ONE YEAR ABROAD

BY

THE AUTHOR OF “ONE SUMMER.”

“O rare, rare Earth!”

“Iron is essentially the same everywhere and always, but the sulphate of iron is never the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invariable, but the Smithate of truth must always differ from the Brownate of truth.”—Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

BOSTON:

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.

1878.

Copyright, 1877.

By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.

“Iron is essentially the same everywhere and always, but the sulphate of iron is never the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invariable, but the Smithate of truth must always differ from the Brownate of truth.”—Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

CONTENTS.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

ONE SUMMER.

“Little Classic” style. $1.25.

“A very charming story is ‘One Summer.’ Even the word ‘charming’ hardly expresses with sufficient emphasis the pleasure we have taken in reading it; it is simply delightful, unique in method and manner, and with a peculiarly piquant flavor of humorous observation.”—Appleton's Journal.

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,

Publishers, Boston.

[pg!1]

HAMBURG AT A FIRST GLANCE.

There is a wild, fantastic poem, thronged with more phantoms, goblins, and horrors than are the legends of the Blockberg. It narrates in singularly vivid style the deeds of a frightful fiend, and is, believe me, a truly remarkable work. I beg you will not scorn it because it exists only in the brain which it entered one stormy night at sea. There it reigned, triumphant, through long sleepless hours; but for certain reasons—which are, by the way, perfectly satisfactory to my own mind—it will never be committed to paper. Its title is “The Screw,”—the screw of an ocean steamer.

Christmas is the best wishing-time in the year. One can wish and wish at Christmas, and what harm does it do? So I will wish my poem all written in stately, melodious measure, yet with thoughts that would make your cheek pale, and your very soul shudder; and then—since wishing is so easy—I will wish that I were an intimate friend of Gustave Doré, to whom I would take my masterpiece to be illustrated; and I would beg him to allow his genius for drawing awful things full sway, and I would implore him not to withhold one magic touch that might suggest another horror, so that extending from the central object—the terrible Screw—there should be demons reaching for their prey, howling and laughing in fiendish glee. Then I would say, “More, more, my good M. Doré!—more hideous faces, more leering phantoms, more writhing legs and arms, please!” For perhaps Doré never crossed the ocean in bad weather; perhaps he never occupied a state-room directly over the Screw; perhaps he never experienced the sensation of lying there in sleepless, helpless, hopeless agony, clinging frantically to the side of his berth, hearing the clank of chains, the creaking of timbers, the rattling of the shrouds, the waves sweeping the deck over his head,—most of all, the Evil Screw beneath, rampant and threatening. It may be Doré does not know how it feels when that Screw rises up in wrath, takes the steamer in his teeth and shakes it, then plunges deep, deep in the waves; while all the demons, great and small, stretching their uncanny arms towards the state-rooms, shriek, “We'll get them! We'll have them!” and the winds and waves in hoarse chorus respond, “They'll have them—have them—have them!” and again uprises the Screw and shakes himself and the trembling steamer. So through the night, and many nights, alas!

And yet, O Screw! thing of evil, thing of might, I humbly thank you that you ceased at last your terrible thumps, your jarrings and wicked whirls,—and silenced your chorus of attendant demons, with their turnings and twistings and mad laughter; I thank you that you did not get us! Truly, I believed you would. I thank you that you did not choose to keep us miserable souls wandering forevermore through the shoreless deep, or to sink us, as the phantom-ship sinks in “Der Fliegender Holländer,” amid sulphurous fumes and discordant sounds, down to that lurid abyss from which you came.

Do you all at home know this legend of the Flying Dutchman? At least, do you know it as Wagner gives it to the world, in words as lovely as its melodies? The music is worth hearing, and the story well worth a little thought. But perhaps you know it already? Because, if you do, of course I shall not tell it, and in that case we need not sail off in strange crafts for the wild Norway coast, but will only steam safely up the Elbe to Hamburg.

There are travellers from the Western World who, after months of sight-seeing, return home weary and disappointed because they have never once been able to “realize that they were in Europe.” Not realize! Not know! Not feel with every fibre that one has come from the New to the Old! Why, the very lights of Hamburg gleaming through the rain and darkness, as we cold and wet voyagers at last drew near our haven, even while they gave us friendly greeting, told us unmistakably that their welcome was shining out from a strange land, from homes unlike the homes we had left behind.

Dear people who never “realize” that it is “Europe,” who never feel what you expected to feel, may one less experienced in travel than yourselves venture to tell you that it is that fatal thing, the guide-book, that weighs you down? Not total abstinence in this respect, but moderation, would I preach. Too much guide-book makes you know far too well what to do, where to go, how long to stay. It leaves nothing to imagination, to enthusiasm, to the whim of the moment. Dear guide-book people, don't know so much, don't calculate so much, don't measure and weigh and test everything! Don't speak so much to what you see, and then what you see will speak more to you. Even here in old Hamburg, the haughty free city of commerce, the rich city boasting of her noble port filled with ships from every land,—proud of her wealth, her strength, her merchants, and her warehouses,—looking well after her ducats, caring much for her dinner, plainly telling you she is of a prosaic nature, leaving tales of love and chivalry to the more romantic South,—even here the air is full of subtle intangible influences, that will move you deeply if you will but receive them. A city a thousand years old must have something to say of far-off times and of the living present, if one has ears to hear.

Stand on the heights by the river and look down on all the noble ships at anchor there. The old windmill turns lazily before you. The flag on a building near by moves softly in the breeze. The tender, hazy, late-autumn day, kind to all things, beautifies even bare trees and withered grass. A large-eyed boy, his school-books under his arm, stares curiously at you, then longingly looks at the water and the great ships. The picture has its meaning, which you may breathe in, drink in if you will, but you will never find it if you are comparing your “Appleton” with your “Baedecker,” or estimating the number of square feet in the grass-plot where you stand, or looking hard at the ugly “Sailors' Asylum” because you may be so directed, and refusing to see my pretty boy with the wistful eyes because he's not mentioned in the guide-book.

Everywhere are little stories, pictures, glimpses of other people's lives, waiting for you. The flower-girl at the street-corner holds out a bunch of violets as you pass. Pale, thinly clad, she stands there shivering in the cold November wind. On you go. The shops are large and brilliant, the people seem for a time like those in any large city. You think you might as well be in New York, when suddenly you see, walking tranquilly along, a peasant-woman in the costume of her district,—short, bright gown, bodice square and high, with full white sleeves and a red kerchief round her shoulders, and on her head the most curious object, a thing that looks like a skullcap, with a flaring black bow, as large as your two hands, at the back, from which hangs her hair in two long braids. Sometimes there is also a hat which resembles a shallow, inverted flat basket. Why it stays in place instead of wabbling about as it might reasonably be expected to do, and whether there is any hidden connection between it and that extraordinary black bow, are mysteries to me, though I peered under the edge of the basket hat of one Vierländerin with great pertinacity.

The Hamburg maid-servants also wear a prescribed costume. A casement high above you swings open and discloses a little figure standing in the narrow window. A blond head, with a white bit of a cap on it, leans out. You catch a glimpse of a great white apron, and of a neat, sensible, dark cotton gown, made with a short puffed sleeve which leaves the arm bare and free for work. You wonder why the girl looks so long up and down the busy street, and what she hopes to see. To be sure, it may be only Bridget looking for Patrick, or, worse, Bridget thinking of nothing in particular; simply idling away her time, instead of sweeping the garret. But if her name is perhaps Hannchen, and she looks from a window, narrow and high, and the morning sunshine touches her yellow braids, and she stands so still, far above the hurrying feet on the pavement, how can one help finding her more interesting, as a bit of human nature to study and enjoy, than a beflounced and beribboned Bridget at home? And when, in her simple dress, well suited to her degree, she runs about the streets on her mistress's errands, carrying many a parcel in her strong round arms, she is a pleasant thing to see, and, because she does not ape the fine lady, loses nothing when by chance she walks by the side of one in silk attire.

Ah! if one has ever groaned in spirit to see the tawny daughters of the Penobscot Indians, those dusky maidens who might, in reason, be expected to bring into a prosaic town some wildwood grace, some suggestion of the “curling smoke of wigwams,” of “the dew and damp of meadows,” selling their baskets from door to door in gowns actually cut after a recent Godey fashion-plate, much looped as to overskirt, much ruffled and puffed and shirred,—then indeed must one rejoice in the dress of the Hamburg maids, and in these sturdy country-women trudging along in their picturesque but substantial costume, to sell their fruit and vegetables in the city markets.

In the olden time the good wives of Hamburg no doubt wore such gowns. One sees now in the street called Grosse Bleichen great buildings, banks and shops, and all the evidences of busy modern life; but one shuts the eyes and sees instead groups of women in blue and red, coming out from the city walls to lay on the green grass the linen they have spun, that it may whiten in the sunshine. They spun, and wove, and bleached. They lived and died. The growing city built new walls, and took within its limits those green banks once beyond its gates. The women knew not what was to be, when their spinning was all done. Nor did the maids, whose busy feet trod the path by the river-side, dream that the Jungfernstieg, or Maiden's Path, would be the name, hundreds of years after, of the most-frequented promenade of the gay world of a great city.

Those women with the spinning-wheels, silent now so long, the young maids with their waterjars, chatting together in the early morning by the river, still speak to us, if we but listen. Though the voices of the city are so loud, we can hear quite well what they tell us; but indeed, indeed, dear friends, it is not written in the guide-book.

————

Stories everywhere, did I not say? Why, I even found one imbedded in—candy!

Listen, children, while I tell you about marzipan. The grown people need not hear, if they do not wish.

Marzipan (or St. Mark's bread—marzi panis) is the name of a dainty which is made into bonbons of every shape and size and color imaginable; all, however, having the same flavor, tasting of sugar and vanilla and rose-water and almonds, and I know not what beside. There are tiny potatoes, dark and gray, with marvellous “eyes,” that would delight your souls; there are grapes, and nuts, and large, red apples, all made from the delectable marzipan. And most particularly there are little round loaves, an inch long, perhaps, which are the original celebrated marzipan, pure and simple, the other form being modern innovations. And why Mark's bread? Because, my dears, there was once a famine in Lübeck, and tradition saith that the loaf which each poor woman took from the baker to her starving bairns grew each day smaller and smaller, until finally it was such a poor wee thing it was no more than an inch long; and on St. Mark's Day was the famine commemorated, while the shape and size of the pitiful loaves are preserved in this sweetmeat, peculiar, I believe, to North Germany. Hamburg children—bless them!—will tell you the tale of famine, and swallow the tiny loaves as merrily as though there was never a hungry child in the world.

Hamburg children! Indeed, I have reason to bless them. Shall I not always be grateful to the fate that showed to eyes weary with gazing upon wet decks, dense fog, and the listless faces of fellow-voyagers, a bright and beautiful vision? Most travellers in Hamburg visit first the Zoölogical Gardens, and then immediately after—is it to observe the contrast or the similarity between the lower animals and noble man?—the Exchange or Börse, where they look down from a gallery upon hundreds, thousands of busy men, whose voices rise in one incessant, strange, indescribable noise—hum—roar—call it what you will. Neither of these spectacles, happily, was thrust at once before me. Did I not interpret as a happy omen that my first “sight” was twenty little German children dancing?

Can I ever forget those delicious shy looks at the queer stranger who has suddenly loomed up in the midst of their festivities? And the carefully prepared speech of the small daughter of the house who with blushes and falterings, much laughter, many promptings, and several false starts, finally chirps like a bird, trying to speak English, “I am va-ry happy to zee you,” and for the feat receives the felicitations of her friends, and retires in triumph to her bonbons.

Sweetest of all was the gracious yet timid way in which each child, in making her early adieus, gave her hand to the stranger also, as an imperative courtesy.

Each little maid draws up her dainty dancing-boots heel to heel, extends for an instant her small gloved hand, speaks no word except with the shy sweet eyes, gravely inclines her head, and is gone, giving place to the next, who goes through the same solemn form.

Dear little children at home, you are as dear and sweet as these small German girls—dearer and sweeter, shall I not say?—but would you, could you, prompted only by your own good manners, march up to a corner where sits a great, big, entirely grown-up person from over the sea, and stand before her, demure and quaint and stately, and make your stiff and pretty little bows? Would you now, you tiniest ones? Really?

Yet, do you know, if you would, of your own free will, without mamma visible in the background exhorting and encouraging, you would do a graceful thing, a courteous and a kindly thing, in thus including the dread stranger within your charmed circle, and in welcoming her from your child-heart and with your child-hands. You would be telling her, all so silently, that though her home is far away, she has her place among you; that kindness and warmth and free-hearted hospitality one finds the wide world over. And your pretty heads, bending seriously before her, and your demure, absurd, sweet, pursed-up baby-mouths might conjure up visions of curly gold locks, and soft dimpled faces far off in her home country, and she would—why, children, children, I cannot say what she would do! I cannot tell all that she would think and feel. But this I know well, she would love you and your dear little, frightened, welcoming hands, and she would say, with her whole heart, as I say now,—

“Merry, merry Christmas, and ‘God bless us every one!’”

[pg!12]

HEIDELBERG IN WINTER.

“If you come to Heidelberg you will never want to go away,” says Mr. Warner in his “Saunterings.” It was in summer that he said it. He had wandered everywhere over the lovely hills. He knew this quaintest of quaint towns by heart. He had studied the beautiful ruin in the sunshine and by moonlight, and had listened amid the fragrance and warmth of a midsummer night to the music of the band in the castle grounds, and to the nightingales. I, who have only seen Heidelberg in the depth of winter, with gray skies above and snow below, echo his words again and again.

“Don't go to Heidelberg in winter. Don't think of it. It's so stupid. There is nothing there now, positively nothing. O, don't!” declared the friends in council at Hamburg. When one's friends shriek in a vehement chorus, and “O, don't!” at one, it is usually wise to listen with scrupulous attention to everything which they say, and then to do precisely what seems good in one's own eyes. I listened, I came immediately to Heidelberg in winter, and now I “never want to go away.”

And why? Indeed, it is not easy to say where the fascination of the place lies. Everybody knows how Heidelberg looks. We all have it in our photograph albums,—long, narrow, irregular, outstretched between the hills and the Neckar. And all our lives we have seen the castle imprinted upon paper-knives and upon china cups that say Friendship's Offering, in gilt letters, on the other side. But in some way the queer houses,—some of solid stone, yellow and gray, some so high, with pointed roofs, some so small, with the oddest little casements and heavy iron-barred shutters, and the inevitable bird-cage and pot of flowers in the window, quite like the pictures,—in some way these old houses seem different from the photographs. And when one passes up through steep, narrow, paved alleys lined with them, and sees bareheaded fat babies rolling about on the rough pavement, and the mothers quite unconcerned standing in the doorways, and small boys running and sliding on their feet, as our boys do, laughing hilariously and jeering, as our boys also do,—why will they?—when the smallest falls heavily and goes limping and screaming to his home,—one is filled with amazement at the half-strange, half-familiar aspect of things, and wonders if it be really one's own self walking about among the picture houses. And as to the castle, I never want to see it again on a paper-weight or a card-receiver.

There's nothing here in winter, they say. I suppose there is not much that every one would care for. It is the quietest, sleepiest place in the world. It pretends to have twenty thousand inhabitants, but, privately, I don't believe it, for it is impossible to imagine where all the people keep themselves, one meets so few.

No, there's not much here, perhaps; but certainly whatever there is has an irresistible charm for one who is neither too elegant nor too wise to saunter about the streets, gazing at everything with delicious curiosity. Blessed are they who can enjoy small things.

A solemn-looking professor passes; then a Russian lady wrapped in fur from her head to her feet. Some dark-eyed laborers stand near by talking in their soft, sweet Italian. The shops on the Haupstrasse are brilliantly tempting with their Christmas display. Poor little girls with shawls over their heads press their cold noses against the broad window-panes, and eagerly “choose” what they would like. One stands with them listening in sympathy, and in the same harmless fashion chooses carved ivory and frosted silver of rare and exquisite design for a score of friends.

