Chapter VII: Part 7

Great vats of grape-juice; wine-presses in active operation, some of which were sensible, improved, modern-looking things, some primitive as can be imagined; the well-to-do people using the modern improvements, while their humbler neighbors employed small boys, who danced a perpetual jig in broad, low tubs placed above the large vats that received the juice. We ascended the little ladders at the side of the vats, to satisfy ourselves as to the kind of feet with which the grapes were being pressed, "the bare white feet of laughing girls" being, of course, the picture before our mind's eye. What we actually saw was, in some cases, a special kind of wooden shoe, and in others ordinary, well-worn leather boots! These solemn small boys in tubs, their heads and shoulders bobbing up and down before our eyes as they energetically stamped and jumped and crushed the yielding mass, filled us with such utter amazement at the time that we forgot to laugh, but they are now an irresistibly comical remembrance. Their intense gravity was remarkable. It would seem as if the ordinary small boy, who can legitimately jump upon _anything_ until all the life is crushed out of it, ought to be happy. Perhaps these were, with a happiness too deep for smiles. And perhaps--which is more likely--it was hard work, and they realized it meant business for their papas, and they must spring and jump with zeal, and there was no play in the matter. One child of ten or so had such a dignified, important air, as he stood at the side of his tub, into which his father was pouring grapes! He looked like an artist conscious of power waiting for his time, knowing that immense results would depend upon his antics. Let me mention with pride that our milkwoman's _Mann_ owns the largest press in the place, and her stalwart, pinky brother works it. So pink a mortal never was seen. He exhibited the mechanism of the press with tolerable clearness, though seriously incommoded by blushes. We thought he would vanish in a flame before our eyes. But, observing he grew pinker each time we addressed him, we wickedly prolonged the interview as long as possible.

Then up the hill we went, through narrow, steep paths, with vineyards on every side of us, in which men, women, and children were working busily. We met constantly long files of young men and maidens, carrying great baskets of grapes down to the village, all of whom gave us a cheery Gruess Gott.

We found the whole family in the vineyard working away busily, filling the huge, long, narrow baskets, which the men carry on their backs by a strap over the shoulders. They welcomed us cordially, and bade us eat as many grapes as we could, which we all with one accord, with great earnestness and simplicity, _did_. If you have never eaten grapes in a vineyard, perhaps you don't know how fastidious and dainty you become, how you take one grape here, one there, select the finest from a cluster, then toss the remainder into the basket. Deliciously cool and fresh, with a wonderful bloom on them, were they, and, together with the crisp autumn air, the busy bare-headed peasants working in all the vineyards as far as we could see, Untertuerkheim lying under the hill, and the little bridge across the narrow Neckar, they filled us with an innocent sort of intoxication. The brilliant Malagas with a touch of flame on them in the sunlight, white ones beyond, and rich black-purple clusters, lured us on. If the amount consumed by the foreign invaders during the first half-hour could be computed, it would seem a fabulous quantity to mention. We would indeed prefer to let it remain in uncertainty, one of those interesting unsolved historical problems about which great minds differ. But it was not in the least matter-of-fact eating; on the contrary, a most refined and elevated feasting upon fruits fit for the gods.

And then we worked, with an energy that won for us the goodman's wondering admiration, until every grape was gathered. Never before had the vines been cleared so fast, said our grateful host. From above and below and everywhere around came the sound of pistols and fireworks, each demonstration indicating that some one had gathered all his grapes. Now was the fitting moment for the presentation of the sausage, which was gracefully transferred from the nook where it was blushing unseen to the hands of our host, and was graciously, even tenderly, received. After which we devoted ourselves to pyrotechnic pursuits, and, this being a novel experience, we all burned our fingers, and nearly destroyed our friend the pinky man by directing, unwittingly, a fiery serpent quite in his face.

Then down, down over the hill through the thread-like paths between the vineyards, through the village in the twilight, where every one is still busy and the small boys still dancing away for dear life, suggesting--like Ichabod Crane, was it not?--"that blessed patron of the dance, St. Vitus," and past the great fountain, with the statue of the Turk grimly rising above half a dozen girls, slowly filling their buckets (you will never know what wise remarks on the "situation" that Turk occasioned), we sauntered along to the station, and presently the train whisked us away from the village and the gloaming and the pretty autumn scene, so real, so merry, so innocent, so healthy, and picturesque. Night and the city lights succeeded the twilight in the village. Our hearts bore pleasant memories and our hands baskets of grapes, given us at the last moment by that excellent and most sagacious person, our milkwoman.

We hope we were not straying from the true fold, but certainly our views on the temperance, or rather the total-abstinence, question were quite lax as we returned to Stuttgart that evening. The water in Germany is often so unpleasant and impure one learns to regard it as an undesirable, not to say noxious and immoral beverage, while the light native wines in contrast seem as innocent as water ought to be. And what is the strictest teetotaler to do when positively ordered by the best physicians not to drink the water here, under penalty of serious consequences in the shape of a variety of disorders? American school-girls, who persist in taking water because the home habit is too strong to be at once broken off, have an amusing way of examining their pretty throats from time to time to see if they are beginning to enlarge, for the _goitre_ is hinted at (whether with reason or not I do not know) as one of the possible evil effects of continued water-drinking in South Germany. It would seem that even the Crusaders would here yield to the stern facts, and at least color the water with the juice of the grapes that grow in their beauty on the hillsides everywhere around. And certainly _we_ may be pardoned for taking an extraordinary interest in this year's vintage; for have we not toiled with our own hands in the vineyards on the Neckar's banks, did we not see with our own eyes _those boots_, and is it not now the fitting time for the spirit of '76 to make our hearts glad?

