Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-02-26

| it, said:
stop in Dublin three days and you
! think you know it; stop three weeks
and you begin to doubt; stop three years
and you realize that you will never pen
citrate her mystery"
Now that l have written the words
down, l have a consciousness of having
| repeated them somewhere before; per-
| haps in a book wherein 1 said some
thing about the personality of cities. For
they have it or have it not. They are
] like women in respect to the evanes-
| cent and preSSioniStic quality that is
suggested by the word charm: they have
! it or have. it not one does not know
/ why and if one seeks to define or to
| analyze it, it is quite apt to vanish
away.
My own enthusiasm for Brussels was
! of long standing. /, too, in years gone
! by, at time when nothing would have
! seemed more improbable than the
! thought that 1 should ever live there,
in my quality of gaping tourist l, too
Baedeker in hand, had gazed at the
Grand Place and at Ste. Gudule, and
at the Manneken, had seen all the sights
recommended in the guide books. And
1 had caught some sense, however in
| adequate, of the peculiar intimate charm
! of that highly original personality
! which makes Brussels unique among the
! cities of the world. But had not
! caught that glimpse in any of those
| standard historic spots, unless it was
! before the Menneken, before which any
morning groups of English or Ameri-
can tourists could be seen standing,
leering at each other in that self-con-
seriousness with which the representa-
tives of our prurient race cape az
things they consider shocking.
L shall never forget the morning when
| went into a book store in Brussels
and asked to be shown some French
novels; the fat Bruxelloise who kept
the shop, realizing at a glance that L
belonged to the race that ethnologistS
assure us we are wrong in calling
Anglo-SaXon, said instantly:
"Quelque chose de shocking Mon
sieur?" C"Something shocking. sir?'D
No, as l was saying, it was not be-
fore the monument of Brussels that 1
had that first intimation of the city's
peculiar charm. 1t is the ARREST of
memories. An evening when 1 looked
from the window of my hotel and saw
| crowd of youths and maidens In the
mist of gentle rain, drifting gaily in
! dance down the street where the long
| reflection of the lamp lights wavered
| in the shining wet surface of the as
phalt. l have spoken of that scene
/
! trivial to repeat, yet it is important
as an implication of that gaiety, of that
| insouciance, that love of pleasure which
| has characterized the Belgian people all
| the way along the sad calvary of its
| history. 1t is characteristic of the
! Walloons as it is of the Flemish, and
| 1t persists today as strong, as ineradi-
cable, as it was in those, long, dead
days that are kept so vividly alive in
] In init
iers. There one beholds in bright i'm
mortal colors, the love of the feasting
and the frolic and the fun, the dancing,
the eating and the drinking, the coarse
! pleasure in which Verhaeren has found
the poetical material for some of the
most charming of his vignettes
The Walloons and the Flemish meet
in Brussels and it is there that is ac-
complished that amaIgame which makes
the Belgian nation, and it is from the
contributions of both that is formed that
character which makes Brussels as I'M
/ like Paris as New York is unlike San
Francisco. To the superficial and half
| blind eye there are, of course, many re-
semblances in the architecture, which is
| generally of the French tradition and
influence, save where the Spanish touch
! is shown in the old gables of the lower
town, or the German heaviness in GER
| tain buildings that marked the German
invasion of the ante-bellum days.
Perhaps one of the things that makes
| the two cities alike to the traveller, who
is always repeating the tiresome banal-
ity, is the fact that in both cities the
people sit at tables, on the sidewalks,
before the cafes in the afternoons, and
sip their drinks. But if he were to sit
at one Of those tables in Brussels a
while he would begin to note not mere
ly superficial, but implicit differences:
in the language first of all--that is, if
he happened to know French. They
speak French at Brussels, of course, but
they speak Flemish, too, and when, out
side of the Quarter Leopold they speak
French, it is apt to be French that is
translation of Flemish modes of
thought. so that another dialect is form
ed, which degenerates into a savory
patois spoken by the Maroliens, the in
habtants of that swarming quarter
which lies along the rue Haute and the
rue Blaes below the hill on which the
Palais de Justice lifts it's heavy and
imposing mass. The patois is melange
of Flemish and Walloon French and no
body outside the Marbles understands
it, except the policemen and detectives
of the cityq. In the petite bourgeoisie 1t
becomes Ineligible and it's fine dis
tinctions are shown in that charming
play whose fancy and humor are to be
attributed to Mr.. Fernand Wicheler, rs
it's stage craft is to be accredited to
Mr. Jules Foncon, lie Marriage de Made
moiselfe Beulemans." The play depends
for it's appeal on the distinction there
is between the French and the Belgian
between Paris and Brussels, and shows
accurately what each thinks of the
other.
The French have always made fun or
the Belgians: as they have made fun
of Englishmen and of Americans, as
they have made fun of everybody and
everything, including themselves. Their
wit is apt to be rather sharp, with the
cutting quality of finely tempered steel
They have wit, but not humor; the
word does not exist in their language
and where they adopt theid own word
NWr