LITERARY NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2346, 23 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

[lilOM OLT. OWN CORKKSI ’ON!)NNT.] Pams, May 31. M. Boiink, ill Ids history of German dancing and Us future, observes, “ Man only knows dancing’'—the bear does not count, because it has no “ psychic impulsion.” Why do we dance? he demands. Ninety per cent, do so for amusement, nine to secure a substitute for a vapour bath, and one for the love of esthetics. But dancing is also a marriage broker ; a sort of matrimonial agency. However, the dance is also a civilising agent. With our ancestors nature meant only music and dances, which, too, were attributed to the gods. The author states that the old Germans were a dancing people; modern Germans are not, and that you can travel two months in Germany without perceiving a waltzer. Whereas, voyage but eight days iu .Spain, fandangos will hu visible everywhere. The demon of dance seizes the Spaniards in the streets, on the public places, under the porches of bouses. The first musician who arrives, and that can touch a guitar, will compel the servant to throw away her broom, the water carriers to lay down their pitchers, the muleteers will abandon their mules, and the innkeeper will quit his dinner, to dance all with their fold and their body. The Spaniards have always a foot in the air le.uiy to spring, so had once the old Germans, and so much so that their bishops had the gn-ate-t dilliculty to prevent iheir Hocks dancing iu the churches, and so imitate, the early Ghiis!inns. However, sacred dancing was only a hum for express ing great joy. ITnaii maintains that Uancing never ligor-M iu the Ghri-tian liturgy, and M. tl-> ITo -"ss ■ agrees, for once, with Renan. Indeed, the church had much didiiaiity to suppe-ss the old Ragan dances. Bishops and princes thundered against them, but the votaries up to the twelfth cent cry held their dances at night in the cemelciii-s, where they had the stimuli of my-tery. the tear of being surprised, and the feeling that they were doing wrong. In the si\l s-iith cuitury Germany had a singular " Heath dance,” executed at wedding paGi-’w L !■; were, drawn to Ibid the individual who Waste die. The designed then stood in the centre of the room ; Iho others danced round, and the individual, aft.-r a while, staggered, fell and became dead. ,\ll stopped; then the dancers chanted a pretty duge--a funeral hymn. If the departed was a man, each girl eanie, one by one, and kissed him cm the forehead, ami vice versa if a woman. Mdth the last death kiss ho rose, the mii'ic played a say air, and a triumphal rondc surrounded the resurrectionist. The real creators of that queen of dances -toe waltz -were the Viennese, and they monopolize it still. It is thus that Musset wrote : “ 1 would like a Trench duchess to be able to dance as well as a German cattle drover.” M. Bilhioe believes dancing is dying, if not dead. The workmen are debilitated by factory life and soured by socialism. The sons of the rich arc worn out by excess, by hotbed lessons and examinations—educational pressure perhaps. I’ie.ty, too, has departed, for true piety made no person sad. Wine and beer are adulterated ; people do not imw get intoxicated, but prisoned. In fact, the moral health of moderns is less than that of their ancestors, who were not patient under .suffering but more brave in the struggle of life, because less egoistical. We are devoted only to ourselves. It is the custom when erecting statues to cclcbnlics to represent the honoured one gene; ally when in his seared and yellow leafdavi. 'ifr.m e: (he harvest of fame only ripen; with ag-‘. Ilmvi-ver, when a man is sudici'-ntly iml'.rl ms to have, several statues, it is a pva-ong variety to yeure at least, one repy-enting liim in hissaladduys. This innovation has jn-t been applied to Voltaire. M. 1 .amhert is tin; proprietor of the Ferney eh iteau Voltaire's iife's-delino residence on tin- coniines of Switzerland, mill which he hft to ennui to die. I le. was obliged to 1. -ep away from the capital as his opinions were not in (he order of sanctity at the court, and ho ran the risk of being thrown a second time, into the Bastille. M. Lambert is also a fair sculptor, a pupil of poor Pranoeschies, Hu has brought out a statue in bronze after Kemargnanl’s portrait of Voltaire, when he was 30 years of ago. The statue represents Voltahe about 25 years old—not the wrinkled and wizen visage of I toiidin —upright, laughing features in sumptuous court cortmne, the closed right hand on hips, and in the left an open copy of the Henriade. On the ♦ front of the stela arc two medallions representing Voltaire when a young man reading one of his poems to Ninon de Lnnelos, and the other when ho was old, distributing succour to the passing poor—for whom lie over kept a free open table. On the hack of the stela are two masks personifying satire and poetry beneath which in scroll work is the egigraph—“ If God did not exist. it would be necessary to invent Him,” M, de Candolle examined tin: types, brown and blond in populations, and admitting cltiMren mider ten years of age, with whom the colour of the eyes is not yet lived ; asserts, the women will have a larger proportion of brown eyes than the men. However, when the parents have the same coloured I yes, the children's will he similar. ale ..i „ .ii -uni!,.. .... 0,, o i-not ran e.-n----area will bo of tenor brown than blue, or