AMONG FREILIGRATH'S BOOKS.

A poet's study, when he has lain in his grave but one short year, and the character and peculiarities which his presence gave to his surroundings are yet undisturbed, is a sacred spot. In light mood, ready to be agreeably entertained, we went out to pleasant Cannstadt to see Freiligrath's books, and even in crossing the threshold of his library the careless words died on our lips, so strong a personality has the room, so heavy was the atmosphere with associations and memories of a man who had lived and loved and toiled and suffered.

How much rooms have to say for themselves, indeed! How they catch tricks and ways from their occupants! How faultily faultless and repellent are some, how strangely some charm us and appeal to us! This room of Freiligrath's speaks in touching little ways of the man who lived there and loved it, as plainly as a young girl's room tells a sweet, innocent story while the breeze moves its snowy curtains, beneath which in his golden cage a canary trills, and the sunshine steals in on the low chair, the bit of unfinished work, the handful of violets in a glass, the book opened at a favorite poem. The girl is gone, but the room is as warm from her presence as the glove that has just been drawn from her hand. Freiligrath sleeps in the Cannstadt _Friedhof_, where for a thousand years the sturdy little church, with its red roof and square tower, has watched by the silent ones; but his chair is drawn up by the great study-table, the familiar things he loved are as he left them, and his presence is missed even by them who knew him not. It is, perhaps, this air of having been touched by a _loving_ hand, that impresses one especially in the arrangements here,--a corner room, looking north and east, having two windows, through which air and sunshine freely come, and from which the poet used to gaze upon a landscape lovely as a dream; far extended, tranquil, idyllic, in the distance, the Suabian Alps, rising against the horizon beyond long, soft slopes of fertile lands crowned by vineyards, and broad, sunny meadows intersected by lines of the martial poplar; a glimpse of the lovely, wooded heights of the park of the "Wilhelma," that "stately pleasure dome," which King Wilhelm of Wuertemberg decreed, and the Neckar close by, rushing over its dam, and sweeping beneath the picturesque stone bridge with its fine arches, and flowing on past the old mill and quaint gables of Cannstadt to meet the distant Rhine. How Freiligrath must have loved the sound of the water that sang to him ever, night and day, not loud but continuously, soothing him as a cradle-song soothes a weary child, in these latter years at quiet Cannstadt after his life-struggles, and fever, and pain! They say he loved it well, and that he would often rise from his work and stand long by the window, looking out on the singing water and the peaceful landscape, watching it as we watch a loved face that has for us a new, tender grace with every moment.

The room does not look like the abode of a solitary man. The easy-chairs seem accustomed to be drawn near one another for a cosy chat between friends, and the expression of all things is genial, _gemuethlich_. Not a bookworm, not simply a great intellect lost in his own pursuits, forgetting the world outside, but a strong, warm heart throbbing for humanity, must have been the genius of a room like this.

Under his table lies a deerskin rug, a trophy of his son Wolfgang's prowess in the chase. On the walls are pictures of different sizes, irregularly hung in irregular places, and each one seems to say, "I was selected from all others of my kind because Freiligrath loved me." They are mostly heads of his favorite authors and poets, small pictures as a rule,--the one of Schiller sitting by the open vine-clad window,--Goethe, Heine, Uhland, and many more of the chief poets of Germany; Byron, several of Longfellow and the Howitts (dear friends of Freiligrath), Burns, Burns's sons and the Burns Cottage, Goldsmith, Carlyle, Jean Paul; a small colored picture of Walter Scott bending his gentle face over his writing in front of a great stained-glass window in the armory at Abbotsford; a cast of the Shakespeare mask; a few scenes from Soest, a picturesque old town, where Freiligrath was, when a boy, apprenticed to a merchant; a lock of Schiller's hair,--quite red,--with an autograph letter; a lock of Goethe's hair, which is dusky brown, with letters, and an unpublished verse written for a lottery at a fair in Weimar:--

"Manches herrliche der Welt
Ist in Krieg and Streit zerronnen;
Wer beschuetzet and erhaelt
Hat das schoenste Loos gewonnen."

--_Goethe._

_Weimar_, d. 3 Sept. 1826.

Madame Freiligrath was Ida Melos, daughter of Professor Melos of Weimar, and when a child was an especial pet of Goethe. She and her sister tell many pleasant anecdotes of their life there, and of their playfellows, Goethe's grandchildren, with whom they have always been on terms of close intimacy; and of Goethe as a beautiful old man, smiling and throwing bonbons from his window to the group of children at play in the garden below. Mrs. Freiligrath told us she was a tall, mature girl, with a wise, grave look far beyond her years, and they always made her enact Mignon in the _tableaux vivants_. She was so young she did not know what it was all about, but she "remembers she liked wearing the wings." Two gentlewomen, speaking with a tender sadness of their long, eventful lives, telling us of associations with some of the leading spirits of the age, charming in their stories of the past, appreciative of all that is best in the latest literature, they harmonize well with the quiet old house where they graciously dispense their hospitality.

