate anything that disagreed with him. Here, an American so thin he fails to cast a shadow. There, a On opposite sides of the archway are two group of children playing blind-man's buff, angels, leaning toward each other till their and, yonder, men at foot-ball, with a circle trumpets well-nigh touch, blowing the news of a hundred people surrounding them. of a hundred victories. Surely never beOld harpers playing their harps. Boys fore or since was hard stone ever twisted fiddling. Women with fountains of sodawater strapped to their back, and six cups dangling at their side, and tinkling a tiny bell to let the people know where they may get refreshment. Here, a circle of fifteen hobby-horses poised on one pivot, where girls in white dresses, and boys in coat of many colors swing round the circle. Puff of a hundred segars. Peddler with a score of balloons to a string sending them up into the air, and willing for four sous to make any boy happy. Parrots holding up their ugliness by one claw, and swearing at passers-by in bad French. Canaries serenading the sunlight. Bagpipers with instruments in full screech. "Punch and Judy," the unending joke of European cities, which is simply two doll-babies beating each other. Passing on, you come upon another circle of fountains, six in number-small but beautiful, infantile fountains, hardly born before they die, rocked in cradle of crystal, then buried in sarcophagus of pearl. The water rises only a short distance and bends over, like the heads of ripe grain, as though the water-gods had been reaping their harvest, and here had stacked their sheaves. And now we find toy-carriages drawn by four goats with bells, and children riding, a boy of four years drawing the rein, mountebanks tumbling on the grass, jugglers with rings that turn into serpents, and bottles VOL. VI into such wreaths, or smoothed into such surfaces. Up and down frieze and spandrel are alti-rilievi with flags of granite that seem to quiver in the wind, and helmets that sit soft as velvet on warrior's brow; and there are lips of stone that look as if they might speak, and spears that look as if they might pierce, and wounds that look as if they might bleed, and eagles that look as if they might fly. Here stands an angel of war mighty enough to have been just hurled out of heaven, On one side of the Arch, Peace is celebrated by the sculptor with sheaves of plenty, and chaplets of honor, and palms of triumph. At a great height, Austerlitz is again enacted, and horse and horsemen and artillery and gunners stand out as though some horror of battle had chilled them all into stone. By the time that you have mounted the steps, and stand at the top of the Arch, the evening lamps begin a running fire on all the streets. The trees swing lanterns, and the eleven avenues concentrating at the foot of the Arch pour their brightness to your feet a very chorus of fire. Your eye treads all the way back to the Tuileries on bubbles of flame, and stopping half-way the distance to read, in weird and bewitching contrivance of gas-light, an inscription with a harp of fire at the top and an arrow of fire at the bottom, the charmed words of every Frenchman,-CHAMPS ELYSÉES! 139 OUR SPECTACLES. FROM THE SAME. A man never looks more dignified than when he takes a spectacle-case from his pocket, opens it, unfolds a lens, sets it astride his nose, and looks you in the eye. I have seen audiences overawed by such a demonstration, feeling that a man who could handle glasses in that way must be equal to anything. We have known a lady of plain face, who, by placing an adornment of this kind on the bridge of her nose, could give an irresistible look, and by one glance around the room would transfix and eat up the hearts of a dozen old bachelors. There are men, who, though they never read a word of Latin or Greek, have, by such facial appendage, been made to look so classical, that the moment they gaze on you, you quiver as if you had been struck by Sophocles or Jupiter. We strongly suspect that a pair of glasses on a minister's nose would be worth to him about three hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-two cents additional salary. Indeed, we have known men who had kept their parishes quiet by this spectacular power. If Deacon Jones criticized, or Mrs. Go-about gossiped, the dominie would get them in range, shove his glasses from the tip of his nose close up to his eyebrows, and concentre all the majesty of his nature into a look that consumed all opposition easier than the burning-glass of Archimedes devoured the Roman ships. But nearly all, young and old, near-sighted and far-sighted, look through spectacles. By reason of our prejudices, or education, or temperament, things are apt to come to us magnified, or lessened, or distorted. We all see things differently-not so much because our eyes are different, as because the medium through which we look is different. Some of us wear blue spectacles, and consequently everything is blue. Taking our position at Trinity Church, and looking down Wall street, everything is gloomy and depressing in financials, and looking up Broadway, everything is horrible in the fashions of the day. All is wrong in churches, wrong in education, wrong in society. An undigested slice of cornedbeef has covered up all the bright prospects of the world. A drop of vinegar has extinguished a star. We understand all the variations of a growl. What makes the sunshine so dull, the foliage so gloomy, men so heavy, and the world so dark?" Blue spectacles, my