Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-10-03

The Intense Centrnlism Of Paris-The True
Character of n Frenchman-The Present
Every Thing In the Gay Capital.
From the Paris correspondence ofthe New
Orleans Delta, we clip this extract, the truth
Of which all who have sojourned in the
French capital viii readily admit
That in Paris, which most forcibly arrests
the attention of one strange to its methods
is its universal and intense centralism. In
its practice, if not in theory, Paris despOt-
ically implies the non-existence, or the pro-
vincia position of every other place. In all
the particulars which concern the necessities,
the comforts, the luxuries, and the entire
civilization Of people, it has its own pc
culiar nurseries, and its own peculiar stand
ards of excellency. Speaking for France
alone, the saying is as true as trite, that
Paris is France, for all the art, the science,
the taste, and ,he political power of the
state, concentrate at, and radiate from, its
capital. 1t is also as true though perhaps
not so trite, that so far as this present ex-
istence in its absolute and heathen enjoy
ment is involved, Paris is not only France,
but the whole world. All the elements which
quicken and vivify life, in its sensuous and
semi-sensuous points of view here coalesce,
and address themselves to the entertainment
of the animal man. In their capabilities for
pleasure, they recognize no limit, save what
is liked by human desire, comprehending the
entire Individual from the qualification of
the grossest instinct, to the indulgence ofthe
highest wish of an educated taste.
In other places people are content TO re-
pose for their physical recreations upon the
Indifferent five senses with which Provi-
dence has invested them. Paris, however,
long ago repudiated the miserly economy
and the narrow-mindedness of such an en-
dowment, and has used the original five as
simple nest-eggs, from which they have in
cuhated thousand senses. This world, and
this world only in its palDable and realistic
aspects, has any practical recognition in
Partisan life. Religion, Futurity and
Heaven, are accessoral and subsidiary, il
even that. They are considered-but simply
in spirit of complimentary respectable,
but superannuated myths, the cyphers OF
an exploded folly, and utterly to be rejected
in practice. r- .n DO.
Paris looks upon tomorrow as specula-
| tive, yesterday as a question in casuistry,
and only to to-day as an absolute fact In
its grammar, is alone expresses the auxiliary
verb ITO be-" Was and OiU be are ex-
| plunged, on the ground of gross uncertainty,
| and the dignity Of tense is accorded to the
| present alone. Into this present, which
must palpitate, and largely preponderate in
I the qualities which appeal to flesh and blood
| Paris impetuously tumbles, and is satisfied,
when it has sated its instincts for pleasure,
that it has realized the highest condition OF
| its existence. French anatomy, in this re-
spect, is certainly Inorbfc.
Give Frenchman, every day, Just enough
bread to keep soul and body raggedly to-
getheri and1et him visit the Jardin Mobile,
see the fountain play at Versailles, sit
through ballet or attend grand review
and he. laughs at political despotism as
capital joke. Lap him in fabulous luxury
and shut off three healthy expressions of his
nature, and you are breakfasted every morn.
ing on a revolution-a sort of dejeuner Il
| carte being one in which all the items are
| figured out on a most costly tariff. Loui,
| Napoleon-an expression which, in the mod
ern European dialects is construed as in
fernsl sagacity-seems to have thoroughll
| gauged the French character in this us in
every other particular, and has made it one
of the features of his administration to null
tiply the means of public enjoyment.