Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1856-11-22
Gbe 11olpuesian.
From the Westminster Review.l
The Natural History of German Life.

theoriZe on those bodies with eoquence or who
legIsatc without eloquenc6, we should find that
they indicate almost as small an amount of con-
crete knowledge-that they are as far from COM
Ipletely representing the complex facts summed up
IN the collective term as the railway ina ges of our
non-locomotve gentleman. How little the real
characteristics of the working-classes are known
TO those who are outside them how little their nat
ural history has been studied is sufficiently dis
closed by our art as well as by our political and
social theories. Where, in our picture exhibitions
shall we hEd group of true peasantry? What
English artist even attempts to rival in ruthfulness
such studies Of popular life as the pictures of Te-
niers the ragged boys of Murillo? Even one of
the greatest painters of the preeminently realistic
school, while, in his picture of ''The Hireling
Shepherd" he gave a landscape of marvellous
truthtu!ness, placed pair of peasants in the fore
ground who were not much more real than the
| ldylC swains and damsels of our chimney orna-
ments. Only total absence of acquaintance and
sympathy with our peasantry, could give a mo-
ments popularity to such picture as Cross Pur-
poses" where we have peasant girl who looks as
If she knew H. b. LIS poems by heart, and English
rustcs, whose costume seems to indicate that they
are meant for ploughmen, with exotic features that
remind US of handsome primo tenOre. Rather
than such cOckney Sentmenality rs this as an ed
ucatlon for the taste and sympathes we prefer the
most crapuiOus groups of Doors that Teniers ever
painted. But even those among our painters who
aim at giving the rustic type Of features who are
far above the efemlnate feebleness of the g Keep
sake style, treat their subjects under the influence
of traditions and prepossessons rather than of di-
rect observation. The notion that peasants are ov
Gus, that the typical moment to represent a man in
a smock-frock Is when he is cracking Joke and
showing a row of sound teeth, that cottage mat
rons are usually buXom, and village children ne
cessarly rosy and merry, preiudices difficult To
dlSlodge from the artistic mind, which looks for its
subjects into literature instead of life. The pain
ter Is still under the influence of idyllic literature
which has always expressed the Imagination of the
cultivated and tOwn-bred, rather than the truth of
rustic life Idyllic ploughmen are jocund when
they drive their team afeld idylllc shepherds
make bashiul love under hawthorn bushes idyc
villagers dance in the chcquered shade and refresh
themselves, not immOderacly, with spicy nut-brown
ale. But no one who has seen much of actual plough
men thinks them jOCund no who is ell ac-
quaInted with the English peasantry can pronounce
them merry. The slow gaze, in which no sense of
beauty beams, no humor wrinkles, the slow utter
lnce, and the heavy slouching walk, remind one
rather of that melanch 'ly animal the camel, than
OF the sturdy countryman, with striped stockings,
red wastcoat and hat aside, who represents the
traditional English peasant. Observe company
of haymakers. When you see them at distance
tossing up the forkfuls of hay in the golden light,
while the wagon crceps slowly with its increasing
space which tells OF the work done gets larger and
larger. you pronounce the scene - smiling and
you think these companions in labor must be as
bright and cheerful as the picture to which they
give animation. Approach nearer, and you will
certainly find that haymakng time is time for
joking, especially if there women among the
laborers but the coarse laugh that bursts out every
now and then and expresses the triumphant taunt,
is as far as possible from your conception of idyc
merriment That delicious effervescence of the
mind which we call fun, has no equivalent for the
northern peasant, except upSy Tevelry the only
realm of fancy and Imagination for the English
clown exists at the bottom of the third quart pot
We have one great novelist who is gifted with
the utmost power of rendering the external traits
Of our town population; and if he could give us
their psychological character-their conception of
life, and their emOtiOns-wIth the same truth as
their ldiom and manners his books would be the |
greatest contribution art has ever made TO the /
awakening of social sympathies. But while he /
can copy Mrs Plornishs cooquial style with the
delicate accuracy of a sun-picture while there Is
the same startling inspiration in his description of
the gestures and phrases of - Boots" as IN the
speeches of Shakespeare's mobs or numskdlls, he .
scarcely ever passes from the numerous and cXer-
nal to the emotional and tragic, without becoming
as transcendent in his unreaity as he mo-
ment before in his artistic truthfulness. But for
10 reproduce external traits that serve in some de-
gree as a corrective to his frequently false psycho
osy, his preternaturally virtuous poor children and
artisans his melodramalic boatmen and courtezlns,
would be as obnoxious as Eugene Sues ideazed |
proletaires, in encouraging the miserable falacy,
that high morality and refined sentiment can grow |
ont of harsh social relations, Ignorance, and want;
or that the workng-cIasses arc in condition to
enter at once into millennal state of atruism.
wherein everyone is caring for everyone else, and
no one for himself.
If we need a true conception of the popular /
character to guide our sympathies rightly, we need (
il equally to check theories, and direct us in /
Their application. The tendency created by the
splendid conqucsts of modern generalization, to be-
lieve that all social questions merged in econ
omical science, and that the relations of men to /
their neghbois may be settled by algebrac equa-
tions-the dream that the uncultured classes are /
for a condition which appeals principally
to their moral sensbities.-the arlStocratlc diet /
tantlsm which attempts to restore the good old .
times by a sort of Idyllic masqueradlng, and to
grow feudal fidelity and veneration as we grow
prize turnips, by an artificial system of culture
none of these diverging mistakes co-exist with \
a real knowledge of the people, with thorough
study of their habits, their ideas, their motives.
The landholder, the clergyman, the mi-owner, the
minng-a gent, have each an opportunity for making
precious observations different sections OF the
working classes, Dnt unfortunately thereXperlence
is too often not registered at ALL It's results
too scattered to be available a source of infor
nation and stimulus to the public mind generally. Il
If anv man of sufficient moral and intellectual 4
BREADTH whose observations would not be Vita
ted by foregone conclusion, or by professional
point of view. would devote himself to studying II
the natural history of social classes, especially
of the small shop keepers, artisans, and peasantry,
the degree in which they influenced by 10 Ii
Il nd habits tho
of view from which they regard their religious
teachers and the degree in which they infiu-