dear. 66 An unwary young man comes to town. He buys elegant silk pocket-handkerchiefs on Chatham Street for twelve cents, and diamonds at the dollar-store. He supposes that when a play is advertised for one night only," he will have but one opportunity of seeing it. He takes a greenback with an X on it, as sure sign that it is ten dollars, not knowing there are counterfeits. He takes five shares of silver-mining stock in the company for developing the resources of the moon. He supposes that every man that dresses well is a gentleman. He goes to see the lions, not knowing that any of them will bite; and that when people go to see the lions, the lions sometimes come out to see them. He has an idea that fortunes lie thickly around, and all he will have to do is to stoop down and pick one up. Having been brought up where the greatest dissipation was a blacksmith-shop on a rainy day, and where the gold on the wheat is never counterfeit, and buckwheat-fields never issue false stock, and brooks are always "current," and ripe fall-pippins are a legal-tender, and blossoms are honest when they promise to pay, he was unprepared to resist the allurements of city life. sharper has fleeced him, an evil companion has despoiled him, a policeman's "billy" has struck him on the head, or a prison's turnkey bids him a rough "Good-night!" A What got him into all this trouble? Can any moral optician inform us? Green goggles, my dear. Your neighbor's first great idea in life is a dollar; the second idea is a dollar-making in all two dollars. The smaller ideas are cents. Friendship is with him a mere question of loss and gain. He will want your name on his note. Every time he shakes hands, he estimates the value of such a greeting. He is down on Fourth of Julys and Christmas Days, because on them you spend money instead of making it. He has reduced everything in life to vulgar fractions. He has been hunting all his life for the cow that had the golden calf. He has cut the Lord's Prayer on the back of a three-cent piece, his only regret that he has spoiled the piece. T. DE WITT TALMAGE. A DEFENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. [HENRY T. TUCKERMAN, an American journalist and ritic, 1813-71, was born in Boston, and educated in the public schools. He travelled in Europe, and became an art critic at a time when few Americans were familiar with that subject. Of Mr. Tuckerman's numerous volumes, chiefly collections of his contributions to periodiThe Italian Sketch-Book" (1835), cals, we may name "Thoughts on the Poets" (1846), "Characteristics of Literature" (1849), “Essays, Biographical and Critical " (1857), "America and her Commentators " (1864), " The Criterion" (1866), and the “Book of American Artists" (1867). Mr. Tuckerman was a genial and appreciative critic, not always exact, but his essays were uniformly pleasing in style.] Let us recognise the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment. For what is the human mind, however enriched with acquisitions or strengthened by exercise, unaccompanied by an ardent and sensitive heart? Its light may illumine, but it cannot inspire. It may shed a cold and moonlight radiance upon the path of life, but it warms no flower into bloom; it sets free no ice-bound fountains. Dr. Johnson used to say that an obstinate rationality prevented him from being a papist. Does not the same cause prevent many of us from unburdening our hearts and breathing our devotions at the shrines of nature? There are influences which environ humanity too subtle for the dissecting knife of reason. In our better moments we are clearly conscious of their presence, and if there is any barrier to their blessed agency, it is a formalized intellect. Enthusiasm, too, is the very life of gifted spirits. Ponder the lives of the glorious in art or literature through all ages. What are they but records of toils and sacrifices supported by the earnest hearts of their votaries? Dante composed his immortal poem amid exile and suffering, prompted by the noble ambition of vindicating himself to posterity; and the sweetest angel of his paradise is the object of his early love. The best countenances the old painters have bequeathed to us are those of cherished objects intimately associated with their fame. The face of Raphael's mother blends with the angelic beauty of all his madonnas. Titian's daughter and the wife of Correggio again and again meet in their works. Well does Foscolo call the fine arts the children of love. The deep interest with which the Italians hail gifted men, inspires them.to the mightiest efforts. National enthusiasm is the great nursery of genius. When Sellini's statue of Perseus was first exhibited on the Piazza at Florence, it was surrounded for days by an admiring throng, and hundreds of tributary sonnets were placed upon its pedestal. Petrarch was crowned with laurel at Rome for his poetical labours, and crowds of the unlettered may still be seen on the Mole at Naples, listening to a reader of Tasso. Reason is not the only interpre ter of life. The fountain of action is in the feelings. Religion itself is but a state of the affections. I once met a beautiful peasant woman in the valley of the Arno, and asked the number of her children. "I have three here and two in paradise," she calmly replied, with a tone and manner of touching and grave simplicity. Her faith was of the heart. Constituted as human nature is, it is in the highest degree natural that rare powers should be excited by voluntary and spontaneous appreciation. Who