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    fact was , there was not a kiss exchanged , or taken ! Not one . Only when Smith lifted the lady down from her seat—and she almost as much stepped down , with a light and graceful agility , and then Dutton saw that she was tall and slender , and graceful as a stag—Smith respectfully raised her hand to his lips , unresisted , unreproved , even by the calm and lovely countenance shaded from the bright moon by its own waving hair , as it looked down upon him . And they went into the cottage . Enough for that night ! Dutton had tracked the villain ; he had something to tell the injure-d Amy ; he was laden with spoil , justified in all he suspected , in all he intended . At peace with himself , he lay down to rest reflecting on the blessing of sleep that attends on exercise and undisturbed conscience .

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    VIVIAN EN VOYAGE . I . R . XTS AKD TKA . VELLERS—ON THE SICK LIST—WOMEN : BELGIAN AND GERMAN . Weimar , Sept . 16 . The Greeks and Romans knew but of one Rat , and that was a Mouse ; a fact , ami lecteur , which may interest you beyond the application here to be made of it . How the ancieYits managed without that amiable Rodent , I know not ; but as their Cat was a WeazeL they may very well have contented themselves "with a Mouse for their sole Gat . If you want to puzzle a pundit , ask him what the Greek for Rat or for Cat is : he will look foolish , and you will chuckle .

    These unhappy ancients must have "been overrun with Mice ; and it is not till the Middle Ages that the empire of the Mlice becomes threatened by the apparition of the Black Rat , whose birthplace is a mystery , but whose ferocity and fecundity soon drives the Mouse into his long narrow galleries , where alone lie is safe . The European world was divided between the Mouse and the Black Rat until the beginning of the eighteenth century , when a new Rat , by Buffon named Surmulot , Tvas broug ht over from India , and instantly commenced internecine avar against the Black Rat . This new warrior , being equally at home on land and water , gradually spread over Europe , the Black Rat disappearing before him , as the Red Man disappears

    before the White . At the time when Buffon wrote , the n ew Rat was only found in the environs of Paris ; it had not appeared in the city where now it Lolds undisputed sway . In a f < i \ v years the Black Rat will be but a name ! 3 STow for the moral . Just as one species of Rat has given way before another and a stronger species , one class of travellers , or travel-writexs , has disappeared before another . When it was distinction to have made the Grand Tour , when to speak French and not be mistaken for an Iroquois was a perilous amount of culture , of course the simplest recital of a journey was received as an entertaining performance , and a trip to Paris furnished a quarto volume . That will no longer satisfy the cravings of a public :

    " Zwai- sind sie an das Beste nicht gewohnt ; Allein sie haben sclirecklich viel geleseo . " " They are not , it is true , accustomed to excellence , but they hav « read such a frightful quantity ! " They read now as many ascents of Mont Blanc as their forefathers read trips , to Calais . The Pyramids have become commonplaces . Europe and the Enst have been thoroughly " used up . " The political traveller , the historical traveller , the statistical traveller , the geological traveller , the zoological traveller , the traveller with black whiskers and large shirt-collars , who produced a " delightful volume of truly Christian travel , " —have one by one poured down upon an unoffending public , and swept away the Sentimental Traveller , who is now becoming as rare as the Black Rat .

    It may be that Europe itself is no longer sentimental . For my own part , I solemnly declare , that , although I entered Belgium with the best dispositions fox the accumulation of materials to furnish forth a scries of Sentimental Papers , especially addressed to those female readers who have the weakness to be also the admirers of Vivian ( how charming arc all feminine weaknesses !) , yet no such materials presented themselves . Not a single dead Ass mot my gaze . They were all living ! Then the women ! Belgium and Germany hiive shown me some hundreds of Bimcmawho are , or are : o be

