or faculty once possessed by Man, can have perished. We cannot even admit, without a sense of mortification, that any people were more generally developed in any particular direction, than ourselves. Yet, when we learn how universal was the instinct of proportion among the ancients-how taste and the love of symmetry came as natural to them as hunger or gambling, and then consider how slowly and painfully we moderns must be educated, in order to appreciate correctly their commonest works,-what monstrosities we bow down before, and worship-how inert is the love of harmonious form and color among the masses of the people: when all this is clear, we realize that mankind has lost that much of its grace and the Earth that much of her glory. MY BERKSHIRE HOME. WHERE, having passed the cliffs of Monument, To nestle in. Six miles away it lies- Far off, when mists and clouds obstruct the view; The rosy eastern mount, floods them with light, And lingers there at play until the eve, They strangely seem transformed, though white with snow, The pines that stand around the house a host And dies, at eve, exhausted with excess Around their feet. Yet when the storm-winds rise Its boughs with rage, and answers to their roar. Stranded on rocks; or like the ocean's moan, Better is the mood Of these domestic pines when nature is With changing colors, and with varied scents, Falling in autumn, make the grassy earth But sweeter is the perfume of the trees Than of the flowers that bloom beneath. When summer suns shine on them after showers Their breath is resinous. The invalid Snuffs from afar its balm, as in the woods Of distant Caroline or Florida, Where stricken exiles go, each year, to die, Fair are these hillside paths, In the near stream that through the meadow glides; Or hunt for whirring partridge in the wood; Or climb the easy way where, in old time, Lord Amherst led ten thousand men to fight The French in Canada; or, down the vale, Stroll where the Indian warriors built their mounds, And laid brave Umpacheni's bones, And Konkepot's. More distant scenes invite Between the Lakes, or where the river Green The winter fail to bring domestic joys, And pleasures of the mind, when hearthstones blaze, And books from well-filled shelves the thoughts transport Beyond Taconic's ridge, and winter's bounds. Here do I live content; nor oft incline To taste the pleasures of the distant town, Save when affairs, or larger store of books, Or friendship's claim, my halting footsteps draw. For here unhindered, I can meditate The noblest themes; reading the open book Of life, and Nature's pages, turned each year Are by the rolling seasons taught to man. Than his own good, and others' weal on earth. In winter's reign, when nature lies entranced; Then chains, and wrongs, on earth, shall be extinct LIFE IN GREAT CITIES. V. PARIS. THE city of Paris is the brilliant flower of modern civilization; to its shrines wend pilgrims in crowds, from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, and from America more than all. It is the paradise of women. Here are gathered and here are spent the taxes of all France; here comes the intellect of all France; here is exhibited the art of France and the world; here is amusement in a thousand shapes, and here is —a single religion. Society was never brought to so thorough a system as here, and never was the art of preying upon man so completely organized. If the end of civilization is to perfect mankind; to educate and develop a healthy, handsome, happy people; to promote good fellowship and kindness; to bring man into harmony with Godif this is so, then we may ask, Has the civilization of Paris done this? Perhaps not. nation of more than thirty millions pay tribute. In brief, each one man in the army is absolute master of more than sixty of the people of France out of the army; and nearly all the earnings of France, beyond a bare subsistence, go to support this army and the machinery which controls it. Ah! that is the secret. The man who moves this thorough and perfect machine is Louis Napoleon. He is master of the army, and so potent is the system of what is called " government," that even this army itself finds itself the tool of somebody, and that somebody the possible nephew of the great Corsican adventurer. Just what amount of all the taxes of the people of France the army gets directly and indirectly, it might be difficult to say; but it seems, according to the Paris Temps, that 169,910,430 days are consumed by it every year. That amount of men which might be productive, is not only unproductive, but is consuming and destroying. It was estimated that every soldier in our war cost one thousand dollars a-year. If the French soldier costs but half that, it would make the respectable figure of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. To-day, the central figure in France, and in Europe, too, is Louis Napoleon. In the city, and in all the empire, his will is law. He is the child of accident, but he has had the audacity to seize and the talent to use all the