Gently and gravely they showed us the treasures of the library, which probably during the spring will come under the auctioneer's hammer, and be scattered through the world. Seeing it in its completeness,--seven or eight thousand volumes amassed through the skill and patience of a true book-lover, who allowed himself in his frugal life the one luxury of a rich binding now and then, and who had a perfect genius for discovering rare old books hidden away in dusty odd corners in London bookshops, being, in this respect, as his friend Wallesrode says, in a recent article in "Ueber Land and Meer," a real "Sunday child,"--one must regret it cannot be preserved intact, and given as a Freiligrath memorial to some college.

There are first editions here, which on account of their rareness could command from connoisseurs their weight in gold: Schiller's "Robbers," Frankfort and Leipsic, 1781, first edition; the second edition, 1782, and many other early editions of Schiller's works, small, rough, curious-looking, precious books: also, first edition Goethe's "Gotz von Berlichingen," 1773; "Werther," Leipsic, 1774. The German and English classics stand in noble, stately rows, with much of value in Italian, French, and Spanish. The English collection is especially rich, however. There is a "Hudibras," first edition, 1662; "Rasselas," first edition; a "Don Quixote" with Thackeray's autograph on the fly-leaf, written in Trinity College; and there are "Elzevirs" of 1640-47. The ballads, legends, Eastern fairy-tales, and imaginative lore are very attractive. There is a fine selection of works on German, French, English, Scotch, and Irish dialects, in all of which Freiligrath was extremely proficient. How many "Miltons" there are I do not dare say, and the number is not important, since this does not pretend to be an inventory; but there was a whole shelf of them, from the first edition on.

On the library-table lay superb volumes, bound in richest calf,--Beaumont and Fletcher, London, 1679, in folio; Ben Jonson, 1631, folio; Spenser, 1611; Shakespeare, the rare folio of 1685, and many other valuable Shakespeares. If only some one who knows how to love them will buy these books! It seems like sacrilege to imagine them in the hands of the unworthy or careless.

One could spend days, years, in that quiet room, with its subtle influences and suggestions, surrounded by old friends on the shelves, and by books that look as if they would deign to open their hearts to us and become our friends also. And there must one ponder long upon the varied life of the poet and patriot,--how Fate was always putting fetters on his Pegasus, binding him as an apprentice as a boy in Soest, later making him a clerk in a banking-house in Amsterdam, and forcing him again to write at a clerk's desk in London; and how, nevertheless, he sang himself, as some one says of him, into the hearts of the German people. They say he was so loved, and his face so well known through his photographs, that often, upon going through a town where he personally was unknown, the school-children in the streets would recognize him, and instantly begin to sing poems of his that were set to music and sung everywhere throughout Germany, particularly the well-known

_O, lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!_
"O, love, while love is left to thee!"

It is said, too, that once on a steamer, during the Franco-Prussian war, a woman came up to him and suddenly put her arms round his neck and kissed him. "That's for Wolfgang in the field," said she, having a son herself at the front.

And after his struggles for freedom, the persecution he endured because of his political principles and his immense influence upon the people, after his flight into England and long exile, he came back finally, honored and revered, to his native land, and spent his last years in this peaceful abode. He breathed his last, like Goethe, sitting in his chair. The Neckar still sang on, outside the vine-clad window. Within, the poet's voice was hushed forever.

THREE FUNERALS.

Three funeral processions which have lately moved through Stuttgart streets have awakened, on account of peculiar associations connected with each, more attention and interest, more feeling I might perhaps say, than we selfish beings usually accord to these mournful black trains that mean _other_ people's sorrows.

Of these three, the first was the train that bore the Herzog Eugen of Wuertemberg to his last resting-place. Young, popular, after Prinz Wilhelm presumptive heir to the throne; the husband of the Princess Vera,--who is the niece and adopted daughter of the queen, and according to report a very lovable person,--he had apparently enough to make life sweet at the moment he was called from it. Recently he went to Duesseldorf to take command of a regiment there. The Princess Vera remained at the Residenz in Stuttgart, but was intending to join him immediately. A slight cold neglected,--a rich banquet followed by night-air,--and suddenly all was over. He died after an illness of a day or two, while the princess, summoned by a telegram, was on the train half-way between Stuttgart and Duesseldorf.

The air is full of fables, and the common people "make great eyes" when they speak of the poor duke, and dark hints of foul play, poison, enemies, cabals, perfidy, delight all good souls with a taste for the sensational. They, however, who have the slightest ground for _knowing_ anything about the matter, and, indeed, all rational people, declare it was simply a cold, inflammation, congestion, such as makes havoc among frail mortal flesh, and never draws any distinction in favor of blood royal.

After the ceremonies at Duesseldorf came the solemn reception of the remains here. Early in the evening the streets were thronged with an immense but quiet, patiently waiting crowd, and, along the line where the procession was to pass, burning tar cast a fitful light over the mass of people: and the flickering flames, fanned by the night breeze, now would illumine the Residenz and Schloss Platz and the fine outline of the "Old Palace," in the chapel of which the duke was to lie; now, subsiding, would leave the scene in half gloom. The slow, sad voice of the dirge announced the approach of the procession, the whole effect of which was intensely solemn and impressive. Outriders with flickering torches, the escort of cavalry, Uhlans of the Wuertemberg regiment in which he had served, floating streamers of black and white, the hearse drawn by coal-black horses, slowly passing, with the loud ringing of all the bells, made one hold one's breath as the black figures went by in the lurid light. The inevitable hour had, indeed, awaited him, and snatched him from his worldly honors and family affection, and "der edle Ritter," in spite of all the "boast of heraldry and pomp of power" that so lately had surrounded him, lay silent and cold, while the flames burned strong and warm and the loud bells clanged, and he rode slowly on to the chapel in the old castle, beneath which he now rests with others of his race.

