Crystal Palace

“ The first impression created by the interior aspect of the Crystal Palace, is one of admiration. Magnificent indeed is the lofty dome of the transept, arching over glorious old trees, oriental shrubbery, statuary, fountains, and masses of gorgeous flowers; the brilliant perspective of the central aisle, with its double lines of galleries, stretching away on either hand, and traversed by countless avenues, every point of the vast expanse presenting its own special subject of interest, and challenging the beholder's gaze. ”

“ The Crystal Palace gleamed in the sunshine; but I do not think a very impressive edifice can be built of glass,—light and airy, to be sure, but still it will be no other than an overgrown conservatory. It is unlike anything else in England; uncongenial with the English character, without privacy, destitute of mass, weight, and shadow, unsusceptible of ivy, lichens, or any mellowness from age.
The train of carriages stops within the domain of the palace, where there is a long ascending corridor up into the edifice. ”

“ The show is certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto seen. The Crystal Palace, which covers and protects all, is better than any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and varied utility. ”

“ The Crystal Palace is a gigantic toy for the English people to play with. The design seems to be to reproduce all past ages, by representing the features of their interior architecture, costume, religion, domestic life, and everything that can be expressed by paint and plaster; and, likewise, to bring all climates and regions of the earth within these enchanted precincts, with their inhabitants and animals in living semblance, and their vegetable productions, as far as possible, alive and real. ”

“ Crossing Battersea Bridge, in the neighborhood of Chelsea, I remember seeing a distant gleam of the Crystal Palace, glimmering afar in the afternoon sunshine like an imaginary structure,—an air-castle by chance descended upon earth, and resting there one instant before it vanished, as we sometimes see a soap-bubble touch unharmed on the carpet,—a thing of only momentary visibility and no substance, destined to be overburdened and crushed down by the first cloud-shadow that might fall upon that spot. ”

“ The sun blares, the wind blows from the east, the sky is bereft of cloud, and without, all is of iron. The windows of the Crystal Palace are seen from all points of London. The holiday-maker rejoices in the glorious day, and the painter turns aside to shut his eyes. ”

“ What the flower-garden is to the bees, attracting them to gather honey from its sweets, the Grand Exhibition has been to many a candidate anxious to take his place in the ranks of authorship. The book before us is one of the proofs of its stimulating powers. It fully and ably accomplishes all which the title-page leads us to expect, setting forth the causes and progress of that wondrous festival of industry at which the world is to meet in Britannia's Crystal Palace. ”

“ In every locality there might be a hall where music, or pictures, or the talk of friends would call into action sleeping powers, and by admiration arouse the deadened to life. The best things gain nothing by being made private property; a fine picture possessed by the State will give the individual who looks at it as much pleasure as if he possessed it. It is no idle dream that the Crystal Palace might become a national institution, open free for the enjoyment of all, dedicated to the service of the people, for the recreation of their lives, by means of music, knowledge, and beauty. ”

“ Little Frank began to dry his tears, and smile upon his happy friend.
"I have been to see 'The Crystal Palace,' Harry, and it is so large and grand!" said he, hoping to amuse him.
"No doubt it will be, when completed, quite like a scene in fairy-land," said Harry, calmly; "but before that time arrives, angels will have fetched me to one of the 'many mansions' that Jesus has prepared for all who love him. (John xiv. 1, 2.) And think what palaces of light and glory they will be, dear Frank!"
"No doubt they will," said Frank, but looked as if he had no wish to see them either, for the present. ”

“ On reflection it had been thought better that men, under the crystal roof, should temperately refresh themselves—all mutually sustaining one another even by their own self-respect of the decencies of life, there and then in their own Crystal Palace—than that, turned away hungering and athirst, they should be absorbed in the holes and corners of surrounding public-houses. ”

“ They who imagine that art has died out of the world, and sigh for the chisel of Praxiteles, the pencil of Apelles, and the glorious conceptions of the masters of the middles ages, would do well to visit the Crystal Palace, and contrast the rudeness which shaped all the elements of ordinary life in former periods, with the elegance and beauty which the simplest objects of common use are beginning to assume. ”

“ The million toilers from mine, and factory, and workshop, and loom, and office, and field, share with their more wealthy neighbours the feast of reason and imagination spread out in the Crystal Palace.
It is strange indeed to see so many nations assembled and represented on one spot of British ground. In short, it is one great theatre, with thousands of performers, each playing his own part. ”

“ How many of the thousands who go every year to the Crystal Palace remember, or even know, that hard by is an institution which should claim the support of all who have hearts to feel for the afflictions of their fellows? ”

“ The distant hum of thousands of good humoured people, with occasionally a national anthem from some gigantic organ, together with the noise of the machinery, seems to send life into every part of the Crystal Palace. ”

“ As inaugurating an era of universal peace, which its most enthusiastic supporters expected it to do, the Great Exhibition of 1851 proved a failure; but as a means of diffusing among the people of Great Britain views about foreigners more enlightened than those they entertained before, as an impetus to commerce and manufacture and a stimulus to artistic production, the “Crystal Palace” has fully fulfilled the most sanguine anticipation. ”

“ But as when these colors come in contact each becomes tinged with the complementary color of the other—the blue with green, the red with orange—a line of white is interposed between them. Applying these principles, the shafts of the columns are to be yellow, the concave portions of their capitals blue, the under side of the girders red, and their vertical surfaces white.
Among all the wonders of the Crystal Palace nothing is more wonderful than its cheapness, and the rapidity of its construction. ”

