The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-05-03

apartments so lately occupied by the great au-
thor. Everything exhibited neatness and order,
but no wealth or luxury. The library of well.
used books picked up volume, and saw the
margin covered with pencilled NOTES.-THE desk
with pen and ink-the arm chair-all were 80
many mute witnesses of the busy brain now
stilled forever. / felt strangely grieved, as if
were witnessing an indignity offered to the
mighty dead. Having just passed the Made
leine, where the great organ rosred as if in re-
Spouse to the mounting cannon, and one saw
the glitter of arms among the lace stole of
priests as power stopped in the mockery of woe
over unworthy humanity-and to see here the
almost secret manner in which the purest and
noblest of his kind was being placed in his last
resting -placei But the worst was yet to come.
The hearse had received its tenant, the fami-
ly placed in the one mourning coach, and the
crowd, numbering not more than three or four
hundred, were about forming into procession
to follow in respectful silence the remains of
one so loved-when gend'arme suddenly
threw himself between them and the hearse, ex.
claiming, "What are you doing here-allez
cO1is emf
There was something so insolent in manner
and tone, that find it impossible to translate,
or put on paper, the insult. The company
crowded back, perfectly astounded-the greater
number certainly students and artists, and i
doubt whether so grievous an outrage could
have been offered to other than bookmen. Sew
eral cries of SHAME" were heard, but the little
procession broke up, and these followed the
hearse at distance, which now, to our disgust
and establishment, began to move in indecent
haste. We returned heart-sick to our home,
but learned aterward that twice on its route
the attempt to reform in procession was in
like manner broken up, and even at the gates
of the graveyard, so generally open to all, a
guard prevented any but the members of the
family to enter. / make no comments upon
this-it needs none.
have seen great deal of Mr.. Vattemare,
the originator of the international exchange
of books" who has done so much for the sup
port of our libraries and the general diffusion
of useful knowledge in the United States. He
is a very entertaining gentleman, and so kind
to Americans visiting Paris that he might well
be made, As he is now considered, our resident
representative. The greatest benefit Mr.. Waite
mare could now do to international library ex-
changes would be to give us a history of his
own times, as seen both by Mr.. Alexander and
Mr.. Yattemare.
And this was my first years literary expert
ence in Paris. / might well have passed the
same time in West Liberty, Ohio. Yet would
give all the stone monuments of this beautiful
city for an interview with minds yet mere mon
umental, who pass away, leaving only the shad-
ow of themselves behind; for no one, whatever
may be his or her genius, leaves awork approach
ing the work desgned--but only evidence of
what might have been done, were the means of
doing only more perfect. To converse; to look
upon genius, is to see the living spirit while its
work only gives the inanimate body-the dry
bones What great tragedies have lived in the
soul and beamed from the eyes of Shakespeare,
never reduced to paper! What nimble wit
what mirth-provoking humors, defying words,
have been born at their tavern dinners when
Ben johnson presided, that there exhaled, new.
er to be heard again
! With artists | was more fortunate, and to
Healy Rossiter, Walcutt, Cranch, Powers, and
May, owe much-more indeed than my poor
words can well express. The society they made
up of gentle, refined, intelligent men, with the
frequent reunions at rooms where every day
saw some new observation-disclosures of continu.
ed effort by those destined to leave their mark
upon the age-have given me some of the sun
NEST hours in Paris. There is no place so de-
lightfu to me as the atelier of the artist. E1
hibitionrooms can give me no such pleasure
as the narrow dim-h walls on which are caught
the many thoughts of genius half expressed
only sketched at or finished, while all the time
you hear the talk of the gifted creator.
J No one has made more progress within the
/ limit of my recollection than Mr.. Healy. He
has been devoting himself almost exclusively to
portrait-painting, but such portraits are pictures
in the next generation. Like Stuart, they will
be precious, long after the originals have pass
ed from human knowledge. l hold this to be a
very high work of art-indeed, the truest histor-
ical painting when the character by few
touches of the brush is fixed forever on the
] Il in soli
that made Mr. Healy select as an historical pic
ture a subject that yet had the living heads
from which to gather the event. On this &C
count, his great effort of Webster replying to
Hayne must grow more valuable as it gets in
age. The cluster of eminent statesmen who
have by their intellect and eloquenee marked
our age are all there, undying in their calm
show of strength, which the artist has so quiet
ly given US for in an exhibit of scene such
as this, all unnatural efforts at theatrical dis
! play would be in bad taste. If we could only
lift the curtain, and look in upon the reality,
when some great event is being enacted, we
should be content. Mr.. Healy has lifted the
curtain, and fixed the startling fact before us.
As said before, each portrait on Mr.. Healy's
easel is an historical painting, remarkable first
| as likeness, then precious as picture; and,
in devoting himself to this line, by his genius
and industry, bids fair to be the most remarka-
!
BILE living.
In passing from Mr. Healy to Rossiter, 90
from the historical to the purely fanciful. The
heads of the two artists themselves would tell
the difference. / cannot remember the lastna-
med gentleman's beautiful efforts without his
fine head coming in between, and through it
seeing the picture. Mr.. Rossiter, too, has been
hard student, and his many efforts returned
to the United States attest his success. am
sorry to say that some of the finest we're paint
ed and shipped while was idling away the
summer in Italy. But he is not one to be con
tent with what he has completed.
In no atelier have / passed more and pleas
anter hours than in that of Mr.. Walcutt. In
deed it could not be otherwise, for with a gen
erous enthusiasm, quite beyond my poor thanks
he was continually throwing off illustrations o.
my own thoughts. With Mr.. Walcutt's quick
and graceful pencil, Bell Smith is in fair way
of being an illumination.
am more and more satisfied that no Amer
lean artist should leave his native shores, as a
student In Europe, until he has established 8
| style for himself, and gone far toward exhaust
ing the nature so bountiful around him. When
Cole was asked in what school he studied, he
replied, in that of the Juniata In such schools
must the great national one be built, and no,
by base limitations of exhausted originals.
Mr.. Healy, looking over my shoulder while ]
write this, with one of his pencils, saws, al
wrong. Well, he is the better Judge, so / vii
say no more-but will patiently let him tranfel
your servant to canvass, while Lucy reads u.
"Hard Tines Blessed Dickensi with one
brush of his pen he has wiped out whole race
of singing humble-bees. The Bounderbys, the
droning, eternal Boosting selfmade men--ths
boring, aponizing "Ps," who never have don,
with that one story of l did have DONE"