ALDA.
And Mademoiselle Lindner has sentiment; she must have been a fine actress, and is evidently a favourite with the audience. But to return to Madame Haitzinger;—she is handsome, with a fair complexion, and no very striking expression; but there is a heart and soul, and mellowness in her acting, which is delicious. I could not give you an idea of her manner by a comparison with any of our English actresses, for she is essentially German; she never aimed at making points; she was never broadly arch or comic, but the general effect was as rich as it was true to nature. I saw her in some of her favourite parts: in the comedy of "Stille Wasser sind tief;" (our Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, admirably adapted to the German stage by Schrœder;) in the "Mirandolina," (the famous Locandiera of Goldoni,) and in the pretty lively vaudeville composed for her by Holtei, "Die Wiener in Berlin," in which the popular waltzes and airs, sung in the genuine national spirit, and enjoyed by the audience with a true national zest, delighted us foreigners. Herr Becker is an excellent actor in tragedy and high comedy. Of their singers I could not say so much—there were none I should account first-rate, except Dobler, whom you may remember in England.
One of the most delightful peculiarities of Frankfort, one that most struck my fancy, is the public garden, planted on the site of the ramparts; a girdle of verdure and shade—of trees and flowers circling the whole city; accessible to all and on every side,—the promenade of the rich, the solace of the poor. Fifty men are employed to keep it in order, and it is forbidden to steal the flowers, or to kill the singing birds which haunt the shrubberies.
MEDON.
And does this prohibition avail much in a population of sixty thousand persons?
ALDA.
It does generally. A short time before we arrived some mischievous wretch had shot a nightingale, and was caught in the fact. His punishment was characteristic; his hands were tied behind him, and a label setting forth his crime was fixed on his breast: in this guise, with a police officer on each side, he was marched all round the gardens, and made the circuit of the city, pursued by the hisses of the populace and the abhorrent looks of the upper classes; he was not otherwise punished, but he never again made his appearance within the walls of the city. This was the only instance which I could learn of the infraction of a law which might seem at least nugatory.
Of the spacious, magnificent, well-arranged cemetery, its admirable apparatus for restoring suspended animation, and all its beautiful accompaniments and memorials of the dead, there was a long account published in London, at the time that a cemetery was planned for this great overgrown city; and in truth I know not where we could find a better model than the one at Frankfort; it appeared to me perfection.
The institutions at Frankfort, both for charity and education, are numerous as becomes a rich and free city; and those I had an opportunity of examining appeared to me admirably managed. Besides the orphan schools, and the Burger schule, and the school for female education, established and maintained by the wives of the citizens, there are several infant schools, where children of a year old and upwards are nursed, and fed, and kept out of mischief and harm, while their parents are at work. These are also maintained by subscription among the ladies, who take upon them in turns the task of daily superintendence; and I shall not easily forget the gentle-looking, elegant, well-dressed girl, who, defended from the encroachments of dirty little paws by a large apron, sat in the midst of a swarm of thirty or forty babies, (the eldest not four years old,) the very personification of feminine charity! But the hospital for the infirm poor—Das Versorgung Haus—pleased me particularly; 'tis true, that the cost was not a third—what do I say? not a sixth of the expense of some of our institutions for the same purpose. There was no luxury of architecture, nor huge gates shutting in wretchedness, and shutting out hope; nor grated windows; nor were the arrangements on so large a scale as in that splendid edifice, the Hopital des Vieillards, at Brussels;—a house for the poor need not be either a prison or a palace. But here, I recollect, the door opened with a latch; we entered unannounced, as unexpected. Here there was perfect neatness, abundance of space, of air, of light, of water, and also of occupation. I found that, besides the inmates of the place, many poor old creatures, who could not have the facilities or materials for work in their own dwellings, or whose relatives were busied in the daytime, might find here employment of any kind suited to their strength or capacity,—for which, observe, they were paid; thus leaving them to the last possible moment the feeling of independence and usefulness. I observed that many of those who seemed in the last stage of decrepitude had hung round their beds sundry little prints and pictures, and slips of paper, on which were written legibly, texts from scripture, moral sentences, and scraps of poetry. The ward of the superannuated and the sick was at a distance from the working and eating rooms; and all breathed around that peace and quiet which should accompany old age, instead of that "life-consuming din" I have heard in such places. On the pillow of one bed, there was laid by some chance a bouquet of flowers.
In this ward there was an old man nearly blind and lethargic; another old man was reading to him. I remarked a poor bed-ridden woman, utterly helpless, but not old, and with good and even refined features; and another poor woman, seated by her, was employed in keeping the flies from settling on her face. To one old woman, whose countenance struck me, I said a few words in English—I could speak no German, unluckily. She took my hand, kissed it, and turning away, burst into tears. No one asked for any thing even by a look, nor apparently wanted any thing; and I felt that from the unaffected good-nature of the lady who accompanied us, we had not so much the appearance of coming to look at the poor inmates as of paying them a kind visit;—and this was as it should be. The mild, open countenances of the two persons who managed the establishment, pleased me particularly; and the manner of the matron superintendent, as she led us over the rooms, was so simple and kind, that I was quite at ease: I experienced none of that awkward shyness and reluctance I have felt when ostentatiously led over such places in England—feeling ashamed to stare upon the misery I could not cure. In such cases I have probably attributed to the sufferers a delicacy or a sensibility, long blunted, if ever possessed; but I was in pain for them and for myself.