III. UNIVERSITY LIFE AND TRAVEL IN EUROPE. 1845-1848. (continued 2)

We went to Baden and to the first hotel, and had a fine dinner, and saw the Burnetts off. Then, of course, to the gaming-table, where Colquhoun speedily lost all his money, and I so much that I had but ten florins left. “Never mind; we’ll pump on Rücker,” said Colquhoun.

We went up to visit the old castle. While there, Rücker took off his overcoat, in which he had his pocket-book, and laid it over a chair. When we returned to the hotel the pocket-book was gone! There we were, with a hotel-bill to pay and never a cent wherewith to pay it. I had, however, still ten florins. Colquhoun suddenly remembered that he had seen something in the town, price ten florins, which he must buy. It was something which he had promised to buy for a relative in England. It was a very serious case of necessity.

I doubted my dear friend, but having sworn him by all his gods that he would not gamble with the money, I gave it to him. So he, of course, went straight to the gaming-table, and, having luck, won enough to pay our debt and take us home.

I should mention that Rücker went up to the castle and found his pocket-book with all the money. “For not only doth Fortune favour the bold,” as is written in my great unpublished romance of “Flaxius the Immortal,” “but, while her hand is in, also helps their friends with no unsparing measure, as is marvellously confirmed by Machiavelli.”

Vacation came. My friends scattered far and wide. I joined with three German friends and one Frenchman, and we strapped on our knapsacks for a foot-journey into Switzerland. First we went to Freiburg in Baden, and saw the old Cathedral, and so on, singing, and stopping to drink, and meeting with other students from other universities, and resting in forests, amid mountains, by roaring streams, and entering cottages and chatting with girls. Hurra! frei ist der bursch!

One afternoon we walked sixteen miles through a rain which was like a waterfall. I was so drenched that it was with difficulty I kept my passport and letter of exchange from being ruined. When we came out of the storm there were six of us! Another student had, unseen, joined our party in the rain, and I had never noticed it!

We came to a tavern at the foot of the Rigiberg. My pack was soaked. One friend lent me a shirt, another a pair of drawers, and we wrapped ourselves in sheets from the beds and called for brandy and water hot—a pleasing novelty to the Germans—and so went to bed. The next day we ascended the Rigi; found many students there; did not see the sun rise in the morning, but still a mighty panorama, wondrous fair, and so walked down again. And receiving my carpet-bag at Lucerne, whither I had had the precaution to send one, I dressed myself again in clean linen and went back to Germany. I meant to travel more in Switzerland, but it was very rainy that year, and, as it proved, I did wisely.

I returned to Spitz, but his house was full of English, and he informed me, rather exultantly and foolishly, that he had no room for me, and could not tell me where to go, “every place was full.” As I had spent money freely with him I did not like it. The head-waiter followed me out and recommended the Black Eagle, kept by Herr Lehr. There I went, got a good room, and for months after dined daily at its table-d’hôte. I sent friends there, and returned to the house with my wife twenty years later. My brother also went there long after, and endeared himself to all, helping Herr Lehr to plant his vines. In after years Herr Lehr had forgotten me, but not my brother. Lehr’s son was a gentlemanly young fellow, well educated. He became a captain, and was the first officer killed in the Franco-German war.

Vacation passed, and the students returned and lectures were resumed. There was a grand Commers or students’ supper meeting at which I was present; and again the duelling-ground rang with the sound of blades, and all was merry as before. Herr Zimmer, the University dancing-master, gave lessons and cotillion or waltzing-parties thrice a week, and these I regularly attended. Those who came to them were the daughters of the humbler professors and respectable shopkeepers. During the previous session I had taken lessons from a little old Frenchman, who brought his fiddle and a pretty daughter twice a week to my room, where, with Ward, we formed a class of three.

This gentleman was a perfect type—fit to be staged without a touch of change—of the old emigré, who has now vanished, even from among the French. His bows, his wit—la grace extra’ordinaire—the intonations of his voice, and his vivacity, were beyond the art of any actor now living. There were many more peculiar and marked types of character in the last generation than now exist, when Everybody is becoming Everybody else with such fearful rapidity.

There were four great masked balls held in Heidelberg during the winter, each corresponding to a special state of society. That at the Museum or great University Club was patronised by the elite of nobility and the professors and their families. Then came the Harmonie—respectable, but not aristocratic. Then another in a hotel, which was rather more rowdy than reputable; not really outrageous, yet where the gentlemen students “whooped it up” in grand style with congenial grisettes; and, finally, there was a fancy ball at the Waldhorn, or some such place, or several of them, over the river, where peasants and students with maids to match could waltz once round the vast hall for a penny till stopped by a cordon of robust rustics. We thought it great fun with our partners to waltz impetuously and bump with such force against the barrier as to break through, in which case we were not only greatly admired, but got another waltz gratis. We had wild peasant-dancing in abundance, and the consumption of wine and beer was something awful.

