Chapter I: Part 1

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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.
_

CONTENTS.

- HAMBURG AT A FIRST GLANCE. ..................................... 1

- HEIDELBERG IN WINTER. .......................................... 12

- A FLYING SHEET FROM PARIS. ..................................... 24

- BADEN-BADEN. ................................................... 32

- RAMBLES ABOUT STUTTGART ........................................ 44

- THE SOLITUDE. .................................................. 55

- A DAY IN THE BLACK FOREST. ..................................... 63

- THE LENNINGER THAL. ............................................ 69

- FRANCISKA VON HOHENHEIM. ....................................... 77

- "NUREMBERG THE ANCIENT." ....................................... 85

- SOME WUeRTEMBERG TOWNS. ........................................ 91

- IN A GARDEN. ................................................... 95

- LINDAU AND BREGENZ. ............................................ 100

- THE VORARLBERG. ................................................ 106

- IN THE TYROL. .................................................. 115

- INNSBRUCK. ..................................................... 121

- OHENSCHWANGAU AND NEU SCHWANSTEIN. ............................. 127

- LIFE IN SCHATTWALD. ............................................ 137

- UP THE AIRY MOUNTAIN. .......................................... 145

- THE ENGADINE. .................................................. 154

- RAGATZ. ........................................................ 161

- A FLYING TRIP TO THE RHINE FALLS. .............................. 168

- DOWN FROM THE HIGH ALPS. ....................................... 175

- BY THE LAKE OF LUCERNE. ........................................ 182

- UP AND ON AND DOWN THE RIGI. ................................... 187

- A KAISER FEST. ................................................. 194

- THE CANNSTADT VOLKSFEST. ....................................... 203

- IN A VINEYARD. ................................................. 211

- AMONG FREILIGRATH'S BOOKS. ..................................... 218

- THREE FUNERALS. ................................................ 225

- SOME CHRISTMAS PICTURES. ....................................... 232

- HAMBURG AGAIN. ................................................. 239

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_.

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 Dore, 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. Dore!--more hideous faces, more leering phantoms, more writhing legs and arms, please!" For perhaps Dore 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 Dore 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 Hollaender," 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 Vierlaenderin 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 Luebeck, 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 Zooelogical Gardens, and then immediately after--is it to observe the contrast or the similarity between the lower animals and noble man?--the Exchange or Boerse, 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!'"

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 facades. 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.

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 abbe 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 abbe, 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 Musee 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 mediaeval 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 Moliere, 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 Hotel 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 Caesars 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!

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.