Dear little boy at home,—yes, it is you whom I mean!—what would you say to an imposing phalanx of toy soldiers, headed by the emperor, the crown prince, Bismarck, and Von Moltke all riding abreast in gorgeous uniforms? That is what I “choose” for you, my dear. And did you know, by the way, that here in Germany Santa Claus doesn't come down the chimneys and fill the children's stockings, and bring the Christmas-tree, but that it is the Christ-child who comes instead, riding upon a tiny donkey, and the children put wisps of hay at their doors, that the donkey may not get hungry while the Christ-child makes his visits.

Many women walk through the streets carrying great baskets on their heads. This custom seems to some travellers an evil. The women look too much, they say, like beasts of burden. But if a washerwoman has a great basket of clothes to carry home, and prefers to balance it upon her head instead of taking it in her hands, why may she not, provided she knows how? And it is by no means an easy thing to do, as you would be willing to admit if you had walked, or tried to walk, about your room with your unabridged dictionary borne aloft in a similar manner. These women wear little flat cushions, upon which the baskets rest. Those women I have seen looked well and strong and cheerful, and walked with a firm, free step, swinging their arms with great abandon. Three such women on a street-corner engaged in a morning chat were an interesting spectacle. One carried cabbages of various hues, heaped up artistically in the form of a pyramid. The huge circumference of their baskets kept them at a somewhat ceremonious distance from one another, but they exchanged the compliments of the season in the most kindly and intimate way, and their freedom of gesticulation and beautiful unconcern as to the mountains on their heads were really edifying.

I have not as yet been grieved and exasperated by the sight of a woman harnessed to a cart. One, apparently very heavily laden, I did see drawn by a man and two stalwart sons, while the wife and mother walked behind, pushing. As she was necessarily out of sight of her liege lord, the amount of work she might do depended entirely upon her own volition, and she could push or only pretend to push, as she pleased; or even, if the wicked idea should occur to her, going up a steep hill she might quietly pull instead of push, and so ascend with ease. The whole arrangement struck me as in every respect a truly admirable and most uncommon division of family labor.

We meet of course everywhere groups of students with their dainty little canes, their caps of blue or red or gold or white, and their altogether jaunty aspect. The white-capped young men are of noble birth. Some of them wear, in addition to their white caps, ornaments of white court-plaster upon their cheeks and noses, as memorials of recent strife with some plebeian foe. To republican eyes they are no better looking than their fellows, and it may be said that few of these scholastic young gentlemen, titled or otherwise, who in knots of three or five or more, accompanied by great dogs, often blockade the extremely narrow pavement, manifest their pleasing alacrity in gallantly scattering, and in giving place aux dames as might be desired.

It has been snowing persistently of late. More snow has fallen than Heidelberg has seen in many years, and the students have indulged in unlimited sleighing. The Heidelberg sleigh is an indescribable object. Its profile, if one may so speak, looks like a huge, red, decapitated swan. It has two seats, and is dragged by two ponderous horses with measured tread and slow, while the driver clings in a marvellous way to the back of the equipage, incessantly brandishing an enormously long whip. Sometimes a long line of these sleighs is seen, in each of which are four students starting out for a pleasure-trip. The young men fold their arms and lean back in an impressive manner. Their coquettish caps are even more expressive than usual. The curious thing is, that, apart from the evidence of our senses, they seem to be dashing along with the utmost rapidity. There is something in the intrepid bearing of the students, in the vociferations and loud whip-crackings of the driver, that suggests dangerous speed. On the contrary the elephantine steeds jog stolidly on, quite unmoved by the constant din; the students continue to wear their adventurous, peril-seeking air, and the undaunted man behind valiantly cracks his whip.

The contrast between the rate at which they go and the rate at which they seem to imagine that they are going is most comical. The heart is moved with pity for the benighted young men who do not know what sleighing is, and one would like to send home for a few superior American sleighs as rewards of merit for good boys at the university.

The thing with the least warmth and Christian kindness about it in Heidelberg is the stove. There may be stoves here that have some conscientious appreciation of the grave responsibilities devolving upon them in bitter cold weather, but such have not come within the range of my observation.

My idea of a Heidelberg stove is a brown, terra-cotta, lukewarm piece of furniture, upon which one leans,—literally with nonchalance,—while listening to attacks upon American customs and manners from representatives of the Swiss and German nations. The tall white porcelain stoves which somebody calls “family monuments,” are at least agreeable to the eye. But these are neither ornamental nor wholly ugly, neither tall nor short, white nor black, hot nor cold. They have neither virtues nor vices. We feel only scorn for the hopeless incapacity of a stove that cannot at any period of its career burn our fingers. It is, as a stove, a total failure, and it makes but an indifferently good elbow-rest.

However deficient in blind adoration for our fatherland we may have been at home, it only needs a few weeks' absence from it, during which time we hear it constantly ridiculed and traduced, to make us fairly bristle with patriotism.

It is marvellous how like boastful children sensible people will sometimes talk when a chance remark has transformed a playful, friendly comparison of the customs of different nations into a war of words. Often one is reminded of the story of the two small boys, each of whom was striving manfully to sustain the honor of his family.

“We've got a sewing-machine.”

“We've got a pianner.”

“My mother's got a plaid shawl.”

“My sister's got a new bonnet.”

“We've got lightning-rods on our house.”

“We've got a mortgage on ours!”

For instance:—

“You have in America no really old stories and traditions?” said a German lady to an American.

“We are too young for such things. But what does it matter? We enjoy yours,” was the civil response.

“But,” the German continued, in a tone of commiseration, “no fairy-stories like ours of the Black Forest, no legends like ours of the Blockberg! Isn't everything very new and prosaic?”

This superiority is not to be endured. The American feels that her country's honor is impeached.

“We have no such legends,” she begins slowly, when a blessed inspiration comes to her relief, and she goes on with dignity,—“we have no such legends, to be sure; but then, you know, we have—the Indians.”

“Ah, yes; that is true,” said the German, respectfully, knowing as much of the Indians as of the inhabitants of some remote planet, while the American, trusting the vague, mysterious term will induce a change of subject, yet not knowing what may come, rapidly revolves in her mind every item of Indian lore she has ever known, from Pocahontas to Young-Man-Afraid-of-his-Horses, determined, should she be called upon to tell a wild Indian tale, to do it in a manner that will not disgrace the stars and stripes.

But I grieve to say that America is not always victorious. Our table-talk, upon whatever subject it may begin, invariably ends in a controversy, more or less earnest, about the merits of the several nations represented.

A Swiss student with strong French sympathies charges valiantly at three Germans, and having routed their entire army, heaped all manner of abuse upon Kaiser Wilhelm, reduced the crown prince to beggary, and beheaded Bismarck, suddenly turns, elated with his victory, and hurls his missiles at the American eagle.

O, how we suffer for our country!

Some sarcasm from our student neighbor calls forth from us,—

“America is the hope of the ages.”

We think this sounds well. We remember we heard a Fourth-of-July orator say it. Then it is not too long for us to attempt, with our small command of the German tongue.

“A forlorn hope that has not long to live,” quickly retorts our adversary.

He continues, contemptuously,—

“America is too raw.”

“America is young. She's a child compared with your old nations, but a promising, glorious child. Her faults are only the faults of youth,” we respond with some difficulty as to our pronouns and adjectives.

“She's a very bad child. She needs a whipping,” chuckles our saucy neighbor.

America's banner trails in the dust, and Helvetia triumphs over all foes. In silence and chagrin America's feeble champion retires to the window, watches the birds picking up bread-crumbs on the balcony, and meditates a grand revenge when her German vocabulary shall be equal to her zeal. Helvetia's son being, in this instance, a very clever, merry boy, soon laughingly sues for reconciliation, on the ground that, “after all, sister republics must not quarrel,” and the two, in noble alliance, advance with renewed vigor, and speedily sweep from the face of the earth all tyrannous monarchical governments.

Is it not, by the way, thoroughly German, that down in its last corner the Heidelberg daily paper prints each day, “Remember the poor little birds”? And indeed they are remembered well; and there are few casements here that do not open every morning, that the birdies' bread may be thrown upon the snow.

And is there nothing else here in winter beside the innocent pastimes mentioned? There are wonderful views to be gained by those who have the courage to climb the winding silvery paths that lead up the Gaisberg and Heiligenberg. And then there is—majesty comes last!—the castle.

Ah! here lies the magic of the place. This is why people love Heidelberg. It is because that wonderful old ruin is everywhere present, whatever one does, wherever one goes, binding one's heart to itself. You cannot forget that it stands there on the hill, sad and stately and superb. Lower your curtains, turn your back to the window, read the last novel if you will, still you will see it. I defy you to lose your consciousness of it. It will always haunt you, until it draws you out of the house—out into the air—through the rambling streets—up the hill past the queer little houses—to the spot where it stands, and then it will not let you go. It holds you there in a strange enchantment. You wander through chapel and banquet-hall, through prison-vault and pages' chamber, from terrace to tower, where you go as near the edge as you dare,—nearer than you dare, in fact,—and look down upon the trees growing in the moat. Because you never, in all your life, saw anything like a “ruin,” and because there is but one Heidelberg Castle in the world, you take delight in simply wandering up and down long dark stairways, with no definite end in view. You may be hungry and cold, but you never know it. You are unconscious of time, and after hours of dream-life you only turn from gazing when somebody forcibly drags you away because the man is about to close the gates.

I cannot discourse with ease upon quadrangles and façades. I am doubtful about finials, and my ideas are in confusion as to which buttresses fly and which hang; but it is a blessed fact that one need not be very learned to care for lovely things, and while I live I shall never forget how the castle looked the first time I approached it.

Some people say it is loveliest seen at sunset from the “Philosopher's Walk,” on Heiligenberg across the Neckar, and some say it is like fairy-land when it is illuminated (which happens once or twice in a summer,—the last time, before the students go away in August, and leave the old town in peace and quiet), and when one softly glides in a little boat from far up the Neckar, down, down, in the moonlight, until suddenly the castle, blazing with lights, is before you.

But though I should see it a thousand times with summer bloom around, with the charm of fair skies and sunshine, soft green hills and flowing water, or in the moonlight, with happy voices everywhere, and strains of music sounding sweet and clear in the evening air, I can never be sorry that, first of all, it rose in its beauty, before my eyes, out of a sea of new-fallen snow.

O, the silence and the whiteness of that day!

We entered the grounds and passed through broad walks, among shadowy trees whose every twig was snow-covered, and by the snow-crowned Princess Elizabeth Arch. On we went in silence,—only once did any sound break the stillness, when a little laughing child, in a sleigh drawn by a large black dog, aided by a good-natured half-breathless servant, dashed by and disappeared among the trees. Soon we stood on the terrace overlooking the city and the Neckar.

On one side was the castle, the dark mass standing out boldly against the whiteness,—on the other, far below, the city, its steep, high roofs snow-white, its three church-spires rising towards cold, gray skies; beyond, the frozen Neckar, then Heiligenberg, its white vineyards contrasting with the dusky fir-forests, and, far away as one could see, the great plain of the Rhine, with the line of the Haardt Mountains barely perceptible in the distance and the dim light. All was so white and still! Only the brave ivy, glossy and green and fresh on the old walls and amid this frozen nature, spoke of life and hope. All else told of sadness, and of peace it may be, but of the peace that follows renunciation.

But to stand on the height—to look so far—to be in that white, holy stillness! It was wonderful. It was too beautiful for words.

[pg!24]

A FLYING SHEET FROM PARIS.

Is it in “The Parisians” that the soldier carries a bouquet on his musket, and it is said that Paris, though starving, must have flowers? These sweet spring days, when vast crowds of people are wandering about amusing themselves, and children are making daisy chains in the parks, and men pass along the streets with great branches of lilac blossoms or masses of rosebuds, which are sold at every corner, and skies are blue, and the lovely sunshine everywhere is falling upon happy-looking faces, you feel like blessing not only the spring-time, but beautiful Paris and the temperament of the French. “St. Denis caught a sunbeam flying, and he tied it with a bright knot of ribbons, and he flashed it on the earth as the people of France; only, alas, he made two mistakes,—he gave it no ballast, and he dyed the ribbons blood-red.” You think of the want of ballast and the blood-red tinge when you look at the ruined Tuileries, and see every now and then other traces of the Commune. In our dining-room is a great mirror with a hole in its centre and long seams running to its corners. Madame keeps it as a memento of those terrible times, and of her anxiety and terror when balls were coming in her doors and windows, and she would not on any account have it removed. But, after all, it is the flying sunbeams of the present that most impress you. They are more vivid, being actually before your eyes, than scenes of riot and madness, which you can only imagine. The life about you is altogether so fascinating, so cheering. You catch the spirit that seems to animate the people. Where all is so sunny and gay why should you grieve? Have you little troubles? Leave them behind and go out into the sweet sunshine, and they will grow so insignificant you will be ashamed to remember how you were brooding over them; and then, if they are really great, they will pass; everything passes. Only take to-day to your heart the loveliness that is waiting for you, for indeed there is something in it that makes you not only happy for the time, but brave and hopeful for the future. All of which is the little sermon that Paris preaches to us all day long. Perhaps we didn't come to Paris for sermons especially, but after all it is often the unexpected ones that are the best.

How shall I tell what we have seen and heard here? One day we visited the Pantheon, and, having seen what there was to see below, we went up to the dome, which affords a magnificent view of all Paris and the surrounding country. A party of school-girls ascended the long, narrow, winding flights at the same time, and they were entirely absorbed in counting the stairs. The one in advance clearly proclaimed the number; the others verified her account. The interest was intense. Occasionally we would come to a platform where at first it would seem that there was nothing more to conquer. Breathless, panting, flushed, the young girls would look searchingly around, then, with a shriek of delight, would plunge into a dark corner and open a door, from which another crazy-looking stairway led up to other heights. Their chaperon, who looked as if she might be the principal of a school, gave up in despair before we were half-way up, and, seating herself to await their return, cast amused, kindly glances after the retreating forms of the undaunted girls. I take pleasure in stating the important and interesting fact that the number of steps from the ground to the “Lanterne” above the dome of the Pantheon is five hundred and twenty, and you can't possibly go higher unless you should choose to ascend a rope which is used when on grand occasions they illuminate the dome and burn a brilliant light on the very tiptop. So said a little abbé who looked like a mere boy, and who courteously told us many interesting things as we stood there, a group of strangers scanning one another with mild curiosity,—two well-bred Belgian boys with the abbé, some ultra-fashionable dames, a party of Englishmen of course, and ourselves. The school-girls fortunately went down without seeing the rope. Had they observed it, and known that it was possible by any means whatever to go higher than they had gone, they would have been miserable, unless indeed their aspiring spirit had led them in some way to ascend it.

With the paintings and sculpture at the Louvre and the Luxembourg we have spent several happy days, only wishing the days might be months. Don't expect me to tell you what delighted us most, or how great pictures seemed which we had before seen only in engravings or photographs. They burst gloriously all at once upon our ignorant eyes, and we wanted to sit days and days before one picture that held us entranced, and yet our time was so limited we had to pass on and on regretfully. Of course some one was there to whisper in our ears, “O, this is nothing! You must go to Italy.” Certainly we must go to Italy, but the thought of the beauty awaiting there could not detract from that which was around us. Before some of the paintings we felt like standing afar off and worshipping. There were Madonnas with insipid faces which we did not appreciate. There were other pictures which we coldly admired; they were wonderful, but we did not want to own them,—did not love them. Among those which we longed to seize and carry away is the “Cupid and Psyche” of Gerard, in which Psyche receiving the first kiss of love is an exquisitely innocent, fair-haired little maiden, not so very unlike the friend to whom we would like to send it.

There are always curious people in the galleries. Sit down and rest a minute and something funny is sure to happen.