One morning a German student named Grüner, who had been at Jena, came to my room with a brilliant proposition. We should go to Frankfort and hear Jenny Lind sing in her great rôle of Norma. I had already heard her sing in concert in Heidelberg—where, by the way, the students rushed into her room as soon as she had left, and tore to strips the bed in which she had slept, and carried them away for souvenirs, to the great amazement of an old Englishman who had just been put into the room. (N.B.—I was not in the party.) I objected that it was getting to the end of the month, and that I had not money enough for such an outing. To which he replied, that we could go on to Homburg, and make money enough at rouge-et-noir to cover all expenses. This obvious and admirable method of raising funds had not occurred to me, so I agreed to go.

We went to Frankfort, and heard the greatly overrated Jenny Lind, and the next day proceeded to Hamburg, and at once to the green table. Here I lost a little, but Grüner made so much, that on returning to the table I took from it a sufficient sum to cover all our expenses, and told him that, come what might, it must remain untouched, and gave him the remainder. That afternoon I played for five-franc pieces, and at one time had both my side-pockets so full that they weighed very heavily. And these again I lost. Then Grüner lost all his, and came imploring me for more, but I would not give him a kreutzer. Matters were beginning to look serious. I had a reserved fund of perhaps fifty napoleons, which I kept for dire need or accidents. That evening I observed a man who had great luck, winning twice out of three times. I watched his play, and as soon as he lost I set a napoleon—by which I won enough to clear my expenses, and buy me, moreover, a silver-headed cane, a gold watch-chain, and two Swiss watches. I may mention by the way, that since that day I have never played at anything, save losing a ten-franc piece in after years at Wiesbaden.

There dined very often at our table-d’hôte in the Adler an old German lady named Helmine von Chézy, who had a reputation as a poetess. With her I sometimes conversed. One day she narrated in full what she declared was the true story of Caspar Häuser. Unto her Heine had addressed the epigram—

“Helmine von Chézy, Geborene Klencke, Ich bitte Sie, geh’ Sie Mit ihrer Poésie, Sonst kriegt Sie die Kränke!”

“Helmine von Chézy, Born Klencke, I pray With your pestilent poems You’ll hasten away.”

There was also an elderly and very pleasant Englishman, with whom I became rather intimate, and who was very kind to me. This was the well-known Captain Medwin, who had known so well Byron, Shelley, Trelawny, and their compeers. He was full of anecdotes, which I now wish that I had recorded. He introduced me to Lady Caroline de Crespigny, who was then living permanently in Heidelberg. This lady, who was said to be then fifty years of age, was still so young-looking and beautiful, that I cannot remember in all my life to have ever seen such an instance of time arrested. I also made the acquaintance of Professor Creutzer, author of the Symbolik, a work of vast learning. [156] And I went to balls, one at Professor Gervinus’s.

I entered myself with the great Leopold Gmelin for a course of lectures on chemistry, and worked away every morning with the test-tubes at analytical chemistry under Professor Posselt, at which I one day nearly poisoned myself by tasting oxalic acid, which I did not recognise under its German name of Kleesäure. I read broad and wide in German literature, as I think may be found by examining my notes to my translation of Heine’s works, and went with Field several times to Frankfort, to attend the theatre, and otherwise amuse ourselves. There I once made the acquaintance of the very famous comic actor Hasselt. He was a grave, almost melancholy man when off the stage, very fond of archæology and antiquities.

The winter drew to an end. I had long felt a deep desire to visit Munich, to study art, and to investigate fundamentally the wonderful and mysterious science of Æsthetics, of which I had heard so much. So I packed up and paid my bills, and passing through one town where there was in the hotel where I stopped, the last wolf ever killed in Germany, and freshly killed (I believe he has been slain two or three times since), and at another where I was invited to see a criminal beheaded by the sword—which sight I missed by over-sleeping myself—I came through Stuttgart, Ulm, and Augsburg to the German Athens.

I went to the Hôtel Maulick, where I stayed a week. Opposite to me at table every day sat the famous Saphir, the great Vienna wit and licensed joker. Of course I soon became acquainted with some students, and was entered at the University, and got the card which exempted me from being arrested by any save the University beadles. I believe that we even had our own hangman, but as none of my friends ever had occasion for his services I did not inquire. The same ticket also entitled me to attend the opera at half-price, and if it had only included tobacco and beer gratis, it would have been the means of vast economies.

