Lippincotts Magazine, May 1876 | Page 5

us by the mile, like iron from the rolling-mill or tunes
from a musical-box, as cheap and as soulless. Forms innately beautiful
thus become almost hateful, because hackneyed. If all the women we
see were at once faultlessly beautiful and absolute duplicates of each
other in the minutest details of feature, complexion, dress and figure,
we should be in danger of conceiving an aversion to the sex. So there is
a certain pleasure in tracing in a carven object, even though it be
hideous, the patient, faithful, watchful work of the human hand guided
at every instant by the human eye. And this Japanese tracery is by no
means hideous. The plants and animals are well studied from reality,
and truer than the average of popular designs in Europe a century ago,
if not now. It is simple justice to add that for workmanlike
thoroughness this structure does not suffer in comparison with those
around it.
Besides this dwelling for its employés, the Japanese government has in
a more central situation, close to the Judges' Pavilion, another building.
The style of this is equally characteristic. Together, the two structures
will do what houses may toward making us acquainted with the public
and private ménage of Japan.
[Illustration: PENNSYLVANIA BUILDING.]
In the neat little Swedish School-house, of unpainted wood, that stands
next to the main Japanese building, we have another meeting of
antipodes. Northern Europe is proud to place close under the eye of
Eastern Asia a specimen of what she is doing for education. Sweden
has indeed distinguished herself by the interest she has shown in the
exposition. At the head of her commission was placed Mr. Dannfeldt,

who supervised her display at Vienna. His activity and judgment have
obviously not suffered from the lapse of three years. This school-house
is attractive for neatness and peculiarity of construction. It was erected
by Swedish carpenters. The descendants of the hardy sea-rovers,
convinced that their inherited vigor and thrift could not be adequately
illustrated by an exclusively in-doors exhibition, sent their portable
contributions in a fine steamer of Swedish build, the largest ever sent to
sea from the Venice of the North, and not unworthy her namesake of
the Adriatic. To compete in two of its specialties with the cradle of the
common school and the steamship is a step that tells of the bold
Scandinavian spirit.
The contemporaries and ancient foes of the Northmen, who overthrew
the Goths on land and checkmated the Vikings in the southern seas,
have a memorial in the beautiful Alhambra-like edifice of the Spanish
government. Spain has no architecture so distinctive as that of the
Moors, and the selection of their style for the present purpose was in
good taste. It lends itself well to this class of building, designed
especially for summer use; and many other examples of it will be found
upon the grounds. The Mohammedan arch is suited better to materials,
like wood and iron, which sustain themselves in part by cohesion, than
to stone, which depends upon gravitation alone. Although it stands in
stone in a long cordon of colonnades from the Ganges to the
Guadalquivir, the eye never quite reconciles itself to the suggestion of
untruth and feebleness in the recurved base of the arch. This defect,
however, is obtrusive only when the weight supported is great; and the
Moorish builders have generally avoided subjecting it to that test.
[Illustration: PLAN OF EXHIBITION GROUNDS.]
Spain also has taken the liberty of widening the range of her
contributions. Soldiers, for instance, find no place in the official
classification of subjects for exhibition. She naturally thought it worth
while to show that the famous infanteria of Alva, Gonsalvo, and Cuesta
"still lived." So she sends us specimens of the first, if not just now the
foremost, of all infantry. This microscopic invasion of our soil by an
armed force will be useful in reminding us of the untiring tenacity
which takes no note of time or of defeat, and which, indifferent whether
the struggle were of six, fifty, or seven hundred years, wore down in
succession the Saracens, the Flemings and the French.

[Illustration: JAPANESE BUILDING.]
Samples in this particular walk of competition come likewise from the
battle-ground of Europe, Belgium sending a detachment of her troops
for police duty. We may add that the Centennial has brought back the
red-coats, a detachment of Royal Engineers, backed by part of
Inspector Bucket's men, doing duty in the British division.
After these first drops of the military shower one looks instinctively for
the gleam of the spiked helmet at the portals of the German building,
seated not far from that of Spain, and side by side with that of Brazil. It
does not appear, however. Possibly, Prince Bismarck scorns to send his
veterans anywhere by permission.