LITERARY NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2283, 26 February 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Parts, December 4. To possess the gift "to see ourselves as others see us " is no small advantage for an individual; how much more, then, ought it to bo for a nation ? A wise enemy is not to be despised. Only, in judging peoples, it is necessary to bear in mind that each has its peculiar habits, usages, and social standards. An Esquimaux prefers train oil to champagne. M. Carteret, in hi 3 volume "France judged by Germany," has collected all that has been written or said

\ since three centuries by the most distinguished writers or politicians of Germany on France. In the present relations between the two countries, impartial minds will know how to hold the scales. The worst critics of the French are the French themselves, to judge either by their journals, their theatres, or their novels. But these are highly-coloured portraits, no more real than Offenbach's operettes. Naturally woman is the criterion selected. Here the striking is stronger rather than just. Here is a true type, and be it re-, membered the provinces also form the best milien to sample the inhabitants of France, or indeed of any country. Semming. is selected for his description of the domestic life and manners of the wife of the Ordi- ;■ ilary humble clerk in Paris. She represents.order, economy, privation;-. Like the saints of old, she is in the midst of all the temptations of the Great Babel, a model of self-denial, devotion, and virtue. She unites gracefulness to poverty. Then as mother, what miracles of economy and care\she practices. She knows how to serve herself with everything, and to utilize everything. It has been observed, an Englishwoman will make soup out of bones, while a Frenchwoman will do the same— out of nothing. The Fraucaise is lady and servant at once, she works at everything, sews, cuts out, washes, scours, cooks and markets. Yet she is not a charwoman. She sees in Paris only luxury and vice, but recognises that an existence full of home sacrifices is the paying side in the struggle for life. Parisians' shoulders must bear the following severity, by Dr. Rommel : Monsieur is dwarfish and withered, of small muscular vigour, ignorant of orthography and geography, and incapable of acquiring a foreign language. He is a freethinker, without ever thinking of other doctrine, but to be decorated with some order he aims to live on the national budget, and feeds out of his latitude,' if he strolls beyond the Boulevard des Italieus. The Parisian too, is hostile to the Government, but accepts servilely all regimes, and is incapable of playing chess &c. It appears that in] CSC, France had a population which comprised one-third

of the civilized world,

she represents ni.

more than the one-twelfth now, also, what the' writer believes to be the best in France is—the foreign element.

Are the fair sexto be included among the enemies of books ? In modern French society, the mistress of tho house is, as a rule, hostile to books, she struggles with all weapons against her husband's tivste, or passion for book buying : at first quietly, then, endearingly, next, little by little with authority, and finally with determination. There is no ruse, no raillery she will hesitate to employ to mine his book mania, which she judges to be so ruinous and invading. In her eyes, books impinge on her rights, her life, the affection due to her, and the chats they ought to have together. The great writers—those silent minds—make her so jealous and irritable that she finishes by ferociously despising them, and pours on them all her hate. She makes her husband's life miserable ; he can never enjoy the natural quietness, the voluptuousness of his sole mania. His wife remarks in

answer to her friends : " How is my husband ? I never see him, he is so buried in his books !" Or perhaps this other pitiable reply: "If I did not watch him, I really think ho would bring his horrid books even into my saloon."

In the whole social scale, the book-loving husband lives tracked and interdicted in his home. He is forced to compress his library into a coiner, and bridles and minimises his passion. With ardour cooled he becomes reserved, silent, and defiant in presence of his better half. He conceals each new purchase as a secret vice, dissimulates his wishes and tastes, and becomes fraudulent—like a smuggler. Monsieur ought certainly to be allowed to speak as long with his bookbinder as madam with her dressmaker. He is not, so he drifts ultimately to the conclusion that woman has an absolute irreverence for books, If ever she goes into the library for some volume, she displays, he feels, no more caution than a monkey among works of art. She respects no beautiful binding, but will bring it near a fire to be warped, cracked, or dog-eared ; or put a hair-pin or a cambric handkerchief between the leaves for a marker, or turn it flat down on the leaves. Hence, concludes the true bibliophile, a woman in a library is out of her milieu. If she be your wife, watch her, and keep an eye ever on her caprices. A true book-lover —not the same thing as a book wormought to enter his library as a bachelor, His passion for books admits of no sharing, it is like a Sultan's throne. It is a passion, an extreme refuge at that hour of life when man becomes disillusioned ahout its joys and rewards, and feels inclined to say with Moore. "My only books were woman's looks, and folly's all they taught me."

Since the tendency of the times is to fasting, either with or without elixirs ; to the stomachic prowess of the Merlatti, the Succi and the Jacques, it is perhaps apropos to notice, what is equally extraordinary, a few kinds of food that some people patronize. One of the most ancient dishes is grasshoppers, according to M. Saint Cere. These winged worms were prepared in two ways by the Hebrews, who put them in baskets, sprinkling wine thereon, and allow them to steep, or boil them in a brine after removing the wings, and then dry them in the sun. Such is the manner they are still eaten in Senegal, Arabia and Syria. In Africa, the chief of the Mescheras presented Junker with twenty baskets of ants, as provisions for the road ; they were pounded into a paste, and had a liver flavour. Coleopterie serve also as a good supply ; the Romans eat stag beetles ; tnaybugs have the reputation of making an exciting soup ; in Chili, a stew is prepared from potatoes and mashed water bugs found under river stones. The negroes of Narrinjeri live almost exclusively on the flies found inside the bark of the eucalyptus. The Indians of Nevada revel also 011 a fly a limentation.

making the insects into a cake, whose flavour recalls salt beef. Following Holub, the natives of Kurilis throw their dead children into streams to fatten crayfish.