I entered myself for a course of lectures by Professor Friedrich Thiersch on Æsthetics. He it was who had trained Heine to art, and I venture to say that in my case the seed fell on good ground. I took in every thought. His system agreed, on the whole, perfectly with that advanced in after years by Taine, and marvellously well with that set forth in the “Essays, Speculative and Suggestive,” of J. A. Symonds—that is, it was eclectic and deductive from historical periods, and not at all “rhapsodical” or merely subjective. I bought the best works, such as Kugler’s, for guides, and studied hard, and frequented the Pinacothek and Glyptothek, and I may say really educated myself well in the history of art and different schools of æsthetics. My previous reading, travel, and tastes fitted me in every way to easily master such knowledge. I also followed Becker’s course on Schelling, but my heart was not in it, as it would have been two years before. The lectures of Professor Henry and Gmelin and true Science had caused in me a distrust of metaphysics and psychological systems and theories. I began to see that they were all only very ingenious shufflings and combinations and phases of the same old cards of Pantheism, which could be made into Theism, Pietism, Atheism, or Materialism to suit any taste. I was advancing rapidly to pure science, though Evolution was as yet unknown by the name, albeit the Okenites and others with their Natur-philosophie were coming closely to it.

In fact, I think it may be truly said that, as regarded deducing man and all things from a prima materia or protoplasm by means of natural selection and vast study of differentiation, they were exactly where Darwin, and Wallace, and Huxley were when we began to know the latter. I do not agree with Max Müller in his very German and very artfully disguised and defended theory that the religious idea originated in a vague sense of the Infinite in the minds of savages; for I believe it began with the bogeys and nightmares of obscure terror, hunger, disease, and death; but the Professor is quite right in declaring that Evolution was first created or developed in the German Natur-philosophie, the true beginning of which was with the Italian naturalists, such as Bruno and De Cusa. What is to be observed is this, yet few understand it, nor has even Symonds cleared the last barrier—that when a Pantheist has got so far as to conceive an identity between matter and spirit, while on the other hand a scientific materialist rises to the unity of spirit and matter, there is nothing to choose between them. Only this is true, that the English Evolutionists, by abandoning reasoning based on Pantheistic poetic bases, as in Schelling’s case, or purely logical, as in Hegel’s, and by proceeding on plainly prosaic, merely material, simply scientific grounds after the example of Bacon, swept away so much rubbish that people no longer recognised the old temple of Truth, and really thought it was a brand new workshop or laboratory. But I can remember very distinctly that to me Evolution did not come as if I had received a new soul, or even a new body, but had merely had a bath, and put on new garments. And as I became an English Evolutionist in due time, I had this great advantage, that by beginning so young I succeeded in doing very thoroughly what Symonds and Maudsley and many more clearly understand is most difficult—that is, not merely to accept the truth, but to get rid of the old associations of the puzzle of a difference between spirit and matter, which thing caused even the former to muddle about “God,” and express disgust at “Materialism,” and declare that there is “an insoluble problem,” which is all in flat contradiction to pure Evolution, which does not meddle with “the Unknowable.”

There was a Jewish professor named Karl Friedrich Neumann, who was about as many-sided a man as could be found even in a German university. He was a great Chinese scholar—had been in China, and also read on mathematics and modern history. I attended these lectures (not the mathematics) and liked them: so we became acquainted. I found that he had written a very interesting little work on the visit recorded in the Chinese annals of certain Buddhist monks to Fusang—probably Mexico—in the fifth century. I proposed to translate it, and did so, he making emendations and adding fresh matter to the English version.

Professor Neumann was a vigorous reader, but he soon found that I was of the same kind. One day he lent me a large work on some Indian subject, and the next I brought it back. He said that I could not have read it in the time. I begged him to examine me on it, which he did, and expressed his amazement, for he declared that he had never met with anything like it in all his life. This from him was praise indeed. Long after, in America, George Boker in closer fashion tested me on this without my knowing it, and published the result in an article.

I became acquainted with a learned writer on art named Foerster, who had married a daughter of Jean Paul Richter, and dined once or twice at his house. I also saw him twenty years later in Munich. George Ward came in from Berlin to stay some weeks in Munich. I saw Taglioni several times at the opera, but did not make her acquaintance till 1870. The great, tremendous celebrity at that time in Munich was also an opera-dancer, though not on the stage. This was Lola Montez, the King’s last favourite. He had had all his mistresses painted, one by one, and the gallery was open to the public. Lola’s was the last, and there was a blank space still left for a few more. I thought that about twenty-five would complete the collection.

Lola Montez had a small palace, and was raised to be the Countess of Landsfeldt, but this was not enough. She wished to run the whole kingdom and government, and kick out the Jesuits, and kick up the devil, generally speaking. But the Jesuits and the mob were too much for her. I knew her very well in later years in America, when she deeply regretted that I had not called on her in Munich. I must have had a great moral influence on her, for, so far as I am aware, I am the only friend whom she ever had at whom she never threw a plate or book, or attacked with a dagger, poker, broom, chair, or other deadly weapon. We were both born at the same time in the same year, and I find by the rules of sorcery that she is the first person who will meet me when I go to heaven. I always had a great and strange respect for her singular talents; there were very few indeed, if any there were, who really knew the depths of that wild Irish soul. Men generally were madly fascinated with her, then as suddenly disenchanted, and then detracted from her in every way.