“See this chaw-ming thing of Murillo,” says a florid youth of nineteen or twenty, with very tight gloves, an elaborate necktie, and, alas! an unquestionably American air, as he marshals a timid-looking group,—his mother and sisters, perhaps. “Quite well done, now, isn't it?” And on he went. If he knew a Perugino from a Vandyck his countenance did him great injustice. Then another party comes along,—conscientious, ponderous, English,—and halts with precision. One of them reads, in a loud voice, from a book—“Titian—Portrait—462”—and they stare blankly at the picture before them, which happens to be not a Titian at all, but a “Meadow Scene, with Cows,” by Cuyp, or a great battle-piece of Salvator Rosa. When they discover their mistake and recover from their astonishment, they pass on in search of the missing Titian. We smiled at this, but, as the pictures are not hung according to the order given in catalogues, we knew very well that it was our good fortune, and not our merit or our wisdom, that kept us from similar mistakes. What might we not have done had we not been so beautifully guarded against all blundering by our escort, a French gentleman of rare culture,—both an amateur painter and sculptor,—and an intimate friend of some of the most distinguished French artists! With him for a companion we felt superior to all catalogues and treatises upon art. We have had the pleasure, too, of visiting his private museum and studio, where are strange relics collected in a life of unusual travel and adventure. He is a retired colonel of the French army, and when in service has lived in Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Greece, and now his little room, which we climbed six flights of stairs to reach, is crowded with mementos of his wanderings. I despair of conveying any idea of what he has hung upon his walls. It would almost be easier to tell what he has not. Persian pictures, stone emblems, fans, rosaries, swords, mosaics, pistols, queer chains and pipes, as well as some very valuable paintings,—a Vandyck, an Andrea del Sarto, a number of the modern French school, presented to him by the artists. Was it not a privilege to have such a guide when we visited the Paris lions? He took us to the Musée de Cluny, among other exceedingly interesting places, where we saw hosts of antiquities,—beautifully carved mantels, magnificent fireplaces, “big enough to roast a whole ox” (and they really use them, winters, too—the noble great logs were all ready to be lighted), rare old windows of stained glass, rich robes of high church dignitaries, porcelain, jewelled crowns of Gothic kings, old lace and tapestries, and carved wood that it did one's heart good to see. Girls with tied-back dresses, and hats fairly crushed by the weight of the masses of flowers with which French milliners persist in loading us this spring, did look so painfully modern in those mediæval rooms! We began to feel as if we were walking about in one of the Waverley novels, and fully expected to meet Ivanhoe clad in complete armor on the stone staircase that leads down from the chapel.

There were many things over which we found it impossible to be enthusiastic,—the jawbone of Molière, for example, in a glass case. It probably looks like less distinguished jawbones, but if his whole skeleton had been there I fear we should have been no more impressed. Chessmen of rock crystal and gold we coveted, and we liked the room in which are the great, ponderous, gilded state coaches of some century long ago, with their whips, harnesses, and comical postilion boots. There is a little sleigh or sledge there, said to have been Marie Antoinette's,—a small gold dragon, whose wing flies open to admit the one person whom the tiny equipage can seat. It looked as if it must have been pushed by some one behind. Fancy a gold dragon with fiery-red eyes and a wide-open red mouth coming towards you over the snow!

This whole building is full of interest from its age and historical associations. It was built in the fifteenth century, has been in the hands of comedians, of a sisterhood; Marat held his horrible meetings here; Mary of England lived here after the death of her husband, Louis XII., and you can still see the chamber of the “White Queen,” with its ivory cabinets, vases, and queer old musical instruments. Visitors are requested not to touch anything, but we couldn't resist the temptation of striking just one chord on a spinet. Such a cracked voice the poor thing had! It sounded so dead and ghostlike and dreary, we hurried away as fast as we could. Don't be alarmed, and think I am going to write up all the history of the place. I haven't the least idea of doing such a thing; only this I can tell you,—the Hôtel de Cluny affords an excellent opportunity to test your knowledge of history; and if you ever stand where we did, and send your thoughts wandering among past ages, may your dates be more satisfactory than were ours!

The ruins of an old Roman palace, of which only a portion of the baths remain, adjoin the museum. There is a great room, sixty feet long, all of stone, and very high, which was used for the cold baths. The other baths are all gone, but if you imagine hot and warm and tepid ones as large as the cold, it certainly gives you a profound admiration for the magnitude of the ancient bath system. If Julian the Apostate, who built the palace, they say, could see us as we go peering curiously about, asking what this and that mean, and the names of stone things that were probably as common in his day as sewing-machines are now, wouldn't he laugh? We looked over the shoulder of a painter who was making a delightful little picture of a part of the ruins, the stone pavement and staircase, then a beautiful arch through which we could look into the open air, and see the warm sunshine, the great lilac-bushes, and a tall old ivy-covered wall beyond. The contrast between the cold gray interior and the bright outer world was very effective.

Strange old place where Cæsars have lived, and through which early kings of France and fierce Normans have swept, plundering and ruining, and where, to-day, by the fragments of the massive ivy-covered walls and under the trees in the pleasant park, happy little children play, and nurses chatter, and life is strong, and fresh and warm, even while we are thinking of the dead past!

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BADEN-BADEN.

Baden is a little paradise. It seems like a garden with the freshness of May on every flower and leaf. The long lines of chestnut-trees are rich with bright, pink blossoms,—solid pink, not pink-and-white like ours at home. You walk beneath them through shady avenues, where the young grass is like velvet, and every imaginable shade of refreshing green lies before your eyes. There is the tender May-leaf green of the shrubs, another of the soft lawns, that of the different trees, of the more distant hill-slopes, and, beyond all, the deepest intensified green of the Black Forest rising nobly everywhere around. A hideous little bright-green cottage, prominent on one of the hills, irritates us considerably, not harmonizing with its deep background of pines, and we long at first to ruthlessly erase it from the picture; but finally remembering the ugly little thing is actually somebody's home, our better nature triumphs, and we feel we can allow it to remain, and can only hope the dwellers within think it prettier than we do.

There are already many visitors here, though it is as yet too early and cool for the great throng of strangers to be expected, and the vast numbers of people come no more who used to frequent the place before the gaming was abolished by the emperor a few years ago, through Bismarck's especial exertions, it is said; from which it is to be inferred that Baden's pure loveliness is less attractive to the world at large than the fascination of the gaming-tables. We hear everywhere around regrets for the lost charm, for the gayety, excitement, brilliancy; and it is impossible to avoid wishing, not certainly that play were not abolished, but at least that we could have come when it was at its height to see for ourselves the strange phases of humanity that were here exhibited, and just how naughty it all was. Now the waiters shake their heads mournfully, as if a glory and a grace were departed, and say, “No, it isn't what it used to be,—nothing like it!” and there seems to be a “banquet-hall-deserted” atmosphere pervading the rooms in the Conversation House. To be sure there is music there evenings, and a fashionable assembly walking about; and there is music, too, in the kiosk, and a goodly number of gay people chatting, eating, and drinking at the little tables in the open air; and people gather in the early mornings to drink the waters, as they always have done, but, after all, the tribute of a memory and a regret seems to be universally paid to the vanquished god of play, who is helping poor mortals cheat somewhere else.

The Empress of Germany is here, and, after long-continued effort, we have seen her. How madly we have striven to accomplish this feat; how we have questioned servants and shopkeepers; how we have haunted the Lichtenthal Allee, that long, lovely, shady walk where her Majesty is said to promenade regularly every day; how often we have had our garments, but not our ardor, dampened for her sake; how she would never come; and how finally, in desperation, we seated ourselves at a table under a tree near her hotel, devoured eagerly with our eyes all its windows, saw imperial dogs and imperial handmaidens in the garden, and couriers galloping away with despatches, saw the coachmen and footmen and retainers, but for a long time no empress,—all this shall never be revealed, because self-respect imposes strict silence in regard to such conduct.

We must have looked somewhat like a picture in an old Harper's Magazine where two hungry newsboys stand by the area railing as dinner is served, and when the different dishes are carried past the windows one regales himself with the savory scents, while the other says something to this effect: “I don't mind the meats, but just tell me when the pudding comes and I'll take a sniff.”

“Augusta, please, dear Augusta, come out!” entreated we; but she came not. When a carriage rolled round to the door, we were in ecstasies of expectation, convinced she was going out to drive, but instead came a gentleman, servants, and travelling-bags.

“Why, it's Weimar,—our Weimar!” said we with pride and ownership, because you see the Prince of Weimar lives in Stuttgart, and so do we. And as he drives off, out on the balcony among the plants comes her imperial Majesty and waves her handkerchief to her brother in farewell. She wore a black dress, a white head-dress or breakfast-cap, looked like her photographs, and must once have been beautiful. She is an intensely proud woman, it is said, and a rigid upholder of etiquette, and tales are told of slight differences between her and the crown princess on this account.

Baden is one of the enticing places of the earth,—is so lovely that whenever, however, wherever you may look, you always spy some fresh beauty, and the Black Forest legends are hanging all about it, investing it with an endless charm. You can see in the frescoed panels on the front of the new Trinkhalle a picture illustrating some old story of a place near by, and then for your next day's amusement can go to the identical spot where the ghost or demon or goblin used to be.

To Yburg, whose young knight met the beautiful, unearthly maiden by the old heathen temple in the full moonshine, as he was returning from the castle of his lady-love to his own, and who transferred his affections—as adroitly as our young knights do the same thing nowadays—from her to the misty figure, and met the latter, night after night, was watched by his faithful servant, and was found dead on the ground one bright morning.

Or to Lauf, where the ghost-wedding was, or almost was, but not quite, because the knight who was to be married to the very attractive ghost of a young woman grew so frightened when he saw all the glassy eyes of the ghostly witnesses staring at him that he couldn't say yes when the sepulchral voice of the ghost of a bishop asked him if he would have this woman to his wedded wife; and all the ghosts were deeply offended and made a great uproar, and the knight fell down as if dead, and he too was found lying on the ground in the morning; but him, I believe, they were able to revive.

And you can go to the Convent of Lichtenthal, from which the nuns, upon the approach of the enemy, in 1689 fled in terror, leaving their keys in the keeping of the Virgin Mary, who came down from her picture and stood in the doorway, so that the French soldiers shrank back aghast, and all was left unharmed.

We went there, and saw a number of Marys in blue and red gowns, but could not quite tell which was the one who came down from her frame to guard the convent.

In the chapel eight or ten children mumbled their prayers in unison, while we stood far behind, examining the old stained-glass windows, with the peculiar blue tint in them that cannot now be reproduced, and the queer old stone knights in effigy; and I don't imagine the Lord heard the children any the less because they were very absurd, and bobbed about in every direction, and constantly turned one laughing face quickly round to look at us, then back again, then another and another, while all the time the praying went mechanically on. There was a little girl, nine years old perhaps, who came to meet us by the old well here, and stood smiling at us with great, brown, expressive eyes. Her face was so brilliant and sweet we were charmed with her; but when we spoke she upturned that rare little face of hers and answered not a word. I took her hand in mine, but before she gave it she kissed it, and to each of the party, who afterwards took her hand, she gave the same graceful greeting. Not an airy kiss thrown at one, after the fashion of children in general, but a quiet little one deposited upon her hand before it was honored by the touch of the stranger. The pretty action, together with the exquisite face, calm and clear as a cherub, and ideally childlike, made a deep impression on us; and in some way, what we afterwards learned—that she was completely deaf and dumb—did not occur to us. We thought that she would not speak, not that she could not.

On a height overlooking the town stands a memorial chapel, built in antique style, of alternate strata of red and white sandstone, by which a very lively effect is produced. It has a gilded dome and a portico supported by four Ionic pillars. In the interior are frescos of the twelve apostles; and upon the high gold partition or screen, which separates the choir from the body of the chapel, are painted scenes from the New Testament. The floor is of marble in two colors.

We visited it fortunately during service, and saw for the first time the Greek ritual. The singing was fine, the boys' voices sweet and clear, but many of the forms unintelligible to a stranger. For instance, we could only imagine what was meant when one priest in scarlet and gold would go behind a golden door and lock it, and another one would stand before it intoning the strangest words in the strangest sing-song, until at last they would open the door and let him in. The service in the Greek churches is either in the Greek or old Sclavonic language. Here we inferred that we were listening to the old Sclavonic, as the chapel belongs to a Roumanian prince; but only this can we say positively,—that two words (Alleluia and Amen) were absolutely all that we understood.

The robes were rich; incense was burned; there were a few worshippers, all standing, the Greek Church allowing no seats; but in some places crutches are used to lean upon when the service is long, as on great festal days. There are no sermons except on special occasions, the ordinary ritual consisting of chants between the deacons and chorister boys, readings from certain portions of the Scripture, prayers, legends, the creed, etc. They all turn towards the east during prayer, and instrumental music is forbidden.

In this little chapel the morning service which we witnessed was brief, and, of its kind, simple. We noticed particularly among the worshippers one old gentleman who seemed to be very devout. He crossed himself frequently,—by the way, not as Roman Catholics do,—and at certain times knelt, and even actually prostrated himself, upon the marble pavement. He was a fine old man, and looked like a Russian. He was earnest and attentive, but he made us all exceedingly nervous, for his boots were stiff and his limbs far from supple, and when he went down we feared he never would be able to come up again without assistance; and we were incessantly and painfully on the alert, prepared to help him recover his equilibrium should he entirely lose it, which often seemed more than probable. This was a Roumanian prince, Stourdza,—who lives winters in Paris and summers in Baden,—and who erected the chapel in memory of his son, who died at seventeen in Paris from excessive study. A statue of the boy, bearing the name of the sculptor, Rinaldo Rinaldi, Roma, 1866,—life-size, on a high pedestal,—is on one side of the interior. He sits by a table covered with books,—Bossuet, Greek, and Latin,—while an angel standing beside him rests one hand on his shoulder, and with the other beckons him away from his work. His Virgil lies open to the lines,—

“Si qua fata aspera rumpas

Tu Marcellus eris.”

If the boy was in reality so beautiful as the marble and as the portrait of him which hangs at the left of the entrance, he must have looked as lofty and tender and pure as an archangel.

Opposite him are the statues of the father and mother, who are yet living, and between them a symbolical figure,—Faith, I presume. A curtain conceals this group, beneath which the parents will one day lie.

Paintings of them also hang by the entrance, with a portrait of the boy and one of the sister, “Chère consolation de ses parents,” as she is called. The faces are all fine, but that of the young student the noblest, and the statue of the lovely boy called away from his books seemed a happy way of telling his brief story. In the vaults below where he lies are always fresh flowers, and a light continually burning.

It is impossible to enumerate all the sights in and about Baden. If it is any satisfaction to you, you can look at the villas of the great as much as you please; but to know that Queen Victoria lived here, and Clara Schumann there, and yonder is the Turgenieff Villa, with extensive grounds, does not seem productive of any especial enjoyment. It is much more exhilarating to leave the haunts of men and walk off briskly through the woods to some golden milestone of the past,—the old Jäger Haus, for instance, whose windows look upon a wide, rich prospect, and where the holy Hubartus, the patron of the chase, is painted on the ceiling, with the stag bearing the crucifix upon his antlers; and within whose octagonal walls there must have been much revelry by night in the good old times.

To the old castle where the Markgrafen of Hohenbaden—the border lords—used to live we went one day, and anything funnier than that particular combination of the romantic and ridiculous never was known. Riding “in the boyhood of the year” through lovely woods, by mosses mixed with violet, hearing the song of birds, breathing the purest, balmiest air, who could help wondering if Launcelot and Guinevere themselves found lovelier forest deeps; and who could help feeling very sentimental indeed, and quoting all available poetry, and imagining long trains of stately knights riding over the same path, and so on ad infinitum! While indulging these romantic fancies we discovered that our donkey also was often lost in similar reveries, from which he was recalled by the donkey-boy, who by a sudden blow would cause him to madly plunge, then to stop short and exhibit all the peculiarly pleasing donkey tricks which we had read about, but never before experienced. And to ride a very small and wicked donkey and to read about it are two altogether different things, let me assure you.

Three donkeys galloping like mad up a mountain, three persons bouncing, jolting, shrieking with laughter, a jolly boy running behind with a long stick,—such was the experience that effectually dispelled our fine fancies.