people and all the production of France, and to make them work out his purposes. It is a remarkable success, and it is the result of a belief nursed until it had become a fanaticism-cold-blooded, it is true, but still a fanaticism-a belief that he was to be Master of France. To serve France was not his dream, but to make France serve him. Cæsar was the model he studied, and he saw long ago that the Master of France must make the army of France his, as the Master of Rome had made it his twenty centuries ago. This he did, and since the 21st day of December, 1851, that army of five hundred thousand men has made a Some have fancied that this vast body of armed men was kept up to operate upon the fields of Europe, to control empires, and enlarge boundaries. It may be so used, but it has other uses. It centres in Paris, and is useful there. Spacious barracks, filled with thirty thousand men, dominate the most important centres of the city. The great sewers are constructed with railways in them for the speedy and secret moving of troops. There is not a pavement left in the city with which an outraged populace can build a barricade. The Master of Paris thus guards him self against his loving people, and an army is a most useful thing in his great housekeeping. But-it must be soothed and placated; it must be made to feel and to know that the soldier is better off than the civilian; that there are praise and pudding for him. He does feel it; and, so long as he does, no Emperor can be deposed. There are ugly stories afloat of what the Prætorian Guard did once in Rome, the Janissaries in Turkey,—and no Emperor can well forget them. Espionage. So thorough is the system, that this army itself cannot unseat an Emperor except by a convulsion involving fearful risks and untold woes. The police of Paris is perfect: five men cannot stop on the corner of the street to have a little talk or to hatch a little conspiracy; nor can they meet in a room, privately or publicly, except by permission of the police, and with a policeman present to report their doings. The most brilliant members of the Institute can discuss political questions only under cover of Greece or Rome; and in the Parliament of the nation every statesman speaks with a curb in his mouth, upon which rests the finger of the President, upon whom rests the hand of the Emperor. Every man of note or influence is watched, and his doings, his plans, and his thoughts are known-the system is so perfect! How, then, is there to come any change to Paris? Only through the weakness or the generosity of the. Emperor, or through a convulsion. For more than a thousand years Paris has been "governed" in this way; she is used to it, but from time to time she has broken up into eruption; the most frightful of which has come to be known as the French Revolution. Then the guillotine cut off the heads of kings and queens and dukes and princes in the Place de la Concorde, where to-day stands the Needle of Luxor. The blood is dried up, and fresh earth is strewn, and all is gay and bright; but-a sham civilization breeds mischief, and who can, who dare, predict the future? It has been well said, "Bayonets are a convenient thing, but it is difficult to sit on them." The Government is paternal. The Emperor not only keeps the people from breaking out into disagreeable insurrections, but he sees that they are fed and amused. Taxation is thorough and searching, and none can fail to see how closely the Parisians live to starvation; but they never do starve. Why? From time to time we learn that France is in the market to buy wheat in vast quantities. What for? It is to feed the people of Paris, when work runs low and the machine creaks. The people must be cared for, too, when they are sick, and they must be amused to the requisite degree. These things "Government" undertakes to do in Paris. The whole administration of charities and public aid is also thoroughly organized, under the Prefect of the Seine. The Director, in 1864, estimated that those who would demand relief in 1865 would number 259,199,* of whom over 100,000 † were registered poor (permanent paupers), 91,355 were in hospital, 30,000 sick beside were treated at their own houses, and 23,416 abandoned children were placed in the country. Two hundred and sixty thousand paupers in the city of highest civilization, does not tell a pleasant tale! The population in 1860 was 1,700,000, and in 1866, 1,825,274-one eighth of all not able to support themselves by their own labor; another 100,000 were soldiers, and 60,000 ranked as criminal class. Any thing might happen, and some convulsion must happen. But "good order" prevails, and the Empire is peace-such is the word of the Emperor himself. The Prefect of Police has under his direction a body of 4,300 men and 4,400 gensdarmes, a large part of whom wear swords and guns. By their help, matters are kept serene. It is the most singular of paternal govern ments "And all its life is love." After all, we may assume that every *The Charities of France in 1866. † 118,000. |