There were many adventuresses in later years who passed themselves about the world for Lola Montez. I have met with two friends, whom I am sure were honest gentlemen, who told me they had known her intimately. Both described her as a large, powerful, or robust woman. Lola was in reality very small, pale, and thin, or fréle, with beautiful blue eyes and curly black hair. She was a typical beauty, with a face full of character, and a person of remarkably great and varied reading. One of her most intimate friends was wont to tell her that she and I had many very strange characteristics in common, which we shared with no one else, while we differed utterly in other respects. It was very like both of us, for Lola, when defending the existence of the soul against an atheist, to tumble over a great trunk of books of the most varied kind, till she came to an old vellum-bound copy of Apuleius, and proceed to establish her views according to his subtle Neo-Platonism. But she romanced and embroidered so much in conversation that she did not get credit for what she really knew.

I once met with a literary man in New York who told me he had long desired to make my acquaintance, because he had heard her praise me so immeasurably beyond anybody else she had ever known, that he wanted to see what manner of man I could be. I heard the same from another, in another place long after. Once she proposed to me to make a bolt with her to Europe, which I declined. The secret of my influence was that I always treated her with respect, and never made love or flirted.

An intimate of both of us who was present when this friendly proposal was made remarked with some astonishment, “But, Madame, by what means can you two live?” “Oh,” replied Lola innocently and confidingly, “people like us” (or “who know as much as we”) “can get a living anywhere.” And she rolled us each a cigarette, with one for herself. I could tell a number of amusing tales of this Queen of Bohemia, but Space, the Kantean god, forbids me more. But I may say that I never had more really congenial and wide-embracing conversations with any human being in my life than with Her Majesty. There was certainly no topic, within my range, at least, on which she could not converse with some substance of personal experience and reading. She had a mania for meeting and knowing all kinds of peculiar people.

I lived in the main street near the Karlsthor, opposite a tavern called the Ober-Pollinger, which was a mediæval tavern in those days. My landlady was a nice old soul, and she had two daughters, one of whom was a beauty, and as gentle and Germanly good as a girl could be. Her face still lives in a great picture by a great artist. We lived on the third floor; on the ground was a shop, in which cutlery and some fireworks were sold. It befell that George Ward and I were very early in the morning sitting on a bench before the Ober-Pollinger, waiting for a stage-coach, which would take us to some place out of town; when bang! bang! crack! I heard a noise in the firework shop, and saw explosions puffing smoke out of the bursting windows. Great God! the front shop was on fire; it was full of fireworks, such as rockets and crackers, and I knew there was a barrel of gunpowder in the back-shop! I had found it out a few days before, when I went there to buy some for my pistols. And the family were asleep. In an instant I tore across the street, rushed screaming upstairs, roused them all out of bed, howling, “It burns!—there’s gunpowder!” Yet, hurried as I was, I caught up a small hand-bag, which contained my money, as I got the girls and their mother downstairs. I was just in time to see a gigantic butcher burst open the two-inch door with an axe, and roll out the barrel containing two hundred pounds of gunpowder, as the flames were licking it. I saw them distinctly.

It was the awful row which I made which had brought the people out betimes, including the butcher and his axe. But for that, there would have been a fearful blow-up. But the butcher showed himself a man of gold on this occasion, for he it was who really saved us all. A day or two after, when I was jesting about myself as a knightly rescuer of forlorn damsels, in reply to some remark on the event, George Ward called me to order. There was, as he kindly said, too much that he respected in that event to make fun of it.

George Ward is deeply impressed on my memory. He was a sedate young fellow, with a gift of dry humour, now and then expressed in quaint remarks, a gentleman in every instinct, much given to reading and reflecting. When he said anything, he meant it, and this remark of his struck me more than the event itself had done.

And to think that I quite forgot, in narrating my Princeton experiences, to tell of something very much like this incident. It was in my last year, and my landlady had just moved into a new house, when, owing to some defect in the building, it caught fire, but was luckily saved after it had received some damage. I awoke in the night, flames bursting into my room, and much smoke. It happened that the day before a friend in Alabama had sent me eleven hundred dollars wherewith to pay for him certain debts. My first thought was for this money, so I hurried to get the key of the secretary in which it was—keys never can be found in a hurry—and when found, I could not find the right one in the bunch. And then it stuck in the lock and would not open it, till finally I succeeded and got the money out. And then, not finding myself quite dead, I in a hurry turned the contents of three drawers in my bureau and my linen on to the bed, threw on it my coats and trousers, tied the four corners of a sheet together in one bundle, caught up my boots, fencing-foils, &c., to make another, and so rescued all I had. I verily believe I did it all in one minute. That day the President, old Dr. Carnahan, when I plead “not prepared” for failing at recitation, excused me with a grim smile. I had really that time some excuse for it. During the Munich incident I thought of the sheets. But I had gunpowder and two girls to look after in the latter place, and time and tide—or gunpowder and girls—wait for no man.

