The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1886-07-30

burdsned by hse Assh, or anything elsa hes
face AS full Of contsnt and pride - shs
looked round on her long, lovely eeyip q Para
disc, on the garden, tAe shrubbsry, sum-
mer houses, .ths ,sssssy theatre and = rustic
cottages, ana beksM u a. he crss46h Of her
genius In. partnership with nfsurt hhs
should have lived on and ON a thu fairy
realm Of song, and should have found her
here after those ''many days" And Taglioni
should have been dancing still, floating In and
out among the lights aud shadows OF her gar
den on the lake. But alas the diva long ago
gathered tho white robes Of Norma about her
and passed out Of mortal sight, and faded into
tradition q her glorious voice had trsmbled
away into silence. while longer the "syl.
phiden fiuttered on, but ct last she too folded
her gossamef wings and disappeared from
tho stage, the lesser and the greater. She also
has become tradition-a tradition OF music
in motion-of grace inimitAble, OF hghtnesa
inconceivablc. She was the greatest II not
the very last of the old school OF dancers;
purely artistic in style, poetic In sentiment
and modest in dress and demeanor. Since ner
time ballet dancing has become moro auto
matte and acrobatic, more difficult, perhaps,
In its tense, interminable poses, its prodigious
muscular endurance and marvellous feats OK
agility; but it, old poetic enchantment has
changed into voluptuous bacchanal intoxica-
ton, making it less fine art, than "black
art" Since her time the dancers smile which
used to come and 20 easily and naturally,
with charming effect, has heightened and
frightened into grin, and her hoating, airy
drapery has shortened and stitfened into .
ruff, very much misplaced On that long ago
summer morning also saw Taglioni, as she
was standing on her balcony looking smil-
ingly out on the lake-a light, graceful little
figure, robcd in white, and all a-fiutter with
pny ribbons. More than . quarter OF
q century later again saw her,
at a large and merry garden party
in London-then q little thin, bent,
sad-eyed old lady, all in black, sitting
retired from the crowd with two or three
other elderly ex-artists Our hostess pointed
her out to me, but not till l saw her rise and
come across the lawn to take leave OF that
pleasant hostess-moving with something OF
dancers elasticity Of step and peculiar swing
of the skirts, as though she were walking up
the stage-not till l marked her matches
grace of manner and the sweetness OF her
parting smile could realize that before us
was indeed that dainty and airy creature who
used to float across the scene, brushing over,
but not they said, bending ferns and flowers
she whose very flesh seemed diaphanous,
like her drapery, whose bones seemed filled
with air. like those of birds-she whose chaste,
tender and exquisite acting even Chateau
BRAND raved about-she who WAS LA
Sylph:de."
At Cernobbia, Caroline of Brunswick, I'M
crowned Queen of England, when Princess OF
Wales sought such consolation as nature
could give, for her matrimonial troubles and
squabbles, with that first gentleman land
brute) of Europe" George Nv. In sight OF
our windows is the Villa Este, now the swell
Hotel de la Refine d. Angleterre," sort OF
monument of that unhappy princess, as the
Oldest part was once her palace and figures in
history as the nursery of the shameful scan
dals which finally resulted in the famous
"trial of Queen Caroline" Here, with court,
small, but jolly, she rode, and sailed and
strolled and danced with q reckless, restless
gayety, unconscious that the spies OF her
ROYAL snenries were ~ Abovt het, as alert and
keen-xyed as the lizards, darting in and out
of the shrubbery and rockwork along her
garden paths. Here she was served by the
handsome Italian courier, or valet, known
on the trial as "non-miricordo," he not reco'-
lecting anything in the least eliminating to
himself or his mistress. Queen Caroline was
I doubtless a much injured and prosecuted wo-
man. but she was not prude or a Puritan
and probably was as far from being Portia
as her husband was from being Cesar, and
only by her maternal love saved from
becoming an utterly reckless royal adven-
turess, sowing Europe with scandals.
Speaking Of adventuresses, am reminded
of the famous, or infamous "Fannie Lear,
or Mrs. Harriet Ely Blackford, who lately
died in Paris, expelled for the second time
from that gay capital, as some dozen years
before she had been expelled from st. Peters
burg, where she had melted an infatuated
lover. the Grand Duke Nicholas Constantine
wich. to the theft of his mothers diamonds;
and as, a few years later, she had been ex-
PEELED from Rome, where it was said she had
caioled another royal or semi-royal lover,
Count Mirafiori, son of the kings morganatic
wife, into raising money by clever imitation
of the signature of his revered sire. We
were at home when the scandal broke out and
the lady was moved on in such a summary
manner that her maid was obliged to take a
bundle of her linen, wet and dripping from
the tubs of the hotel laundry. So it seems
that she led one royal admirer to steal from
:
but what were those crimes to that OF rob-
bling her own mother Of all joy and peace in
life, and dishonoring the name of her dead
fathers
A short time after the expulsion from
Rome we CHANGED to see Mrs. Blackford in
Naples driving alone, but with gallant
young officer riding beside her landau. She
was then slight, graceful, exceedingly
pretty woman, seeming still very young, and
with a strange look of innocence in her beau
tiful, appealing eyes, and she was dressed with
quiet elegance. Nothing striking about her,
except her PERSONAL---VERY. something more
and rarer than beauty. BLOOD will tell"-
stories sometimes. This reckless, wicked,
abandoned adventures came of good old
New England Puritan stock. Her father,
DR.. Ezra Styles Ely, of Philadelphia, dis
tinguished divine, was the son of a divine and
the grandson of other divines ID. D." was
family decoration. The Ely and Styles
boys were born into pulpits and presbyteries
Good old DR.. Ely was the pastor of my father
and mother, and Of the historical Trum-
bull family, in the sober, aristocratic old
town Of Lebanon, Conn. A godly, proper
and infinitely respectable couple were the
.>,.cs, aud hia vife (sho WAS n StylpS) A