My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek"

PARIS

This is a wonderful city. It seems to me, as I ride up and down the gay Boulevards on the roof of an omnibus, or gaze into the brilliant shop-windows of the Palais Royal, or watch the happy children in the garden of the Tuileries, or stand upon the bridges and take in as much as I can at once of gardens, palaces, and church towers – it seems to me like a great theatre, filled with gay company, to whom the same grand spectacle is always being shown, and whose faces always reflect something of that brilliancy which lights up the gorgeous, never-ending, last scene of the drama. I know that the play has its underplot of vicious poverty and crime, but they shrink from the glare of the footlights and the radiance of the red fire that lights up the scene. Taken in the abstract – taken as it appears from the outside – Paris is the most perfect whole the world can show. It was a witty remark of a well-known citizen of Boston, touching the materialistic views of many of his friends, that "when good Boston people die, they go to Paris." I know many whose highest idea of heaven would find its embodiment in the sunshine of the Place de la Concorde or the gas light of the Rue de Rivoli. Paris captivates you at once. In this it differs from Rome. You do not grow to love it; you feel its charms before you have recovered from the fatigue of your journey – before you have even reached your hotel, as you ride along and recognize the buildings and monuments which books and pictures have made familiar. In Rome all is different. Michel Angelo's mighty dome, to be sure, does impress you, as you come to the city; but when you enter, the narrow streets are such a contrast to the broad, free campagna you have just left, that you feel oppressed and cramped as you ride through them. You find one of the old temples kept in repair and serving as a custom house; this is a damper at the outset, and you sigh for something to revive the ancient customs of the world's capital. You walk into the Forum the next day, musing upon the line of the twelve Cæsars, and your progress is arrested, and your sense of the dramatic unities of your position deeply wounded, by an unamusing and prosaic clothes-line. You keep on and try to recall Cicero, and Catiline, and Jugurtha, and Servius Tullius, and Brutus, and Virginius, – but it is useless, for you find a cow feeding there as quietly as if she were on the hills of Berkshire. The whole city seems sad and mouldy, and out of date, and you think you will "do the sights" as rapidly as possible, and then be off. But before many days you find that all is changed. The moss that clothes those broken walls becomes as venerable in your sight as the gray hairs upon your mother's brow; the ivy that enwreathes those old towers and columns seems to have wound itself around your heart and bound it forever to that spot. Clothes-lines, dirt, and all the inconveniences inseparable from the older civilization of Rome, fade away. The Forum, the Palace of the Cæsars, the Appian Way, all become instinct with a new – or rather with their old life; and you feel that you are in the Rome of Livy and Sallust, – you have found the Rome of which you dreamed in boyhood, and you are happy. With Paris, as I have said, you are not obliged to serve such an apprenticeship. You have read of Paris in history, in novels, in guide-books, in the lucubrations of the whole tribe of correspondents – you recognize it at once on seeing it, and accept it for all that it pretends to be. And you are not deceived. And this, I apprehend, is the reason why we never feel that deep, clinging affection for Paris that we do for that "goddess of all the nations, to whom nothing is equal and nothing second" – that city which (as one of her prophet-poets said) shall ever be "the capital of the world, for whatever her arms have not conquered shall be hers by religion." You feel that Paris is the capital of Europe, and you bow before it as you would before a sovereign whose word was law.

