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Page 29
LETTER IX.
_The British Museum--A Portrait--Night Reading--A Dark Day--A Fugitive
Slave on the Streets of London,--A Friend in the time of need._
LONDON, _Sept. 24_.
I have devoted the past ten days to sight-seeing in the Metropolis--the
first two of which were spent in the British Museum. After procuring a
guide-book at the door as I entered, I seated myself on the first seat
that caught my eye, arranged as well as I could in my mind the different
rooms, and then commenced in good earnest. The first part I visited was
the Gallery of Antiquities, through to the north gallery, and thence
to the Lycian Room. This place is filled with tombs, bas-reliefs,
statues, and other productions of the same art. Venus, seated, and
smelling a lotus flower which she held in her hand, and attended by
three graces, put a stop to the rapid strides that I was making through
this part of the hall. This is really one of the most precious
productions of the art that I have ever seen. Many of the figures in
this room are very much mutilated, yet one can linger here for hours
with interest. A good number of the statues are of uncertain date; they
are of great value as works of art, and more so as a means of
enlightening much that has been obscure with respect to Lycia, an
ancient and celebrated country of Asia Minor.
In passing through the eastern Zoological Gallery, I was surrounded on
every side by an army of portraits suspended upon the walls; and among
these was the Protector. The people of one century kicks his bones
through the streets of London, another puts his portrait in the British
Museum, and a future generation may possibly give him a place in
Westminster Abbey. Such is the uncertainty of the human character.
Yesterday, a common soldier--to-day, the ruler of an empire--to-morrow,
suspended upon the gallows. In an adjoining room I saw a portrait of
Baxter, which gives one a pretty good idea of the great Nonconformist.
In the same room hung a splendid modern portrait, without any intimation
in the guide-book of who it represented, or when it was painted. It was
so much like one whom I had seen, and on whom my affections were placed
in my younger days, that I obtained a seat from an adjoining room and
rested myself before it. After sitting half an hour or more, I wandered
to another part of the building, but only to return again to my "first
love," where I remained till the throng had disappeared one after
another, and the officer reminding me that it was time to close.
It was eight o'clock before I reached my lodgings. Although fatigued by
the day's exertions, I again resumed the reading of Roscoe's "Leo X.,"
and had nearly finished seventy-three pages, when the clock on St.
Martin's Church apprised me that it was two. He who escapes from slavery
at the age of twenty years, without any education, as did the writer of
this letter, must read when others are asleep, if he would catch up with
the rest of the world. "To be wise," says Pope, "is but to know how
little can be known." The true searcher after truth and knowledge is
always like a child; although gaining strength from year to year, he
still "learns to labour and to wait." The field of labour is ever
expanding before him, reminding him that he has yet more to learn;
teaching him that he is nothing more than a child in knowledge, and
inviting him onward with a thousand varied charms. The son may take
possession of the father's goods at his death, but he cannot inherit
with the property the father's cultivated mind. He may put on the
father's old coat, but that is all: the immortal mind of the first
wearer has gone to the tomb.
Property may be bequeathed, but knowledge cannot. Then let him who
would be useful in his day and generation be up and doing. Like the
Chinese student who learned perseverance from the woman whom he saw
trying to rub a crow-bar into a needle, so should we take the experience
of the past to lighten our feet through the paths of the future.
The next morning at ten, I was again at the door of the great building;
was soon within its walls seeing what time would not allow of the
previous day. I spent some hours in looking through glass cases, viewing
specimens of minerals, such as can scarcely be found in any place out of
the British Museum. During this day I did not fail to visit the great
Library. It is a spacious room, surrounded with large glass cases filled
with volumes, whose very look tells you that they are of age. Around,
under the cornice, were arranged a number of old black-looking
portraits, in all probability the authors of some of the works in the
glass cases beneath. About the room were placed long tables, with stands
for reading and writing, and around these were a number of men busily
engaged in looking over some chosen author. Old men with grey hairs,
young men with mustaches--some in cloth, others in fustian, indicating
that men of different rank can meet here. Not a single word was spoken
during my stay, all appearing to enjoy the silence that reigned
throughout the great room. This is indeed a retreat from the world. No
one inquires who the man is who is at his side, and each pursues in
silence his own researches. The racing of pens over the sheets of paper
was all that disturbed the stillness of the occasion.
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