This is not the first sad, stately night-procession that has occurred here. Wilhelm, father of the present king, was a strong, original nature, averse to form, and gave strict orders concerning his own burial. They were to bury him on a hill, some miles from the city, between midnight and dawn, and simply fire one gun over him, he had said. His son, however, while observing his wishes as to time and place of burial, took care that the state and dignity of the procession should befit royalty dethroned by death. At midnight the train left the palace, and, with its long line of nobles, cavaliers, and soldiers, swept slowly out of the city amid the constant ringing of bells and booming of cannon, and wound through the soft summer night along the Neckar's banks, over the bridge at Cannstadt, while great fires blazed on every hill-top, and the old king, in the majesty of death, was borne on, past the fair vineyards and soft fertile slopes of the land he had loved so well, to the Rothenberg, on the summit of which they laid him to rest and fired one gun just as the morning star dropped below the horizon.

"And had he not high honor?
The hillside for his pall,
To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall,
And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,
Over his bier to wave--."

Certainly, nothing less than the "Burial of Moses" can have been so grand as this last dark ride of the strong old king! We behold the train in its magnificent gloom winding along the Neckar and up the vine-clad hillside, so often as we see its route, after nightfall. Dusky, stately forms ride by, and the wail of the dirge sounds on the evening breeze. Why may we not all be laid at rest at night? Sunlight is cruel to eyes blinded by tears, and glaring day hurts grieved hearts. The Night is so solemn and tender, why may she not help us bury our dead?

The next procession that we saw with earnest eyes, after the Duke Eugen's, was that of a student of the Polytechnic School, who died from the effects of a sword-wound. There was no anger, no provocation, nothing which according to the student code might perhaps soften the memory of the deed. It was simply a trial of skill with the _Degen_, a slender, murderous-looking sword. Both were expert fencers. The presence of friends incited them to do their best. Their pride was roused; neither would yield, and in the excitement one received a cut in the head, from the effects of which he died in a few days. He was a promising scholar and a favorite with the students, and the affair seems very shocking in the cruel uselessness of such a death, though the more bitter fate of course is his who unwittingly did the deed and must live with the memory of it in his heart.

These student funerals occur now and then. We have had three or four this winter. Our countrymen, not sympathizing with student ways and student traditions, are sometimes apt to call such spectacles "comedies," but to us the comic element has never been apparent. First come the musicians, playing a dirge,--on this last occasion a funeral march from Beethoven. Near the hearse walk the students of the corps of which the deceased had been a member. They wear their most elegant uniform,--black velvet blouses or jackets, buff knee-breeches, high boots, the cap and sash of the color which distinguishes the corps, long buff gauntlets, and swords,--altogether quite striking. On the draped coffin are the dead student's cap, sash, and sword. The other corps walk behind, the professors also, and friends.

The last funeral of the three was hardly grand enough to be called a procession. It was only a few carriages winding slowly out to the new _Friedhof_. A touching little story preceded it, perhaps not uncommon, yet, to those who watched its close, invested with a peculiar pathos. A young American girl came here last fall, with high hopes and unbounded energy and courage. She was in the art-school, and it may be her eager spirit forgot that bodies too must be cared for, and it may be that her naturally frail constitution had been weakened by overwork before she came; but at all events a cold, which she ignored in her zeal and devotion to her studies, led to an illness from which she never recovered. She was entirely alone and unknown, and at first no one except the people in her _pension_ knew of her sickness. Patient, uncomplaining, and reserved, she bore whatever came, and was finally taken, as she grew worse, to a hospital, where she could command better and more exclusive care. As the facts became known in the American colony, she was ministered to most tenderly, and flowers and delicacies of every description were sent daily to her little room at the _Olga Heil Anstalt_. Indeed, the good sister who nursed her there found it difficult to guard her from the visits and kindly proffered administrations of newly made friends, who came full of tender sympathy for the lonely girl. Of her loneliness she never made complaint. When asked by our consul why she had not at once sent for him when she was first ill, she replied, smilingly, "Because I knew you had quite enough to do without taking care of me." In fact, she sent for no one, and only through accident did the English clergyman and the consul hear of her case. And, lying in her bare room in a foreign hospital, hearing only the foreign tongue of which she was not yet mistress, and at best, when her countrywomen came to cheer her, seeing only new faces, instead of her own home-people, her brave, bright smile was always ready to greet the visitor, even when she was too languid to utter a word. Her one confessed regret was that her illness took her from her art-studies; and her eyes would beam with delight when a fellow-student in the art-school would speak of it, of the professors, and the work there. Her whole enthusiastic soul was absorbed in this theme, so that her suffering seemed, to her, of no account in comparison with her high aims and ideal. Utterly single-hearted, she lay there, brave and uncomplaining to the last, and seemed the only one unconscious of the pathos of her position. Her thoughts were so given to the beautiful pictures she longed to make, and to the beautiful pictures others had made, she had none at all left for the poor girl dying alone in a strange land, who was filling so many eyes with tears and so many hearts with pain. She faded away very gently, and, for a long time before her death, suffered more from extreme languor than from acute distress. After it was all over, there was a little, solemn service in the hospital chapel, attended by the many who had interested themselves for her, and some of the professors and pupils of the Kunst Schule, who added their exquisite wreaths to the lovely flowers about her. And then she was taken to the new _Friedhof_ and laid beneath the pavement of the Arcade, while a little band of wanderers stood by--united, many of them, only through their sympathy with her who was gone--and listened to the solemn words of the English service, and looked thoughtfully out through the arches upon a tender gray sky, a wide expanse of land--now almost an unbroken surface, but one day to be filled with graves--and off upon the hills rising softly beyond; and the last violets and tuberoses were strewn upon her resting-place, and the little band separated, each going his way, but in many hearts was a tender memory for the young girl whose brief story was just ended,--a sad thought for her who never seemed sad for herself.