And so, with study and art and friends, and much terrible drinking of beer and smoking of Varinas-Kanaster, and roaming at times in gay greenwoods with pretty maids alway, and music and dancing, the Munich semester came to an end. I proposed to travel with an English friend named Pottinger to Vienna, and thence by some adventurous route or other through Germany to Paris; which was a great deal more to undertake in those days than it now is, entailing several hundred per cent. more pain and sorrow, fasting, want of sleep and washing, than any man would encounter in these days in going round the world and achieving la grande route; or the common European tour, to boot. For it befell me ere I reached my journey’s end to pass eighteen nights in one month in Eilwagen or waggons, the latter being sometimes without springs. And once or twice or thrice I was so utterly worn and wearied that I slept all night, though I was so tossed about that I awoke in the morning literally bruised from head to foot, with my chimney-pot hat under my feet; which was worse than even a forced march on short commons—as I found in after years—or driving in a Russian telega, or jackassing in Egypt, or any other of the trifles over which pampered tourists make such heart-rending howls now-a-days.

So we went to Prague, and thence to Vienna, which, in the year 1847, was a very different place indeed to what it is at present; for an unbounded gaiety and an air of reckless festivity was apparent then all the time to everybody everywhere. Under it all lurked and rankled abuses, municipal, social, and political, such as would in 1893 be deemed incredible if not unnatural (as may be read in a clever novel called Die schöne Wienerinn), but on the surface all was brilliant foam and sunshine and laughing sirens. What new thing Strauss would play in the evening was the great event of the day. I saw and heard the great Johann Strauss—this was the grandfather—and in after years his son, and the schöne Edie his grandson. Everywhere one heard music, and the Prater was a gay and festive paradise indeed. There was no business; the town lived on the Austrian, Hungarian, Bohemian, Russian, and other nobility, who in those days were extravagant and ostentatious to a degree now undreamed of, and on strangers. As for free and easy licentiousness, Paris was a trifle to it, and the police had strict orders to encourage everything of the kind; the result being that the seventh commandment in all its phases was treated like pie-crust, as a thing made to be broken, the oftener the better. Even on our first arriving at our hotel, our good-natured landlord, moved by the principle that it was not good for a young man to be alone, informed us that if we wished to have damsels in our rooms no objection would be interposed. “Why not?” he said; “this is not a church”; the obvious inference being that to a Viennese every place not a church must necessarily be a temple to Venus. And every Wiener, when spoken to, roared with laughter; and there were minstrels in the streets, and musicians in every dining-place and café, and great ringing of bells in chimes, and ’twas merry in hall when beards wagged all, and “the world went very well in those days.” Vienna is a far finer town now, but it is a Quaker meeting-house compared to what it was for gaiety forty years ago.

This change of life and manners has spread, and will continue to spread, all over the world. In feudal times the people were kept quiet by means of holidays, carnivals, processions, fairs, fairy-tales, treats, and indulgences; even the common childish instinct for gay dress and picturesqueness of appearance was encouraged, and at high tides everybody was fed and given to drink: so that if the poor toiled and fasted and prayed, it might be for months, they had their joyous revellings to anticipate, when there were free tables even for strangers. In those days—

“A Christmas banquet oft would cheer A poor man’s heart for half the year.”

This Middle Age lasted effectively until the epoch of the Revolution and railroads, or, to fix a date, till about 1848. And then all at once, as at a breath, it all disappeared, and now lives, so to speak, only in holes and corners. For as soon as railroads came, factories sprang up and Capital began to employ Labour, and Labour to plot and combine against Capital; and what with scientific inventions and a sudden stimulus to labour, and newspapers, the multitude got beyond fancy dresses and the being amused to keep them quiet like children, and so the juventus mundi passed away. “It is a perfect shame!” say the dear young lady tourists, “that the peasantry no longer wear their beautiful dresses; they ought to be obliged to keep them up.” “But how would you like, my dear, if you were of the lower orders, to wear a dress which proclaimed it?” Here the conversation ceaseth, for it becomes too deep for the lady tourist to follow.

How it was we wandered I do not distinctly remember, but having visited Nuremberg, Prague, and Dresden, we went to Breslau, where a fancy seized us to go to Cracow. True, we had not a special visé from a Russian minister to enter the Muscovite dominions, but the police at Breslau, who (as I was afterwards told) loved to make trouble for those on the frontier, bade us be of good cheer and cheek it out, neither to be afraid of any man, and to go ahead bravely. Which we did.

There was a sweet scene at the frontier station on the Polish-Russian line at about three o’clock in the morning, when the grim and insolent officials discovered that our passports had only the police visé from Breslau! I was asked why I had not in my native country secured the visé of a Russian minister; to which I replied that in America the very existence of such a country as Russia was utterly unknown, and that I myself was astonished to find that Russians knew what passports were. Also that I always supposed that foreigners conferred a great benefit on a country by spending their money in it; but that if I could not be admitted, that was an end of it; it was a matter of very trifling consequence, indeed, for we really did not care twopence whether we saw Russia or not; a country more or less made very little difference to such travellers as we were.

