Saxon studies Author:Julian Hawthorne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: V. Passing over, then, the darker shadows appertaining to the Dresden merchant guild, let us revert to the cheery spectacle of the shop windows. The mercers' ... more »are the best off for color ; they sometimes look like giant rosettes, with tints sweetly harmonized. There is a bald-headed gentleman on Seestrasse who arranges his silks in a fresh combination every morning, and then steps into the street and contemplates the effect with sidelong glances and hands clasped in silent rapture on his shirt-bosom. He forgets that his head is hatless — not to mention its hairlessness ; he does not heed the unsympathetic world-stream, hurrying past; the universe is an unstable vision, but the silks are real, are beautiful, are tastefully arranged. We cannot withhold our respect from this man. He is as sincere an enthusiast as Luther or Mahomet, and no less estimable in his degree. Undoubtedlv he is a happier man than either, for I never saw him dissatisfied with his work. But the windows of- the stationers' shops are more generally attractive. Here is a world of photographs from life, from still-life, and from art, ancient and modern. There is a sympathy between photographs and travelling; they are mathematical functions of each other. Dresden photographs are remarkable for their softness and delicate tone — qualities which appear to depend in some measure upon the atmosphere, but still more, I fancy, upon the care and skill wherewith they are " finished" in India ink and white. There is a certain Professor Schurig, whose profession seems to be making crayon copies of the more famous pictures in the Gallery ; and these crayons are diligently photographed in every gradation of size. The Professor is sometimes very felicitous, but within the last year photographs have been' taken from the...« less