grey Lino in' grey. In nil mixtures of par- ■ iiii'l c■ 1 1 11 ur<■ 1 1 eyes, llui brown will dominate to llu' extent of live per cent. Science c.utmit explain the phenomenon no more’than the fact, of inoi'i; male than female children living within the first year. .M. du Candolle observed, that couples with [different coloured eyes, bad more children than those P irenls with alike eyes. This is natural, being in opposition to cnnsangimious unions.

Thu pigment, or colouring matter, fis an indic.it.ii.il of strength, because it implies an I'l'iWatiiin nmni complete, by tlie tissues. Absence of pigment means, weakness, as in tlie case of vegetables when etiolated, and in animals when suffering from albinism. Ilenoe. the white human race, concludes M. de Candolle, is physically inferior, relatively speaking, to tlie coloured race, but it passe e-os a groat superiority intellectually, that which enables it to struggle against the stronger. M. I’ertillon observes, that in tlie I'',cole I’nlyteclmique, the pupils who do not smoke, always obtain the best marks at tlie examinations. Not that tlie smokers pass their time idling. .Since all the student' only have a fixed 'time for a whiff but to the being clearer and tlie body more sprightly. W hat lias become of the Charlotte of Werlher, of Goethe’s Charlotte ? M. Spoidel e-tablislies. Site was not at all an imaginary person, but a handsome creature iu flesh ami hone, and known as “Charlotte Buff.” Goethe fell in love with her when she was (lancee to her “Albert” of the romance, but who was simply a secretary of an .Embassy, and named Kcatner. Charlotte and Albert had a son and daughter, who emigrated to the village of Thium, near .Mnlhonse, and so In Alsace. The son founded there a chemical factory, and his sister kept house for him. Ho realised the type of Inks romance-father, Albert, as Ids sister embodied tlie trails of ber pnotisizod mother, Charlotte. His habits of order and economy were extreme ; his observance of tlie laws of courtesy proverbial ; and, under a roughish exterior beat the warmest of hearts, while remaining intensely German in habits and ideas. His son married the daughter of General Riga nit, a hem of tlie first Empire. She was I’arisicnne from head to foot; had a political saloon in Tliaun, whore centralised tlie Liberalism of the region. Her husband, now a rich manufacturer, glorified the revolution of 1813, and was thus designated in advance for exile after tlie 1851 Gonpd'Etat. 'l'o defy tlie second Empire he gave, one of Ids daughters iu marriage, to Colonel Charms. Hi the 1870-71 invasion lie was at Ids post as a patriot and politician. His youngest daughter is to-day Madame, Flnqnet, the handsome wife of tlie [’resident of the Chamber of Deputies. Tims the grand-daughter of Goellie i.s the leading lady in tlie Republican and anti(lerman world of France.

