Splendid buildin’s rise up on each side of this grand street, and parks and gardens abound. At intervals there are large roomy lawns, covered with velvety grass, where easy seats under the trees invite you to rest and admire the beauty around you, and the happy, gayly-dressed throng passing and repassing in carriages, on horseback or walkin’ afoot, thousands and thousands on ’em, and everyone, I spoze, a pursuin’ their own goles, whatever they may be.
The first place we went to see wuz St. Stephen’s Church. This is on a street much narrower than the Ring Strasse. The sidewalks wuz very narrer here, so when you met folks you had to squeeze up pretty nigh the curbstun or step out into the carriage way; but no matter how close the quarters wuz you would meet with no rough talk or impoliteness. They wuz as polite as the Japans, with more intelligence added.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral is a magnificent Gothic structure, three hundred and fifty-four feet long and two hundred and thirty broad, and is full of magnificent monuments, altars, statutes, carving, etc., etc. The monument to the Emperor Frederic III. has over two hundred figures on it.
Here is the tomb of the King of Rome, Napoleon’s only son, and his ma, Maria Louise. I had queer feelin’s as I stood by them tombs and meditated how much ambition and heart burnin’ wuz buried here in the tomb of that young King of Rome. I thought of how his pa divorced the woman he loved, breakin’ her heart, and his own mebby, for the ambitious desire to have a son connected with the royalty of Europe, to carry on his power and glory, and make it more permanent. And how the new wife turned away from him in his trouble, and the boy died, and he carried his broken heart into exile. And the descendant of the constant-hearted woman he put away, set down on the throne of France, and then he, too, and his boy, had to pass 394 away like leaves whirled about in the devastatin’ wind of war and change. What ups and downs! I had a variety of emotions as I stood there, and I guess Josiah did, though I don’t know. But I judged from his liniment; he looked real demute.
The catacombs under this meetin’-house are a sight to see I spoze, but we didn’t pay a visit to ’em. Josiah had a idee that they wuz built to bury cats in, and he said he didn’t want to go to any cat buryin’-ground. He said there wuzn’t a cat in Europe so likely as ourn, but he wouldn’t think of givin’ it funeral honors.
But he didn’t git it right. It wuz a place where they buried human bein’s, but I didn’t care anything about seein’ it.
Robert got a big carriage, and we all driv over to the Prater, a most beautiful park on an island in the Danube. The broad, flower-bordered avenues wuz crowded with elegant carriages and beautiful forms and faces wuz constantly passing hither and yon, to and fro, and the scene all round us wuz enchantin’ly beautiful. We had a delightful drive, and when we got back to the tarven we found quite a lot of letters that had been forwarded here. Josiah and I had letters from Jonesville, welcome as the voice of the first bird in spring, all well and hopeful of our speedy meetin’; but Miss Meechim had one tellin’ of dretful doin’s in her old home.
We’d heard that there had been a great labor strike out in California, but little did we know how severe it had struck. Rev. Mr. Weakdew had writ to Miss Meechim how some of the rebellious workmen had riz up against his son in his absence. He told how wickedly they wuz actin’ and how impossible it wuz in his opinion to make them act genteel, but he said in his letter that his son had been telegrafted to to come home at once. He said Mudd-Weakdew always had been successful in quelling these rebellious workmen 395 down, and making them keep their place, and he thought he would now as soon as he arrived there.
I know Arvilly and Miss Meechim had words about it when she read the letter. Miss Meechim deplored the state of affairs, and resented Arvilly’s talk; she said it was so wicked to help array one class aginst another.
“They be arrayed now,” sez Arvilly. “Selfishness and Greed are arrayed aginst Justice and Humanity, and the baby Peace is bein’ trompled on and run over, and haggard Want and Famine prowl on the bare fields of Poverty, waitin’ for victims, and the cries of the perishin’ fill the air.”