The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-12-21
a LETTER FROM PARIS.
PARIS, NOVEMBER 25th, 1889

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San Reno, Naples and Rome. So Paris is
left with her soft, tranquil, autumn at
mosphere, fast verging into winter, with
her art galleries, her music halls and her
universities, to the thoughtful and the
studious among strangers; and to her own
people, who care for nothing in the out
side world-all is here that life can give
them, The late autumn flowers are still
blooming in the Tuilleries, and in the
Champs Elysees the trees are lovely in
their ~leafless beauty, and the soft purple
haze of St. Martins summer fills the air.
Paris is always a beautiful city. The
cleanliness, the order, the good govern
ment, the refined taste which gives SO
much with a moderate expenditure of
means, are proverbial. Many of the Cathe-
drals are rarely beautiful in their archi-
lecture and the public buildings fine. To
compare the beautiful lines and true pro-
| portions of the new Hotel de Vile, (the
city hall, built almost exactly on the
model of the one destroyed in the late war,
with our own conglomerate of bad taste
and false style in Philadelphia, with its
stable foundation. one feels we have much
to learn, and when the cost of the two is
compared, much to regret. The new parts
of the city are being decorated with small
parks and fountains, and the new monu-
ment built to Gambetta in the place de
Carrousel, is a noble work of art. Still
America, La Grand Republique, as the re-
publicans of France term it, has some
what changed Paris, and for good. Our
strong, stern, morals, to u glory be it
said, are slowly but surely changing
Partisan social life. Even the coachmen
do not lash their horses as formerly, and a
| guard is stationed at the crowded cross
ings Of the streets to protect passengers on
foot, a thing unknown some years since.
New boulevards are being opened and al
most new cities built in the environs.
But to the tourist or student of literature
or art, the interesting portions of Paris
must always be the older portions around
the Cite and the Lorbinne, the Latin
quarter. Many of the buildings must be
very old. The old church of the St.
SEVERN dates from the fifth century, por-
tons of the building, very small portions
it is true, being shown, though it has
been three times rebuilt. The streets
around it are very narrow, contrasting
strangely with the broad. bright boule-
ward of st. German only a few PAGES
away. Walking through these winding,
narrow streets one finds much to interest.
They are very clean, though a tall man
could touch the walls with either hand;
the people, simple and honest and courte-
Gus. / never approached them without
feeling their kindness and honest simplic-
ity as one of the things in this world most
valuable. They are the fabricators or
workers in the mechanical arts. Their
small homes are bright with flowers, and
their work is often beautiful in its kind
the carved ivory, the gem cutting. the
brass work, the wood carving, the en-
craving, the lace making, for much of the
work is done in these narrow streets in
Paris. They will talk most intelligently
of the treasures of the Louvre. One of
them asked me if | had seen a beautiful
cabinet of buhl and inlaid wood at Ver-
s~ailles; one of his ancestors had made it
for Louis the XIV. Around the Luxum-
bourg also are many such articles, though
there they work in a higher kind of art.
The designs for fresco and tapestry
woven with the hand looms, were this year
in the exhibition of the Bearvc Arts, nu-
usually fine, and many were made in this
locality. The Louvre gallery and treas
ures would be a stimulus anywhere, as
would the Luxembourg gallery of modern
art.
It is conceded by all nations to be the
finest collection of modern art in the world.
Art in France is 50 true, there is no quack-
cry allowed. 1t must be good color, or
good drawing from life. The color is laid
on with one touch, pure and bright, all re-
painting and r~etouching ends in mess
and oil cloth, not the texture of flesh or
the delicate bloom of the flower, or the
pure transparency of the sky, or the linn
pidity Of water. In this simple faith of
truth, true to nature, these great painters,
the men whose names will live as long as
civilization liyes-work. To sit beside
them and listen to their teaching, to be
shown new truth, and new loneliness and
new beauty, is a rare privilege indeed.
Those living near such great men lead Sc
rious lives, as they themselves are earnest
and thoughtful. No attraction in society,
no glitter of to-day that is gone tomorrow,
could tempt n for a moment that has
once breathed such IN atmosphere as this.
1t becomes no hardship to take with it the
simple, plain food, the work early and
late, severe and trying though it often is.
The schools for music here are very good.
Judging from the music one hears in the
churches it is like the art, thorough. On
the day of the decoration of the tombs or
Les Jours DIES Morris, it is very lovely.
The vespers at the Madeleine on that day
were solemn services. 1t is a most sacred
day to the French people. | shall never
forget the tenor voice that sang from Han
del's Messiah the solo, Comfort We, oh