    , given in marriage ) but of " -women" an alarming scarcity . Ono cannot conceive oneself reduced to such a state of djsceuvrement us to make love to these Duleineas . " Belgian women" is a misprint—Nature wrote Bulgian , as I perceive from the bulgy grace of their bathukolpic forms . It seemed to me as if Nature hud endeavoured to compensate for the flatness of the country by the reverse of that characteristic in tho women—taking out in breadth what is wanted in height—substituting prominences for enVmencos . And as for the German women , they uro worse ! If no Anacreon would fcecomc

    dithyrambic over the churms of Iris Kovpijt ^ xOvkoXttov here , aa in Belgium , no man with any liner sensibility than a German could endure the voices . Shakspeare , who loved -woman ' s voice " gentle and low , " would have boon driven away Iry the astounding discords of unlovely woman in theses parts ; and a less fastidious loycr of the sux may meekly proteat ngainat the too philosophic condition of the hair and nnils of these unoharmmg charmers . Coarse skins and discrepant teeth may bo misfortunes , but anuilbriwh is not a luxury only to be met with among pampered aristocrats . The genius of a people is scon in the language . Idioms betray tendencies . 1 orhaps it is not without profound sigmlicjuico that tho Genniui idiom to wash anybody ' s head" expresses a suvoro punishment . We , brutal untons wlion wo flagellate a stupid author , cull it " cutting him up . ' Tho cleaner . teuton " washes his lumd . " \ Uhmi n dingy professor , chuckling , tolls you o < an antagonist , hh hub' ihn den Kopj gcwaschenl you may be sure that terrible work luia l > eon going on among tho notes und

    einonlaid upon clean linen looks very like an habitual economy in washing bills . These Jews were certainly Germans ! German women , therefore , you maj r suppose have not captivated me . Perhaps , after all , the fault is less in them than in the condition of their critic . A dilapidated Vivian , with his whiskers sadly out of curl , the " unobserved of all observers , " dragging his weary way through healthy , happy scenes , carrying within him the fatal- consequences of too close a study of the Fathers , in the shape of a congested brain , which depressed and incapacitated him , at the same time that it surrounded him with no halo of interest , such as consumption or a broken limb would create—such a Vivian , I say , may well be suspected in any criticism passed upon the sex . I will believe

    it is so ! I will think the Bel gians are antelopes ( slightly adipose ) , and the Germans sweet-voiced , elegant , and spiritual . But you must expect no Sentimental Journey from me . Enough if I can write an occasional letter with some news about a celebrated man or woman , a new opera , a good picture , or any other topic which possibly may- interest you- Ah , dear reader ! when I think of the happy hours passed in writing gaieties for your amusement , and contrast them -with my present forced idleness , a gloom , steals over me , such as Dante indicates in the nessun maggior dolore , which once read is never forgotten . And it is to you that are offered the first feeble efforts of one who " wrote not wisely , but too -well . " Next week you shall hear about Franz Liszt .

    II . IKANZ LISZT . . . Weimar , 22 nd September . According to my promise , last week , I select from out the hasty pencil notes of my diary the name of a man of genius , a name familiar enough in England , although the man is little known . ; Franz Lizst , who as " Master Lizst" played before George IT . and astounded the world , " and who as Lizst has made his noise in Europe , now playing as no one ever played before or since , now writing articles and criticisiiis , now undertaking a year of concerts , the whole proceeds of-which were to be given to fill up the deficit of subscriptions to the Beethoven monument . , y

    I knew him fifteen years ago In Vienna , in the height of his popularity , in the maddest of all mad enthusiasms , a Viennese furore , when the women showed you with pride the bracelets made from the pianoforte strings he had broken ; when everybody had some new anecdote of his capriciousness , coxcombry , or generosity ; when , as I was gravely informed , the very milk in the next room turned sour at the thunder of his pastorale ; when , in short , he was in such an unhealthy condition , that everyone who could calmly look forward , must have foreseen he would be ruined by flattery—a prediction wliich the event has falsified—fox here he is , in this quiet Weimar , leading the quietest of lives ; grave , serious , and happy , entering on a new phase of existence ; strong in conviction , happy in affection , resolute in ambition—r