“ VOCES POPULI. BANK HOLIDAY.
SCENE—The Crystal Palace. The Nave is filled with a dense throng of Pleasure-seekers. Every free seat commanding the most distant view of a Variety Performance on the Great Stage, has been occupied an hour in advance. The less punctual stand and enjoy the spectacle of other persons' hats or bonnets. Gangs of Male and Female Promenaders jostle and hustle to their hearts' content, or perform the war-song and dance of the Lower-class 'ARRY, which consists in chanting "Oi tiddly-oi-toi; hoi-toi-oi!" to a double shuffle. Tired women sit on chairs and look at nothing. ”

“ The great system of fountains in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, though the most stupendous that the world has ever seen, is designed with an unity which greatly enhances, or rather fully displays, its unrivalled magnificence. ”

“ Presuming that you will expect from me some account of the great World's Fair, I take my pen to give you my own impressions, although I am afraid that anything which I may say about this "Lion of the day," will fall far short of a description. On Monday last, I quitted my lodgings at an early hour, and started for the Crystal Palace. This day was fine, such as we seldom experience in London, with a clear sky, and invigorating air, whose vitality was as rousing to the spirits as a blast from the "horn of Astolpho." ”

“ The first universal exhibition, opened under the auspices of the prince consort at London in 1851, was intended to advertise and consecrate the dawn of a new era of international peace and goodwill. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham, once hailed as the “bright Koh-i-nur of the West,” remains the dismal monument of a hope so soon to be belied by the hard logic of events. ”

“ There are people who expect the Grosvenor gallery to be simply, for a year or two, a success of curiosity, and then to go the way of all those other brilliant failures in the attempts to entertain this mighty metropolis, whose more or less mouldering relics are scattered over its thankless bosom—the Crystal Palace, the Alexandra Palace, the Westminster Aquarium, the Albert Hall. ”

“ Many persons make the Crystal Palace their home, with the exception of night. I have seen them come in the morning, visit the dressing-room, then go to the refreshment-room, and sit down to breakfast as if they been at their hotel. Dinner and tea would be taken in turn.
The Crystal Fountain is the great place of meeting in the Exhibition. There you may see husbands looking for lost wives, wives for stolen husbands, mothers for their lost children, and towns-people for their country friends ”

“ If we picture to ourselves the whole frontage [5] of the Crystal Palace, 1,584 feet in length, tier upon tier affording accommodation to thousands of spectators, and overlooking a combination of natural and artificial scenery such as is hardly to be matched in England, we may justly claim that the Coliseum of Rome in all its glory did not afford a spectacle so picturesque, and with the additional advantage that the performances at the Crystal Palace will be entirely free from debasing elements. ”

“ To visit them is our modern Pilgrimage; they force us to make the Grand Tour, as our little wars teach us geography. They are supposed to give a fillip to the prosperity of their town, and to nourish the pride and pocket of the citizens. What other function they fulfil is dubious. Time was when "the long laborious miles" of the Crystal Palace were acclaimed as the dawn of the Golden Age, when swords should be turned into the most improved substitute for pruning-hooks, and each man
find his own in all men's good, And all men work in noble brotherhood. ”

“ Nature itself, as seen from the windows of Chatsworth, has a combed and dressy look. Its vast conservatory—the original of the Crystal Palace—is well worth a visit, and its gardens are curious enough, but the water-works are elaborately frivolous. I was promised a fine artificial cataract—but lo! in the side of a beautiful hill I saw a stone stair-case, and by-and-by the water came sluggishly down stairs, like a little girl, in white dress, afraid to let go of the hand rail, as she leaps timidly from step to step. ”

“ Of the interior of the building not much is to be said, except that it entirely lacks that unity of design which characterised the Crystal Palace of 1851. On every hand we are hemmed in by walls of uncouth brickwork, and where a beautiful effect was possible, such as openings towards the north, giving occasional peeps of the Horticultural Gardens which lie in the arms of the building, the dull brick-wall rises and shuts us out. From the upper gallery of the nave a charming vista might thus have been produced ”

“ The Great Exhibition and Transatlantic Superiority Over European Ingenuity—American Reaping Machines.—The close of the Crystal Palace has given rise to many panegyrics, and we would not for one moment detract from its merits; it has been deservedly the admiration of the world, and visited by thousands of its inhabitants. Brought into life by the most eminent men, and supported by royalty; the means taken were such as no private individual could have accomplished; every exertion was used to obtain the choicest relics that the earth could produce ”

“ I had a few good minutes at the ancient temple when the sight of the rude upright stones looking black against the moonlit and star-sprinkled sky produced an unexpected feeling in me: but the mood could not last; the crowd was too big and noisy, and the noises they made too suggestive of a Bank Holiday crowd at the Crystal Palace.
At three o'clock a ribbon of slate-grey cloud appeared above the eastern horizon, and broadened by degrees, and pretty soon made it evident that the sun would be hidden at its rising at a quarter to four. The crowd, however, was not down-hearted ”

“ It is now 4 o’clock. All the streets within a mile of the Crystal Palace are crowded with people, instead of drays, carts, wagons and other impeding obstacles to the World’s Fair. For a quarter of a mile down the street that leads to St. James’ Square, where the Queen resides, at Buckingham Palace, I presume I can see 50,000 people bareheaded, that is to say, they have their hats off. ”

“ The final exhibitions generally take place at the Crystal Palace, and it is an inspiring sight to watch, not only the whole-hearted enthusiasm with which the players throw themselves into their work, but the equal excitement of their respective followers who flock to the south to witness them. ”

“ Then there are acres of restaurants and dining saloons inside and outside of the Crystal Palace, and apparatus and cooking utensils are on the premises, whereby ten thousand people may find dinner, all at one time, and sit down to tables in five minutes after dinner has been ordered. During the long summer evenings, promenade concerts are held at the Crystal Palace, and fireworks are let off in the presence of great crowds, who enjoy the sports and junketings much as a New York crowd may do on a Fourth of July night, in the City Hall, or Madison Park. ”