SOME CHRISTMAS PICTURES.

A few days before Christmas the three kings from the Orient came stealing up our stairs in the gloaming. They wore cheap white cotton raiment over their ordinary work-a-day clothes, and gilt-paper crowns on their heads. They were small, thin kings. Melchior's crown was awry, Kaspar felt very timid, and was continually stumbling over his train; but Balthazar was brave as a lion, and nudged his royal brothers,--one of whom was a girl, by the way,--putting courage into them with his elbows; and the dear little souls sang their songs and got their pennies, and their white robes vanished in the twilight as their majesties trudged on towards the next house. There they would again stand in an uncertain, tremulous row, and sing more or sing less, according to the reception they met with, and put more or less pennies--generally less, poor dears!--into their pockets. Poor, dear, shabby little wise men,--including the one who was a girl,--you were potentates whom it was a pleasure to see, and we trust you earned such an affluence of Christmas pennies that you were in a state of ineffable bliss when, at last, freed from the restraint of crowns and royal robes, you stood in your poor home before your Christmas-tree. It may have been a barren thing, but to your happy child-eyes no doubt it shone as the morning star and blossomed as the rose.

Other apparitions foretelling the approach of Christmas visited us. One was an old woman with cakes. Her prominent characteristic is staying where she is put, or rather where she puts herself, which is usually where she is not wanted. Buy a cake of this amiable old person, whose breath (with all the respect due to age let it be said) smells unquestionably of _schnapps_, and she will bless you with astounding volubility. Her tongue whirls like a mill-wheel as she tearfully assures us, "God will reward us,"--and _how_ she stays! Men may come and men may go, but the old woman is still there, blessing away indefatigably. She must possess, to a remarkable degree, those clinging qualities men praise in woman. Indeed, her tendrils twine all over the house; and when, through deep plots against a dear friend, we manage to lead her out of our own apartment, it is not long before, through our dear friend's counter-plots, the old woman stands again in our doorway with her great basket on her head, smiling and weeping and bobbing and blessing as she offers her wares. Queer old woman, rare old plant!--though you cannot be said to beautify, yet, twining and clinging and staying forever like the ivy-green, you were not so attractive as the little shadowy kings, but you, too, heralded Christmas; and may you have had a comfortable time somewhere with sausage and whatever is nearest your heart in these your latter days! That she is not a poetical figure in the Christmas picture is neither her fault nor mine. She may, ages ago, have had a thrilling story, now completely drowned in _schnapps_, but that she exists, and sells cakes according to the manner described, is all we ever shall know of her.

Then the cakes themselves--"genuine Nurembergers," she called them--were strange things to behold. Solid and brown, of manifold shapes and sizes, wrapped in silver-paper, they looked impenetrable and mysterious. The friends in council each seized a huge round one with an air as of sailing off on a voyage of discovery, or of storming a fortress, and nibbled away at it. As a massive whole it was strange and foreign, but familiar things were gradually evolved. There was now and then a trace of honey, a bit of an almond, a slice of citron, a flavor of vanilla, a soupcon of orange.

Gazing out from behind her cake, one young woman remarks, sententiously,--

"It's gingerbread with things in it."

Another stops in her investigations with,--

"It is as hard as a brownstone front."

"It's delightful not to know in the least what's coming next," says another. "I've just reached a stratum of jelly and am going deeper. Farewell."

"Echt Nuernberger, echt Nuernberger!" croaked the old dame, still nodding, still blessing; and so, meditatively eating her cakes, we gazed at her and wondered if any one could possibly be as old as she looked, and if she too were a product of "Nuremberg the ancient," to which "quaint old town of toil and traffic" we wandered off through the medium of Longfellow's poem, as every conscientious American in Europe is in duty bound to do. It is always a comfort to go where he has led the way. We are sure of experiencing the proper emotions. They are gently and quietly instilled into us, and we never know they do not come of themselves, until we happen to realize that some verse of his, familiar to our childhood, has been haunting us all the time. What a pity he never has written a poetical guide-book!

These unusual objects penetrating our quiet study hours told us Christmas was coming, and the aspect of the Stuttgart streets also proclaimed the glad tidings. They were a charming, merry sight. The Christmas fair extended its huge length of booths and tables through the narrow, quaint streets by the old _Stiftskirche_, reaching even up to the _Koenigstrasse_, where great piles of furniture rose by the pavements, threatening destruction to the passer-by. Thronging about the tables, where everything in the world was for sale and all the world was buying, could be seen many a dainty little lady in a costume fresh from Paris; many a ruddy peasant-girl with braids and bodice, short gown and bright stockings; many types of feature, and much confusion of tongues; and you are crowded and jostled: but you like it all, for every face wears the happy Christmas look that says so much.