Cheek is a fine thing in its way, and on this occasion I developed enough brass to make a pan, and enough “sass” to fill it; but all in vain. When I visited the Muscovite realm in after years I was more kindly received. On this occasion we were closely searched and re-searched, although we were not allowed to go on into Russia! Every square inch of everything was examined as with a microscope—even the small scraps of newspaper in which soap or such trifles were wrapped were examined, a note made as to each, and all put under paper-weights; and whatever was suspected—as, for instance, books or pamphlets—was confiscated, although, as I said, we were turned back! And this robbery accomplished, we were informed that the stage-coach, or rather rough post-waggon, in which we came, would return at five o’clock p.m., and that we could in it go back to Dresden, and might pass the time till then on a bench outside the building—reflecting on our sins! I had truly some papers about me which I did not care to have examined, but these were in my cravat, and even Russian ingenuity had not at that time got beyond picking pockets and feeling the linings of coats. It has since been suggested to me by something which I read that I was under suspicion. I had in Munich aided a Swiss student who was under police surveillance for political intriguing to escape, by lending him money to get away. It is probable that for this my passport was marked in a peculiar manner. My companion, Pottinger, was not much searched; all suspicion seemed to fall on me.

The stage went on, and Pottinger and I sat on the bench in a mild drizzle at half-past three in the morning, with as miserable a country round about as mortal man ever beheld. By-and-bye one of the subs., a poor Pole, moved by compassion and the hope of reward, cautiously invited us to come into his den. He spoke a very little German and a little Latin (Pottinger was an Oxford man, and knew several heavy classics, Greek and Latin, perfectly by heart). The Pole had a fire, and we began to converse. He had heard of America, and that Polish exiles had been well treated there. I assured him that Poles were admired and cherished among us like pet lambs among children, and the adored of the adored. Then I spoke of Russian oppression, and the Pole, in utmost secrecy, produced a sabre which had been borne under Kosciusko, and showed us a silver coin—utterly prohibited—which had been struck during the brief period of the Polish revolution.

The Pole began to prepare his coffee—for one. I saw that something must be done to increase the number of cups. He took up his book of prayers and asked of what religion we were. Of Pottinger I said contemptuously, “He is nothing but a heretic,” but that as for myself, I had for some time felt a great inclination towards the Panna—Holy Virgin—and that it would afford me great pleasure to conform to the Polish Catholic Church, but that unfortunately I did not understand the language. To which he replied, that if he were to read the morning service in Polish and I would repeat it word by word, that the Panna would count it to my credit just as if I had. And as I was praying in good earnest for a breakfast, I trust that it was accepted. Down on our knees we went and began our orisons.

“Leland! you --- humbug!” exclaimed Pottinger.

“Go away, you infernal heretic, and don’t disturb Christians at their devotions!” was my devout reply. So, prayers concluded, there was coffee and rolls for three. And so in due time the coach returned. I rewarded our host with a thaler, and we returned to Breslau, of which place I noted that the natives never ate anything but sweet cakes for their first morning meal.

We stopped at Görlitz, where I asked a woman standing in the half-doorway of the house of Jacob Böhme if that was his house. But she had never heard of such a man!

Dresden we thoroughly explored, and were at Leipzig during the great annual fair. These fairs, in those days, were sights to behold. Now they are succeeded by stupendous Expositions, which are far finer and inconceivably greater, yet which to me lack that kind of gypsy, side-show, droll, old-fashioned attraction of the ancient gatherings, even as Barnum’s Colossal Moral Show of half-a-dozen circuses at once and twenty-five elephants does not amuse anybody as the old clown in the ring and one elephant did of yore.

Thence to Berlin, where we were received with joy by the American students, who knew all about one another all over Germany. I very much enjoyed the great art gallery, and the conversation of those who, like myself, followed lectures on Æsthetics and the history of art. Thence to Magdeburg and Hanover, Dusseldorf—to cut it short, Holland and the chief cities in Belgium.

I noted one little change of custom in Berlin. In South Germany it was a common custom for students, when calling on a friend, to bring and leave generally a small bouquet. When I did this in Berlin my friends were astonished at it. This was an old Italian custom, as we may read in the beautiful One Hundred and Fifty Brindisi or Toasts of Minto.

“Porto a voi un fior novello, Ed, oh come vago e bello!”