would not feel urged to high achievement, if he knew that every beauty his canvas displayed, or every perfect note he breathed, or every true inspiration of his lyre, would find an instant response in a thousand breasts? Lord Brougham calls the word "impossible" the mother-tongue of little souls. What, I ask, can counteract selfdistrust, and sustain the higher efforts of our nature but enthusiasm? More of this element would call forth the genius, and gladden the life of New England. While the mere intellectual man speculates, and the mere man of acquisition cites authority, the man of feeling acts, realizes, puts forth his complete energies. His earnest and strong heart will not let his mind rest; he is urged by an inward impulse to imbody his thought. He must have sympathy; he must have results. And nature yields to the magician, acknowledging him as her child. The noble statue comes forth from the marble, the speaking figure stands out from the canvas, the electric chain is struck in the bosoms of his fellows. They receive his ideas, respond to his appeal, and recip. rocate his love. Constant supplies of knowledge to the intellect, and the exclusive culture of reason may, indeed, make a pedant and logician; but the probability is, these benefits, if such they are, will be gained at the expense of the soul. Sentiment, in its broad simpler manifestations, it seems as if the great art of human culture consisted chiefly in preserving the glow and freshness of the heart. It is certain that in proportion as its merely mental strength and attainment takes the place of natural sentiment, in proportion as we acquire the habit of receiving all impressions through the reason, the teach ever it may be with those of books. That this is the tendency of the New England philosophy of life and education, I think can scarcely be disputed. I have remarked that some of our most intelligent men speak of mastering a subject, of comprehending a book, of settling a question, as if these processes involved the whole idea of human cultivation. The reverse of all this is chiefly desirable. It is when we are overcome, and the pride of intellect vanquished before the truth of nature, when, instead of coming to a logical decision, we are led to bow in profound reverence before the mysteries of life, when we are led back to childhood, or up to God, by some powerful revelation of the sage or minstrel, it is then our natures grow. To this end is all art. Exquisite vocalism, beautiful statuary and painting, and all true literature, have not for their great object to employ the ingenuity of prying critics, or furnish the world with a set of new ideas, but to move the whole nature by the perfection and truthfulness of their appeal. There is a certain atmosphere exhaled from the in est acceptation, is as essential to the true enjoyment and grace of life as mind. Technical information, and that quickness of apprehension which New Englanders call smartness, are not so valuable to a human being as sensibility to the beautiful, and a spontaneous appreciation of the Divine influences which fill the realms of vision and of sound, and the world of action and feelings of nature grow indistinct and cold, howing. The tastes, affections and sentiments, are more absolutely the man than his talent or acquirements. And yet it is by and through the latter that we are apt to estimate character, of which they are at best but fragmentary evidences. It is remarkable that, in the New Testament, allusions to the intellect are so rare, while the "heart" and "the spirit we are of" are ever appealed to. Sympathy is the "golden key" which unlocks the treasures of wisdom; and this depends upon vividness and warmth of feeling. It is therefore that Tranio advises "In brief, sir, study what you most affect." A code of etiquette may refine the manners, but the "heart of courtesy," which, through the world, stamps the natural gentleman, can never be attained but through instinct; and in the same manner, those enriching and noble sentiments which are the most beautiful and endearing of human qualities, no process of mental training will create. To what end is society, popular education, churches, and the machinery of culture, if no living truth is elicited which fertilizes as well as enlightens? Shakspired page of genius, which gives vitality speare undoubtedly owed his marvellous insight into the human soul to his profound sympathy with man. He might have conned whole libraries on the philosophy of the passions; he might have coldly observed facts for years, and never have conceived of jealousy like Othello's, the remorse of Macbeth, or love like that of Juliet. When the native sentiments are once interested, new facts spring to light. It was under the excitement of wonder and love, that Byron, tossed on the lake of Geneva, thought that "Jura answered from her misty shroud," responsive to the thunder of the Alps. With no eye of mere curiosity did Bryant follow the lonely flight of the waterfowl. Veneration prompted the inquiry, "Whither 'midst falling dew When glow the heavens with the last steps of day, to the sentiments, and through these quickens the mental powers. And this is the chief good of books. Were it otherwise, those of us who have bad memories might despair of advancement. I have heard educated New Englanders boast of the quantity of poetry they have read in a given time, as if rich fancies and elevated thoughts are to be despatched as are beefsteaks on board our steamboats. Newspapers are estimated by their number