I wonder whether every body judges of all new things by the criterion of childhood, as I find myself constantly doing. Whatever it may be, I apply to it the test of my youthful recollections of something similar, and it almost always suffers by the process. Those beautiful architectural wonders that pierce the sky at Strasburg and Antwerp will bear no comparison, in point of height, with the steeple of the Old South as it exists in the memory of my childhood. I have never seen a picture gallery in Europe which awakened any thing like my old feelings on visiting one of the first Athenæum exhibitions many years ago. Those wonderful productions of Horace Vernet, in which one may read the warlike history of France, are nothing compared to my recollections of Trumbull's "Sortie of Gibraltar," as seen through an antediluvian tin trumpet which considerably interfered with my vision, but which I thought it was necessary to use. I have visited libraries which antedated by centuries the discovery of America, – I have rambled over castles which seemed to reëcho with the clank of armour and the clarion calls of the old days of chivalry, – I have walked through the long corridors and halls of the Vatican with cardinals and kings, – I have mused in church-crypts and cloisters, in whose silent shade the dead of a thousand years reposed, – but I have never yet been impressed with any thing like the awe which the old Athenæum in Pearl Street used to inspire into my boyish heart. Pearl Street in those days was as innocent of traffic and its turmoil as the quiet roads around Jamaica Pond are now. A pasture, in which the Hon. Jonathan Phillips kept a cow, extended through to Oliver Street, and handsome old-fashioned private houses with gardens around them occupied the place of the present rows of granite warehouses. The Athenæum, surrounded by horse-chestnut trees, stood there in aristocratic dignity and repose, which it seemed almost sacrilegious to disturb with the noise of our childish sports. There were a few old gentlemen who used to frequent its reading-room, whose white hair, (and some of them even wore knee breeches and queues and powder,) always stilled our boyish clamour as we played on the grass-plots in the yard. To some of these old men our heads were often uncovered, – for children were politer in those days than now, – and to our young imagination it seemed as if they were sages, who carried about with them an atmosphere of learning and the fragrance of academic groves. They seemed as much a part of the mysterious old establishment as the books in the library, the dusty busts in the entries, or the old librarian himself. Sometimes I used to venture into those still passages, and steal a look into that reading-room whose quiet was never broken, save by the wealthy creak of some old citizen's boots, or by the long breathing of some venerable frequenter of the place, enjoying his afternoon nap. In later years I came to know the Athenæum more familiarly; the old gentlemen lost the character of sages and became estimable individuals of quiet tastes, who were fatiguing the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company by their long-continued perusal of the Daily Advertiser and the Gentleman's Magazine; but my old impression of the awful mystery of the building remains to this day. I mourned over the removal to the present fine position, and I seek in vain amid the stucco-work and white paint of the new edifice for the charm which enthralled me in the old home of the institution. Some people, carried away by the utilitarian spirit of the age, may think that it is a great improvement; but to me it seems nothing but an unwarrantable innovation on the established order of things, and a change for the worse. Where is the quiet of the old place? Younger and less reverential men have risen up in the places of the old, and have destroyed all that rendered the old library respectable. The good old times when Dr. Bass, the librarian, sat on one side of the fireplace, and the late John Bromfield (with his silk handkerchief spread over his knees) on the other, and read undisturbed for hours, have passed away. A hundred persons use the library now for one who did then; and I am left to feed upon the memory of better times, when learning was a quiet, comfortable, select sort of thing, and mutter secret maledictions on the revolutionary spirits who have made it otherwise.

But pardon me, dear reader, – all this has little to do with Paris, except by way of illustration of my remark that the youthful standard of intellectual weights and measures is the only infallible one we ever know. But Paris is something by itself: it overrides all standards of greatness or beauty, and all preconceived notions of itself, and addresses itself with confidence to every taste. Ladies love Paris as a vast warehouse of jewelry and all the rich stuffs that hide the crinoline from eyes profane. Physicians revel in its hospitals, and talk of "splendid operations," such as make the unscientific change colour.

Paris is a world in itself. Here may the Yankee find his pumpkin-pie and sherry-cobblers, the Englishman his rosbif, the German his sauerkraut, the Italian his macaroni. Here may the lover of dramatic art choose his performance among thirty theatres, and he who, with Mr. Swiveller, loves "the mazy," will find at the Jardin Mabille a bower shaded for him. Here the bookworm can mouse about, in more than twenty large public libraries, and spend weeks in the delightful exploration of countless book-stalls. Here the student of art can read the history of France on the walls of Versailles, or, revelling in the opulence of the Louvre, forget his studies, his technicalities, his criticisms, in contemplation of the majestic loveliness of Murillo's "sinless Mother of the sinless Child." Here may "fireside philanthropists, great at the pen," compare their magnificent theories with the works of delicate ladies who have left the wealth they possessed and the society they adorned, for the humble garb of the Sister of Charity and a laborious ministry to the poor, the diseased, and the infirm, and meditate in the cool quadrangles of hospitals and benevolent institutions, founded by saints, and preserved in their integrity by the piety of their disciples. Here may the man who wishes to look beyond this brilliant world, find churches ever open, inviting to prayer and meditation, where he may be carried beyond himself by the choicest strains of Haydn and the solemn grandeur of the Gregorian Chant, – or may be thrilled by the eloquent periods of Ravignan or Lacordaire, until the unseen eternal fills his whole soul, and the visible temporal glories of the gay capital seem to him the transient vanities they really are.