In 1847 even a very respectable hotel in Holland was in any city quite like one of two centuries before. You entered a long antiquely-brown room, traversed full length by a table. Before every chair was placed a little metallic dish with hot coals, and a churchwarden pipe was brought to every visitor at once without awaiting orders. The stolid, literal, mechanical action of all the people’s minds was then wonderful. An average German peasant was a genius compared to these fresh, rosy-fair, well-clad Hollanders. It was to me a new phase of human happiness in imbecility, or rather in undisturbed routine; for it is written that no bird can fly like a bullet and doze or sleep sweetly at the same time. Yet, as from the Huns, the most hideous wretches in the world, there arose by intermixture the Hungarians, who are perhaps the handsomest, so from the Knickerbocker Dutch sprang the wide-awake New Yorkers! The galleries in Holland and Belgium were to me joys unutterable and as the glory of life itself. Munich and Thiersch still inspired me; I seemed to have found a destiny in æsthetics or art, or what had been wanting in Princeton; that is, how the beautiful entered into life and was developed in history and made itself felt in all that was worth anything at all. Modern English writers on this subject—with exceptions like that of J. A. Symonds, whose Essays I cannot commend too highly—are in the same relation to its grand truth and higher inspiration as Emerson and Carlyle to Pantheism in its mightiest early forms. For several years the actual mastery of æsthetics gave me great comfort, and advanced me marvellously in thought to wider and far higher regions.

I forget where I parted with Pottinger; all that I can remember was, that early in November I arrived alone in Paris, going to some small hotel or other, and that as all the fatigues of the past many weeks of weary travel seemed to come upon me all at once, I went to bed, and never left the house till four o’clock p.m. the next day. On the next I found my way into the Latin Quarter, and secured a not very superior room in the Place Saint-Michel, near the Ecole de Médecine, to which I moved my luggage.

I was very much astonished, while sitting alone and rather blue and overcast in my room, at the sudden entrance of a second cousin of mine named Frank Fisher, who was studying medicine in Paris. He had by some odd chance seen my name registered in the newspapers as having arrived at the hotel, and lost no time in looking me up. He lived on the other side of the Seine in the Boule Rouge, near the Rue Helder, a famous happy hunting-ground for les biches—I mean kids or the very dear. I must go forthwith to his quarters and dine, which I did, and so my introduction to Paris was fairly begun.

I attended at the Collége Louis le Grand, and at the Sorbonne, all or any lectures by everybody, including a very dull series on German literature by Philarete Châsles. I read books. Inter alia, I went through Dante’s “Inferno” in Italian aided by Rivarol’s translation, of which I possessed the very copy stamped with the royal arms, and containing the author’s autograph, which had been presented to the King. I picked it up on the Quai for a franc, for which sum I also obtained a first edition of Melusine, which Mr. Andrew Lang has described as such a delightful rarity. And I also ran a great deal about town. I saw Rachel, and Frédéric Lemaitre, and Mlle. Déjazet, and many more at the great theatres, and attended assiduously at Bobinot’s, which was a very small theatre in the Quartier Latin, frequented entirely by students and grisettes. I went to many a ball, both great and small, including the masked ones of the Grand Opera, and other theatres, at which there was dissipation and diablerie enough to satisfy the most ardent imagination, ending with the grande ronde infernale. I made many acquaintances, and if they were not by any means all highly respectable, they were at least generally very singular or notorious. One day I would dine at a place outside the Barrier, where we had a plain but fairly good dinner for a franc, vin compris, and where the honoured guest at the head of the table was the chef des claqueurs or head of the paid applauders at all the theatres. Then it would be at a private table-d’hôte of lorettes, where there was after dinner a little private card-playing. I heard afterwards that two or three unprincipled gamblers found their way into this nest of poor little innocents and swindled them out of all their money. When I was well in funds I would dine at Magny’s, where, in those days, one could get such a dinner for ten francs as fifty would not now purchase. When au sec, I fed at Flictoteau’s—we called him l’empoisonneur—where hundreds of students got a meal of three courses with half a bottle of ordinaire, and not so bad either, for thirty sous.

It happened one night at Bobinot’s that I sat in the front row of the stage-box, and by me a very pretty, modest, and respectable young girl, with her elder relations or friends. How it happened I do not know, but they all went out, leaving the young lady by me, and I did not speak to her.

Which “point” was at once seized by the house. The pit, as if moved by one diabolical inspiration, began to roar, “Il l’embrassera!” (He will kiss her), to which the gallery replied, “Il ne l’embrassera pas.”

So they kept it up and down alternately like see-sawing, to an intonation; and be it remarked, by the way, that in French such a monotonous bore is known as a scie or saw, as may be read in my romance in the French tongue entitled Le Lutin du Château, which was, I regret to say, refused by Hachette the publisher on account of its freedom from strait-laced, blue-nosed, Puritanical conventionalism, albeit he praised its literary merit and style, as did sundry other French scholars, if I may say it—who should not!

I saw that something must be done; so, rising, I waved my glove, and there was dead silence. Then I began at the top of my voice, in impassioned style in German, an address about matters and things in general, intermingled with insane quotations from Latin, Slavonian, anything. A change came o’er the spirit of the dream of my auditors, till at last they “took,” and gave me three cheers. I had sold the house!