    Strong in will To strive , to seek , to find , and not to yield . As great a change has taken p lace in his personal appearance as in his way of life . A streak of silver in his lion ' s mane gently indicates the pressure of Time . He has passed into the forties . The turbulence of youth , with its eager activity , lust for excitement , and prodigal expenditure of life , has given place to a graver bearing , not without a touch of that sadness which mingles with the sunset , but also not without its ineffable charm , I think Lizst has now one of the grandest heads to be met with among artists ; formerly I did not think him handsome . He has acquired more force , and more refinement , too , with age ; the build of his liead has acquired solidity ; the working of his mind has wrought the features into finer and more delicate expression ; for while the cut of his features is bold , tlicir lines severe , sculpturesque in relief , they are no less remarkable for the tenderness and even feminine gentleness which may be seen in the face of almost evci-y man of genius .

    JJie Geslalt des Mr . nschen , says Goethe , ist der Text zu alles was ilher Him cnpfuiden und so yen liisst : Man's personal appearance is the text to all that can be felt or said of him . This is doubtless true in all cases ; but it is not in all cases that the moral of a man is thus cut in relief , so that we can rend his character in such characteristics . In Lizst , however , there seems to me a complete accordance between the physical and moral . You cannot look at him for three minutes without being aware of the pi'esence of a man of genius . You are are also aware of something capricious , coxcombical , wayward , dreamy ; something uneasy—as if the intellect Avas not commensurate with the feelings—as if his whole mind was "burthened with tho weight of more than it could express—as if his aspiration was greator than his inspiration . Lizst is Kapellmeister to the Grand Duke . It is true he is the great personage here at Weimar , after the Grand Duke ; but still ono may well ask what attraction there can bo powerful enough to luro the spoiled child of a European public , from the arena of nppluuse , from the centres of life and intelligence , to settle down in this grand ducal village . It cannot be money : Lizst would earn more in a month at Paris or London than 1 should

    suppose a year ' s income as Kii ]) cllnioistijr would amount to . It cannot be the society of Weimar , for ho lives very retired . The mystery is explained when one gets to learn what his occupations are and lmvo been during the hist six yenrs . A now phase of existence succeeds the noisy popularity of his earlier years . The great pianist has given up performing . Occasion / illy , 11 for love , " ho will play , and p lay as he seldom played in public ; but "lor money ' ho j ) lays no more . lie has taken to composition—taken to it heart and soul , wxth tho devotion of genius , ami the passionate- labour of intense conviction . Not only in his own person has he given his life to composition , but all his sympathy , activity , and influence- aro devoted to tho furtherance

    of what ho believes to be the tnio ideas of art . Thus , while writing symphonies for himself , ho has been searcoly le . ia active in trying to create u public lor Wagner . It is a noble trait in him , thnt , unacquainted with Wagnor , he became inspired with that fmuitiuiain which lum " > i >< 1 « Wagners name a watchword , and Weimar the German town wln . ro Wiignor ' a operas am be lionrd . Wot only does Lizst uuporinloiicl tho production of those opunw , forcing thom through , in spite of tliu pn ^ ulico , oiibnlrt , and it iiiuhC liuwnfoaacd , not a little unmii , mnkinn tliu public rospout theno works whethov it likes them or likes thum not ; but ho also , in tho None { ndscknjt Jilr Mnsik ( which is the Moniteur of tliu Konmntic School in Music ) , us well n » in

    Y \ hi o on tins subject , I may note tlmtChrysostoin , in \ m splendid "Exegesis pJi ™ ; 1 tlo . » « allB our attention to " the profound symbolical meaning ot tho feamts being arrayed in clean linen . lWuliiifta » 1 am to < jucstion any passage in a Christian Father , I cannot forbear suggesting Hint the stress

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    September 23 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 909

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 23, 1854, page 909, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2057/page/21/