These fairs are curious places, and have a benumbing effect upon the brain. People come home with the most unheard-of purchases, which they never seriously intended to buy. Perhaps a similar impulse to that which makes one grasp a common inkstand in a burning house, and run and deposit it far away in a place of safety, leads ladies to come from the "Messe" with a wooden comb and a string of yellow-glass beads. In both cases the intellect is temporarily absent, it would seem. Buy you must, of course. What you buy, whether it be a white wooden chair, or a child's toy, or a broom, or a lace barbe, or a blue-glass breastpin, seems to be pure chance. The country people, who come into the city especially to buy, know what they want, and no doubt make judicious purchases. But we, who go to gaze, to wonder, and to be amused, never know why we buy anything, and, when we come home and recover our senses, look at one another in amazement over our motley collections.

At this last fair a kind fate led us to a photograph table, where old French beauties smiled at us, and all of Henry the VIII.'s hapless wives gazed at us from their ruffs, and the old Greek philosophers looked as if they could tell us a thing or two if they only would. The discovery of this haven in the sea of incongruous things around us was a fortunate accident. The photograph-man was henceforth our magnet. To him our little family, individually and collectively, drifted, and day by day the stock of Louise de la Vallieres, and Maintenons, and Heloises, and Anne Boleyns, and Pompadours, and Sapphos, and Socrates, and Diogenes, etc.,--(perfect likenesses of all of them, I am sure!)--increased in our _pension_, where we compared purchases between the courses at dinner, and made Archimedes and the duchess of Lamballe stand amicably side by side against the soup-tureen. Halcyon, but, alas! fleeting days, when we could buy these desirable works of art for ten _pfennig_, which, I mention with satisfaction, is two and one half cents!

But, of all the Christmas sights, the Christmas-trees and the dolls were the most striking. The trees marched about like Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane. There were solid family men going off with solid, respectable trees, and servants in livery condescending to stalk away with trees of the most lofty and aristocratic stature; and many a poor woman dragging along a sickly, stunted child with one hand and a sickly, stunted tree with the other.

As to the doll-world into which I have recently been permitted to penetrate, all language, even aided by a generous use of exclamation-points, fails to express its wondrous charm. A doll kindergarten, with desks and models and blackboards, had a competent, amiable, and elderly doll-instructress with spectacles. The younger members were occupied with toys and diversions that would not fatigue their infant minds, while the older ones pored over their books. They had white pinafores, flaxen hair, plump cheeks. I think they were all alive.

Then there were dolls who looked as if they lay on the sofa all day and read French novels, and dolls that looked as if they were up with the birds, hard-working, merry, and wise,--elegant, aristocratic countess dolls, with trunks of fine raiment; and jolly little peasant dolls, with long yellow braids hanging down their backs, and stout shoes, and a general look of having trudged in from the Black Forest to see the great city-world at Christmas. Such variety of expression, so many phases of doll-nature,--for nature they have in Germany! And in front of two especially alluring windows, where bright lights streamed upon fanciful decorations, toys, and a wonderful world of dolls, was always a great group of children. Once, in the early evening, they fairly blockaded the pavement and reached far into the street, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, not talking much, merely devouring those enchanted windows with their eager eyes; some wishing, some not daring to wish, but worshipping only, like pale, rapt devotees. And we others, who labor under the disadvantage of being "grown up," looked at the pretty doll-world within the windows and the lovely child-world without, and wished that old Christmas might bring to each of us the doll we want, and never, never let us know that it is stuffed with sawdust.

HAMBURG AGAIN.

It seems almost like having been in two places at once to be able to tell from observation a Christmas Tale of Two Cities. First there was Stuttgart, where the sun was pouring down warm and summerish on the hills around the city, and where we were borne away on the glad tide that went sweeping along towards Christmas under the fairest skies that ever smiled on saint or sinner in mid-winter, until it grew so near the time we almost heard the Christmas bells. And then there was Hamburg, to which place--having consigned ourselves to the tender mercies of a sleeping coupe--we went rushing off through the night, and found the dear, glad Christmas just going to happen there, too, and the great Northern city seemed very noisy and bold and out-in-the-world after Stuttgart, nestled so snugly among its hills.

Hamburg has, however, its quiet spots, if you seek them under the great elms in the suburbs, or among the quaint streets in the oldest portions of the city. One of the very stillest places is a paved court by St. George's Church, where the little, old houses of one story all look towards three great crosses in an octagonal enclosure, on which Christ and the two thieves hang, and Mary and John stand weeping below. It has always been still there when we have passed through, though close to the busy streets. It is a place with a history, I am sure. Indeed, what place is not? But it is reticent and knows how to keep its secrets. Perhaps Dickens might have made something out of the grave, small houses that have been staring at the crosses so many long years.

A very good place for moralizing, too, is down by the Elbe, where the great ships from all quarters of the earth lie, and you hear Dutch and Danish sailors talking, and don't understand a word. There commerce seems a mighty thing, and the world grows appallingly great, and you feel of as much importance in it as the small cat who sits meditatively licking her paws down on the tug-boat just below you.

