Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1878-09-25

W piuhSCi ouC man VI OuO Oitoo W SiNO W
another, to destroy property and values
even by unwise legislation. but the benei-
cent forces that produce values are beyond
its command.
Some consideration of the morality of
initiation is deferred until another time.
C. W. W.
Fromour Regular Correspondent
Paris Letter.
PARIS. Sept. 7th. 1873.
After all, there is thus much to admire,
to wonder at and to philosophise over in a
universal exhibition, in the fact that each
of these shows is. after its kind, unique;
and that the thing in its complete entirety
can never be seen again. It's component
parts may be, and in all probability, will
be, brought together again, since one-half
of the world is never tired of shopkeeping,
and the other half of shopping, or, at
least, of staring into shop windows and
thinking it would buy if it only had the
money. And, in truth. a modern EXPOSE
ton is abstractedly only manner of ka-
leidoscope. The manufacturers and the
shopkeepers have an enhanced supply of
parti-colored vtreous fragments forth
coming; and on a given day authority
gives a cylinder shake, to the accompani-
ment of flourish of trumpets and dis
charge of artillery, and millions press to
the peephole, and, surveying the new geo.
metrical pattern, calculate O-O-O-Oh!
just as they do q: a public garden when
the final pyrotechnc bouquet begins to
unfold its glories. But there will be more
exhibitions and more fireworks in days to
come. 1t is inexpedient, perhaps, TO be
enthusiastic about anything, but in no di-
rection is enthusiasm of the gushing kind
so much to be deprecated as in the case of
international exhibitions rs Congresses of
Industry" and " Festivals of Peace. y
The worlds fair in London in 1851 was
Immediately followed by a revolution in
France. The Paris exhibition of 1855 WAS
held in the very midst Of a devastating
war between four Of the great European
powers; Two years after the exposition
universele of 1867, disturbed as it was in
its actual course by the Mexican catast ro-
phe-comes Worth and Sedan; and, as for
1873 all we can say is that western Europe
has escaped the horrors of war by which
the east has been devastated. and we have
not the slightest idea of what is to come
next. Gentlemen have always cried
peace! peace! when there is no peace, but
this need not prevent our enjoying the dis
plays of all the kingdoms of the world
and the glories thereof which Satan and
the French people have grouped together
here for our temptation.
In decorative bronze sculpture, as | have
more than once observed the French are
well nigh unapproachable. In marble statu-
airy they hold their own verynobly. although
they are very closely pressed by the Ital-
ians; but in ecclesiastical decoration, and
even in decorative architecture, can but
think that France, through her addicted
ness to ford color and excessive orna-
mentation, is very seriously retrograding
That the paintings executed by M. Paul
Baudry at the New Grand Opera House
are truly magnificent, and that the proper
tions of that edifice are very grandiose,
must at once be obvious, but l was born
either too early or too late to appreciate
the beauty Of the Opera House facade. 1t
seems to me meretricious mass, the
whole effect of which, notwithstanding all
the costliness of the materials of which it
is composed, and all the consummate plas
tic skill which has been lavished on its
adjournment, is not, to my mind. more at
tractivo than M. Giraudin's sweet-stuf1
shop on the Rue de la Paix. And l am
positively sure that l never saw anything
more enthusiastically hideous than the ex;
terror of the exhibition palace of the 1ro.
cadero, or the facade of the Champ de
Mars Palace with its clumsy figures look.
ing towards the terrace of the bridge OF
Jena. The two towering portals which
give entrance to the local exhibits of La
Villa dc Paris and the Galerie DIES Beaux-
Arts are equally disastrous examples of a
deteriorated taste, in the way of meagrt
and poverty-stricken design. bolstered up
by excess of carving, gliding and adorn.
ment Of every degree of garishness. 1t is
very irritating to observe this and 10 con
trast it with the exquisite refinement and
taste which the French modeler and ar
worker bestows on the conception and
execution of the most tri1ng b,6elot-a
mirror, q washstand. lady's chateiaine, a
pen tray, or a paper weight. Abating the
displays of Sevres, Beauvais and the
Gobelins. the carpets. the marble statuary
and Gustave Dore's vase, there is very
little on large scale in the French de-
partment that can be called elegant The
little things are supremely tasteful and
beautiful. They seem to have gone 10
work more earnestly and more thought
fully in the illustration Of the products of
Lilhput than in those of Brobdingnag. and
after all the author Of Td6ieGu5 de Paris
may have been hitting the right nail on
the head in saying that the Frenchmen are
always serious in little things, and always
frivolous in great ones. ..
The Bibliotheque monumentale is a col
lection or translations in all known Ian.
guages Of the Bulta Hyaiabiis, in which