Various

“ Narrow planks of rough wood were thrown across the bright waters, which had to be crossed many times before reaching the dwelling-place of Taffy Lewin, the presiding genius of the place. This dwelling-place was a thatched cottage, containing three rooms; and Taffy herself, when I first saw her, almost realised my idea of the superannuated or dowager-queen of the fairies: she was then seventy years of age, and one of the least specimens of perfectly-formed humanity that I have ever beheld. So agile and quick was she in all her movements, that a nervous person would have been frequently startled ”

“ The tendency seems to be to an admission that this is the finest embodiment of the idea of the Saviour of the world which that world has ever seen; and I shall not be surprised if this opinion be confirmed. Many of the artist's mythological figures—particularly those realising ideal beauty, his Psyches, Venuses, Dianas, and Apollos, the cast of his noble frieze of the triumphal march of Alexander, and some of his subjects embodying the poetry of human life—are eminently beautiful. The busts, which are numerous, are less interesting, and in most instances inferior as works of art. ”

“ I will admit there is, when it is established that the material is superior to the spiritual—that gross, full-feeding habits are more laudable than a taste for neat apparel—that a profuse, and often ostentatious expenditure, unregulated by taste, is better than a tasteful moderate expenditure, in which a sacrifice of immediate appetites is made for the sake of some ultimate gratification in the esteem of our fellow-creatures. It is a point of ambition with a Scottish artisan to have a suit of superfine black clothes in which to go to church and attend funerals. ”

“ There seems to be an increasing disposition among us to regard music as an agent of civilisation, and therefore an increasing anxiety to diffuse a taste for the art throughout all classes of the people. The simple songs that are found in countries in an early stage of progress cannot constitute the music of a refined nation, any more than their rude ballads can be the staple, instead of the mere germ, of their poetry. ”

“ Innumerable rows of osier-willows were planted on the banks, used in the art of basket-making, the osiers being of the finest and whitest kind, while everywhere and all around extended beds of watercresses. Yet it was not altogether the streamlets or the beautiful trees which made this spot so peculiarly refreshing: nowhere did grass appear so rich and green as in this quiet valley ”

“ In such cases, if a family does not basely, by incurring debt, throw the actual suffering upon others—if it only pinches itself at one time, that it may make a decent show at another—if it only spares in its own grosser necessaries, that it may appear on a footing of equality with those of its own nominal social rank, or escape the pity which it is heavenly to give, but bitter to receive, there surely is no offence committed. ”

“ Such a multitude of curious and elegant objects, recalling the royalty of past ages, perhaps nowhere else exists. They are so arranged in a suite of ancient state apartments, that you pass from one age to another in proper chronological succession, and find you have been reading the Danish history of several centuries in the course of an hour's lounge. The most conspicuous sovereign of the series is the builder of the house, who was in truth a noted monarch in his day, an active, hard-headed man, very warlike, very sensual, yet not devoid of a kind-hearted regard for the good of his people. ”

“ It thus appears that there is a philosophy in those little decorums of society which minds of a bold and sprightly character are so apt to deride, and which many persons, without the least ill intention, are so often seen to disregard. Every great cause must have its banner. ”

“ I have known something of country towns, where there is considerable poverty within doors and in reality, while at the same time the bulk of the population make a principle of appearing as well dressed as possible; and my feeling on the subject is, that to laugh at such things is to laugh at virtue itself. The whole moral being of the individual anchors perhaps in some frail remains of well-saved clothes, or in the possession of some tolerable house handed down from some more comfortable ancestor. ”

“ They make a causeway of small, round, waterworn stones, like eggs placed on end, which tortures the feet, and causes every passing wagon to produce a noise so great, that conversation is drowned in it. They form a side pavement of the same materials, with a border of hewn granite slabs; the whole being far too narrow for the passing crowd, so that, there being, after all, little more than a choice between the egg pavement on the side and the egg pavement in the middle, the multitude is chiefly seen plodding its way along the causeway, among wheelbarrows, wains, and carriages. ”

“ Even in this country, where everything bears a money value, including even the light that enters our houses, there are some galleries where the works of great painters are patent to the public. But the sister art is a monopoly of the rich, because the efforts of performers produce no permanent creations, but merely an evanescent sound, which may elevate the mind and linger on the memory, but can never be reproduced by the listener. A painter lives by the sale of works which survive even himself perhaps for hundreds of years ”

“ The Misses Drelincourt and their brother Henry found that open impertinence would not be tolerated, even by their doting father, when offered to his wife; but in venting all their jealousy and petty spleen on the poor unoffending Clari, who never resented and never complained, the case was far different. Ah, it is not in open warfare or unkindness that the heaviest cross is to be borne: it is hypocrisy and concealment we need dread. ”

“ It is, I believe, a general distinction between England and continental countries, that in the latter elegancies and fineries are first attended to, and things conducive to daily comfort only in the second place, while in England the comfortable and the ornamental go hand in hand together. Hence it is that, with all their fine palaces, which are indeed almost objects of the past, the people of Copenhagen have not even yet learned how to pave their streets, to introduce water into their houses, or to establish gas-lighting. ”

“ From an article by Mr Hickson in the last number of the 'Westminster Review,' we learn that Mr Doubleday endeavours to show grounds for believing that, while there are powerful tendencies to increase beyond the limits of subsistence, there are likewise tendencies to a decrease, which must result in preserving what may be called a balance between the quantity of food and the number of people. Mankind, from Adam downwards to our own day, have gone forward and backward in numbers by a series of fits and starts—they have by no means been going on as a constantly-increasing quantity. ”

