If this be deemed
extravagant, with confidence I affirm that but for the existence of
the greatest artist the world has ever known,--of him who may
be called the chief educator of England,--but for Shakespeare, we
assuredly should not be here to-day doing the good work we are doing.
There are probably some of this company who, like myself, having had
the good fortune to be in London at the time of the world's fair,
stood under that magnificent, transparent roof, trod that immense area
whereon fifty thousand people moved at ease. It was a privilege,--the
memory of which will last a life-time, to have been admitted into that
gigantic temple of industry, there to behold in unimaginable profusion
and variety the product of man's labor, intellect, and genius,
gathered from the four corners of the earth into one vast, gorgeous
pile,--a spectacle peerless from its mere material splendor, and from
its moral significance absolutely sublime.
On entering by the chief portal into the transept,--covering in the
huge oaks of Hyde Park,--the American, after wondering for a moment in
the glare of the first aspect, will, with the eagerness and perhaps
the vanity of his nation,--have hastened through the compartments of
France, Belgium, Germany, gorgeous with color, glistening with gold.
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