The view at the castle is far extended and beautiful; you see something of the Rhine in the distance, the little Oosbach, and the peaceful valley between. Baden scenery, from whatever point you look at it, has the same friendly, serene aspect,—little villages dotted here and there on the soft hill-slopes, and in the background the bold, beautiful line of the pine-covered mountains. The castle must have been once a fine, grand place. Those clever old feudal fellows knew well where to build their nests, and like eagles chose bold, wild heights for their rocky eyries. “Heir liegen sie die stolzen Fürstentrümer,” quoted a German, wandering about the ruins.

Up to the Yburg Castle we went also; and the “up” should be italicized, for the mountain seemed as high and steep as the Hill of Science, and we felt that the summit of one was as unattainable as that of the other. But the woods were beautiful, and their whisperings and murmurings and words were not in a strange language, for the tall dark pines sang the selfsame song that they sing in the dear old New England woods, the wildflowers and birds were a constant delight, the air fresh and cool, and at last we reached the top, and found another castle and another view.

Here there was little castle and much view. Really a magnificent prospect, but so fierce and chilling a wind that we could with difficulty remain long enough on the old turrets to fix the landscape in our memory, and we were glad to seek shelter in the little house, where a man and his wife live all the year round; and frightfully cold and lonely must it be there in winter, when even in May our teeth were chattering gayly.

The visitors' book there was rather amusing.

One American girl writes, with her name and the date,—

“No moon to-night, which is of course

The driver's fault, not ours.”

“Mr. H. C.”—Black, we will call him—“walked up from Baden the 10th of August, 1875”; and half the people who go to Yburg walk. As we had walked and never dreamed of being elated by our prowess, Mr. Black's manner of chronicling his feat seemed comical.

You look down from the mountain into the Affenthaler Valley, where the wine of that name “grows.” It is a good, light wine, and healthful, but a young person—we decided she must be a countrywoman, because she expresses her opinion so freely—writes in regard to it,—

“Affenthaler. The drink sold under that honorable name at this restaurant is the beastliest and most poisonous of drinks, not absolutely undrinkable or immediately destructive of life. Traveller, take care. Avoid the abominable stuff. Beware!”

Immediately following, in German, with the gentleman's name and address, is,—

“I have drunk of the Affenthaler which this unknown English person condemns, and pronounce it a good and excellent wine.”

That Yburg by moonlight might be conducive to softness can easily be imagined. Here is a sweet couplet:—

“Let our eyes meet, and you will see

That I love you and you love me.”

But best of all in its simplicity and strength was “Agnes Mary Taylor, widow,” written clearly in ink, and some wag had underscored in pencil the last expressive word.

Does the lady go over the hill and dale signing her name always in this way? On the Yburg mountain-top it had the effect of a great and memorable saying, like “Veni, vidi, vici,” or “Après nous le déluge.” Agnes Mary Taylor, widow. Could anything be more terse, more deliciously suggestive?

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RAMBLES ABOUT STUTTGART

This letter is going to be about nothing in particular. I make this statement with an amiable desire to please, for so much advice in regard to subjects comes to me, and so many subjects previously chosen have failed to produce, among intimate friends, the pleasurable emotions which I had ingenuously designed, there remains to me now merely the modest hope that a rambling letter about things in general may be read with patience by at least one charitable soul. Bless our intimate friends! What would we do without them? But aren't they perplexing creatures, take them all in all! “Don't write any more about peasant-girls and common things,” says one. “Tell us about the grand people,—how they look, what they wear, and more about the king.” Anxious to comply with the request, I try to recollect how the Countess von Poppendoppenheimer's spring suit was made in order to send home a fine Jenkinsy letter about it, when another friend writes, “The simplest things are always best,—the flower-girl at the corner, the ways of the peasants, ordinary, every-day matters.” Have patience, friends. You shall both be heard. The Countess von Poppendoppenheimer's gown has meagre, uncomfortable sleeves, is boned down and tied back like yours and mine, after this present wretched fashion which some deluded writer says “recalls the grace and easy symmetry of ancient Greece”; but if he should try to climb a mountain in the overskirt of the period he would express himself differently.

As to the king, one sees him every day in the streets, where he courteously responds to the greetings of the people. He must be weary enough of incessantly taking off his hat. The younger brother of Queen Olga and of the Emperor of Russia, the Grand Duke Michael, came here the other day. Seeing a long line of empty carriages and the royal coachmen in the scarlet and gold liveries that betoken a particular occasion,—blue being the every-day color,—we followed the illustrious vehicles, curious to know what was going to happen, and saw a gentlemanly-looking blond man, in a travelling suit, welcomed at the station by different members of the court; while all those pleasing objects, the scarlet and gold men, took off their hats. For the sake of the friend who delights in glimpses of “high life,” I regret that I have not the honor to know what was said on this occasion, our party having been at a little distance, and behind a rope with the rest of the masses.

But really the common people are better studies. You can stop peasants in the street and ask them questions, and you can't kings, you know. Peasants just now can be seen to great advantage at the spring fair, which with its numberless booths and tables extends through several squares, and to a stranger is an interesting and curious sight. This portion of the city, where the marketplace, the Schiller Platz, and the Stiftskirche are, has an old, quaint effect, the Stiftskirche and the old palace being among the few important buildings older than the present century, while the rest of Stuttgart is fresh and modern. From the high tower of this old church one has the best possible view of Stuttgart, and can see how snugly the city lies in a sort of amphitheatre, while the picturesque hills covered with woods and vineyards surround it on every side. One sees the avenues of chestnut-trees, the Königsbau, a fine, striking building with an Ionic colonnade, the old palace and the new one, and the Anlagen stretching away green and lovely towards Cannstadt. On this tower a choral is played with wind instruments at morn and sunset, and sometimes a pious old man passing stops to listen and takes off his hat as he waits.

In the little octagonal house up there lives a prosperous family, a man, his wife, and ten children. The woman, a fresh, buxom, brown-eyed goodwife, told us she descended to the lower world hardly once in three or four weeks, but the children didn't mind the distance at all, and often ran up and down twelve or fifteen times a day. How terrific must be the shoe-bill of this family! Ten pairs of feet continuously running up and down nearly two hundred and sixty stone steps! She was kind enough to show us all her penates,—even her husband asleep,—and everything was homelike and cheery up there, boxes of green things growing in the sunshine, clothes hanging out to dry, canary-birds singing.

There is a small silver bell—perhaps a foot and a half in diameter at the mouth—at one side of the tower, and it is rung every night at nine o'clock and twelve, and has been since 1348. It has a history so long and so full of mediæval horrors, like many other old stories in which Würtemberg is rich, that it would be hardly fitting to relate it in toto, but the main incidents are interesting and can be briefly given.

On the Bopsa Hill where now we walk in the lovely woods, and from which the Bopsa Spring flows, bringing Stuttgart its most drinkable water, stood, once upon a time,—in the fourteenth century, to be exact,—a certain Schloss Weissenburg, about which many strange things are told. The Weissenburgs conducted themselves at times in a manner which would appear somewhat erratic to our modern ideas.

At the baptism of an infant daughter, Papa von Weissenburg was killed by the falling of some huge stag-antlers upon his head. We are glad to read about the baptism, for later there doesn't seem to have been a strong religious element in the family. Shortly afterwards Rudolph, the eldest son, was stabbed by a friend through jealousy because young Von Weissenburg had won the affections of the fair dame of whom both youths were enamored. Then followed strife between the surviving brother and the monks of St. Leonhard, who would not allow the murdered man to be buried in holy ground, the poor boy having had no time to gasp out his confession and partake of the sacrament, and they even refused to bury him at all. Hans von Weissenburg swore terrible oaths by his doublet and his beard, and cursed the monks till the air was blue, and came with his friends and followers and buried his brother twelve feet deep directly in front of St. Leonhard's Chapel (there is a St. Leonhard's Church here now on the site of the old chapel), and forbade the monks to move or insult the body. Later, when they wished to use the land for a churchyard, they were in a great dilemma. Rudolph's bones they dared not move and would not bless; at last, what did they do but consecrate the earth only five feet deep, so the blessing would not reach Rudolph, who lay seven feet deeper still,—and they also insulted the grave by building over it. Hans, on this account, slew a monk, and was in turn killed because he had murdered a holy man, and that was the end of him.

There remained in the castle on the hill Mamma von Weissenburg, or rather Von Somebodyelse, now, for she had wept her woman's tears and married again. When the infant daughter, Ulrike Margarethe, whose baptism has been mentioned, had grown to be a beautiful young woman, the mother suddenly disappeared and never was seen again. The daughter publicly mourned, ordered a beacon-light to be kept continually burning at the castle, gathered together all her silver chains and ornaments, and had them melted into a bell, which was hung on the castle tower, and which she herself always rang at nine in the evening and at midnight, for the sorrowing Ulrike said her beloved mother might be wandering in the dense woods, and hearing the bell might be guided by it to her home.

Ulrike was a pious person. She said her prayers regularly, went about doing good among poor sick people, never failed to ring the bell twice every night, and was always mourning for her mother. When at last she died, she gave orders that the bell should always be rung, as in her lifetime, from the castle; and in case the latter should be disturbed, or unsafe, the bell was to be transferred to the highest tower in Stuttgart. So Ulrike the Good bequeathed large sums of silver to pay for the fulfilment of her wishes, and died. Accordingly the little bell was brought, in time of public disturbance, to the small tower on the Stiftskirche in 1377, the higher one not then existing, and in 1531 was moved to its present position.

The next important item in the bell-story is that in 1598 the Princess Sybilla, daughter of Duke Friedrich I. of Suabia, was lost in the woods, and, hearing the bell ring at nine, followed the sound to the Stiftskirche, and in her gratitude she also endowed the bell largely, declaring it must ring at the appointed hours through all coming time.

So the little bell pealed out for many years,—just as it does this day,—until one night, two days after Easter, 1707, and three centuries and a half after the death of the exemplary Ulrike, it happened, in the course of human events, that the man whose office it was to ring the midnight bell was sleepy and five minutes late. Suddenly a woman's figure draped in black, with jet-black hair and face as white as paper, appeared before him, and asked him why he did not do his duty. He rang his bell, then conversed with the ghost, who was Ulrike von Weissenburg, and obtained from her valuable information. She must ever watch the bell, she said, and see that it was rung at the exact hours; and she it was who carried the light that confused travellers and led them to destruction near the ruins of Weissenburg Castle; and she was altogether a most unpleasant ghost, who could never rest while one stone of the castle remained upon another.

This was her condemnation for her evil deeds. She had murdered her mother, for certain ugly reasons which in the old chronicle are explicitly set forth, and she had stabbed her two young sons of whose existence the world had never known; and her career was altogether as wicked as wicked could be; but this Ulrike, like many another clever sinner, never lost her saintly aspect before the world.

They granted her rest at last by pulling down the remaining stones of the castle, and giving them to the wine-growers near by for foundations for the vineyards; so now no ghost appears to rebuke the bellringer when too much beer prolongs his sleep. Bones were found beneath the castle where Ulrike said she had hidden the bodies of her mother and children, thus clearly proving, of course, the truth of the tale. It is the most natural thing in the world to believe in ghosts when you read old Suabian stories. The Von Weissenburgs seem to have been, for the age in which they lived, a very quiet, orderly, high-toned family.

Now how do I know but that somebody will at once write, “I don't like stories about silver bells,” which will be very mortifying indeed, as it is evident I consider this a good story, or I should not take the trouble to relate it.

O, come over, friends, and write the letters yourselves, and then you will see how it is! Worst of all is it when we write of what strikes us as comic precisely as we mention a comic thing at home, or of mighty potentates, giving information obtained exclusively from German friends, and other German friends are then displeased. But is it worth while to resent the utterance of opinions that do not claim to be the infallible truth of ages, but only the hasty record of fleeting impressions? Peace, good people; let us have no savage criticism or shedding of blood, though we do chatter lightly of majestäte, saying merely what his subjects have told us.

We are all apt to be too sensitive about our own lands and their customs. Yet have we not learned to smile quietly when we are told that American gentlemen sit in drawing-rooms, in the presence of ladies, with their feet on the mantels; that American wives have their husbands “under the pantoffel” (would that more of them had); that America has no schools, no colleges, no manners; that American girls are, in general, examples of total depravity; that pickpockets and murderers go unmolested about our streets, seeking whom they may devour; that we have no law, no order, no morality, no art, no poetry, no past, no anything desirable? What can one do but smile? Smile, then, in turn, you loyal ones, when I have the bad taste to call ugly what you are willing to swear is beautiful as a dream. Thoughts are free, and so are pens; and both must run on as they will.

Let me, therefore, hurt no one's feelings if I say that Stuttgart in winter, with little sunshine, a dreary climate, and a peculiar, disagreeable, deep mud in the streets, does not at first impress a stranger as an especially attractive place. But now, with its long lines of noble chestnut-trees in full blossom; with the pretty Schloss Platz and the Anlagen, where fountains are playing and great blue masses of forget-me-nots and purple pansies and many choice flowers delight your eyes; with the shady walks in the park, where you meet a dreamer with his book, or a group of young men on horseback, or pretty children by the lake feeding the swans and ducks; with the lovely air of spring, full of music, full of fragrance; and, best of all, with the beauty of the surrounding country,—he would indeed be critical who would not find in Stuttgart a fascinating spot.

There is music everywhere, there are flowers everywhere. Your landlady hangs a wreath of laurel and ivy upon your door to welcome you home from a little journey, and brings you back, when she goes to market, great bunches of sweetness,—rosebuds and lilies of the valley. You climb the hills and come home laden with forget-me-nots,—big beauties, such as we never see at home,—violets, and anemones. It has been a cold spring here until now, but the flowers have been brave enough to appear as usual, and, wandering about among the distracting things with hands and baskets as full as they will hold, a picture of days long ago darts suddenly before me,—two school-girls, their Virgils under their arms, rubber boots on their feet, stumbling through bleak, wet Maine pasture-lands, bearing spring in their hearts, but searching for it in vain in the outer world around them. The other girl will rejoice to know that here I have found spring in its true presence.

And then there is May wine! Do you know what it is, and how to make it? You must walk several miles by a winding path along the bank of the Neckar. You must see the crucifixes by the wayside, and the three great blocks of stone,—two upright and one placed across them,—making a kind of high table, for the convenience of the peasant-women, who can stand here, remove from their heads their heavy baskets, rest, and replace them without assistance. You must peep into the tiniest of chapels, resplendent with banners of red and gold and a profusion of fresh flowers, all ready for the morning, which will be a high feast-day. You must pass through a village where women and children are grouped round the largest, oldest well you ever saw, with a great crossbeam and an immense bucket swinging high in the air. And at last you must sit in a garden on a height overlooking the Neckar. There must be a charming village opposite, with an old, old church, and pretty trees about you partly concealing the ruins of some old knight's abode. Don't you like ruins? But just enough modestly in the background aren't so very bad. You hear the sound of a mill behind you, and the falling of water, and, in the branches above your head, the joyful song of a Schwarz Kopf. And then somebody pours a flask of white wine into a great bowl, to which he adds bunches of Waldmeister,—a fragrant wildwood flower,—and drowns the flowers in the wine until all their sweetness and strength are absorbed by it, and afterwards adds sugar and soda-water and quartered oranges,—and the decoction is ladled out and offered to the friends assembled, while there is a golden sunset behind the hills across the Neckar. And you walk back in the twilight through the village that is so small and sleepy it is preparing already to put itself to bed. And the peasants you meet say, “Grüss Gott!” “Grüss Gott!” say you, which isn't in the least to be translated literally, and only means “Good day,” though the pretty, old-fashioned greeting always seems like a benediction. You hear the vesper-bells and the organ-tones pealing out from the chapel; you see some real gypsies with tawny babies over their shoulders (poor things! they will steal so that they are allowed to remain in a village but one day at a time, and then must move on). You feel very bookish, everything is so new, so old, so charming,—and that is “Mai Wein.”

How it would taste at dinner with roast-beef and other prosaic surroundings,—how it actually did taste, I haven't the faintest idea.

[pg!55]

THE SOLITUDE.

