The Baltimore County union., 1886-11-06
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
A FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE.
PAPER No. I.

PAPER No. I.
first visit to Europe, what an experience it is !
What new and strange emotions possess one in
putting ones self for the first time entirely at the
mercy of the ocean! What an agonizng sense
that the foundations of the universe are giving
way comes from the exchange beneath ones feet
of the stable earth for the shifting waters But
soon the vessel becomes little world. Interests
between people who but yesterday were strangers
spring up, grow ard develop with the rapidity #
the pomegranate under the spell of the East Indian
magician. The captain becomes lesser Provi
dence, the crew and officers his mnisterng spirits.
And ministering spirits are they truly in their
kindly attentions, their beautiful sereiceableness.
Does sense of common peril in the hearts of peo-
pie at sea account for these slrOng manifestation
OF sympathetic interest, these lovely and cheerful
y rendered mnstrations? II So it is well that
such a cloud should hang always in the human sky
or the scenery of Western Europe it is we'll I
land at Antwerp and to take the beauties of nature
in that gradually ascending scale of impressive
and grande found between the lowlands of
Holland and Belgium, to which man says "pro
duce for me" and they obey, and the snow heights
of Mont Blanc, which in hoary dignity silently
defy the mandate of 'the crown of things" "How
odd and strange!" is our first cry as the ship
moves into the Antwerp dock. What a glowing,
vivid, exquisite greenness is in the grass and
trees! We have seen such greenness at home in
young wheat and in the barley LEAKAGE of early
spring, but in such rich maturity of verdure
as is here. Then the houses. They are all dull
yellow, or in varying shades of grey; not a red
brick building, such as 60 to make up the bulk of
our own cities, is to be seen. And when we land
how we calculate over the narrowness of the
streets-streets minus all signs of sidewalk; streets
so tortuousy laid out that one cannot see half
block ahead streets bordered by houses of such
quaint construction to excite the liveliest
or aIa kh.tk L
been but lately scrubbed with a brush. But the
people! People of ambiguous chronological statues,
disowned alike by both Celt and Saxon, they are
stranger than the veruure stranger than the town.
Their faces have the German heaviness without
the German marks of intellectually the French
aggressiveness without the French lines of happy
vivacity and brightness But human they are
and kindly too in their way, though one early
learns to feel that to get the advantage-however
small-in trade is seemingly the chief end and
aim of their existence-even public officials need
ing to be watched with hawklike vigilance lest
they overcharge or slip false coin.
To Americans who have never visited Europe
the word 'cathedral"has no meaning, hence to such
with thinking minds the first sight of the Antwerp
Cathedral is revelation. The first visit to it
that is, tor so hemmed in is the wonderful struc-
ture by the narrowness of the streets and by the
eucroachment of the neighboring houses, built al
most against its walls, that there is but one point
in the whole city from which any thing like view
of the ediGce can be obtained and this is limited
to the grand facade, with its tower and sp re-
And oh what spire so lofty, graceful, so
airy, so delicate is it to be perfect "miracle in
stone." Once within the building, however, one
finds nothing to mar the effect of the interior as
whole. No pews break the sweep of the noble
nave no locked gates of irt shut in the precincts
of the choir or bar the entrance to the chapels in
the recesses of the stately aises And then how
interesting are the details. The choir stalls are
ornamented with perfect gems of wood carv ing,
over which one fingers long in charmed admira
ton. The stained glass windows miracles Of
antique beauty, and among the numerous paint
-i gs which adorn the walls is the master piece of
Reubens. This is great trptych, the centre be
ing the descent from the cross, the left side piece
representing the visit of Mary to Elizabeth and
the right the presentation of the infant Jesus in
the temple. One is thrilled for a moment with the
evidence of he artists genius and power, but the
glow of holy emotion which the subject inspires.
and which the picture should enhance and sustain,
is presently chilled and the judgment experiences
a of untness in the sensuous richness of the
coloring in the almost heavy voluptuOusneSs of the
human contours. We turn away almost willingly
take in more breath of the purer inspiration
that from the genius of architecture through
the noble proportions, the stately grace of the holy
ediice.
Cathedral, and yet as solemn a monument of the
spirit and deeds of men, is Alva's Tower, grin
relic of a grimmer period of prosecuting tyranny.
The heart almost quakes as the rusty slide moves
in the great iron gate and voice hoarse and
strange is heard demanding the entrance fee
The museum of antiquities within the building
cannot win one to forgetiuness of the hearts that
nave broken behind its gratngs, of the bodies that
have languished in its dungeons, of the souls that
hova toka 1ad Hiyht from ham
bers. How the wind sighs and means without
about its gables, haunting reminders of the sighs
and means that have so often resounded within.
One looks with absent, hurried gaze upon the
relics of ages past and almost hastens out through
the gloomy court into the freedom of the sunt air.
The Royal Museum of Antwerp contains a
superb collection of the master pieces of the Dutch
and Flemish schools, with not few of the best
from the French and Italian. Here are numerous
paintings by De vos. Massys, Reubens, Van Dyck,
Van Eyck, and that giant genius, Rembrandt
One is diZzied by the number and reputed merits
of these works of art and is constrained to pass by
the many to notice carefully the most famous few
but the impression made by these few promises to
be enduring. We shall know Rembrandt again
wherever we see one from henceforth. How does
he obtain those wonderful effects that thrilling
life likeness or death likeness? that marvellous
rhiaro- oscuroP that startling cearness of deinea
tion with such quiet soberness of tint, with such
almost miserliness of variety in color. And
Reubens and Van Dyck! We shall know them
too again. But what foil they to each other.
How the riotous sensuousness of the former sets
off the almost ethereal deicacy of the latter How
Reubens appeals to the eye How Van Dyck
speaks to the spirit!
New Antwerp, growing Antwerp is ambitious
and almost modern, but is redeemed from common
placeness by the genius of the antique, which still
peeps out of the attempts at modern architecture,
which still frowns down the adoption of modern
inventions. Continue to assert thyself. oh spirit
of antiquity, for many year to come, and sterny
forbid that beautiful historical, quaint old Ant
werp should ever give place to a mimic Paris oi
modern times NJ. A. G..