But this was to be more or less about Christmas. Christmas in general is something about which there is nothing to say, because it sings its own songs without words in all our hearts; but a story of one particular Christmas may not be amiss here, since it tells of a pretty and graceful welcome which Germans knew how to give to a wanderer,--a welcome in which tones of tenderness were underlying the merriment, and delicate consideration shaped the whole plan.

In a room radiant, not with one Christmas-tree, but with five,--a whole one for each person being the generous allowance,--stood a lordly fir, glistening with long icicles of glass, resplendent with ornaments of scarlet and gold and white. The stars and stripes floated proudly from its top; unmistakable cherries of that delectable substance, Marzipan, hung in profusion from its branches; and at its base stood the Father of his Country. George, on this occasion, was a doll of inexpressibly fascinating mien, arrayed in a violet velvet coat, white satin waistcoat and knee-breeches, lace ruffles, silver buckles, white wig, and three-cornered hat, and wearing that dignified, imperturbable Washingtonian expression of countenance which one would not have believed could be produced on a foreign shore. He held no hatchet in his hand, but graciously extended a document heavily sealed and tied with red, white, and blue ribbons.

This document was written in elegant and impressive English. A very big and fierce-looking American eagle hovered over the page, which was also adorned by the arms of the German Empire and of Hamburg. The purport of the document was that George Washington, first President of the United States, did herewith present his compliments to a certain wandering daughter of America, wishing her, on the part of her country, family, and friends,

"A merry Christmas and happy New Year,"

and "all foreign authorities, corporations, and private individuals were enjoined to promote, by all legal means of hospitality and good-will, the loyal execution of the above-mentioned wishes." It displayed the names of several highly honorable witnesses, and concluded:--

"Given under my hand and seal at my permanent White House
residence, Elysium, 24th December, 1876.

---- "_George Washington._"

And the seal bore the initials of the mighty man.

The tree yielded gifts many and charming, but the sweetest gift was the kindly thought that prompted the pretty device. Though one had to smile where all were smiling, yet was it not, all in all, quite enough to make one a little "teary roun' the lashes," especially when one is very much "grown up," and so has not the remotest claim upon the happy things that, "by the grace of God," belong to the children? Such scenes make one feel the world is surely not so black as it is painted.

There was during the festivities, later, a bit of mistletoe over the door, which, in an indirect, roundabout way, through our ancestral England, was also meant as a tribute to America, and which caused much merriment during the holidays in a family unusually blessed with cousins in assorted sizes. When certain flaxen-haired maidens felt that their age and dignity did not permit them to indulge in such sports, and so resisted all allurements to stand an instant under the mistletoe-bough, what did the bold young student cousins? Each seized a twig of green and stood it up suggestively in a cousin's fair braided locks, when she was at last "under the mistletoe," and

"I wad na hae thought a lassie
Wad sae o' a kiss complain!"

None but the brave deserve the fair, and then--lest any one should be shocked--they were positively all cousins, and when they were more than five times removed I can solemnly affirm I _think_ it was the hand only that was gallantly lifted to the lips of Cousin Hugo, or Cousin Rudolph, or Cousin Siegfried; and, if I am mistaken after all, Christmas comes but once a year, and youth but once in a lifetime.

At the theatre, Christmas pieces were given especially for the children. The Stadt Theatre one evening was crowded with pretty little heads, the private boxes full to overflowing; and across the body of the house a great, solid row of orphan girls in a uniform of black, with short sleeves and a large white kerchief pinned soberly across the shoulders. They wear no hats in winter, nor do common housemaids here. A friend in Stuttgart remarked innocently to a servant who was walking with her to the theatre one bitter cold night, "Why, Luise, you'll freeze; you ought to wear a hat or hood." "No, indeed!" said the girl, quite repudiating the idea, "I am no _frauelein_." They do not seem to suffer any evil consequences, never having known anything different, and perhaps the little orphans, too, are not so cold as they look. It may be they are made to go bareheaded, to teach them their station and humility, but it seems a miracle that it does not teach them influenza. The little things were in the seventh heaven of delight, and the play a bit of pure, delicious nonsense,--a fairy-tale with an old, familiar theme,--the three golden apples and the three princesses who pluck them, and in consequence are plunged into the depths of the earth, where a fire-breathing dragon is their keeper; the despair of their royal father, who is a portly old gentleman with a very big crown, and his proclamation that whoever, high or low, shall rescue them may wed them; then the procession that sets out in search of the missing maidens, with the tailor, the gardener, and the hunter in advance, and the adventures of the three, until the hunter, who is the beautiful, good young man who always succeeds,--in fairy-tales,--finally rescues the princesses, and marries the youngest and loveliest, while the tailor and gardener, who have conducted themselves in a treacherous and unseemly manner, are punished according to the swift retribution that always overtakes offenders--in fairy-tales.

The action was extremely rapid, the scenery very effective; there were perfect armies of children on the stage, some of whom danced a kind of Chinese mandarin ballet, and some of whom represented apes, and also danced in the suite of the Prince of Monkeyland, one of the rejected suitors of the princesses. In actual life the Prince of Monkeyland is, unfortunately, not always rejected. There was a pretty scene when the sunlight streamed through the Gothic windows of an old castle, and red-capped dwarfs hopped about the stone floor, and played all sorts of pranks by the old well. And then there was the man in the moon, with his lantern; and all the women in the moon, who were blue, filmy, misty creatures, bowing and swaying in a way that made the children through the house scream with laughter; and these moony maidens were so very ethereal they could only speak in a whisper, and almost fainted when the hunter, who happened to be up that way, addressed them.

