It is the prescribed rule at Carlsbad to take as much hot water as possible on an empty stomach. Everybody knows that there is more available room in the human frame for such a purpose in the early morning hours than at any other time of day. And so we find all Carlsbad up with the sun. This rule is rather hard on the brass bands of Carlsbad. For the municipal ordinances require them to play lively tunes at the principal fountains while the melancholy processions are filing on. With what contempt those mighty drinkers of beer and wine over there in the orchestra must regard all the people who think so highly of hot water! It seemed to me as I looked upon the ruddy faces of the musical performers that the continual pounding of drums and wrestling with trombones must be as promotive of health as any other known form of manual labor. But of course it would be hard on the well people if every patient should join a brass band to recover his “tone.”
When a member of the procession reaches the spring which is his goal, he unslings his porcelain mug and hands it to a boy in waiting. The water at most of the springs—they are many—issues with some force amid a cloud of steam, from a small pipe. The mug is filled in a trice and handed back to its owner. If he likes it very hot, he gulps it rapidly. If he prefers it lukewarm, he lets it cool a little. Many persons suck up the water through a glass tube, as if to prolong the enjoyment. The Carlsbad waters taste differently, and perhaps no two people find exactly the same flavor in the outcome of the same spring. With regard to the stronger waters of the group, one often hears it said, “Why, it tastes like chicken-broth, with too much salt in it!” If this is true, then I can only say that some of the salt ought to be extracted and the water put on the bill of fare of the Carlsbad hotels, where the article called “chicken-broth” does not resemble the real thing at all. Because of this pleasing flavor—reminiscence of the full meals of happier days—the drinkers seem really to like the waters.
As each person can have only one mugful at a time, he must go back again to the tail end of the line as often as he wants more. This gives him plenty of exercise, if he happens to want two or three quarts the same morning. Meantime, those who have dutifully taken their doses—as ordered by some medical tyrant—saunter up and down the pleasant walks of Carlsbad and chat with their friends, and make themselves as cheerful and agreeable as it is in the nature of things possible for a human being to be an hour or two before breakfast. No time of day could seem more unfavorable for flirtations. But, unless all the usual signs mislead at Carlsbad, I should say that, as in the familiar song, “the old, old story is told again at five o’clock in the morning,” often, in and about the peopled colonnades of that place.
The Sprudel Spring, which spouts the highest and sends out the most water, is also the hottest. It is said that eggs may be boiled in it; and I am prepared to believe the assertion, after observing the timid way in which the most confirmed drinkers put the water to their lips. The spring is irregular in its action. At intervals varying from five to ten minutes it shoots with a force which makes the bystanders step back to avoid the scalding spray. People who claim to be wiser than the rest of us, say that the Sprudel and all the other springs result from the following operations in Mother Earth: The water of some river or lake in the vicinity of Carlsbad filters through the ground and between the rocks to a depth of two or three miles or any distance you like. On the way this water becomes saturated with salts of various disagreeable kinds. At a certain point in its downward journey it encounters the “internal fires,” or, at all events, a heat sufficient to decompose some of the salts in the water and produce an explosive gas. This gas, in its turn, projects the heated water through some convenient hole clear to the surface of the earth, like shot out of a gun. As nobody knows anything about what takes place away down there, this explanation is, perhaps, as good as any that may be offered. It is an interesting fact, by-the-way, that at the time of the great earthquake which destroyed Lisbon and shook up so many other places, the Sprudel stopped flowing for three days!
Sign-painters ought to make a good living in Prague. For its population is about equally divided between Germans and Bohemians, and each race prefers its own language to that of the other. As a result, the enterprising merchant is obliged to hang out signs which may be read by both races. In order to catch the custom of those who can not read at all, he also calls the pictorial art into play. Everybody can understand the picture of a sack of flour standing on end, or of loaves of bread, or of bundles of hay or wood, or a pile of coal, or a man pulling a tooth. But these embellishments are reserved for the poorer quarters. In the really handsome, newer parts of Prague the double sign suffices to meet the demands of all intelligent purchasers among the two peoples. As every cashier and clerk is expected to understand both German and Bohemian well enough to sell goods to either race, you will readily see that accomplished linguists are a necessity in the business circles of Prague, especially when French and English and American visitors to that city are not uncommon.
