Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science | Page 7

Mr. Vick, an alderman of Bristol, bequeathed one thousand pounds, to be kept at interest until they should reach ten thousand, when the amount was to be expended upon a stone bridge across the Avon. Nearly eighty years after, in 1830, the fund had reached eight thousand pounds, and it was determined to form a company to push forward the project: a plan for a suspension bridge by Mr. Brunel was accepted at an estimated cost of fifty-seven thousand pounds, and subscriptions were vigorously solicited. On the 27th of August, 1836, the foundation-stone was laid in the presence of the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, then holding its sixth annual meeting in Bristol. The work went on slowly for seven years, at the end of which it was abandoned for want of funds, forty-five thousand pounds having been expended, including the legacy of eight thousand. For nearly twenty years the towers and abutments stood, unsightly objects in a lovely scene, until in 1860 the Hungerford suspension bridge in London was taken down, and it was found that its chains might be made use of to carry out the uncompleted plan at Clifton. A new company was formed with a capital of thirty-five thousand pounds, in ten-pound shares, and at length, in December, 1864, the bridge was thrown open to the public. Its span is seven hundred and two feet; height from low water, two hundred and eighty-seven feet. An inscription on one of the piers thus epitomizes its story: "Suspensa vix via fit."
There are many reflections which may be called up by a glance over the brink of the chasm at Clifton. Down this muddy ditch dropped the little Matthew, with the Cabots in command, bound for the discovery of America; borne on the surface of this liquid mud, the Great Western (built at Bristol) found its way to the sea and demonstrated the practicability of steam traffic with America; and if you ask why Bristol now has so little share in that traffic, although reasons as plenty as blackberries will be showered upon you, perhaps you will find as convincing a reason as any in the sight of this narrow and tortuous channel. Now, at last, docks are being built at the mouth of the Avon, and one adapted to the largest vessels was opened on the 24th of February, 1877. The prospects of present success cannot be brilliant in the prevalent depression of the Atlantic trade, yet, to have heard the wild talk in February, one would have thought that the dock had only to open its mouth (or gate) to have the great plums of trade at once fall into it. The company is too wise to expect to catch birds simply by hanging out a cage: every one waits to see what bait they will offer. It is claimed that the passage from New York to Avonmouth may be made in a day less than to the Mersey, and mails and passengers forwarded thence to London in three hours. May we soon have the pleasure of welcoming American friends on Avonmouth Dock!
ALFRED S. GIBBS.

AN ATELIER DES DAMES.
[Illustration: TABLEAU VIVANT.]
After years of patient endeavor, of hope deferred and heart oftentimes made sick, Paletta found herself at last in Paris. Behind her were years of anxious calculations and shabby economies, a chequered pathway of brilliant ambitions and sombre discouragements. Before her was another vista of several years of art-study in the great capital--a vista arched, she could not but know, by as heavy clouds as had ever darkened her path. Yet she felt, even although she could not see its end, that the forward vista climbed ever upward toward glorious heights, upon which the storms of despair never beat, and where she could more nearly touch upon the divine ideals that ever elude the grasp of even the loftiest of earth's climbers.
And thus she was content. Paletta was yet a little young, it must be said, yet in that blessed youthfulness when the loins are girded with the strength that reduces mountains to molehills and forces the Apollyon of dismay to flee from out every dark valley.
Behold Paletta--twenty-three years of age, with a winy color upon her lips, the faintest perceptible shadow of fading upon the roses of her cheeks, a little anxious wrinkle between her earnest gray eyes, a slight nasal twang in her New England voice, and a fresh flounce upon her old black alpaca dress--the first morning of her experience in an atelier des dames in Paris! She had come down the hill from her dark little room on Montmartre, fancying that the gray December day was crystalline, that the dingy Rue Germain Pillon--with its dirty gamins of both sexes in cropped hair and blouses or white caps and black