What the Germans call an Ausflug, or excursion, deserves to be translated literally, for it is often a veritable flight out of the region of work and care into a tranquil, restful atmosphere. The ease with which middle-aged, heavy-looking men here put on their wings, so to speak, and soar away from toil and traffic, at the close of a long, hard day, is always marvellous, however often we observe it. It seems a natural and an inevitable thing for them to start off with a chosen few, wander through lovely woods, climb a pretty hill, watch the changing lights at sunset over a broad valley, then return home, talking of poets and painters, of life problems, of whatever lies nearest the heart. Their ledgers and stupid accounts and schemes and the state of the markets do not fetter them as they do our business men. Such enjoyment is so simple, childlike, and rational, that the old question how men accustomed to wear the harness of commercial life will ever learn to bear the bliss of heaven, in its conventional acceptation, seems half solved. The Germans, at least, would be blessed in any heaven where fair skies and hills and forests and streams would lie before their gaze. However inadequate their other qualifications for Elysium may be, they excel us by far in this respect. Even the coarser, lower men who gather in gardens to drink unlimited beer are yet not quite unmindful of the beauty of the trees whose young foliage shades them, and look out, oftener than we would be apt to give them credit for, upon the vine-clad hills beyond the city. A friend, a prominent banker, who is almost invariably in his garden or some other restful spot in the free air at evening, now goes out to Cannstadt, two miles from here, mornings at seven, because “one must be out as much as possible in this exquisite weather.” If bankers and lawyers and our busiest of business men at home would only begin and end days after this fashion, their hearts and heads would be fresh and strong far longer for it, that is, if they could find rest and enjoyment so, and that is the question,—could they? And why is it, if they cannot? I leave the answer to wiser heads, who will probably reply as usual, that our whole mode of life is different, which is quite true; but why need it be, in this respect, so very different? Here is a valuable hint to some enormously wealthy person, childless and without relatives, of course, and about to make his will, who at this moment is considering the comparative merits of different benevolent schemes, and is wavering between endowing a college and founding a hospital. Do neither, dear sir. Take my advice, because I'm far away, and don't know you, and am perfectly disinterested, and, moreover, the advice is sound and good: Make gardens and parks everywhere, in as many towns as possible. Not great, stately parks that will directly be fashionable, but little parks that will be loved; and winding ways must lead to them through woodlands, and seats and tables must be placed in alluring spots, and all the paths must be so seductive they will win the most inflexible, absorbed, care-worn man of business to tread them. Do this, have your will printed in every newspaper in the land, and many will rise up and call you blessed. And if you are not so very rich, make just one small park, with pretty walks leading to it and out of it, and say publicly why you do it,—that people may have more open air and rest; and if they only have these, Nature will do what remains to be done, and win their hearts and teach them to love her better than now. Of course it is a well-worn theme, but no one can live in this German land without longing to borrow some of its capacity for taking its ease and infuse it into the veins of nervous, hurrying, restless America.

A pleasant Ausflug from Stuttgart is to the Solitude, a palace built more than a hundred years ago by Carl Eugen, a duke of Würtemberg, whose early life was more brilliant than exemplary. Many roads lead to it, if not all, as to Rome. In the fall we went through a little village,—throbbing with the excitement of the vintage-time, resplendent with yellow corn hanging from its small casements,—and by pretty wood-roads, where the golden-brown and russet leaves gleamed softly, and the hills in the distance looked hazy, and all was quietly lovely, though the golden glories and flaming scarlet of our woods were not there; and where now softly budding trees, spring air and spring sounds, anemones and crocuses, and forget-me-nots and Maiglöckchen, tempt one to long days of aimless, happy wandering. On one road, the new one by a waterfall, is the Burgher Allee, where once the burghers came out to welcome a prince or a duke returning from a wedding or a war, and stood man by man where now a line of pines, planted or set out in remembrance, commemorates the event. If exception is taken to the uncertain style of this narration, may I add that positiveness is not desirable in a story for the truth of which there are no vouchers? The idea of a prince welcomed home from the wars is to me more impressive; but choice in such matters is quite free.

You can go to the Solitude, if you please, through the Royal Game Park, a pretty, quiet spot, where a broad carriage-road winds along among noble oaks and beeches, and through the trees peep the great, soft eyes of animals who are neither tame nor wild, and who seem to know that they belong to royalty and may stare at passers-by with impunity. A superb stag stood near the drive, gave us a lordly glance, turned slowly, and walked with majestic composure away. We did not interest him, but it did not occur to him to hurry in the least on our account. We felt that we were inferior beings, and were mortified that we had no antlers, that we might hold up our heads before him. Two little lakes, the Bärensee and Pfaffensee,—the latter thick with great reeds and rushes, and haunted by a peculiar stillness,—invite you to lie on the soft turf, see visions, and dream dreams. A small hunting-pavilion stands on terraces by the Bärensee, with guardian bears in stone before it, and antlers and other trophies of the chase ornamenting it within and without. It was erected in 1782, at the time of a famous hunt in honor of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, afterwards emperor, who married Sophie of Würtemberg, niece of Carl Eugen. From all hunting-districts of the land a noble army of stags was driven towards these woods, encircled night and day by peasants to prevent the animals from breaking through. The stags were driven up a steep ascent, then forced to plunge into the Bärensee, where they could be shot with ease by the assembled hunters in the pavilion. Seeing the pretty creatures now fearlessly wandering in the sweet stillness of the park, and picturing in contrast that scene of destruction and butchery, it seems a pity that the grand gentlemen of old had to take their pleasure like brutes and pagans.

The Solitude is not far from here. Built first for a hunting-lodge between 1763 and 1767, it was gradually improved, enlarged, and beautified, grew into a pleasure palace, had its time of brilliant life and of decay; and now, renovated by the king's command, is a place where people go for the walk and the view, and where in summer a few visitors live quietly in pure air, and drink milk, it being a Cur-Anstalt. The adjacent buildings were used as a hospital during the late war. The Solitude is not in itself an interesting structure; it is in rococo style, having a large oval hall with a high dome, adjoining pavilions, and it looks white and gold, and bare and cold, and disappointing to most people. There is nothing especial to see,—a little fresco, a little old china, some immensely rich tapestry, white satin embroidered with gold, adorning one of those pompous, impossible beds, in which it seems as if nobody could ever have slept. But there is enough to feel, as there must always be in places where the damp atmosphere is laden with secrets a century old, and the walls whisper strange things. There are narrow, triangular cabinets and boudoirs with nothing at all in them, which, however, make you feel that you will presently stumble upon something amazing. All of Bluebeard's wives hanging in a row would hardly surprise one here. The place is full, in spite of its emptiness. It seems scarcely fitting that the many mirrors should reflect a little band of tourists in travelling suits and with umbrellas, instead of stately dames and cavaliers affecting French manners and French morals, and gleaming in satin and jewels beneath the glass chandeliers. There is a walk, always cool even in the hottest summer days, where in a double alley of superb pines the company used to seek shade and rest, and the fair ladies paced slowly up and down in their long trains, and fluttered their fans and heard airy nothings whispered in their ears. Wooded slopes rise high around, and this walk, deep down in a narrow valley, being quite invisible from the ordinary paths, is called the Underground Way. The breath of the old days is here especially subtle and suggestive.

The map of the place, as it was, tells of orangeries, pleasure pavilions, rose and laurel gardens, labyrinths, artificial lakes and islands, and many things of whose magnificence few traces remain. The common-looking buildings, formerly dwellings of the cavaliers in attendance, stand in a row; there are a few small houses with queer roofs; the Schloss itself stands on its height in the centre of an open space, fine old woods around, and an unusually extended view, from its cupola, of a broad, peaceful plain, a village or two, the Suabian Alb to the south; a straight, white-looking road intersects the meadows and woods, and leads to Ludwigsburg. This road was made by Carl Eugen, to avoid passing through Stuttgart, his choleric highness having had a grudge against the city at that time,—and indeed it has a spiteful air, with its utter disregard of hills and valleys, going straight as an arrow flies, never turning out for obstructions any more than the haughty duke would have turned aside for a subject. Fabulous stories are told of the speed with which his horse's hoofs used to clatter over this turnpike, and the incredibly short time in which, by frequently changing horses, he would arrive at his destination.

The romantic story of Francisca von Hohenheim and many interesting facts in Schiller's early life, during his attendance at the Carlsschule, a famous military academy, instituted by, and under the patronage of, Carl Eugen, are inevitably interwoven in any history of the Solitude; but both need more time than can be given at the close of so hasty a sketch. And indeed, from almost any point that might be taken here, threads wind off into a mass of stories and traditions far too wide-reaching to be more than hinted at when one is only making a little Ausflug and carelessly following one's will on a fair April day.

[pg!63]

A DAY IN THE BLACK FOREST.

“Zu Hirsau in den Trümmern

Da wiegt ein Ulmenbaum

Frischgrünend seine Krone

Hoch überm Giebelsaum.”

—Uhland.

One of the loveliest spots in all Würtemberg is Hirsau. It lies deep down in a valley on the Nagold, over which is a pretty stone bridge. High around rise the noble pines of the Black Forest, whose impenetrable gloom contrasts with the tender green of spring meadows basking in the sunshine, and makes, with the fringe of elms and birches and willows along the banks of the stream, a most magical effect of light and shade.

Blessings on the one of us who first said, “Let us see the old cloister at Hirsau!” An ideal spring day, a particularly well-chosen few, a trip by rail to Alt-Hengstett, then a long, lovely tramp over the moss carpet of the Black Forest, inhaling the sweet breath of the pines, finding each moment a more exquisite flower, catching bewitching glimpses between the trees of silver streams hurrying along far down below us,—this is what it was like; but the softness, the sweetness, the exhilaration of it all is not easy to indicate. The name itself, “Black Forest,” sounds immensely gloomy and mysterious. Goblins and witches and shrieks and moans and pitfalls and all uncanny weird things haunted the Black Forest of which we used to read years ago. And what does it mean to us now? Magnificent old woods, paths that beckon and smile, softly whispering, swaying tree-tops, turf like velvet, sunlight playing fitfully among the stately pines, seeking entrance where it may, and air that must bring eternal youth in its caresses. It means forgetfulness of trammels and all sordid, petty things, and being in tune with the harmonies of nature. It means freedom and peace; a “temple,” indeed, with the pines continually breathing their sweet incense and singing their sacred chants. There were in our party a professor or two, more than one poet,—indeed, it is said every other man in Suabia is a poet,—and a world-renowned art scholar and critic. They shook the dust of every-day life from their feet, and were happy as boys; one of them lay among the daisies, smiling like a child with the pure delight of living in such air and amid such peaceful beauty.

At the little Gasthaus in Hirsau, with the sign of the swan, we refreshed ourselves after our tramp. It is remarkable that poets, like clergymen, must also eat. After a few merry, graceful toasts and cooling draughts of the pleasant Landwein, we went to the cloister ruins. The work of excavation is still going on, much that we saw being but recently brought to the light. There were a few massive old walls at wide distances apart; the pavement of the aisles quite grass-grown between the low, broad, gray stones; fair fields of tall grass bright with daisies and buttercups, and starry white flowers,—a fascinating mass of variegated brightness, catching the sunshine and swaying in the breeze; a row of fine old Gothic windows; a tower in the Romanisch style of the twelfth century, which we, I believe, call Norman; a deep cellar where the monks of old stored their wines. Up a flight of stairs is a great bare room, where against the walls stand heavy wooden cases with carved borders, and in the ceiling is the same quaint carving slightly raised on a darker ground.

The whole effect of the ruins conveys the idea of immense size. The church was, indeed, the largest in Germany except the cathedral at Ulm. It is here an unusually lovely, peaceful scene. The cloister ruins would be, anywhere, picturesque and interesting in themselves; lying as they do above the village, framed by the beautiful Schwarzwald, they form a picture not easily forgotten. No far-extending view, nothing grand or imposing, only the exquisite, peaceful picture shut in by the dark-green hills; quaint homes nestling among rosy apple-blossoms; the great gray stone Brünnen, where for years and years maidens have come to fill their buckets and chat in the twilight after the day's work is done; the Nagold, silver in the sunlight; the cloister, with its old-time traditions,—all so very, very far from the madding crowd.

And the sweet legend of the origin of the cloister should be sung or spoken as one sees the picture: How there was, in the year 645, a rich, pious widow, a relative of the knight of Calb, named Helizena, who was childless, and who had but one wish, namely, to devote herself to the service of God. She constantly prayed that God would open to her a way acceptable in his sight. Once in a dream she saw in the clouds a church, and below in a lovely valley three beautiful fir-trees growing from one stem; and from the clouds issued a voice telling her that her prayer was heard, and that wherever she should find the plain with the three fir-trees she was to erect a church, the counterpart of that which she saw in the clouds. Awaking, the good Helizena, with holy joy and deep humility, took a maid and two pages and ascended a mountain from whose summit she could see all the surrounding country, and presently espied the quiet plain and the three firs of her dream. Hurrying to the spot, weeping for joy, she laid her silken raiment and jewels at the foot of the tree, to signify that from that moment she consecrated herself and all she possessed to the work. In three years the beautiful cloud-church stood in stone in the fair valley, and afterwards, in 838, a cloister was erected with the aid of Count Erlafried of Calb. Under Abbot Wilhelm, in 1080, it was at the height of its prosperity, and was the model of peace and goodly living among all the other Benedictine monasteries. The abbot gathered so many monks about him that the cloister at last grew too narrow, and he resolved to build a more spacious one. This was indeed a labor of love, and the work was done entirely by his own people, his monks and laity. Noble lords and ladies helped to bring wood and stone and prepared mortar in friendly intercourse with peasants, their wives and daughters,—such zeal and Christian love did the abbot instil into the hearts of his flock. It is the ruins of this cloister which we see to day.

An old German chronicle represents the place as little less than an earthly paradise:—

“There was here a band of two hundred and sixty, full of love for God and one another. No discussion could be found there, no discontented faces. Everything was in common. No one had the smallest thing for himself; indeed, no one called anything his own. Each went about his work in sweet content; of disobedience no one even knew. Not only was there no rebuke and angry word, but also no idle, frivolous, mirth-provoking talk. Among this great mass of men within the cloister walls could be heard only the voices of the singers and of them who knelt in prayer, and the sounds that came from the busy workrooms.”

These monks used to write much about music and poetry, and many learned, strong men were gathered there. The cloister was full of pictures, and the Kreuzgang had forty richly painted windows, with biblical scenes. A story is told of an old monk, Adelhard, who was twenty-three years blind, and received in his latter days the gift of second-sight. He foretold the day and hour of his death three years before it occurred, and also the destruction of the monastery.

As Körner's poem says:—

“In the cells and apartments sit fifty brothers writing many books, spiritual, secular, in many languages,—sermons, histories, songs, all painted in rich colors.

“In the last cell towards the north sits a white-haired old man, leans his brow upon his hand, and writes, ‘The enemy's hordes will break in, in seven years, and the cloister walls will be in flames.’”

Whether the old gray monk was ever there or not, at least we know that the French, in 1692, destroyed the beautiful cloister, and its paintings and carvings and works of art were all lost, except some of the stained glass, a few of its painted windows being at Monrepos, near Ludwigsburg.

The famous Hirsau elm, about which half the German poets have sung, is the most significant, touching, poetical thing imaginable. You feel its whole life-story in an instant, as if you had watched its growth through the long years; how the young thing found itself, it knew not why, springing up in the damp cloister earth, surrounded by four tall, cold, gray walls, above which indeed was a glimpse of heaven; how it shot up and up, ever higher and higher, with the craving of all living things for sunlight and free air, never putting forth leaf or twig until it had attained its hope and could rest. Within the high walls is only the strong, tall, bare trunk, and far above, free and triumphant, the noble crown of foliage.

Brave, beautiful elm, that dared to grow, imprisoned in cruel stone; that did not faint and die before it reached the longed-for warmth and light and sweetness!

[pg!69]

THE LENNINGER THAL.