Crime is i>n ever fruitful theme of study, ami M. TV.rde denis with it in the very wide sense of cmiipariiig the criminality of various nations. The professional criminal he says, is large in body, but feeble in muscles ; the forehead is narrow and receding ; the eye-cavities, deep and wide ; ears, large and distant from the head ; the nose is rarely straight : the jaw-bones, protrude forward ; complexion more frequently brown than blond ; generally beardless ; not very susceptible of cold ; has a complete absence of foresight ; a boundless vanity ; is a gambler, and a drunkard, and is cruel and lazy. These traits bring us back to an epoch when a man was not quite a savage nor yet a civilised being; when society by custom, legitimised murder, outrage and robbery. Well, if the present day criminals are the type of antique barbarism, will their number decrease with the advance of civilization ?

In the estimation of crime, much depends on its classification. -Murder is a clear rubric. In 182(1, in Prance, on a population of .'ll millions, there were 307 asaasinations ;in 1883, and on a population of 37 millions, there wens Hill. There is thus a small, through a gratifying diminution, lint the people without moral principles, keep up an angnnicutathm pace with those who have lirnsidcs, and cupidity increases with national wealth. M. Tanlo observes, that the morn ‘'liberal” .Prance becomes, the greater is her crime rale, while in Jlclgium it is exactly the contrary, In tho case of Franco authoritative power docs not rest on a fixed basis. He attributes then the increase of crime in Prance to the silent work of social transfori mation, to the revolutionary fermentation which has been ceaselessly stirring up the masses and classes since 1830. In the rural districts there arc eight accused in 100,000 inhabitants, and double this rate for the cities. The increase of crime in Prance is also largely due to two causes ; The ah-ence of serious punishment; the widespread feeling among the convicted that their sentences will be mitigated, and the {absence of} character-classification in the prisons, and scarcely a nominal attempt to reform the depraved. Professor Hartmann, of the University of Berlin, seeks to discover the affinities of fossil and living monkeys with man by a comparison of their organisations. M. de tiuatrefages is accepted—at least in Prance —as having set that question at rest. The monkey tribe, ho has laid down, can give birth to no new species. Man forms only one and the .same species; and this is as distinct from the monkey as it is more elevated. Only the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the. c-urangoulang and the gibbons can be compared. M. Hartmann lias made a detailed study of these .Simian types from the anatomical and physiological point of view, and such is where ids work is profoundly original. He concludes: "By their purely physical external characteristics certain inferior human races come near the Simian type, but the abyss is profound between the monkey tribe and mankind in man’s ability to rise in the educational scale. Man could nut have descended from any species of monkey actually living, nor from any fossil monkey discovered up to the present.” The Comte d’ Hcrisson’s Cabinet Noir, is full of interesting souvenirs and anecdotes, based upon the official reports diary, and intercepted letters at the post-office, by Baron Mourner, the director general of police. The character of Mario Lonsie, the second wife of Napoleon, is fully exposed. It is clearly shown that the I'lmpe.ror, when he signed the treaty of peace with Austria, never stipulated for the hand of the Archduchess. That bright idea originated with an attache, and was at once taken up by Napoleon. She was named Regent of prance during the years 1812-3-1. Her nullity was so notorious that she was rarely consulted about anything. She kept the Austrian Court duly informed, however, of all the plans of the Trench Government, as did Marie Antoinette in her day, and to love the, Comte do Niepperg, the major doom htiposed on her by her father, was the aim of her life.

When the Empire collapsed she displayed not the slightest regret, neither for her crown, her husband, nor her son, the King of Rome. The death of the latter loft her as indifferent as did the exile of the former. She passed her time merrily reigning over Parma, went every night to the theatre, and expended three million francs annually in travelling. She found a new lover in M. de. Boinbelle.a. When she left Prance in ISM for good she brought away with her immense quantities of artistic furniture and historic papers, plus the crown jewels, now being sold by public auction. But all this baggage was taken from her at Lyons.