Though differing widely in race and language, the people of Prague are one in the matter of dress. Their costume is that of the rest of the world, as affected by that great equalizer, the railway. The Graben is full of precisely the same persons, externally considered, that one sees on the boulevards of Paris, in Oxford Street, or Broadway. During my drives and walks about Prague I did not note a single item of attire which might not be found in the most conventional of New England villages. Jews abound in Prague, but not one of them could be identified by that peculiar and very gloomy apparel which is worn by their brethren in some other parts of Austria—say, in Carlsbad. There the Jew is known afar off by his long, flowing black robe, matched by a cap which he pulls down on the back of his head. This robe lends to the wearer a gravity and dignity in full accord with his serious face. The Carlsbad Jews are good-looking, and the human parade at and about the springs would lose much of its interest if they were left out. The tiresome uniformity of dress which we find in all the cities of Central Europe is fast robbing Continental travel of a charm once potent. It is bad enough to have the hotel bills-of-fare everywhere just alike, though one can put up with lack of variety if the food is well cooked and wholesome; but, when one sees, on all sides, the same dresses, even to the cut of a collar, and the nice adjustment of a neck-tie, he feels cheated out of his just and reasonable expectations. This is one of the worst respects in which pictorial geographies and cyclopædias too often lead their readers astray.
You would hardly expect ever to be called on to complain that people were too courteous. Yet, when it involves you in the necessity of taking off your hat and describing a semicircle with it every minute or two, you get just a little tired of the extreme politeness that greets you all through Bavaria and Austria. I do not now allude to the profound bows of your hotel landlord, your porter, your “boots,” and your cabman. I do not speak of the man who sells you something—if it is nothing more than a cake of soap—and bends almost to the floor when you leave his shop. These men have relations with you which make their courtesies a matter of course. You do as you please about bowing back to them. As a rule, you do it if you are not stiff-necked and hard-hearted. I now refer to the army officer or other gentleman who doffs his cap to you most politely every time he enters or leaves a railway-carriage in which you are sitting. But I have chiefly in mind the pedestrians of high and low degree whom you meet in great numbers along the country roads of Austria and Bavaria. These men, if natives, never fail to bare their heads to you. And you must do the same to them, or lose that good opinion of your own manners which every man naturally wishes to preserve. Perhaps we Americans need those lessons in politeness which are forced upon us in some parts of Europe. But it is nevertheless a little trying to be continually required to exchange the most respectful salutes with perfect strangers. I don’t think there is any danger that our fellow-countrymen will ever catch the habit very badly.
The superintendent or chief inspector of the great Picture-Gallery of Dresden was quite indignant when I asked him if the Saxon Government intended to refuse to American artists and students access to that treasure-house, as had been reported. For his answer he sent at once for a promising young American, who was then copying one of the masterpieces of the gallery. Placing his hands affectionately on this young man’s shoulders, he simply said, “No! no! impossible!” Then he fled from the scene, as if my question had stung him. It is true, as I have since learned, that Saxony, while feeling affronted by the American thirty per cent duty on the paintings and statuary of her subjects, does not propose to retaliate by excluding our compatriots from her world-famous collections of art. On the contrary, American artists are very popular there, and will continue to be welcome visitors at all the galleries. The Saxon Government hopes that the American art-tariff will be abolished or reduced some day, in response to the demand of the best artists of our own country, and without the pressure of any reprisal. If one would know how valuable are the privileges enjoyed by American artists and students abroad, let him enter the famous gallery of paintings, which is the chief glory of Dresden, and look around him. He will see in almost every corner some person sitting before a renowned picture and copying it at leisure. Sometimes the picture still hangs on the wall, in which case the body and the easel of the artist half conceal it from view. Several masterpieces which I wanted to inspect closely were partly eclipsed in this way. Sometimes the gem is taken down and put at the artist’s exclusive disposal. You find its wooden back confronting you in some nook of the gallery, and, if you try to peep round for a look at it, the person at work copying it is apt to make you feel that you are an intruder. I say that it is a great thing to enjoy these advantages over the general public, and be able to derive a profit from them by selling copies to American customers, who can take them home duty free. One may not like the thirty per cent tariff, and still may feel most kindly disposed toward every American artist and art-student in Europe, and earnestly hope that their privileges will not be curtailed in the least.
There is one room in this picture-gallery where I have not yet seen an easel set up with a man or woman toiling behind it. That is the apartment solely occupied by the immortal Sistine Madonna of Raphael. Such a presence there would seem almost a profanation. For that greatest work of the greatest of artists is a shrine before which men of all religions and of no religion pay the same unaffected homage. You remove your hat instinctively as you enter the little room. You cross the floor on tip-toe. You gaze upon the wonderful canvas in silence. If you exchange words of admiration about it with your companion or neighbor, you do it in a whisper. As you reluctantly quit the place to go directly to your hotel—for nothing in the gallery interests you much after you have seen the Sistine Madonna—you realize better than before what is the highest and truest mission of art in the world.