Pilgrims were we recently, making a day's journey, not to gaze upon bones, rusty relics, and mouldy garments, but to see something fresh, fair, and altogether adorable,—the cherry-trees of the Lenninger Thal in full blossom. From Stuttgart we went by rail to Kirchheim unter Teck, a railway terminus, where we were shown the palace occupied by Franciska von Hohenheim after the death of Herzog Carl, and a Denkmal erected to Conrad Widerhold, that brave and very obstinate German hero who held the famous Hohentwiel fortress against the enemy, when even his own duke, Eberhard III., had ordered him to surrender it. Widerhold and his wife stand side by side, and you must look twice before you can tell which is the warrior. Kirchheim lies prettily in the Lauter Thal among the mountains. From there in an open carriage we drove on into the charming Lenninger Valley, one of the most beautiful in the Alb, with the whole landscape smiling benignly beneath a wonderful sky, and air deliciously pure and soft; past little brooks where the young, tender willows were beginning to leave out, through the little village of Dettingen, on and on over the broad chaussée, until we were fairly among the cherry-orchards. Bordering the road, running far back on the hill-slopes, shadowy, feathery, exquisite, the snowy blossoms lay before our eyes, with the range of the Suabian Alb beyond, and many a peak and ruin old in story. This was the fresh morning of a perfect spring day, where the peace and loveliness of the scene—the fields of pure whiteness reaching out on both sides of us, with now and then a dash of pink from the rosy apple-blossoms—made us feel that a special blessing had fallen upon us as devotees at the shrine of Ceres. At evening, returning by another route, with the varying lights and golden bars and heavy, piled-up purple cloud-masses in the western sky, it was lovely with yet another loveliness. The same mountains showed us other outlines and assumed new expressions, and bold, proud Teck rose from the foam of blossoms at its feet, like a stern rock towering above surging waters.

One of our experiences that day was becoming acquainted with Owen. Owen is not a man, as you may imagine, but only a very little village with crooked streets and queer old women, and that curious aspect to all its belongings which never grows less curious to some of us, though we ought to have become unmindful of it long ago. Owen is picturesque and dirty. “Ours at home aren't half so dirty or half so nice,” we endeavor to explain to our German friends.

At the inn where we drew up we were received by an admiring group of children,—three yellow heads rising above three great armfuls of wood, of the weight of which the little things seemed utterly unconscious in the excitement of seeing us. They stood, one above the other, on the dilapidated, crazy stone steps, while a bushy dog, whose hair looked as yellow and sun-faded as the children's, also made “great eyes” at us from the lowest stone. Out came mine host, and cleared away children and dog and woodpiles in a twinkling. This flattering reception occurred at the Krone. A large gilt crown adorned with what small boys at home call “chiney alleys” makes a fine appearance above these same tumble-down steps; and directly beside them is a great barn-door, so near that you might easily mistake one entrance for the other and wander in among the beasties; and benign Mistress Cow was serenely chewing her cud in her boudoir under the front stairs, we observed as we entered the house.

Let no one faint when I say we ate our dinner here. Indeed, we have eaten in much worse places, and the dinner was far better than we thought could be evolved from a house with so many idiosyncrasies, so very prominent barn-door qualities, such mooings and lowings in undreamed-of corners and at unexpected moments. However, we experienced an immense lightening of the spirits when trout were served, for it seemed as if we knew what this dish at least was made of. They were pretty silvery things with red spots, and had just been gleaming in the brook near by, beneath elms and birches and baby willows, and now they were butchered to make our holiday.

The little restored Gothic church at Owen is more than a thousand years old, and its walled Kirchhof recalls the times when the villagers with their wives and children sought refuge here from the descent of robber knights. The dukes of Teck are buried within the church, and their arms and those of other old families, with quaint inscriptions about noble and virtuous dames, are interesting to decipher. The prettiest thing in the church was a spray of ivy which had crept through a hole in the high small-paned window, completely ivy-covered without, and came seeking something within the still stone walls, reaching out with all its tendrils, and seemed like the little, adventurous bird that flutters in through a church window on a hot summer afternoon, and makes a sleepy congregation open its heavy eyes.

The altar-pictures are edifying works of art. Behind the little group in the “Descent from the Cross” rise a range of hills that look astonishingly like the Suabian Alb, with a genuine old German fortress perching on a prominent peak. Saint Lucia is also an agreeable object of contemplation, with a sword piercing her throat up to the hilt, the blade coming through finely on the other side, while her mildly folded hands, smirking of superior virtue and perfect complacency, make her as winning as a saint of her kind can be.

Beyond Owen is the Wielandstein, or a Wielandstein I should perhaps say, for Wielandsteins are as common in Germany as lovers' leaps in America; and the story is always how the cruel king murdered the wife and children of Wieland the smith and took him captive, granting him his life merely because of his skill in fashioning wonderful things from metals, but imprisoning him and maiming his feet that he might never escape. Wieland lived some time at court, and grew in favor with the king on account of his deft hands and clever designs. At length the king's young sons were missing and could not be found, though they were searched for many days, and the king was anxious and sorrowful. Then Wieland presented him with two beautiful golden cups, at the sight of which the king was so pleased that he gave a feast; and as he was drinking from the golden bowls and feasting with his nobles, Wieland flew away by means of two great golden wings he had for a long time been secretly fashioning, and, poising himself in mid-air, cried to the horrified king that he was drinking from the skulls of his sons, whom he, Wieland, had murdered out of revenge. The people shot many arrows after him, but he soared away unharmed, his golden wings gleaming in the sunlight until he disappeared behind the hills.

The ruin of the old Teck castle is in this neighborhood, and the Sybillen Loch, a grotto where a celebrated witch used to dwell, who differed from her species in general, inasmuch as she was a good witch. The old chronicles say she was an exemplary person, always delighting in good deeds. Her sons, however, were bad, quarrelled, stole from the world and one another, and even, upon one occasion, from her, and then ran away. Sybilla in her fiery chariot went in pursuit, and to this day a fair, bright stripe over orchard, field, and vineyard, always fresher and greener than the surrounding country, marks her course. How a fiery chariot could produce this beautifying effect is not to be questioned by an humble individual whose home is in a land where ruined castles and legend upon legend do not rise from every hill-top. Another story is that the fertile stripe was made by Sybilla's chariot-wheels, as she left forever the family to which she had always belonged. The last duke of Teck lay after a battle resting under a tree, and saw her passing with averted face, his arms lying at her feet, while she extended a stranger's in her hands, which signified ruin to his house; and the prophecy was fulfilled, for the duke outlived his twelve sons, and his arms and title were adopted by the counts of Würtemberg, who then became dukes of Würtemberg and Teck. All these interesting things are visible to the naked eye. The fresh green stripe is unmistakable; and the point in the air where Wieland hovered on his golden wings above the cliff can easily be discerned with a very little imagination.

A visit to a typical Suabian pastor, in another little village on this road, was a pleasant episode. A hale, handsome old gentleman of seventy, with a small black cap on his silvery locks and an inveterate habit of quoting Greek, looking at us with a simple, childlike air, as if we too were learned. His house has stone floors, low square rooms, severely simple in their appointments. The arms of a bishop of some remote century are on the inner wall by the front entrance, and a little farther on is an aperture, through which the cow of the olden time was wont to placidly gaze out upon hurrying retainers. The cow of that period seems to have had comfortable apartments in the middle of the house. The Suabian cow of the present time earns her hay by the sweat of her brow, toiling in the fields.

The good old pastor has a love amounting to adoration for his garden, every inch of which he has worked over and beautified, till it seems to be the expression of all the poetry and romance which the outward conditions of his frugal, rigid life repress. Full of nooks and arbors, comfortable low chairs and benches, where the blue forget-me-nots look as if they bloom indeed for happy lovers; trees whose great drooping branches close around retreats which can only be designed for tender tête-à-têtes; irregular little paths, wandering up and down and about, always ending in something delightful, always beckoning, inviting, smiling, amid flowers and foliage so fresh and luxuriant, you feel that every petal and leaf is known and loved by the white-haired old man. His favorite seat is at the end of a narrow, winding way at the foot of a magnificent elm. There he sits and looks, over the brook that sings to his sweet roses and pansies, upon broad meadow-lands and fields of grain extending to the Suabian hills, with their wealth of beauty and meaning and tradition. He sleeps and rests and thinks there after dinner, he tells us, and perhaps that is all; but I believe, when the old man is gone, a volume of manuscript poems will be discovered hidden away among his sermons and Greek tomes,—a volume of love poems, sonnets, dreamings of all that his life crowds out into his garden, and that only in his garden he has been able to express,—all the unspoken sweetness, all the unsung songs.

[pg!77]

FRANCISKA VON HOHENHEIM.

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastus is a personage whom we know, it must be confessed, more through the medium of Robert Browning than through our own historical researches; and we were therefore filled with wonder to learn that, in addition to the modest cognomen above, de Hohenheim also belonged to his name. This same Hohenheim we have recently visited. Paracelsus never lived there, to be sure, and was born far away in Switzerland. Browning puts him in Würzburg, in Alsatia, in Constantinople; and a solid German authority declares he lived in Esslingen, where his laboratory is still exhibited, and in proof mentions that in this neighborhood was, not many years ago, a Weingärtner whose name was Bombastes von Hohenheim, a descendant of Paracelsus. However, he lived nowhere, everywhere, and anywhere, I presume, as best suited such a conjurer, alchemist, philosopher, and adventurer, and went wandering about from land to land, remaining in one place so long as the people would have faith in his learning, his incantations and magic arts; but what concerns us now is simply that he was connected with the Hohenheim family, who, in the old days, occupied the estate which still bears its name.

To Hohenheim is a pleasant walk or drive, as you please, from Stuttgart. A castle, adjacent buildings, lawns, and fruit-trees are what there is to see at the first glance,—at the second, many practical things in the museum connected with the Agricultural College, which is what Hohenheim at present is; models, and collections of stones and birds and beasts, bones and skeletons, and other uncanny objects, pretty woods, grain, seeds, etc. Students from the ends of the earth come here, and from all ranks,—sons of rich peasants and also young men of family. An Hungarian count is here at present, and youths from Wallachia, Russia, Sweden, America, Australia, Spain, Italy, and Greece,—China too, for all I know to the contrary,—with of course many Germans, learning practical and theoretical farming. We sat under the pear-trees which were showering white blossoms around us, ate our supper to fortify us for our homeward walk, watched the sheep come home and the students walking in from the fields with their oxen-carts. They wore blue blouses and high boots, and cracked their long whips with a jaunty air, more like Plunket in “Martha” than veritable farmers. From the balcony opening from the largest salon we looked upon pretty woods, and the whole chain of the Suabian Alb, with Lichtenstein, Achalm, and other points of interest to be studied through a telescope.

This is, then, what Hohenheim now is,—a place where you go and look about a little, walk through large empty halls and long corridors affording glimpses of the simple quarters of the students, see a pleasant landscape, and, in short, enjoy an hour of unquestionably temperate pleasure. What it was as the seat of the Hohenheim family, which is mentioned as early as the year 1100, we do not know; but under Duke Carl Eugen of Würtemberg, in the last century, it was a sort of Versailles, if all accounts be true: magnificent parks and gardens, Roman ruins near Gothic towers and chapels, Egyptian pyramids and Swiss châlets, catacombs, artificial waterfalls, baths, hothouses, grottos with Corinthian pillars, a Flora temple with lovely arabesques on its silver walls, and the palace itself, rising proud and stately at the end of the park, furnished with every luxury, and filled with rare vases and pictures. Four colossal statues stand now in one of the halls, arrayed in garments which, in that freer time, they certainly could not boast. The raiment is of cloth, dipped, stiffened so that it resembles marble, unless you examine it too closely. No doubt it is more agreeable that those huge figures are somewhat clothed upon, but it does seem too absurd to think of ordering a new coat for “Apollo” when his old one gets shabby. Making minute investigations, we discovered he had already had several, wearing the last one outside of the others, as if to protect himself from the inclemency of the weather.

All the old magnificence was lavished by Herzog Carl upon Franciska von Hohenheim,—his “Franzel,” as he called her in the soft Suabisch,—whose most romantic story is, par excellence, the thing of interest here, and the Suabians must love it, they tell it so very often.

From many narratives I gather the life-story of a woman who, in spite of the stain upon her name, is deeply revered in Würtemberg for her strong, sweet influence upon its wild duke, for her wisdom and gentleness, and the good that through her came upon the realm.

She was a daughter of the Freiherr von Bernardin, a noble of ancient family and limited income. Franciska lived far removed from the gayety of courts, of which she and her sisters in their castle near Aalen rarely heard. When she was scarcely sixteen her father gave her hand to a Freiherr von Leutrum, a fussy, stuffy old man, who wrapped himself in furs even in summer, and was so conspicuously ugly the boys in the street would mock at him when he stood at his window. His great head, on a broad, humped back, scarcely reached the sill.

In addition, a small intellect, hot temper, and suspicious nature made him yet more of a monster; but Franciska was poor, and it appears it was considered then, as it would be now, a good match, as Von Leutrum was of an old family and rich. Whether the historians paint him blacker than he deserves in order to make Franciska white in contrast, is not easy to say. It certainly has that effect occasionally, however. Beauty, then, married the Beast. In 1770 Herzog Carl Eugen came to Pforzheim, where the nobles of the neighborhood, among them Baron von Leutrum, with his young wife, assembled to form his court.

Franciska was no famous beauty. She had, however, a tall, graceful figure, rich blond hair, and was very winning with her fresh, joyful ways, and a certain indescribable sweetness and gentleness of manner. The duke, from the first, singled her out by marked attention, which undoubtedly flattered her, coming from so famous, clever, and fascinating a man; and it is also probable that she made no especial effort to repulse the homage in which she could see no harm. He was then forty-two,—a man of stately beauty, one of the most renowned European princes of that time, with a strong and highly cultivated intellect, and of most winning manners where he cared to please. It also appears he could be a bear, a savage, and a tyrant when he willed.

It was, then, scarcely surprising that a girl married at sixteen to a fossil like Leutrum, who neglected and abused her, should be bewildered by the distinguished attention offered by her prince. Meanwhile Leutrum waxed more and more jealous, until one day in a rage, on account of remarks of the courtiers, he struck his wife in the face.

The duke, furious at this, insisted upon taking Franciska under his protection. But she, though agonized with fear and abhorrence of her husband, yet knowing too well her feeling for the duke, chose to leave the court at once and return with Leutrum to their castle.

Carl Eugen, never scrupulous as to means when he had anything to gain, caused a wheel of Leutrum's coach to be put into a state of precarious weakness, so that, going through some woods not far from Pforzheim, the carriage broke down, when the duke appeared, rode off with the trembling, miserable, happy Franciska, leaving Von Leutrum alone with his broken carriage and his rage.

The duke had been married for political reasons at eighteen to a princess of Bavaria, with whom he had lived but a year or two, their natures being strongly incompatible. He, however, a Roman Catholic, could not free himself from his first marriage until the death of his wife released him in 1784, when he married Franciska.

The remarkable thing in her history is, that the voice of no contemporary is raised against her. Noble ladies of unblemished name visited her as “Gräfin von Hohenheim,” and all testimony unites in praising her wisdom, sweetness, and grace, and her almost miraculous influence for good upon the duke.

“He found in her womanly grace and devoted love, the deepest appreciation of the beautiful and good, exquisite taste and tact, a strong, warm interest in his career and calling, wise counsel given in her soft, womanly words, and a heart for his people.

“In love and sorrow, in matters earnest and light, in his difficult affairs of state, in enjoyment of the beautiful in art and nature, she was ever by his side, filled with perfect appreciation of all that moved him.”

She taught him gradually his duty towards his folk, which the wild, haughty duke had sadly ignored, and she, herself, was always loved and revered by them.

She was graceful and sparkling in society, not wearing her sorrows upon her sleeve, but in her private life and letters are marks of lifelong grief.

“If I could tell you my whole story,” she writes to a friend in 1783, “if you could know the solemnity and repentance with which I look back upon it, you would withhold from me neither your pity nor your prayers.... Had I had in my sixteenth year, when, utterly inexperienced, I entered society with not the slightest knowledge of the world, left entirely to myself, surrounded by scenes whose meaning I could not grasp,—had I then had one true friend to warn me, to advise me; had his reason, his heart, his pureness of deed, inspired my respect and trust, indeed—indeed—I might have been a better woman.”

