The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-03-01


the Latin Quarter discussing his fancy with
a dealer In prints. 'How many different
prints OF Napoleon are theres'' 'Threc thousand"
was the answer. Think Of that. you who contem.
plate collecting In Paris. Napoleon was an item in
the period known as the French Revolution, and
yet OF him alone, to havea complete collection, you
must buy 5000 prints. There ia another OF
the colony whose specially ia the Commune. This
came and fourished and fell two years ago. One
would think that 1t would be an easy matter to
gather the records Of that brief and recent time.
But there are necessary documents and copies OF
procamatOns and newspapers OF the Commune as
difficult to buy as those of the French Revolution.
so truly do we learn that the history OF each day
has Its own web and wool. Once snap asunder the
threads and weary is the work of again weaving
them together. Another OF my vt'tuOSo friends has
fancy for Horace. Let 1t come In any shape. any
translation or STYLE so 1t Is unlike another In his
keeping. and the day that brings 1t Is caienaared
among the red-lettcr annals Another finds life to
consist OF the painter veasquez. You know We
lasquez as the chief Of the Spanish school-dead.
how many years ago' Well, my friend spends his
time In going from place to place. wherever
there Is reputed work Of Velasquez,
to look at 1t, and dwell upon the
color and the movement, and the clear life and
light that come from the marvellous canvass, like
the life that one sees under the light OF the blessed
sun. and to write full notes. meaning ultimately
book. confess this seems o pleasing fancy-thls
hunting the creations OF o God-inspred master
like Veasquez-from capital to capital-from
Stockholm to Seville and from st. Petersburg to
London; and when my friend, with his young,
rapturous face, began to glow as he talked OF his
hobby, l thought there was kind OF knight
errantry in his mission. Others collect old china
an aIa I far
In the cup and plate line being easily satisfied.
But am told that no fascination grows upon the
collector with more power than this for CHINA, and
that some Of our countrymen have been known to
experience emotions of an agitating nature upon
discovering plate Of the time OF Louis XIV.
There are collectors too, whose designs In the col
lecting line are neither quaint nor high nor patri-
otto. but who have grossly diseased fancies for
things forbidden to men. OF such one writes with
pain and anger, as though we stamped them down
into the dust
COLONIAL WAITS.
There are here In our colony types not classes Of
an original character. There Is the stout old
dowager, who has three daughters she wants to
marry or her hands, and trails from Paris to the
Springs, and from the Springs to Paris and to Italy
and the Pyrenees. And you always encounter her
just when you don't want to be bothered; and
and the Dickebys, and that horrid beast in yellow
whskers, who came 80 near marrying Matilda; but
he was not count or a Prussian oflcer-only an
adventurer from Wiesbaden. Then comes your
friend the British oficer, who was once IN the
Guards with baggy trousers, and plays billiards
and likes Americans 50 much that he will not con.
sort with Enghshmen and Is relative OF the Duke
OF Bethnal Green, whose colOrs he wears. Well. our
British friend has troubles with his family, who do
not like his fondness for Americana and resent 1t
by limiting his allowance; but when he
becomes thirty he will have his money, and
little loan until that time would be so
joy-and II you would ike to know the Duke be at
Chantily on Sunday. Then we have our friend The
Count who speaks English with such clear &C
cent, and mas been oil over America and will be-
come director In your company and place shares
for his noble family for $4,000; and you will not be-
leve he gambled on the Mississippi long ago. Then
you have your Irish friend, whose French-barrlng
the Tipperary accents fluent, who is q graduate
of Trinity College and was punished for his devo.
ton to the true cause and found times bad enough
even in New York, and would like to travel with
you, and pay his share of the xpenses If you could
advance him little until he AIRS from his bankers,
who, sorrow upon them, for 'blackgyards that pre-
tind to be bankers have not answered his drafts.
Then you have your friend who chews tobacco and
sees nothing In Paris to compare with America,
and has an invention, and wants to ascertain how
he can invite the whole Paris press to d9jeu'ae7;
never mind the expense--a bottle OF cham
payne on each side Of each plate, 4
necessary. Then you have your friend who IS
in the Church, and has cough, and travels on
purse made up by his congregation, and means
when he reaches Rome to deliver a lecture against
the Catholics and would not mind seeing the Pope
II he could have an hour with him on theological
questions; who eats an early breakfast, is always
on the run nom one palace to another, and carries
q carpet-bag with him, which In time turns out to
be his clothes, that he will not leave to the mercy
Of dishonest French servants. Then comes your
exceedingly sharp young man, who crosses the
ocean six times year-as purchaser OF goods for
wholesale houses in New York, and knows the best
hotels for table d'note, and has high amusement in
telling English travellers of the horrors of American
life, and how no prudent man would walk up
Broadway without carrying loaded pistol In his
hands, and how Americans are dying for q mon.
archy, and would like one Of the Queens sons.
Then you have your friend who is always in trouble
whom no one treats well, who suffers from a sue
cession OF unappeasable wrongs; and you lend him
q hundred francs to pay the landlady who is actu.
ally In possession, and have your own thoughts
when you see him beaming with smiles, riding In
the Bots de Boulogne In the afternoon with a
woman at his side, who is neither his grandmother
nor his landlady.
ARTIST LIFE IN THE COLONY
You md these types constantly appearing and
disappearing. They aoat over the surface of our
colonial life like the weeds and strange growths
which sees in the brackish streams of the for.
est These, however, are not representative of the
colony. There are colonists that one does not
meet at the Grand Hotel or on the Boulcvards
One who Knows told me that during the siege
Americans came to light OF whose existence the
Legation was not aware. There are those who
come here for study and rest-literary people and
artists-who slip down to Fontainebleau during
the Summer and in the Winter do their work in
quiet, out ofthe way studios, over near the Luxem
bourg. When Mr.. Lowell came here he took an
apartment In the Latin Quarter. near the book