How few people really know Paris! To most minds it presents itself only as a place of general pleasure-seeking and dissipation. I have seen many men whose only recollections of Paris were such as will give them no pleasure in old age, who flattered themselves that they knew Paris. They thought that the whole city was given up to the folly that captivated them, and so they represent Paris as one vast reckless masquerade. I have seen others who, walking through the thronged cafés and restaurants, have felt themselves justified in declaring that the French had no domestic life, and were as ignorant of family joys as their language is destitute of a single Word to express our good old Saxon word "home"; not knowing that there are in Paris thousands of families as closely knit together as any that dwell in the smoky cities of Old England, or amid the bustle and activity of our new world. Good people may turn up their eyes, and talk and write as many jeremiads as they will about the vanity and wickedness of Paris; but the truth is, that this great Babel has even for them its cheering side, if they would but keep their eyes open to discover it. Let them visit the churches on the vigils of great feasts, and every Saturday, and see the crowds that throng the confessionals: let them rise an hour or two earlier than usual, and go into any of the churches, and they will find more worshippers there on any common weekday morning than half of the churches in New England collect on Sundays. Let them visit that magnificent temple, the Madeleine, and see the freedom from social distinctions which prevails there: the soldier, the civilian, the rich and the poor, the high-bred lady, the servant in livery, and the negress with her bright yellow and red kerchief wound around her head, are there met, on an equality that free America knows not of.

The observance of the Sunday is a sign of the times which ought not to be overlooked. Only a few years ago, and suspension of business on Sunday was so uncommon that notice was given by a sign to that effect on the front of the few shops whose proprietors indulged in that strange caprice. The signs (like certain similar ones on apothecary shops in Boston, to the effect that prescriptions are the only business attended to on the first day of the week) used to seem to me like a bait to catch the custom of the godly. But the signs have passed away before this movement, inaugurated by the Emperor, who forbade labour on the public works on Sunday, and preached up by the late Archbishop of Paris and the parish clergy. There are few shops in Paris that do not close on Sunday now – at least in the afternoon. And this is done by the free will of the trades-people: it is not the result of a legislative enactment. The law here leaves all people free in regard to their religious duties. The shops of the Jews, of course, are open on Sunday, for they are obliged to close on Saturday, and of course ought not to be expected to observe two days. Of course, too, the public galleries, and gardens, and places of amusement are all open; God forbid that the hard-faring children of toil should be cheated out of any innocent recreation on the only free day they have by any attempts to judaize the Christian Sunday into a sabbath. It is a great mistake to suppose that people can be made better by diminishing the sources of innocent pleasure. No; if the Sunday be made a hard, uninteresting day, when smiling is a grave impropriety, and a hearty laugh a mortal sin, children will begin by disliking the day, and end by despising the religion that made it gloomy. But provide the people with music in the public parks on Sunday afternoon and evening, – make the day a cheerful, happy time to those who are ingulfed in the carking cares of life all the rest of the week, – make it a day which children shall look forward to with longing, and you will find that the people are better, and happier, and thriftier for the change. You will find that the mechanic or labourer, instead of lounging away his Sunday in a grog-shop, (for the business goes on even though the front door may be barred and the shutters closed,) will be ambitious to take his wife and children to hear the music, and will after a time become as well behaved as the common run of people. It is better to use the merest worldly motives to keep men in the path of decency, than to let them slide away to perdition because they refuse to listen to the more dignified teachings of religion.