"Speak softly, softly, noble stranger," they implored, in a whispering chorus, shrinking from him in affright, with their hands on their ears. "Thy voice is like a thunder-clap."

It was certainly one of the prettiest spectacular dramas imaginable, with its innocent, droll plot; and to see a good old-fashioned fairy-tale put on the stage so well, and to see it with hundreds of blissful, ecstatic children, was thoroughly enjoyable.

Through the holidays social life here seems to resolve itself chiefly into great family gatherings, and the custom of watching the old year out is very general. One party of between thirty and forty persons, being only brothers and sisters with their children, was a charming affair. The dignified played whist, and the frivolous sang and were merry in other rooms. Tea and light cakes were served frequently during the evening, from the arrival of the guests until the supper at eleven, when the long table was brilliant with choice glass and silver and flowers; and fresh young faces and sweet, benign elderly ones were gathered around. A family party can be a dismal, dreary assembling of incongruous elements that make one soul-sick and weary of the world, or it can be a tender, cheery, blessed thing. There are, indeed, many varieties of family parties. Most of the large ones are perhaps no better than they ought to be; but _this_ gathering of a clan happened to possess the intangible something that cheers and charms.

There were jests and toasts and laughter and blushes, and there was a wonderful punch, brewed by the eldest son of the house in an enormous crimson glass punch-bowl,--which, like the "Luck of Edenhall," "made a purple light shine over all,"--and dipped out with a gold ladle; and its remarkably intoxicating ingredients, particularly the number of bottles of champagne poured in at the last, I shall never divulge.

The host rose just before midnight, and alluded briefly to certain losses, and causes for sadness experienced by the family during the year; yet they were still, he said very simply, united, loving, and hopeful; he then gave the toast to the New Year, and they all drank it heartily, standing, as the clock was striking twelve, after which was a general movement through the room, warm greetings, hand-pressures and kisses, and suspicious moisture about many eyes, though lips were smiling bravely.

Then came a walk home through the great city, whose streets were crowded full at two o'clock in the morning. "Prosit Neujahr! Prosit Neujahr!" sounded everywhere, far and near. A band of workmen, arm in arm, tramp along in great jollity, pushing their way and greeting the whole world. "Prosit Neujahr!" they cry to the young aristocrat; "Prosit Neujahr!" is the hearty response. For an hour all men are brothers, and everybody turns away from the sad old year, and gives an eager welcome to the new young thing, whom we trust, though we know him not. Above the surging multitude, and the hoarse, loud voices and impetuous hearts, and wild welcoming of the unknown, the starlit night seems strangely still, and the quiet moon shines down on the great frozen Alster basin, around which reaches the twinkling line of city lights. Beyond are the city spires. "Round our restlessness His rest," says some one softly; and so

_Prosit Neujahr_!

Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.

NOTICES OF "ONE SUMMER."

"No more charming story than this has appeared since Howells's
'Chance Acquaintance.' 'One Summer' is a delightful, and withal
sensible, love-story, which one will be loath to stop reading
until the conclusion is reached. The characters are exceedingly
attractive, without anything of the superhuman or sensational
about them, but full of life, vigor, and common-sense; and a
tinge of genuine romance spreads over every chapter."--_New
Haven Journal and Courier._

"A delightfully fresh and spirited little romance. The style is
graceful and spirited to an eminently pleasing degree; and the
plot is charmingly simple and interesting. The hero and heroine
are drawn with rare skill and naturalness. Their acquaintance
begins by an untoward accident, which sets them at loggerheads;
and the means by which their misunderstanding is cleared up, and
they gradually begin to esteem each other, form the substance of
the story, which has a heartiness of tone, and an apparent
freedom from effort in its telling, that make it peculiarly
attractive."--_Boston Gazette._

"One of the most charming stories of the season."--_Chicago
Inter-Ocean._

"A bright, happy story, delightfully natural and easy. It is
just suited for a pleasant afternoon in a hammock, or lying in a
breezy shade."--_Boston Traveller._

"It is one of those fresh and breezy love-stories one meets with
but twice or thrice in a lifetime. Altogether for charm of
style, simpleness of diction, and pleasantness of plot, the book
is quite inimitable."--_Rocky Mountain News._

"A story of great merit, both as a novel and a work of art. In
reading it, one meets on nearly every page some delicate touch
of Nature, or dainty bit of humor, or pleasant piece of
description."--_The Independent_ (New York).

"One of the best of summer novels. If we are not mistaken, it
will be borrowed and lent around, and laughed over, and possibly
cried over, and hugely enjoyed, by all who get a chance to read
it."--_The Liberal Christian._

"This little book is one of the most delightful we ever read. It
has made us laugh until we cried; and, if it has not made us cry
out of pure sadness, it is because our heart is very
hard."--_Christian Register_ (Boston).

"The story is charmingly told. The fragrant breath of a rural
atmosphere pervades its scenes; much of the character-painting
is admirably well done; there is a freshness and vivacity about
the style that is singularly attractive; and the whole action of
the play comprised within the limits of 'One Summer' has a
flavor of originality that commands the unflagging attention of
the reader."--_Boston Transcript._