New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1878-10-23
OUR PARIS LETTER.

u
PREACHING. FACTS AND FANCIES.
USEFUL LESSONS TAUGHT AND
LEARNED. RESULTS. THE LATEST
PARTISAN SENSATION.
lFron our regular correspondent
PARIS, Oct. Sd, 1878.
As one talks to holiday makers
now returning home in shoals after
making a point Of seeing the Exhi.
bition on their way; one cannot we'll
avoid calling to mind the half-for-
gotten fable. It is "Eyes and no
Eyes over again, only on larger
scale, and with q greatly increased
variety of episode. Itneed scarcely
be said that 1 allude to that class Of
general sight.seers which so enor.
mously preponderates over the com.
paratively few visitors who have
been to the Exhibition for some def.
mite purpose Of art, or business, or
both com bined, and who expect to
make tangible profit in one way or
another out of their study OF the la.
test achievements of agricultural en-
gineers, of potters, Of upholsterers,
and of builders. The general visi.
tors have been or are going to Paris,
partly because they like to see all
Exhibitions of every kind, partly
because they fancy that they ought
to see this particular Exhibition for
sake of being as other men are, and
of obtaining material for small.talk,
and partly because, if the truth be
told, they grasp eagerly at any ex.
cuse for IL holiday in the recreation
ground Of Europe. The impression
left upon different members of this
body by their inspection Of the Paris
Exposition are worth study by rea.
son of their variety and their singu-
larly contradictory nature. There
are first of all the good people who
come home delighted with all that
they have seen, because they set out
intending to be pleased, and because
they fear that if they seemed dissatis-
fed their neig bors would fancy they
had blundered into a failure, and Il
waste Of money and time. At the
opposite pole, though actuated by
much the same insinerity Of motive,
are the unhappy people who are dis
appointed, and because they think it
is the correct thing to be disappoint.
ed, and because they believe that
their dissatisfaction proves their
own superiority. Leaving the gen.
uine impressions of these sight-seers
out of the question as beyond the
reach Of anything save guess-work
we come to the spectators who are
chiefly struck by the magnitude Of
the thing to be seen. They have
been oppressed by their self.imposed
task Of pleasure, and having no
lnethod in their holiday occupation,
have confessedly derived from it
little but vague sense Of its import
nnce. There has been so much to
see that they have seen nothing. 1t
would, they say, and say truthfully,
take weeks to ''do' the Exhibition
thoroughly; so they have not known
how to spend few days there with
intelligent enjoyment. With them
it is not exactly a case of''no eyes, y
or of eyes wilfully blind; they
honestly desire to see, but they dc
not know where to begin to look.
Others, still without the charmed
circle of those who have acquired the
art of seeing have failed because
1hey have limited too carefully THEN
horizon. Interested in the pictures,
they have forgotten the furniture
paying attention to the characters,
tic productions Of the furniture max
ers, they have missed taking a com.
prehensive view of the still more
characteristic structures in which
they are placed. STRUCK by the
merely curious, they have lost sight
of the beautiful, or, on the Other
hand, they have looked only where
they could admire.
1t would be difficult to expand the
catalogue of Exhibitions oers to q
length as great as that Of the more
familiar Exhibition catalogue. The
ways of seeing are as many as the
sights to be seen. As rule, it may
be said that he who takes most into
IN Exhibition takes most out of it,
Just as he who brings most informa.
ton to hear upon a book derives most
from it's pages. It is certain that