Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

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Various. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

MEMOIRS OF THE HOLY LAND.1

SITUATION OF THE PLAIN

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITIES

PHILOSOPHIZING ON THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH

THE DEAD SEA IN THE MIDDLE AGES

BURCKHARDT'S VISIT TO THE VALLEY OF ARABAH

ROBINSON'S VISIT TO EN-GEDI

VIEW OF THE SEA

THE PASS

THE SHORE OF THE SEA

MEASUREMENTS

THE SALT MOUNTAIN OF USDUM

THE CAVERN

AN INCIDENT OF ORIENTAL TRAVELING

THE FORD

LIEUTENANT LYNCH

A GALE

THE FIRST ENCAMPMENT

THE VOYAGE TO EN-GEDI

EXPLORINGS

THE SIROCCO

THE PILLAR OF SALT

EXCURSION TO KERAK

THE DEPRESSION OF THE SEA

THE STORY OF COSTIGAN

THE FUTURE

THE PALACES OF FRANCE

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

"WHO MURDERED DOWNIE?"

FRAGMENTS FROM A YOUNG WIFE'S DIARY.3

A SOLDIER'S FIRST BATTLE

MEMORY AND ITS CAPRICES

BLEAK HOUSE.4

CHAPTER XX. – A New Lodger

CHAPTER XXI. – The Smallweed Family

CHAPTER XXII. – Mr. Bucket

MONSTERS OF FAITH

LIFE AND DEATH OF PAGANINI

NUMBER NINETEEN IN OUR STREET

GOSSIP ABOUT GREAT MEN

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.5

BOOK XII. – Initial Chapter

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

A SHORT CHAPTER ON RATS

A DARK CHAPTER FROM THE DIARY OF A LAW CLERK

Monthly Record of Current Events

THE UNITED STATES

SOUTH AMERICA

MEXICO

CUBA

GREAT BRITAIN

THE CONTINENT

Editor's Table

Editor's Easy Chair

Editor's Drawer

CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR DRAWER

Literary Notices

Autumn Fashions

Отрывок из книги

How strongly associated in the minds of men, are the ideas of guilt and ruin, unspeakable and awful, with the names of Sodom and Gomorrah. The very words themselves seem deeply and indelibly imbued with a mysterious and dreadful meaning.

The account given in the Sacred Scriptures of the destruction of these cities, and of the circumstances connected with it, has, perhaps, exercised a greater influence in modifying, or, rather, in forming, the conception which has been since entertained among mankind in respect to the character of God, than any other one portion of the sacred narrative. The thing that is most remarkable about it is, that while in the destruction of the cities we have a most appalling exhibition of the terrible energy with which God will punish confirmed and obdurate wickedness, we have in the attendant circumstances of the case, a still more striking illustration of the kind, and tender, and merciful regard with which he will protect, and encourage, and sustain those who are attempting, however feebly, to please him, and to do his will. We are told elsewhere in the Scriptures, didactically, that God is love, and also that he is a consuming fire. In this transaction we see the gentleness and the tenderness of his love, and the terrible severity of his retributive justice, displayed together. Let us examine the account somewhat in detail.

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But let us enter the stables, for they also are palaces. The nobles of other lands have hardly been as sumptuously housed as were the horses of the kings of France. The Palace of Versailles is approached from the town by three grand avenues – the central one 800 feet broad. These avenues open into a large space called the Place of Arms. Flanking the main avenue, and facing the palace, were placed the Grand Stables, inclosed by handsome iron railings and lofty gate-ways, and ornamented with trophies and sculptures. These stables were appropriated to the carriages and the horses of the royal family. Here the king kept his stud of 1000 of the most magnificent steeds the empire could furnish. It must have been a brilliant spectacle, in the gala days of Versailles, when lords and ladies, glittering in purple and gold, thronged these saloons, and mounted on horses and shouting in chariots, with waving plumes, and robes like banners fluttering in the air, swept as a vision of enchantment through the Eden-like drives which boundless opulence and the most highly cultivated taste had opened in the spacious parks of the palace. The poor peasant and pale artisan, whose toil supplied the means for this luxury, heard the shout, and saw the vision, and, ate their black bread, and looked upon the bare-footed daughter and the emaciate wife, and treasured up wrath. The fearful outrages of the French revolution, concentrated upon kings and nobles in the short space of a few years, were but the accumulated vengeance which had been gathering through ages of wrong and violence in the hearts of oppressed men. But those days of kingly grandeur have passed away from France forever. Versailles can never again be filled as it has been. It is no longer a regal palace. It is a museum of art, opened freely to all the people. No longer will the blooded Arabians of a proud monarch fill those stables. One has already been converted into cavalry barracks, and the other into an agricultural school. It is to be hoped that the soldiers will soon follow the horses, and that the sciences of peace will eject those of war.

What tongue can tell the heart-crushing dramas of real life which have been enacted in this palace. Its history is full of the revealings of the agonies of the soul. Love, in all its delirium of passion, of hopelessness, of jealousy, and of remorse, has here rioted, causing the virtuous to fall and weep tears of blood, the vicious to become demoniac in reckless self-abandonment. After years of soul-harrowing pleasure and sin, the Duchesse de la Vallière, with pallid cheek, and withered charms, and exhausted vivacity, retired from these sumptuous halls and from her heartless, selfish, discarding betrayer, to seek in the glooms of a convent that peace which the guilty love of a king could never confer upon her heart. For thirty years, clothed in sackcloth, she mourned and prayed, till the midnight tollings of the convent bell consigned her emaciate frame to the tomb.

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