I have been much impressed by a visit to a large, but unpretentious-looking house in the Rue du Bac – the "mother-house" of that admirable organization, the Sisters of Charity. It was not much of a visit, to be sure – for not even my gray hairs and respectable appearance could gain for me an admission beyond the strangers' parlour, the courtyard, and the cool, quiet chapel. But that was enough to increase my respect and admiration for those devoted women. The community there consists of six hundred Sisters of Charity, whose whole time is occupied in taking care of the sick, and needy, and neglected in the hospitals and asylums, and in every quarter of the city. You see them at every turn, going quietly about their work of benevolence, and presenting a fine contrast to some of our noisy theorists at home. I may be in error, but it strikes me that that community is doing more in its present mode of action to advance the true dignity and "rights" of the sex, than if it were to resolve itself into a convention, after the American fashion. I was somewhat anxious to inquire whether any of the sisters of the community had ever taken to lecturing or preaching in public; but the modest and unassuming manner of all those whom I saw, rendered such a question unnecessary. I fear that oratory is sadly neglected among them; with this exception, and perhaps the absence of a certain strong-mindedness in their characters, I think that they will compare very favourably with any of our distinguished female philanthropists. They wear the same gray habit and odd-shaped white bonnet that the Sisters of Charity wear in Boston. While we praise the self-forgetful heroism of Florence Nightingale as it deserves, let us not forget that France sent out her Florence Nightingales to the Crimea by fifties and hundreds – young and delicate women, hiding their personality under the common dress of a religious order, casting aside the names that would recall their rank in the world, unencouraged in their beneficence by any newspaper paragraphs, and unrewarded save by the sweet consciousness of duty done. The Emperor Alexander, struck by the part played in the Crimean campaign by the Sisters of Charity, has recently asked the superior of the order to detail five hundred of the sisters, for duty in the hospitals of Russia. It is understood that the request will be complied with so far as the number of the community will permit.

If I were asked to sum up in one sentence the practical result of my observations of men and manners here on the continent, I should say that it was this: We have a great deal to learn in America concerning the philosophy of life. I do not mean that philosophy which teaches us that "it is not all of life to live," but the philosophy of making ninety-three cents furnish the same amount of comfort in America that five francs do in Paris. The spirit of centralization is stronger here than in any American city: (it is too true, as Heine said, that to speak of the departments of France having a political opinion as distinguished from Paris, "is to talk of a man's legs thinking;") and there is no reason why people of moderate means should not be able to live as respectably, comfortably, and economically in our cities as here, if they will only use a little common sense. The model-lodging-house enterprise was a most praiseworthy one, but it seems to have been confined only to the wants of the most necessitous class in the community. There is, however, a large class of salesmen, and book-keepers, and mechanics, on salaries of six hundred to twelve or fourteen hundred dollars, whose position is no less deserving of commiseration. When the prices of beefsteak and potatoes went up so amazingly a few years ago, there were few salaries that experienced a similar augmentation. The position of the men on small salaries therefore became peculiar, not to say unpleasant, as rents rose in the same proportion as every thing else. Any person, familiar with the rents of brick houses for small families in most of the Atlantic cities, will see how difficult it is for such people as these to live within their means. Now, the remedy for this evil is a simple one, but it requires some public-spirited men to initiate it. Suppose that a few large, handsome houses, on the European plan, (that is, having a suite of rooms, comprising a parlour, dining-room, two or three bedrooms, and a kitchen, on each floor,) were built in any of our great thoroughfares, – the ground floors might be used for shops, – for there is no reason why respectable people should any more object to living over shops there, than on the Boulevards. Such houses, it is easy to see, would be good paying property to their owners, as soon as people got into that way of living; and when salaried men saw that they could get the equivalent, in comfort and available room, to an ordinary five hundred dollar house for half that rent, in a central situation, depend upon it, they would not be long in learning how to live in that style. The advantages of this plan of domestic life are numerous and striking. Housekeeping would be disarmed of half its difficulties; the little kitchen would furnish the coffee and eggs in the morning and the tea and toast at night – the dinner might be ordered from a neighbouring restaurant for any hour – for such establishments would increase with the increase of apartments. The dangers of burglary would be diminished, for the housekeeper would have only the door leading to the staircase to lock up at night. The washing would be done out of the house, and the steam of boiling suds, and all anxiety about clothes-lines, and sooty chimneys, and windy weather would thereby be avoided. Thousands of people would be liberated from the caprice and petty tyranny of the railroad directors, whose action has so often filled our newspapers with resolutions and protests, and, so far as Boston is concerned, its peninsula might be made the home of a population of three hundred thousand instead of a hundred and eighty thousand persons. The most rigidly careless person can hardly fail to become a successful housekeeper, when the matter is made so easy as it is by the European plan. The plan, too, not only simplifies the mysteries of domestic economy, but it snuggifies one's establishment wonderfully, and gives it a home feeling, such as what are called genteel houses nowadays wot not of. The change has got to come – and the sooner it does, the better it will be for our cities, and many of their people, who have been driven into remote and unpleasant suburbs by high rents, or who are held back from marriage by the expenses of housekeeping conducted on the present method.