Goethe preferred little Weimar for the development of his poetical life. His father’s stately house in Frankfort, still to be seen, was not equal to his own in Weimar.
But let us leave the river Main and the river Rhine and look up Nuremberg and Munich before we follow our southern course to the Adriatic. An erratic journey this, but have we not found some shells which the other conchologists overlooked?
Nuremberg seems to have lost more in population than any German city we know of. Having once numbered 100,000, it now claims only 55,000. It is a curious fact that Nuremberg toys which were so celebrated formerly, have been surpassed in this country, and now American manufactures in this line are taken to Nuremberg and actually sold as German toys. This was told me by a gentleman interested in the trade. But buy a lead-pencil in Nuremberg if you want a good article very cheap—perhaps you can learn to draw or sketch with one, being inspired with the memory of Albert Dürer.
Nuremberg is Bavaria’s second largest city, and attracts more foreigners or visitors than Munich, perhaps, yet to the mind of the Bavarian Munich is Bavaria, as to the Frenchman Paris is France, and to the Prussian Berlin is Prussia! No traveler can be contented, however, without some time in Nuremberg, although I dare say many go away disappointed. The old stone houses with their carved gables, the walls and turrets, St. Sebald Church, and the fortress where Gustavus Adolphus with his immense army was besieged by Wallenstein, are things which never grow tedious to the memory. In this fortress now they keep the instruments of torture used in the middle ages to extract secrets from the criminal or the innocent, as it might chance to be. A German in Berlin laughingly told me when I described the rusty torturous things, that they were all of recent manufacture, and were not the genuine articles at all! But new or old, genuine or reproduced, they make one shudder as does Fox’s “Book of Martyrs.” I know of no church in Germany more worthy of study than St. Sebald’s. In it one finds a curious old gold lamp, which swings from the ceiling about half way down one aisle of the church. It is called die ewige lampe, because it has been always burning since the twelfth century. It is related of one of Nuremberg’s respectable old citizens that he was returning in the darkness one stormy night to his home, and finally almost despaired of finding his way, when a faint light from the St. Sebald’s Church enabled him to arrive safe at his own door. He gave a fund to the church afterward for the purpose of keeping there a perpetual light. When the Protestants took St. Sebald’s, as they did so many Catholic churches in Germany after the Reformation, the interest money which the old man gave had still to be used in this way according to his will. So die ewige lampe still swings and gives its dim light to the passer-by at night. Our American consul told me a characteristic story of an American girl and her mother, whom he was showing about Nuremberg, as was his social duty, perhaps. They were in St. Sebald’s Church, and he related the story of the lamp as they stood near it. Underneath stands a little set of steps which the old sexton ascends to trim the lamp. “Oh!” said this precocious American girl, “I shall blow it out, and then their tradition that it has never been out will be upset.” So she climbed the steps fast, and as she was about to do this atrocious thing our consul pulled her back, and said she would be in custody in an hour, and he would not help her out. The mother merely laughed, and evidently saw nothing wrong about the performance. It is just such smart acts on the part of American girls abroad which induce a man like Henry James to write novels about them. The fine, intelligent, self-poised girls travel unnoticed, while the “Daisy Millers” cause the judgment so often passed upon all American girls by foreigners, that they are “an emancipated set.”
It was our good fortune while in Munich to board with most agreeable people. The Herr Geheimrath (privy counselor) had retired from active life of one kind, to enjoy the privilege of being an antiquarian and art critic. He had his house full of most valuable and curious treasures. The study of ceramics was his hobby, and fayence, porcelain, and earthenwares of the rarest kinds were standing around on his desk, on cabinets, and on the floor. He edited Die Wartburg, a paper which was the organ of Münchener Alterthum-Verein, and wrote weekly articles Ueber den Standpunkt unserer heutigen Kunst. His wife was formerly the hof-singerin (court-singer) at the royal opera in Munich, but was then too old to continue. Every Saturday evening she would give a home concert, and would sing the lovely aria from “Freischutz,” or Schumann’s songs.
St. Petersburg never looked whiter from snow than did Munich that winter. The galleries were cold, but the new and old Pinakothek were too rich to be forsaken. Fortunately the new building was just across the street from the Herr Geheimrath’s. If it had only been the old Pinakothek I found myself continually saying, for who cares for Kaulbachs, and modern German art, compared with the rich Van Dykes, the Rubens, the Dürers, and the old Byzantine school? I should say the Munich gallery is superior to the Dresden in numbers, but not in gems. But they have fine specimens from the Spanish, the Italian, and German schools.
The Glyptothek is Munich’s boast. There is a stately grandeur in this building that suggests Greece and her art. On a frosty morning, to wander out beyond the Propylæum and enter through the great bronze door of the Glyptothek, one feels like a mouse entering a marble quarry. I presume there is no such collection of originals in any country but Italy. Ghiberti, Michael Angelo, Benvenuti, Cellini, Peter Vischer, Thorwaldsen, Canova, Rauch, Schwanthaler, are all represented by original works. But it needs a warm climate to make such a collection of statuary altogether attractive.
Going from Germany to Italy, one takes the “Brenner Pass,” generally, over the Alps—the oldest way known, and used by Hannibal. After winding around the side of these snowy peaks, and being blinded by the mists enveloping the landscape, trembling with admiration or fear, as the case may be, a glimpse of sunny Italy is most encouraging.
To reach the Adriatic and Venice is enough earthly joy for some souls. Elizabeth Barrett Browning felt so; and all people feel so, perhaps, who, as Henry James and W. D. Howells, give themselves up to Venice, and write about her until she becomes identified with their reputation. But let Venice and the Adriatic be silent factors in this article, and let Verona, Florence, and Rome substitute them.
We alighted at Verona at midnight, and in the pale moonlight, which gave a ghastly appearance to the quaint old place. “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” were not to be seen that night. The streets were silent, yet I thought perhaps they might greet us in the morning; but their shadowy old cloaks are only to be seen thrown around a thousand beggars, who are as thick as bees and as ugly as bats.