Later, after a delightful evening at the Princess of Dessau's, where Lavater also was, she wrote:—

“I was inexpressibly moved by your assurance that you thought of me in this circle. Could I have felt worthier of such society, the pleasure would undoubtedly have been more unalloyed. But, as it was—Still I must not complain.”

Such, briefly, is her story. She lived with the duke at the Solitude as well as here, and Hohenheim he made for her as beautiful as a fairy palace. He troubled neither her nor himself with scruples. His conscience was, indeed, not tender, and his life with her was unquestionably so innocent and idyllic in comparison with his mad past, that, to him at least, it no doubt seemed blameless. He loved her faithfully till his death, wrote to her when absent for a day or two as his good angel, with utter reverence as well as tenderest love. The proud respected her; the poorest and humblest came to her with their wants and sorrows.

She died in 1811 in her small, quiet court at Kirchheim unter Teck, where she had resided after the death of the duke; but her story and the remembrance of her eventful life will always haunt quiet Hohenheim, and invest it with a romance it cannot otherwise claim for itself.

[pg!85]

“NUREMBERG THE ANCIENT.”

The breeze of morning stole in and kissed our cheeks and whispered, “You have a day and a half to spend in dear, delicious old Nuremberg,—be up and doing!” Only a day and a half, and yet how infinitely better than no day at all there! We came, we saw, and were conquered, even by the huge knockers with bronze wreaths of Cupids and dragons' heads, the ornate, intricate locks, the massive doors, before we were within the portals of those proud patrician palaces with their stately inner courts and galleries, their frescos, painted windows and faded tapestries, time-stained grandeur, and all their relics of mediæval magnificence.

O, we stretched our day and a half well, and filled it full of treasures, and our hearts with lovely thoughts and pictures of the unique old town, its high quaint gables, stone balconies, beautiful fountains, double line of walls, and seventy sentinel towers; its castle and wide moat, where now great trees grow and prim little gardens; its arched bridges and streams, with shadows of the drooping foliage on the banks; its oriel windows; its narrow, shady ways and odd corners; its memories of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Sachs, of Kaiser and knight and Meistersinger,—its Nurembergishness!

The St. Lorenz Church was our first halting-place. The whole world knows that its portal and painted windows are beautiful, and that it retains all the rich old objects of the Roman ritual; that being the condition under which Nuremberg pranced over in a twinkling to Protestantism, and people were ordered by the municipal authorities to believe to-day what they had disbelieved yesterday; and most of the world, perhaps, has seen the tabernacle for the vessels of the sacrament, but they who have not can never know from words how it rests on the bowed forms of its sculptor, Adam Kraft, and his two pupils and assistants, and rises like frozen spray sixty-four feet in the choir, with the warm light from the painted windows coloring its exquisite traceries and carvings. It looks like a holy thought or a hymn of praise caught in stone, aspiring heavenwards.

We saw there heavy gold chalices from old, old times, and some Gobelin tapestry only recently discovered hidden away; one scene represented the weighing of the soul of St. Lawrence to see if it were too light for heaven. The saint's soul had a shape, in fact was an infant's body, and the Devil was crouching near by, and St. Lawrence, full-grown, stood waiting, anxious to know his fate.

Then came a few hours in the German Museum, where, as usual in such places, the weary lagged behind, the elegant looked blasé, the contrary-minded saw the wrong thing first, the energetic pushed valiantly on, striving to see all and remember all, from earliest forms of sculpture down through the ages,—all the gold and silver and carvings and costumes, the immense square green stoves, with the warm, cosy seat for the old grandmother in the corner; to glance at rare old lace without neglecting the ancient caps and combs and gewgaws; to look long at a few of the pictures,—the great one of Dürer's, “Otto at the Grave of Charlemagne,” is here, you know,—and so our straggling party wandered on through corridor and chamber and staircase, past knights in effigy, some of whom looked like such jolly old souls, with gallons of wine beneath their breastplates, past a memorial tablet to a baby prince who died dim ages ago, to whom a small death-angel is offering an apple; and then, after seeing the bear, who guards a glass case of precious things in gold and silver, lowered down to his domain every night, and after sprinkling beer on his nose to see if he were of German parentage, we gathered ourselves together and wondered if we quite liked museums. You see so much more than you can comprehend; you see so much more than you want to see; you feel so astoundingly ignorant; you have information thrust upon you so ruthlessly. One wilful maiden says, “I'll go and live on a desert island, provided no one will show me an object of interest.” Then in the shady cloisters we drank foaming beer with our German friends, and gathered strength for our next onslaught; and I beg no one to be captious about the length and out-of-breath character of this paragraph, for it is quite in keeping with our Nuremberg visit, with worlds to see in a little day and a half.

There was the old Rath Haus with the Dürer frescos and the Dürer house and pictures, which everybody mentions; and the rude, dark little den of a kitchen, which nobody to my knowledge has ever deigned to mention, where Mrs. Xantippe Dürer used to rattle her sauce-pans and scold her Mann. There was the Fraumkirche and St. Sebald, rich in painted windows and sculpture. In one room, so rich and dark with its oak wainscoting and Gobelin tapestry, we involuntarily searched behind the arras for Polonius, and then stared silently and felt quite flippant before the antique candelabra and Persian rugs and hopelessly indescribable ever-to-be-coveted furniture within those memory-laden walls. An antique, impressive writing-table was a model of rich, quaint beauty. Poems and romances would feel proud and pleased to simply write themselves under its ægis, and what a delicious aroma of the past would cling to them!

We visited the castle, of course, and streams of information about the Hohenzollerns were poured upon us. We were wicked enough to enjoy ourselves particularly among the instruments of torture,—exhibited by the jolliest, fattest, most debonair Mrs. Jarley in the world. She regaled us with awful tales, that sounded worse than the “Book of Martyrs,” and we were not disgusted, neither did we faint or scream. There was a lamentable want of feeling, and a marked inclination to laugh prevailed in our party. Indeed, we saw some sweet things there,—a hideous dragon's head, worn by women who beat their husbands; a kind of yoke in which two quarrelsome women were harnessed; a huge collar, with a bell attached, for gossips; and an openwork iron mask, with a great protruding, rattling tongue, for inveterate slanderers. We made liberal proposals to our jolly show-woman for a few of these articles, thinking we might be able to send them where they were needed, and strongly inclined to favor their readoption. An iron nose a foot long was worn by thieves, and the article stolen hung on the end of it.

It is grievous to think there will come a time when people who visit Nuremberg will see no walls and towers and moats. They are pulling down the walls at present, for they are as inconvenient as they are picturesque. Heavy teams and people on foot seeking egress and ingress at one time through the narrow passages in the massive structure, the city cramped, its growth retarded, dangerous accidents, as well as the most reasonable grounds in a commercial point of view, lead the wise to destroy something selfish tourists would fain preserve intact. But “if I were king of France, or, still better, pope of Rome,” or emperor of Germany, I'd let the commerce go elsewhere where there is room for it, and guard old Nuremberg jealously as a precious, beautiful memorial and heirloom from ancestors who have slept for centuries.

The Johannes Cemetery here is the only lovely one I have yet seen in Germany. It is not beautiful in itself, as our cemeteries are; but the solemnity, the dignity of death is here, and no gaudy colors and tinsel wreaths jar upon your mood and pain you. Only great flat, gray stones, tablets with the arms in bronze of the old Nuremberg patricians, tell us wanderers who lies beneath. It was like a solemn poem to be there deciphering the proud armorial bearings on the great blocks placed there centuries ago, and the sweet-brier blooming all around with such an unconscious air on its pale pink blossoms, like fair young faces. One of Columbus's crew lies there. So many old names and dates!

We plucked a few leaves from Dürer's grave:—

“Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies,

Dead he is not, but departed, for the artist never dies;

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,

That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air.”

[pg!91]

SOME WÜRTEMBERG TOWNS.

The gardener gave it to the milkmaid and the milkmaid gave it to the errand-boy, the errand-boy gave it to the cook, who gave it to the head-waiter, who sold it to the individual who presented it to me. “It” was a bunch of great, sweet, half-blown June roses, that hung glowing on their stalks in their native garden at dawn, and before noon had experienced this life of change and adventure. It all happened in Wasseralfingen, a little town, where nothing else so momentous occurred during our brief visit, because it was Sunday, but where usually the celebrated iron-works make an immense disturbance, and interest visitors of a practical turn of mind. Our German friends bewailed the absence of the noise of the machinery on our account; believing that every American is born with a passionate devotion to mechanics, which increases through life, to the exclusion of a love of the beautiful. Recently, after relating a romantic story about a place on the Rhine, a German gentleman concluded his tale of love and chivalry by telling us that the Princess Somebody had established a girls' school there,—“which will interest you as Americans more than the story,” he added, with perfect honesty and naïveté.

“And why?” we meekly ask.

“Because Americans are practical and like useful things,” he responds cheerfully, with as thorough a conviction as if he had said that two and two made four.

We made no useless effort to induce him to believe that the thought of sixty or eighty bread-and-butter misses does not enhance for us the charm of a tradition-haunted spot, nor did we struggle to impress our friends' minds in Wasseralfingen that its Sabbath stillness was more agreeable to us than the stir and rush of the works. There are some fixed ideas in the mind of the average German which a potent hand ought to seize and shake out. “Why don't you write letters to Germans about America, instead of to Americans about Germany?” suggests a clever German friend. “They seem to be more needed.” It might really be worth while if Teutonic tenacity of opinion were not too huge a thing for a feeble weapon to slay.

To return to our Wasseralfingen,—most curious name!—it was pretty enough to look upon, as indeed most places in Würtemberg are. It has its nicely-laid-out little park or Anlagen, with a statue in the middle of it; and this is what small manufacturing towns at home are not apt to waste much time upon, unfortunately for their children and their children's children. An inn nestled among the trees, with irregular wings and low, broad roofs, and a very broad landlord, who looked like a beer-mug, gave us comfortable shelter for a night, and supper and breakfast in its garden,—supper with lights and pipes and beer-bottles, and cheerful conversation all around.

A short trip by rail brought us to Heidenheim, past fields of waving grain and pretty hills, shadows of great trees falling on velvety meadows, oats rising and falling like billows in the morning breeze, and scarlet seas of poppies. Never anywhere have I seen such a glory of poppies! Miles of them on both sides of the road, gleaming and glowing as the sunlight kissed them.

And then Heidenheim, a pretty town given to manufactures, to factories and mills, with the ruins of its castle Hellenstein on the height, and its memories reaching far back to Roman times. Here lived knights who were princes of profligacy, and gloried in their extravagance; who shod their steeds with silver and gold, and flung jewels away like water. One of them longed to have his whole estate transformed into a strawberry, that he could swallow it all in one instant. Of course this family came to a bad end. It spent all its money, and its castles got out of repair; the last of its armor was sold for old iron, and the last of the race died a pauper.

The ruins retain traces of Roman architecture in the earliest walls, with various additions in later times, and are not especially interesting upon close acquaintance. The old well sunk deep in the foundation of natural rock, where you pay ten cents and see a woman drop a stone three hundred and eighty-five feet, and wait breathlessly until you hear the dull plash deep down in the darkness, is their most exciting feature. The woman offered to give us some water, but it requires a whole hour to get it up, and we felt suspicious of what might be lying in those uncanny depths.

On the shady side of the castle, with broad reaches of fertile field and belts of wood lying before our contented gaze, we listened to Volkslieder, so old and sweet they carried our hearts back into dim ages, and we strongly felt the tie that binds us to the race where such strains have their birth. Suddenly, as our singers ceased, a group of village children sitting on a block of stone at a short distance took up the refrain,—an irregular row of flaxen heads against the light, their forms prominent against the deep, peaceful background, singing away with such zest we could only be silent and listen. Song after song, in praise of their loved land, they sang; all sweet, whether the smallest ones could always keep in tune or not. They told how Eberhard im Bart could lay his head on the knee of his poorest peasant and sleep in peace till morning broke, and many another sweet, old story; and, keeping time with their heads and making daisy-chains with their hands, they shouted,—

“Beautiful Suabia is our Heimath Land!”

Truly you can forgive the Germans for a multitude of sins when you hear how and what their common people sing.

[pg!95]

IN A GARDEN.

A Garden by the water's edge,—a garden where clematis and woodbine and grape-vines run all over their trellises and up the graceful young locust-trees and down over the stone-wall to meet the water plashing pleasantly below, and reach out everywhere that vine-audacity can suggest in an utter abandonment of luxuriance!—a garden where superb blood-red roses are weighed down by a sense of their own sweetness, and pure white ones look tall and stately and cool and abstracted by their side. At the right a point of land extends into the lake, so thickly covered with trees that from here it looks like a little forest, and the houses are almost concealed in the fresh green; and the trees look taller than anything except a funny old building that was once a cloister, and is now the royal castle, and has two queer, tall towers that rise far above the tree-tops at the extremity of the point. At the left, faint and shadowy in the distance, rise the Alps, and the mountains of Tyrol. There are bath-houses along the shore. Small boys who think they “would be mermen bold” are prancing about gayly in the water. On a rocky beach, peasant-women in bright-colored dresses are standing by tubs, dipping garments in the lake and wringing them dry. Some of them are kneeling. The sun is warm, and beats down on their uncovered heads, and the work is hard, and I don't suppose they have any idea they are making a picture of themselves, on the rocky shore with the background of trees. But everybody is a picture this morning. There is a young man standing in a row-boat, which an old fisherman lazily propels here and there before my eyes. The youth is really statuesque, balancing himself easily in the dancing boat, strong, supple, graceful, his arm extending the long fishing-rod. A rosebud of a girl in a white morning-suit and jaunty sailor-hat leans over the railing of a pavilion built out into the lake from the garden, and also patiently holds a fishing-rod, looking like a “London Society” illustration, as she gazes intently with drooping eyelashes into the water.

There are people reading, sketching, studying their Baedeckers, drinking their coffee or beer, in comfortable nooks through the pretty garden. All is quiet and restful, with only the rippling of the water and the shouts of the merry mermen to break the stillness. Now doesn't it seem as if one ought to write an exceptionally pleasant letter from so pleasant a spot? But, alas! there is not much to say about it when once you have tried to tell how it looks,—that it is a calm, peaceful, pretty place, where you could stay a whole summer and lose all feverish desires to explore and climb and see sights. To sit here in the garden, leaning on the wall among the vines, is happiness enough. In the morning early, the lake smiles at you and talks to you, and you see far away great masses of rose-color and pearl-gray, with snowy summits gleaming in the sunshine, and your eyes are blessed with their first view of the Alps. The outline of the opposite shore is misty and many-colored, and has also its noble heights. At sunset, too, is the garden a dreamy, blissful spot, as the little boats float about in the golden lights, and the water and the mountains assume all possible lovely hues, then sink away in a deep violet, and the stars come out and German love-songs go up to meet them.

Yes, it is a satisfying spot. If there's a serpent here, he keeps himself wonderfully well concealed. We haven't caught a glimpse of him, and we are wise enough not to search for him. It's an admirable place to be lazy, but it isn't very good for letters. Things hinder so, you know. You listen to the water, and your pencil forgets to go. You get lost in contemplation of the flapping of the ducks' feet, and make profound studies of their mechanism, and enviously wish you had something of the sort at your command, so that you could sail about in the cool, clear water as unconcerned as they, and with no more effort. Funniest of ducks that they are!—so pampered by the attention and bread-crumbs of summer guests that their complacency exceeds even ordinary duck self-satisfaction, and they act as if they thought they were all swans.

It occurs to me somebody may feel a faint curiosity to know where it all is. On the Lake of Constance, or the Bodensee, which, if you want useful information, is forty-two miles long, eight miles wide, is fed principally by the Rhine, and whose banks belong to five different States,—Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, Switzerland, and Austria; a sheet of water whose shores are green and thickly wooded, where gay little steamers run, constantly displaying the flags of their several countries, between the principal places on the lake, and wherever you go you have beautiful mountain scenery. You see the Alps, the mountains of Bavaria, the Baden hills, the Tyrol, and you don't always know which is which; but they pile themselves up grandly among the clouds, one range behind the other, in a way that to the unaccustomed vision does not exactly admit of labelling, and you don't care what their names are. You are content to feel their beauty, to wonder and be silent.

