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The interior of the dome of the Invalids is handsomely painted; but the exterior exhibits what I must consider as a very misplaced species of decoration for a place of this nature, being completely gilt, pursuant to an order of Buonaparte, dated, as I have been informed by good authority, from Moscow. This decoration has, as can well be supposed, cost vast sums, but it probably obtained for the ex-Emperor that eclat, by which he constantly sought to please the vanity of the Parisians. Many of his decrees for the embellishment of their city, being dated from Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid, he sought to astonish the multitude, by attempting to accomplish in a few years, what it would in general require an age to effect. Perhaps, calculating on the instability of his power, he hastened the construction of whatever might render it famous. A French writer observes, "Il vouloit courir
This embellishment of the exterior is almost the beginning and the end of philosophical morality. This is why it aims at being modest rather than humble; this is how it can be proud at the very time that it is unassuming. To humility indeed it does not even aspire; humility is one of the most difficult of virtues both to attain and to ascertain.
I have seen men with the tendon of Achilles cut out, and it is worth noting that the Chinese say that this "acquired deformity" can be cured by the transplantation in the seat of injury of the tendon of a sheep. One embellishment of the Chinese punishment of flogging might with good effect be introduced into England.
However I am in great hopes that the good people of England will derive no small degree of moral embellishment from their pure admiration of the illustrious General B , who, it is said, for drinking and gaming has no equal. BRISTOL, September 9, 1814. MY DEAR PARENTS, Your kind letters of June last I have received, and return you a thousand thanks for them.
True, that in the tumultuous glow of gratified vanity and dawning love, Gerald Grantham had executed a toilet into which, with a view to the improvement of the advantage he imagined himself to have gained, all the justifiable coquetry of personal embellishment had been thrown; but neither the handsome blue uniform with its glittering epaulette, nor the beautiful hair on which more than usual pains had been bestowed, nor the sparkling of his dark eye, nor the expression of a cheek, rendered doubly animated by excitement, nor the interestingly displayed arm en echarpe none of these attractions, we repeat, seemed to claim even a partial notice from her they were intended to captivate.
But the articles did not need such embellishment. They were red hot branding irons without them.
To him, likewise, did Charm narrate our extraordinary experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of fiery comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative pose. "Ye gods, what a scene to paint! You were in luck in luck; why wasn't I there?" was Renard's tribute to human pity. "Oh, you are all alike, all nothing moves you you haven't common human sympathies you haven't the rudiments of a heart!
This was true even of his minor productions. To assign to poetry, among human endeavors, the lofty and serious place of which I have spoken above, to defend it from the petty point of view of those who, mistaking its dignity, and the pedantic attitude of those who, mistaking its peculiar character, regard it only as a trifling adornment and embellishment of life or else ask an immediate moral effect and teaching from it this, as one cannot repeat too often, is deeply rooted in the German habit of thought and feeling.
It appears, however, that there is in the mind no preconceived idea of what that elaboration should be. The mind is a growing thing and is led forward along the pathways laid out by environment. Seeking in art gratification of an esthetic kind it follows the lead of technique along the channels opened by such of the useful arts as offer suggestions of embellishment.
The last action, I fancy, must be considered an embellishment, necessary to the dramatic completeness of the incident, though it may at least be admitted it would not have been incongruous. In telling this occurrence, which, punctuated by his own laughter, bore frequent repetition, the carpenter used to give the names of the heroes. One I have forgotten.
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