of square feet, as if this had anything to do with the quality of their contents. Journeys of pleasure are frequently deemed delightful in proportion to their rapidity, without reference to the new scenery or society they bring into view. Social gatherings are not seldom accounted brilliant in the same degree that they are crowded. Such would not be the case, if what the phrenologists call the effective powers were enough considered; if the whole soul, instead of the "meddling intel Sometimes, in musing upon genius in its lect" alone, was freely developed; if we re alized the truth thus expressed by a power-element died out. But this is manifestly a ful writer-" within the entire circle of our great error. The forms of society have intellectual constitution, we value nothing greatly changed, and the methods of poetibut emotion; it is not the powers, but the cal development are much modified, but the fruit of those powers, in so much feeling of principle itself is essential to humanity. a lofty kind as they will yield." No! mechanical as is the spirit of the age, There is yet another principle which and wide as is the empire of utility, as long seems to me but faintly recognised in the as the stars appear nightly in the firmament, New England philosophy of life, however it and golden clouds gather around the departmay be occasionally cultivated as a depart- ing sun; as long as we can greet the innoment of literature; and yet it is one which cent smile of infancy and the gentle eye of we should deem essentially dear to man, a woman; as long as this earth is visited by glorious endowment, a crowning grace of visions of glory and dreams of love and humanity. It is that principle through hopes of heaven; while life is encircled by which we commune with all that is lovely mystery, brightened by affection, and solemand grand in the universe, which mellows nized by death, so long will the poetical the pictures of memory into pensive beauty, spirit be abroad, with its fervent aspirations and irradiates the visions of hope with un- and deep spells of enchantment. Again, it is earthly brightness; which elevates our so- often urged that the poetical spirit belongs cial experience by the glow of fancy, and appropriately to a certain epoch of life, and exhibits scenes of perfection to the soul that that its influence naturally ceases with the senses can never realize. It is the poeti youth. But this can only be the case cal principle. If this precious gift could be through self-apostasy. The poetical elewholly annihilated amid the commonplace ment was evidently intended to mingle with and the actual, we should lose the interest the whole of human experience; not only to of life. The dull routine of daily experience, glow in the breast of youth, but to dignify the tame reality of things, would weigh like the thought of manhood, and make venera heavy and permanent cloud upon our able the aspect of age. Its purpose clearly hearts. But the office of this divine spirit is to relieve the sternness of necessity, to is to throw a redeeming grace around the lighten the burden of toil, and throw sacredobjects and the scenes of being. It is the ness and hope even around suffering-as the breeze that lifts the weeds on the highway old painters were wont to depict groups of of time and brings to view the violets be- cherubs above their martyrdoms. Nor can neath. It is the holy water which, sprinkled I believe that the agency of this principle is on the Mosaic pavement of life, makes vivid so confined and temporary as many suppose. its brilliant tints. It is the mystic harp It is true our contemplation of the beautiful upon whose strings the confused murmur of is of short duration, our flights into the ideal toil, gladness and grief, loses itself in music. world brief and occasional. We can but But it performs a yet higher function than bend in passing at the altar of beauty, and that of consolation. It is through the poeti-pluck a flower hastily at the way-side;-but cal principle that we form images of excellence, a notion of progress that quickens every other faculty to rich endeavour. All great men are so, chiefly through unceasing effort to realize in action, or imbody in art, sentiments of deep interest or ideas of beauty. As colours exist in rays of light, so does the ideal in the soul, and life is the mighty prism which refracts it. Shelley maintains that it is only through the imagination that we can overleap the barriers of self and become identified with the universal and the distant, and, therefore, that this principle is the true fountain of benevolent affections and virtue. I know it is sometimes said that the era of romance has passed; that with the pastoral, classic, and chivalrous periods of the world, the poetic may there not be an instinct which eagerly appropriates even these transitory associa tions? May they not be unconsciously absorbed into the essence of our life, and gradually refine and exalt the spirit within us? I cannot think that such rich provi sion for the poetic sympathies is intended for any casual or indifferent end. Rather let us believe there is a mystic language in the flowers, and a deep meaning in the stars, that the transparency of the winter air and the long sweetness of summer twilight pass, with imperceptible power, over the soul; rather let us cherish the thought that the absorbing emotions of love, the sweet excite ment of adventure and the impassioned solemnity of grief, with a kind of spiritual chemistry, combine and purify the inward |