If wo investigate the employment of vertebraii equally carious results will bo found, .hi the Andaman Isles a man cannot marry till he lias eaten a live rat. During the 1870—71 siege of Paris that sewer game was at least cooked. The South American Indians eat such of their horses as they are obliged to kill. In France hippophagists are more numerous than vegetarians. The lion, crocodile and hyena have gastronomic admirers in Africa ; here, '• first catch your hare," becomes a serious culinary recipe. The cannibal connaisseurs of Borneo prefer the brain, the palm of the hand, and the knee of "long pig." The Japanese, as well as some Africans, are humiphagists; they relish a fat or greasy clay, which "clogs the edge of appetite." The clay is made into biscuit— not the Sevres pattern—and baked over a slow lire. It is not surprising then, since the human stomach has such ostrich properties, that it should also possess the quality of remaining independent of food for a lengthened period, following necessity, or a dominant revolution to starve. The Russians have always liked I'aris, despite the invasions of Moscow and tho Crimea; it is their city of predeliction. There are many reasons for this ; the Uoyard comes only for pleasure, and as he pays liberally then; is no limit to his enjoyment. Then, in Russia, public and intellectual life are at ;'.ero. Hence the mind of a Russian, like that of an infant, longs for pleasure. It is thus why St. Petersburg and Moscow are the chief markets for French actors and actresses, novels, perfumery, jewellery and articles de Paris in general. It is easier also to gam admission into French than English or (rernian society. Such is the opinion of M. Tchedrinn, a Russian, in his " Paris and Berlin," Not many travellers indulge in gush over the

latter city. In Paris, says the author, there.is no melancholy in the air; all is sunshine, save in winter. The milieu i.s gay, and the shops brilliant -and purseattracting; the restaurants luxurious, the gardens animated,' and the streets coquettish. M. Thedrine is most enthusiastic over the shops. He never would be tired of purchasing knick-knacks. This implies a good banker's credit, and such is an infallible means to enjoying travelling. He alludes to the richness of the museums and galleries and notes pertinently, they are open to all because they are owned by all. He further remarks' that Parisian's are not flaneurs, but beneath their love of pleasure, they have a base of working character. Three things fill up the life of the ordinary Parisian it seems—work, pleasure, anjl from time to time a revolution. M. Castlelar's health-holiday in Paris has brought him once more in view, especially since he has delivered a few programme orations. As a practical politician he will never rank higher, perhaps, than Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, and similar idealists. Castelar is a poet, an artist, and a philanthropist, but not a statesman. He is a most powerful orator, and -has a flow of grand eloquent music-falling ,words like Bassuet, and flashes .of sudueti've phrases like Lamartime. A few. ago he delivered a two-hours speech to, show the welfare and happiness of humanity lay iti the union of the Greek and' Latin races, 'plus a sprinkling of Armenians, and next he proceeded to re-adjust the map of Europe. "It was a flpw f of' rhythmic;.! words—poetry, but hot common sense.

More valuable characteristics of Castelar, are his prodigious power, of work, and capacious memory. His favorite study i.s history, next perhaps art. He i.s a born poet, though he never composed a vem\ He tried novels, but having failed with two, abandoned that amusement, which many steady minds find a change and a relief. He works from six in the morning, till midnight, not only reads, but re-rends. His best brain work is his "Civilization daring the first five centuries of Christianity." It is a book replete with facts and ideas, though " tuffy," from profuse and highly colored language. It is as much a treatise on art as on history. One good point in Castelar's nature is he is nota pessimist, he throws no stones at the nineteenth cedtury, on the contrary, he regards it as good as its predecessors, and in many cases superior.

M. Flammarion does not consider it impossible, in the presence of the' discoveries of steam, the telegraph, the electric light, and the telephone, that with the progress of optical science, we shall be able to exchange signals with the planet Mars—the star which most resembles our own in physical conditions. He asserts, we know more about the Mars than about the Moon, although the former be 42 millions of miles from us, and the hitter but 280,000—some 100 times nearer. This anomaly is due to the physical differences between the planets.

The distance of the moon from us is not more than thirty times the diameter of our earth. A telegram would arrive there in one second and a quarter or as quickly as light itselt. ]3y means of telescopes the moon has been magnified 2000 times, which is equivalent to bringing it as it were to within a naked eve distance of 02 miles. Further : the moon is 40 times smaller than the earth, and 81. times less heavy. Its atmosphere—if it really has one, 'would be six times more rarefied than ours, and hence the perception of objects would be proportionately indistinct. However, in a balloon, at an attitude of 10,000 feet, our earth would appear to the aeronaut, deserted uninhabited, and as silent as a vast necropolis.

From the summary of the calculations of geologists, the age of earth is estimated at 20 millions of years, and that man exists on our planet since the etrl of the tertiary ago —that is to say since some 100,000 years. Astronoinicaal instruments are only invented since.277 years, and it was but in 1858 any reliable practical observations were registered about Mars, and it was in 1882 that these observations became accepted facts. Mars has an atmosphere, oceans, seas, rivers, mountains, snow, &c. For their inhabitants, we are their bright star. That planet's creation is anterior to ours by several millions of years. There is no reason to conclude it is not peopled. The total number of catalogued stars is 20 millions. It would be akin to presumptions to conclude none of them are inhabited by intelligent beings but our own. M. Flamniurion even suspects from certain luminous spots on Mars, geometrically arranged and varying that there are not reflected sunshine on snow-capped hills, but optical signals to our planet. This may be so, seeing that Mars is so much more ancient than the earth, and its people likely more advanced in science than our-

selves. Perhaps the monster United States telescope, GG feet long, and 40 inches in diameter, just rr.ade, may aid in solving some of those marvels of the future.