There is not so much American-made stuff in Europe as I expected. There is a good deal, but in fact these Germans and French are up to about everything that we are, and sometimes they have us bested. The Singer sewing-machine is everywhere, even in Italy. American shoes are the leaders in their lines in every city. American typewriters are sold ahead of European. Wernicke bookcases and office furniture are advertised and sold almost as at home. But the list of American goods is not very long, or else they are sold under other names and brands. To-day we bought a good picture of a typical German girl to take home with us as our art collection from Europe. Before we had gone a block Mrs. Morgan found the tag which proclaimed, “Made in Springfield, Massachusetts, U. S. A.” We were chagrined that our European purchase had turned out to be an American importation, sold to us at a higher price than it would have been at home, but we were proud that here in Germany they knew the country to send to in order to get good pictures of fetching Dutch maidens. At Zurich I started to buy a little office fixture which I thought I had never seen before and which I intended to take home to surprise the Kansans, when I found out just in time that it was made by the Globe-Wernicke company of Cincinnati, and I knew we had the same thing for sale at The News office in Hutchinson. Hereafter in buying souvenirs of Europe we will look close for the brand.
This is the place where the “pâté de fois gras” originated. I do not know how many people in Kansas know what pâté de fois gras is and whether it is a flower or a dog. I had once seen the words on a bill of fare in a very swell restaurant, but the figures which followed the name were so much larger than those after ham and eggs that I stuck to “ham and.” But when in Rome you must see the Forum, in Venice you must see St. Mark’s, and in Strassburg you must have some pâté de fois gras. The food combination which the four French words stand for is based on goose-liver, and corresponds to about what we would call “goose-liver smothered in roses.” It is very good, and you never forget the delicious taste or the price. Strassburg chefs make the stuff, can it and ship it all over the world to people who like delicate things to eat and who have sufficient credit to get a good stand-off. Pâté de fois gras is sweeter than chocolate, more luscious than peaches and more delicious than lemon pop at a Fourth of July picnic. It is a proof that Strassburgers have French stomachs as well as French hearts.
Speaking of eatables, we had the first loaf of bread in Switzerland that we had seen since we left home. After nearly two months on hard, stale rolls the sight of a reasonably good loaf of bread at Geneva made as strong an impression on my mind as Mont Blanc. Anybody who has traveled in Europe or in Arkansas will appreciate the feelings of a Kansan when he puts a slice of fairly soft bread between his teeth. It is better than pâté de fois gras, and it is almost exclusively an American institution.
IN OLD HEIDELBERG.
Heidelberg, Germany, July 22, 1905.
This is the old and famous university town of Germany. It is about two miles long and 200 yards wide, lying between the river Neckar and the steep hills which rise 500 feet high and which can only be ascended by terraced roads or a modern tunnel railway. The town is of comparatively recent origin, being really started only 850 years ago, when a Rhenish count who wanted to build a strong and impregnable fortress selected a spot 400 feet straight up the hill from the river and built the old castle of Heidelberg. Being thus the capital of a little German state, the Palatinate of the Rhine, it was an important place during the Middle Ages, and was fought over every few years for several centuries. In the fourteenth century the ruling count, whose title was Elector, developed a literary streak and founded the university, which became the center of learning and scientific study in Germany, and has continued so until the present day, although some of the newer universities like Berlin and Leipsig are now larger. The valley of the Neckar joins the valley of the Rhine here and makes a fertile territory and a prosperous city, but the university and the students are the main features of modern Heidelberg, now that counts, electors and castles are ruins or relics. There are many students in Heidelberg from America and other countries, but it is the rollicking German “yunkers” who make the life of the place.