“ There is a salon for music, where the people are under cover, but without seats, unless they choose to ask for refreshments. In the open air are merry-go-rounds, an undulating railway, and machines for testing strength. In Denmark, a merry-go-round is the enjoyment of old as well as young. ”

“ The genius of the present age is fertile in expedients, and perhaps some plan may be hit upon to satisfy the exorbitant expectations of musical artists, by providing a larger and more frequent audience at prices better adapted to ordinary means. So long as the present system, however, continues, music cannot be expected to make any rapid progress among us; for the effect of the system is to degrade art to the level of fashion, and thus repress the noble and generous aspirations of genius. ”

“ We all of us live not merely for and in ourselves, but partly for and in others. To be threatened with a fall from our sphere or special field of life, is to anticipate one of the greatest of evils, a sort of half death. It is not wonderful that men and women should make such a struggle to avoid it. ”

“ But the difficulty arising from the enormous expense of such musical instruments as the piano is less complicated; and indeed it would appear at first sight to be very extraordinary that in an age of almost unbounded speculation and competition it should exist at all. There is nothing in the construction of the machinery of a piano which ought to prevent it from being found in tens of thousands of houses in this country from which it is at present entirely excluded. The existing piano, however, is a traditional instrument—an heir-loom of the wealthy ”

“ The castle of Vincennes, within a few miles of Paris, has always been as terrible a place of detention as was the Bastille. Even in these days of comparative liberty and justice, Vincennes is made an engine of oppression; for throughout all political changes, the French government never scruples to seize and incarcerate illegally any one against whom it has a grudge. ”

“ It is equally agreeable to pause in the midst of the contemplation of his works, and observe the groups of admiring countrymen, from the noble to the peasant, who pass through the rooms to enjoy the spectacle of an intellectual triumph in which they feel that they have a part. ”

“ Under every banner there will be a few rogues and cowards. But how much worse would it be with an army to have no ensign at all? It might then have the whole force of the enemy mingling in its ranks, and unresistedly hewing it in pieces. ”

“ How these children are fed it is often so difficult to comprehend, that one is almost driven to the conclusion that they somehow live and have strength to romp about on the mere element—fresh air. It is very clear that nature abhors all sorts of codling and pampering:—
'It is a fact, admitted by all gardeners as well as botanists,' says Mr Doubleday, 'that if a tree, plant, or flower be placed in a mould either naturally or artificially made too rich for it, a plethoric state is produced, and fruitfulness ceases. ”

“ Music has now descended lower in the social scale than it did in the last generation, and thousands of hearts are beating with the feeling of art and its aspirations, which were formerly cold and silent. The comparatively poor and the really economical do not buy pianos, simply because they are far beyond their means; and in England the cause of musical science and kindly feeling is deprived of the aid of a family instrument, which in Germany is found even in the parlour of the village public-houses. ”

“ Mr Doubleday's explanation of these phenomena is to the effect, that it is not misery, but comfort, which{302} deadens the principle of increase. It is notorious that the poorest parents have, as a general rule, the greatest number of children. Only feed people on potatoes and salt, oatmeal-porridge, or any other plain fare, and let them at the same time maintain a struggle to get even that, and sure enough their firesides, or the places where the fire should be, will be garnished by as plenteous a crop of youngsters as you could wish to behold! ”

“ To be good is held as better than only to seem good. Appearances, in as far as they may serve, and often do serve, as a means of cloaking some evil reality, are not, upon the whole, in good esteem among mankind. ”

“ Most people give way to its force, yet do not act or speak as if they felt it to be quite right. It is wrong in this way: such conduct tends to become a screen to actual error; for if the virtuous appear to act exactly as the vicious do, how can we know where vice exists? ”

“ It is neither from among the poor nor the rich that great artists usually spring, but from that large middle-class in which the genius of individuals receives an impulse from pecuniary necessity. In that rank large sums cannot be paid for a song, and their claims to gentility will not permit them to class themselves even at a concert with the grade beneath them, permitted to listen for a lower price in organ lofts and at the back of galleries. ”

“ It would then appear, that so long as there is an abject, struggling poor, ignorant and ill-fed, there will be a vigorous growth, a dangerous population—dangerous, because redundant as respects their capacity and will to work. On the other hand, by an universal spread of education, by the cultivation of rational tastes and habits, and by the simple mode of living which such tastes would engender, there will ensue something like a medium between a relatively-redundant and a comparative extinction of population. ”

“ Perhaps this neighbour has only a cathedral, or the county courts, to look to as a source of income: it keeps up a brave spirit, but cannot give{290} anything better than tea-drinkings. Its better class are formal and refined in their manners, and even its poor have a clean delicate air about them, dressing much better than they eat or drink. All this is matter of mirth to the unthinking members of the more thriving community, who feel that, if they are less refined, they have at least more of the substantialities of life at their command. ”

“ But while many efforts are making in this direction, there is still great sluggishness in one important branch of the business: the lower classes have no good instruments, and have no great artists; the inspiration derived from a Jenny Lind or a Sontag never descends beneath a certain line in the social scale; and the pianoforte, the most useful of all musical instruments, has never served for a rallying-point in the domestic circles of the poor. ”