Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-08-31
A Wedding at the Centennial.

BUT the event of the foreign society
| has been a wedding at the Exhibition.
A hundred years hence it will be cor
rect to give all the gossip and detail
which can be gathered about this pref
ty incident. Now a mere picture of
the scene is all that is permissible. To
| begin with, the evening was extraor-
| dinarily beautiful. Sunset in the west
and a storm in the east mingled their
hues mySteriOuSly, and filled the at
moSphere with a suffused light of
magic richness in which the landscape
cleaned like an enchanted region, and
the hard-faced Philadelphia houses
glowed with the soft intensity of Vene-
tian palace-fronts ; the mid-sky was like
a strange, pure cerulean lake bordered
by rippled sands of amber, over which
hung rainbow bridge; the western
horizon was roSeate, barred with heavy
purple, fused and reflected below in
the Schuylkill in darker, ruddier mass
of color, across which rolled black
smoke with flashes of crimson, from
earth-born uses, producing the most
magnificent combination, like one of
Turner'S great canvases. The city
ward side of the Exhibition grounds
has fell glare, by night, from rows of
gas-lit saloons Of fanciful exterior; a
pious pilgrim might deem it street in
Vanity Fair-not Thackeray's, but
Bunyan's. But inside the gates
it was fairy-land: lamps spark
ling among the foliage up and
down the soft knobs and dells,
the vast dark outlines of the empty
buildings defined by the subdued light
within. Agricultural Hall, silent and
deserted, with its cathedral-like roof
and towers, all its windows aglow
with mellow-radiance, looked like a
great church awaiting some mystic
midnight rites. The marriage took
place IN the Judges Pavilion. The
body of the building is taken up by a
great hall of fine proportions, with an
arched and frescoed roof; an open
work gallery, handsome, butnot heavy,
runs round three sides; at the upper
end an arrangement of Shrubberv.
flowers and flags improvised sort Of
chapel or chancel, and the door at the
lower end was draped with the Ameri-
can colors. The company divided into
two lines on opposite sides of the
room, leaving wide space open down
its entire length; and the light sum-
mer dresses of the women, the preva-
lence of uniforms, the stately, bland
bearing of the foreigners of Latin race
(Which neither we stiff yet nervous
American Angles, nor our British
brethren, nor our cousins German ever
wholly acquire) combined to give great
elegance and distinction to the general
aspect of the assemblage. 1t looked
official, diplomatic. The absence of
draWing-room details, which are gener-
ally conspicuous in all except church
weddings, conferred a gTa71de air on
the occasion; seldom is simple maid
Ell so royalty married. Mendelsohn's
Wedding-March burst forth from an
invisible band, and the bridal party
entered the hall under the folds of the
Star-spangled banner, and swept up
between the ranks of friends to where
the clergyman was waiting for them.
1t was pretty group: the minister in
his Geneva gown and ruff; the grace
full, girliSh BRIDE. pale and tremulous.
but calm, with her crown of myrtle, a
little Queens crown according to her
National custom; the bridegroom in
his uniform; little withdrawn, the
circle of the parents, the fresh-faced
and Whit-robed bridesmaids, and more
uniforms. The service. pronounced
in Swedish, had a hearty, homely
sound which gave a pleasant sense of
remote familiarity even to those who
understood not a word: the minister's
hands laid each on the head of the
newly-married pair during the Lord S
Prayer, which concluded the cere-
mOny, added pathos and solemnity to
his benedictiOn.-Cha of
the International Fair, September At
ld11tic.