This particular place on the lake is Friedrichshafen. It is really a new place and a commercial place,—and these adjectives are certainly not attractive,—but then the newness is not conspicuous, and the commerce, so far as we summer birds of passage are concerned, almost invisible.

The king and queen of Würtemberg come here every summer, and are here at present. The Emperor of Germany and the Grand Duke of Baden are on the Island of Mainau.

It may be a busy place, but it does not seem so. Content and rest pervade the atmosphere. Serenity is written on every face. It may be many people would weary of its roses and the ripple of the water; of its gardens, that look as if they were growing directly out of the lake; of the blue, hazy, changing mountains far away; of its perfect quiet: but there are others who would love it well, and who would not tire of it in many a long summer day.

[pg!100]

LINDAU AND BREGENZ.

Auf wiederschen, and not Lebewohl, we said to pleasant Friedrichshafen, as the little steamer left those kindly green shores and we sailed away, not for a year and a day, like the owl and the pussy cat in the beautiful pea-green boat, but for an hour or so only. There were many curious people to watch on board, but the most monopolizing sight was two Catholic priests devouring a chicken, or rather devouring chickens. They had, on the seat between them, a basket large enough for a flock of Hühnchen—boiled, dissected, and only too tempting to the priestly appetite—to repose in. And they had the lake as a receptacle for the bones. What more could they desire? If we could have suggested anything it would have been—napkins, because it was requiring too much work of their fingers to use them as knives and forks, and then to wipe their mouths on them. The zeal with which the holy men tore the tender meat from the bones and showered the remnants in the water, and particularly the endurance they exhibited, made us hope they evinced as much fervor and devotion in caring for their human flocks.

To Lindau then we came, having, as we approached, charming mountain scenery. The town is on an island, connected with the mainland by an embankment and railway bridge. It is a little place, but very striking as you look at it from the water, having a lofty monument (a statue in bronze of Maximilian II.), a picturesque old Roman tower, and, at the entrance of the harbor, a fine lighthouse, and a great marble lion on a high pedestal, guarding the little haven and his Bavarian land. We remained part of a day here, having before our eyes a beautiful picture,—the mountains of Switzerland directly across the lake, narrow at this point, with the lighthouse and the proud, ever-watchful Bavarian lion rising, bold and sentinel-like, in the foreground. You look between these two over the placid water to the heights beyond.

From Lindau we sailed to Bregenz, where the lake and mountains have quite another expression. It would be difficult to say which is the most attractive place on the Bodensee. You feel “How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away,” and it is of course a question of individual taste. One person prefers the mountains near, another watches them lovingly from a distance. One likes to live on low land by the water's edge, and look up to the mountain-tops; another perches himself high, and finds his happiness in looking down upon the lake and off to other heights. But the shores are lovely everywhere, much frequented yet quiet, crowded with villas, private cottages, hotels, yet secluded and restful if one chooses.

Bregenz is a quiet place, a real country-place, with mountain views and mountain excursions without end. The common people have intelligent, happy faces, pleasant, cheerful ways, quickness of repartee, and civility. The women give you a smiling “Grüss Gott.” The commonest man takes off his hat as you pass, and if you go by a group of rollicking school-boys every hat comes off courteously.

Gebhardsberg is the first place to which people usually go from Bregenz. We went, as in duty bound. It is a mountain—a castle—a pilgrimage church—a view; and to say that one commands a view of the entire lake, the valley of the Bregenzer Ach and the Rhine, the Alps, the snow mountains of Appenzel and Glarus, with mountains covered with pine forests in the foreground, conveys a very faint idea of the beauty before our eyes. In the visitors' book in the tower were some German rhymes, which, roughly translated, go somewhat in this way:—

“Charming prospect, best of wine,

Be joyful, then, O heart of mine;

Farewell, thou lovely Gebhard's hill,

Thou Bodensee, so fair, so still.”

And more still about wine, for this is not the land of the Woman's Crusade, it appears:—

“It makes you glad to drink good wine,

And praying makes life more divine.

If you would be both good and gay,

Pray well and drink well every day.”

Some one remarks,—

“What below was far from clear,

Is no less dark when we stand here.”

And a very enthusiastic person writes,—

“Here flies from us sorrow, here vanishes pain,

Here bloom in our hearts joy and freshness again.

Who can assure us, and how can we know,

That heaven is fairer than this scene below?”

In pages of such doggerel one finds comical enough things; but exported, they may lose their native flavor, so I will not give too many of them.

By making rather a long excursion from here you can visit the birthplace of Angelica Kauffman. We didn't go, but we felt very proud to think we could if we wished, having lately read “Miss Angel.”

There is a place in this neighborhood the name of which I refuse to divulge, because, if I should tell it and disclose its attractions, the next steamer from America would certainly bring over too many people to occupy it, and so ruin it. I shall keep it for myself. But I will describe it, and awaken as much longing and unrest and dissatisfaction with American prices as I can. It isn't exactly a village, but it is near a village. It has shady lanes that wind about between hedges; houses that are placed as if with the express purpose of talking with one another,—only three or four houses, with superb old trees hanging over them. There is the nicest, brightest of Fraus,—who owns this bit of land, the houses and the hedges and trees close by the water's edge, a boat, a bath-house, and a great dog,—a happy, prosperous widow, with a daughter to help in household matters, and to go briskly to market to the neighboring town. So happy is she, one thinks involuntarily her Mann was perhaps aggressive, and that to be free from his presence may be to her a blessing from Heaven. She lives in a house where the ceiling is so low one must stoop going through the doors. The windows and doors are all open. The tables and chairs are scoured snowy white. She brings you milk in tall glasses,—it is cream, pure and simple. And then she takes you into the house close by, with great airy chambers, and broad low casements, under which the water ripples softly, and she tells you, without apparently knowing herself, one of the wonders of the age,—that she will rent her four rooms in this detached house for forty guldens a month, and serve four persons from her own dwelling with fruit, meat, cream, the best the land affords; and forty guldens are about twenty dollars, gold. (This must not mislead the unwary. There are places enough here where you can spend quite as much as you do at home.) We did not quite faint, but we were very deeply moved. We did not even tell the good woman that her terms were not exorbitant, crafty, worldly creatures that we were. Here was one spot unspoiled by the madding crowd. We were not the ones to bring pomps, and vanities, and high prices to it. So we choked down our amazement, and hypocritically remarked it was all very pleasant, and we thought perhaps we might return. Return! Of course we shall return! When all things else fail, and ducats are painfully few, then will we flee to this friendly abode, and live in a big room on the lovely lake, so near, indeed, that we can almost fish from our windows; have a boat to row, a bath-house at our service; quarts, gallons of cream; and the Swiss mountains before our eyes morning, noon, and night; and all for five dollars a month. I am telling the truth, but I do not expect to be believed. I am tempted to write its name,—its pretty, friendly, suggestive little name,—but I will not. It ends in LE, it sounds like a caress, so much will I say; perhaps so much is indiscreet. Don't waste your time looking for it. You will never find it. We only happened to drift there. It really is not worth your while to search for it. It is quite secluded, quite out of the way, a sleepy-hollow that I am sure you would find dull.

There are many green, sweet nooks, many pretty villages, many cleanly little cottages, many smiling, broad-browed, clear-eyed women, on the shores of the Lake of Constance; but our woman, our cottage, our cream, our mountains, our treasure, you will never, never find.

[pg!106]

THE VORARLBERG.

I feel a deep and ever-increasing sympathy with explorers of strange lands whose narratives a harsh world pronounces exaggerations. What if they do say that the unknown animal which darts across their path has five heads and seventeen legs? There is a glamour over everything in an utterly new place,—the very atmosphere is deceptive. After a while, things assume their natural proportions, but at first it seems as if one really did see with one's own eyes all these redundant members. Even here in the beaten track of travel, writing as honestly as possible from my own point of view, I feel like begging my friends to put no faith in anything I say. The mountains in themselves are intoxicating enough to turn one's head; but then of course much depends upon the kind of head one possesses. Recently, at sunset by a lake, we were looking over the water at a mountain view,—soft, wooded slopes near us, huge rocky masses beyond, height upon height rising in hazy blue, the snowy summits just touched by the Alpine glow,—when some strangers approached. Berlin has the honor of being their dwelling-place, we ascertained afterwards.

“Lieber Mann,” said the lady, “just look at all that snow!”

“Snow!” replied the lieber Mann, “snow in summer! But that is impossible!”

“I think it must be snow,” said the wife, doubtfully. Then, “But only see the beautiful mountains.”

“Hm, hm,” remarks the lieber Mann, regarding them superciliously through his eye-glass; “I can't say that they are particularly well-formed!” Here, at least, is a head that is secure; no jocund day on the misty mountain-tops, no broad, magnificent ranges at high noon, and no twilight with “mountains in shadow, forests asleep,” have power to move that astute Kopf a fraction of an inch. “They have better mountains in Berlin,” remarked a German friend in an undertone.

Bludenz is a little town in the Vorarlberg, which means, you know,—or you don't know,—the country lying before the Adler or Arlberg, and the Arlberg is the watershed between the Rhine and Danube, and the boundary between the Vorarlberg and the Tyrol. This sounds guide-bookish,—and very naturally, as I have copied it word for word from Baedecker,—but one must say something of praiseworthy solidity once in a while. Bludenz is a railway terminus, which fact may not interest the world at large, but it did us hugely. We rejoiced in the thought of the great post-wagon, the cracking of whips and blowing of horns, and long, delightful, breezy rides over the hills and far away. Our after-experience of this lively whip-cracking and horn-blowing has led us to the conclusion that it is decidedly at its best in the opera, where the Postilion of Lonjoumeau sings his pretty song and cracks his whip for a gay refrain; and that it is all very well, when you yourself are going off early in the morning amid the prodigious noise and the excitement of stowing away passengers and packages, while a crowd of village loafers stand gazing and gaping at you,—in short, when you are “in it,” you know; but when it is only other people who are going, only they for whom all the noise is made and you are roused from your gentle slumbers at half past four perhaps, you do not regard the postilion and his accomplishments with unqualified admiration.

You wish you had gone to the “Eagle,” or the “Ox,” or the “Lamb,” or the “Swan,” or the “Lion,” or to any other beast or bird, rather than to the “Post,” where the “Post” omnibus and its relations make your mornings miserable. These are always the names of the inns in these little towns. There is usually a “Crown” too, and often an “Iron Cross.” But people with nerves mustn't go to the “Post.” Our party left its nerves in the city before starting off on a rough tour, yet even we have suffered at various inns which bear the names of “Post,” but which should properly be called “Pandemonium.”

Our first postilion wore the regulation long-boots, a postilion hat, and silver pansies in his ears. He cracked his whip nobly,—as well as we have heard Sontheim in the theatre at Stuttgart, and that is no faint praise. He was the jolliest of men, on the best of terms with all the dwellers among the mountains. He stopped at every inn and house where a glass of wine was to be had, and I think I may say invariably drank it. All the goodwives joked with him and smiled at him; all the men had a friendly word for him, and all the peasant-girls who had lovers in distant villages were continually stopping our great ark to send packages, letters, or messages to the absent swain. He seemed to be for the whole region a friend, patron, and adviser, a tutelary deity in fact, and grand receptacle for confidences. He had a shrewd, kind face, large clear eyes, and had driven among these mountains twenty-six years. It really did not seem a bad way of spending one's days, always going over the mountain-passes, knowing everybody and loved by everybody in the country round. I admired him extremely, and felt very much elated at the honor of sitting up on the box with so important a personage.

He told us a story of an Englishman who was inquiring how much it would cost to be driven to a certain point.

The driver replied so many gulden.

“Impossible,” said the Englishman; “Baedecker says half as many.”

“I'll tell you what,” answered the postilion; “let Baedecker take you, then.”

Having laughed at the poor stranger, it is only fair that we now laugh at the natives.

“I spiks English,” an innkeeper said to me. “Ein joli hearse,” he remarked further, to my great bewilderment, until it gradually dawned upon me that this was English for “a pretty horse.” There is a house in this region whose proprietor wished to receive English lodgers, and signified his desire to the world by hanging out this sign: “English boards here.”

After all, there are no more ludicrous verbal blunders in the world than we English-speaking people continually make during our first year's struggles with this mighty German tongue; and nowhere do a foreigner's queer idioms and laughable choice of words meet with more kindness, charity, courtesy, and helpfulness than in Germany. It is astonishing how kind the Germans in general are in this respect. It is all very well to say politeness demands such kindness; but where things sound so irresistibly droll, I think sometimes we might shriek with laughter where the Germans kindly correct, and do not even smile.

But we are neglecting Bludenz, for which little town we mean to say a friendly word. It is usually considered only a stepping-stone to something higher and better, but we liked it. The mountains rise on both sides of the village and its one long road, where we walked at sunset, crossing the bridge which spans the foaming, tumbling, rushing Ill. Beyond the ravine of the Brandnerthal, the Scesaplana, the highest mountain of the Raeticon range, rises from fields of snow. We strolled along, breathing the sweet, pure air, meeting groups of peasant-girls, all of whom carried their shoes in their hands. It was a fête day, and they had been to vespers, putting their shoes on at the church door and removing them when they came out. This most practical and admirable method of saving shoe-leather, I venture to recommend to the fathers of large families. It must be superior to “copper-toes.” When we came back to take our supper in a garden, somebody was playing Strauss waltzes, with a touch so loving, spirited, and magnetic, it seemed as if the mountains themselves must whirl off presently in response. In this land a garden where people drink beer and wine, eat, smoke, rest, think, enjoy, all in the open air, is sometimes made up of most delightful surroundings; but on the other hand it sometimes means two emaciated, dyspeptic trees, a gravel floor, and half a dozen wooden tables with wretchedly uncomfortable chairs. But if it is an enclosure in the open air with one table large enough to hold a beer-mug, it is still a garden.

Our Bludenz garden was pleasant enough, however, and we sat there till the mountains sank deeper and deeper into the gloom; and the Mädchen who waited upon us told us about her native village, where her brother was schoolmaster; our landlady came, too, and talked with us, quietly, and somewhat with the manner of a hostess entertaining guests. It was all very pretty and simple and kindly, and seemed the most natural thing in the world, as it happened. The people here had intelligent faces, clear eyes like children, and pleasant, courteous ways. The trouble about all these little places is, we don't like to leave them. It seems as if the new place could not be so pretty, the new people so kindly and simple and honest, and we go about weakly, leaving fragments of our hearts everywhere.

Then the mountain tramps we had, climbing high for a view, and then glorying in it! A little maid was once our guide, who chattered to us prettily all the way, and told us the chief events of her life,—how her father and mother were dead, and her uncle beat her, and made her work too hard; how there was a great, great, great bird who sat up on the barren cliffs so high that never a Jäger could climb near enough to shoot him; how he had eyes as big as a cow's, and when he sat on the right cliff the weather was always fair, but when he sat on the left there was storm among the mountains. This must be true, for we saw the cliffs. Then she solemnly assured us, if we would go early to the chapel in a neighboring village the following morning, we could get absolution for all our sins, because, as it appeared, the priest there was going far away, as missionary to America, and in farewell was washing the souls of his flock with extra thoroughness. We told the child it was very fortunate the good priest was going to America. From what we had heard of that ungodly land, we thought it must be in sad need of missionary work.

The scenery from Bludenz to Landeck is a series of picturesque, varied views. The road ascends with many windings to the pass of the Arlberg, when you are at last in the Tyrol; and the green, richly wooded mountains, the jagged, rocky ones, the lofty peaks where the snow gleams, together with the pure, invigorating air, and the swing of our mountain chariot with its five horses,—which, if not very rapid, were at least strong and fresh,—made altogether a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

On the Arlberg we gathered our first Alpine roses. They are not so very pretty, except as they grow often in masses so luxuriant as to give a rosy effect to a broad slope. That is, they are pretty, but their graceful cups droop so quickly when you take them from their native air and native heights, that they are disappointing.