Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1870-11-18
LETTER TO THE YOUNG
FOLKS,
From berlin, Prussia.

=
lin and other places. As you may mol
like this quite so well, perhaps ought
to explain the reason why they must
be written in this way, and even why
they should be written at all.
First, then, they must be written in
this way because they could be writ
ten in no other. Which you will, nc
doubt, think is very good reason
To explain: Suppose yourselves for
the first time in a foreign city where
there are things enough to be seen to
keep you trotting and gazing about
for a whole year. Then suppose you
really have but three months to stay
there. 1t is clear that the first thing
you would do would be to find out all
the incest things, then the Rert incest,
and so on then the places, days and
hours in which they are to be seen,
and the best ways of getting to them.
If ''the things'' happen to be very nice
and famous, as pictures or sculpture
galleries for instance, you must spend
hours, often days beforehand in find-
ing out everything about them-'read-
ing them up Otherwise, when you
find yourself standing before long rows
of rooms and a wilderness of pictures
and statues, you will not know which
way to turn. And you do not exactly
know anyway. For you are obliged,
out of what seem like thousands, to Sc
lect from one to Three dozen, and come
back to them day after day until you
can begin to see why they have made
their artists renowned. At first you are
quite likely to sniff at the best ones
and take up with some common thing
that an artist would not spend ten
minutes in looking at. And you must
keep on comparing until you see beau
ty where you thought you saw ugli-
ness, and ugliness where you were
sure you saw beauty.
Now the idea I want to get at, is that
all this takes time. It takes strength
too. Looking at pictures for instance,
looking at anything long, especially
from a sense of duty, is very wearing,
not to say sometimes disgusting work.
A strong man does not like to pin him
self to work after it, and weak man
is compelled to give himself over to rest
in order to be able to do the same thing
over again the next day. From this it
is plain that if he undertakes to write
letters, he must do it in his sightsee-
ing, not in his resting time. And you
will agree that this would be, general
ly, bad use of opportunities.
Now, before going to the second
question, [ would like to branch off a
little on this, in order to try to per-
suade you that picture gazing, for IN
stance, if not exactly jolly work, is
neither such gloomy work as some of
you might imagine.
Suppose you are going on in the way
above described, looking at pictures
every day till you are tired and then
leaving off until YOU are rested. Your
reward is that, bye and bye, in a few
days, perhaps, you find that your taste
is getting educated" as we call 1T ;
that is the poorer pictures slowly lose
and the better ones gain upon your
memory. They haunt your mind
like good angels that have come to
4 aey
you live. And always afterwards you
seem to be able to judge of strange
pictures better and to tell good ones
quicker. And what is more curious is
that everything nice and pretty is mic
er and prettier than it used to be;
fine house, fine piece of music even
fine COW. You see taste is something
that can be educated" in many ways.
1t can be drawn out toward machin-
cry or farming as well as toward
tFhighfalutin'' things.
Now, it may be just a notion, but I
have felt all along as if some OF you
we're asking a certain question. 1t is
this: How did people know the best
sDICBures N Ia c fAs=4 place ? An d before
this there is another How did any
body ever know enough TO paint nice
picture?
The fact is, it is a knack Just like
any other knack. There are people
cling, and there are other people born
with gift for watching them to tell
when they do it we'll You know,
don't you, how easy it is to pick flaws
in other peoples work, and how sell
dom you ever saw anybody do any
thing just right?
There is an old building on the Del
aware College grounds, which many
practical Judges think is uncommon
1y well shaped. It is Finely proper
toned" Perhaps some of us never
thought of such thing till we heard
it. Suppose, now, very soon after that
building was finished, people had be-
gun to come from all parts of the coun-
try, and, finally from England, France,
Italy and even India TO see it. By that
time, although you might perhaps have
never thought of it yourself, you would
be ready to believe there was reason
for all that fuss about it. But sup
pose, instead of being only a few years
old, the building was two hundred
years old, and during all that time the
same rate of visiting and talking had
been kept up without anybOdy'S get
ting tired of it! You would then have
fully made up your mind that the
old building was worth all its fame
in fact, you would "see for yourself
that it wasn't to be named the same
day with anything else of its kind in
the land.
Well, all this is just the case with a
few pictures and statues now to be
found in Rome, Florence, Dresden,
Munich, Paris and Berlin. And what
is most curious is, that it is the case,
although the statues have been picked
out of a countless number that were
found then and there over Greece and
Italy, and whose sculptOrs will proba-
bly, never be known; and the pictures
were chosen in a very irregular way
indeed that is, they were chosen by
the one rule of merit, for, perhaps
only one of all the pictures of great
master has taken rank, and the rest
were comparatively rejected; at least
they were adjudged lower than some
pictures of far less famous artists.
From this you see that if certain
piece of art is starred in your guide
book, you are quite safe IN admlr1ne
it as much as you please. And II you
don't believe this, get some one who Is
posted, merely to ShOaC you two stat
ues. one first-rate and one third-rate,
and let you find out by yourself which
is which. and, sometime, if you have 8
speck Of good taste for pretty things
you Will do it.
Awhile ago, we switched of, did we
not, to get at some ideas that lay out.
side of the two questions We vii
go back to the main track and TO the
second starting point.
And this is the way we will start
If 1 can tell you nothing more at all o
what I saw in Germany, l shall JUS
feel as if had been wronged out o
something. And that seems such 4
curious notion that I once went abou
to find out what that something
could be. Was it-a chance wickedly
to worm into your good graces by tell
ing how much time l had spent nos1ne
into things on your account?
At any rate, without meaning at al
TO do such a thing, 1 slipped into
way of thinking all along: How th'
| boys and girls at home would enjo.
| this all the boys and girls who see thl
| GAZETTE! And I went on to reall,
| trying to see things with your eyes
which you know are younger, bright
er. fresher and more prying than grow
up ones. So it came about that saw
/ there many things which, but for you
/ jolly help, 1 should never have motto
/ ed at all, and saw them better, though
them funnier and wanted worse to tel
you of them.
And this is the debt owe and wisl
1 to pay you.
For the benefit of young girls VIII.
are impatient to put on trained skIrts
| il NAV be stated that the Princess bea
/ tr;oo dougbtar of Queen Victoria, nov