--I don't think there
is one of our boarders quite so testudinous as I am. Nothing but a
combination of motives, more peremptory than the coal on the turtle's
back, could have got me to leave the shelter of my carapace; and after
memorable interviews, and kindest hospitalities, and grand sights, and
huge influx of patriotic pride,--for every American owns all America,--
"Creation's heir,--the world, the world is"
his, if anybody's,--I come back with the feeling which a boned turkey
might experience, if, retaining his consciousness, he were allowed to
resume his skeleton.
Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent Cleopatra, and Dying
Warrior, whose classic outlines (reproduced in the calcined mineral of
Lutetia) crown my loaded shelves! Welcome, ye triumphs of pictorial art
(repeated by the magic graver) that look down upon me from the walls of
my sacred cell! Vesalius, as Titian drew him, high-fronted, still-eyed,
thick-bearded, with signet-ring, as beseems a gentleman, with book and
carelessly-held eyeglass, marking him a scholar; thou, too, Jan Kuyper,
commonly called Jan Praktiseer, old man of a century and seven years
besides, father of twenty sons and two daughters cut in copper by
Houbraken, bought from a portfolio on one of the Paris _quais_; and ye
Three Trees of Rembrandt, black in shadow against the blaze of sunlight;
and thou Rosy Cottager of Sir Joshua,--thy roses hinted by the peppery
burin of Bartolozzi; ye, too, of lower grades in nature, yet not
unlovely nor unrenowned, Young Bull of Paulus Potter, and Sleeping Cat
of Cornelius Visscher; welcome once more to my eyes! The old books
look out from the shelves, and I seem to read on their backs something
besides their titles,--a kind of solemn greeting.
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