Woerishoven, Bavaria, September 20, 1894.
I have been banished by bronchitis from the Eden, Cadenabbia, and have come to Father Kneipp’s Water-Cure, near Munich, although it is a little late in the season to take the “cure.” It is de rigueur before seeing Father Kneipp to consult a regular practitioner, who pronounces whether or no you are a fit subject; people with weak hearts are not allowed to take the cure. I paid a small sum, became a member of the Kneipp Verein, received a blank-book—in which the medico wrote out a diagnosis—and a ticket stating the hour of my appointment with “the Pfarrer,” as Father Kneipp is called. I arrived a little before time at an immense barrack of a place like the waiting-room at a railroad station. The door to the consulting-room was guarded by two functionaries who read aloud our numbers as our turn came, looking carefully at the tickets before letting any one enter.
“Einundzwanzig!” (twenty-one), and I passed into the long room and stood before Father Kneipp, like a prisoner at the bar. He is one of the most powerful-looking men I have ever seen; his eyes pierced me through and through. I handed him the book with the diagnosis. He read it, grunted, ruminated, bored me with a second auger glance, then dictated my course of treatment to one of his secretaries, a callow cherico who sat beside him at a long table with three or four other men.
I found out afterwards that they were young doctors studying his methods. Father Kneipp spoke to me rather sharply, going directly to the point. Never mind what he said, I deserved it, I shall not forget it, and, like Dr. Johnson, “I think to mend!” “Come again in a fortnight,” he said suddenly. The consultation was over and I was ushered out. I had not reached the door when “Zweiundzwanzig,” a crippled boy, a far more interesting case than mine, came in.
Father Kneipp dislikes women, ladies especially, me in particular, because no one had warned me not to wear gloves, a veil, and a good bonnet. If I had put an old shawl over my head and looked generally forlorn, he would have been kinder. Isn’t that dear? His benevolence is of the aggressive type; he grudges time spent on rich people,—is only reconciled to them, in fact, because they offer up gifts in return for health, and in this way a great sanitarium has grown up where the prince is nearly as well treated as the peasant—but it is the peasant folk, his own people, that the Pfarrer loves! This is the only truly democratic community I have ever lived in,—a pure democracy governed by a benevolent despot! The despot is past seventy years old; he has an aldermanic figure, a rough peasant head, and extraordinary bristling white eyebrows, standing out a good two inches from his pent-house brows. His coloring is like an old English country squire’s,—brick-red skin, bright blue eyes, and silver hair. He is a prelate; so his rusty black cassock is piped with purple silk, and he wears a tiny purple skull-cap. His two inseparables were with him, a long black cigar and a white Spitz dog....
The fortnight is almost up, the cough gone, the vitality come. Yesterday I went to hear one of the Father’s health talks in the big, open hall, free to all. Good, practical common sense was what he gave us, nothing new or startling,—just the wholesome advice of a very wise old man. Enthusiasm and common sense are his weapons. After it was over we waited to see him come out. A group of bores hung on to him; one sentimentalist caught his hand and tried to kiss it, which so enraged the Pfarrer that he gave the fellow a slap!
Such people! If you could only hear them testify to their cures, like lepers and the halt in the Bible! Tell Anagnos that two blind men say they have been cured here this summer. The applications were general, not local, save bathing the eyes in warm straw water. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? One had been blind four years, the other longer. Atrophy of the nerves of the eye was the trouble in both cases. The younger man was going away in despair after a few weeks’ treatment. He drove to the station, got into the train; suddenly he saw something moving, cars going in the other direction! He got out again, returned to Woerishoven, persevered with the treatment, and now sees!
A South African couple sit at my table; they have come all the way from Cape Town. For seventeen long years the husband suffered with nervous dyspepsia, whatever that may be. One summer at Woerishoven has cured him. Does this sound like Paine’s Celery Compound? I learn as much from the other patients as in any other way. Herr Schnell, a German New Yorker,—a hardware man,—and his wife are my best friends. She first spoke to me at table.
“Dot caffee is not good for Ihnen. Sie müssen Wasser trinken.”
“I am here for my throat,” I told her; “I only need hardening; besides, Father Kneipp drinks coffee.”