There was in the Rue de la Harpe a house called the Hôtel de Luxembourg. It was the fragment of a very old palace which had borne that name. It had still a magnificent Renaissance staircase, which bore witness to its former glory. Washington Irving, in one of his earlier tales, describes this very house and the rooms which I occupied in it so accurately, that I think he must have dwelt there. He tells that a student once, during the Revolution, finding a young lady in the street, took her home with him to that house. She had a black ribbon round her neck. He twitched it away, when—off fell her head. She had been guillotined, and revived by sorcery.

I soon removed to this house, where I had two very good-sized rooms. In the same establishment dwelt a small actress or two, and divers students, or men who were extremely busy all the winter in plotting a revolution. It was considered as a nest of rather doubtful and desperate characters, and an American carabin or student of medicine told me of another who had fled from the establishment after a few days’ experience, “for fear lest he should have his throat cut.” But this was very silly, for none of us would have cut anybody’s throat for any consideration. Some time ago I read the “Memoirs of Claude,” who was the head of police in Paris during my time, and I was quite startled to find how many of the notorieties chronicled in his experiences had been known to me personally. As, for instance, Madame Marie Farcey, who he declares had a heart of gold, and with whom I had many a curious conversation. She was a handsome, very ladylike, suave sort of a person, who was never known to have an intrigue with any man, but who was “far and away” at the very head of all the immorality in Paris, as is well known to everybody who was deeply about town in the Forties. Claude himself I never knew, and it was to his possible great loss; for there came a time when I could, had I chosen, have given him information which would have kept him in office and Louis Philippe on the throne, and turned the whole course of the events of 1848, as I will now clearly and undeniably prove.

I did not live in the Hôtel de Luxembourg for nothing, and I knew what was going on, and what was coming, and that there was to be the devil to pay. Claude tells us in his “Memoirs” that the revolution of February 24 took him so much by surprise that he had only three hours’ previous notice of it, and really not time to remove his office furniture. Now, one month before it burst out I wrote home to my brother that we were to have a revolution on the 24th of February, and that it would certainly succeed. Those who would learn all the true causes and reasons of this may find them in my forthcoming translation of “Heine’s Letters from Paris,” with my notes. The police of Paris were very clever, but the whole organisation was in so few hands, and we managed so well, that they never found us out. It was beyond all question the neatest, completest, and cheapest revolution ever executed. Lamartine himself was not allowed to know anything about it till he was wanted for President. And all over the Latin Quarter, on our side of the river, in cafés and balls and in shops, and talking to everybody, went the mysterious dwellers of the Hôtel de Luxembourg, sounding public opinion and gathering signs and omens, and making recruits and laying trains, which, when fired, caused explosions all over Europe, and sounds which still live in history. And all the work was duly reported at head-quarters. The great secret of the success of the revolution was that it was in the hands of so few persons, who were all absolutely secret and trustworthy. If there had been a few more, the police would have found us out to a certainty. One who was suspected was “squared.”

At last the ball opened. There was the great banquet, and the muttering storm, and angry mobs, and small émeutes. There is a mere alley—I forget its name—on the right bank, which runs down to the Seine, in which it is said that every Paris revolution has broken out. Standing at its entrance, I saw three or four shots fired and dark forms with guns moving in the alley, and then came General Changarnier with his cavalry and made a charge, before which I fled. I had to dodge more than one of these charges during the day. Before dark the rioting was general, and barricades were going up. The great storm-bell of Nôtre Dame rung all night long.

The next morning I rose, and telling Leonard Field, who lived in the same hotel with me, that I was going to work in earnest, loaded a pair of duelling-pistols, tied a sash round my waist en révolutionnaire, and with him went forth to business. First I went to the Café Rotonde, hard by, and got my breakfast. Then I sallied forth, and found in the Rue de la Harpe a gang of fifty insurgents, who had arms and a crowbar, but who wanted a leader. Seeing that I was one of them, one said to me, “Sir, where shall we make a barricade?” I replied that there was one already to the right and another farther down, but that a third close at hand was open. Without a word they handed me the crowbar, and I prized up the stones out of the pavement, while they undertook the harder work of piling them up. In a few minutes we had a solid wall eight feet high. Field had on light kid gloves, which formed an amusing contrast to his occupation. Then remembering that there was a defenceless spot somewhere else, I marched my troop thither, and built another barricade—all in grim earnest without talking.

I forgot to say that on the previous day I had witnessed a marvellously dramatic scene in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, by the market-house. There was across it an immense barricade, made of literally everything—old beds, waggons, stones, and rubbish—and it was guarded by a dense crowd of insurgents, armed or unarmed, of whom I was one. All around were at least three thousand people singing the Marseillaise and the Chant des Girondins. There was a charge of infantry, a discharge of muskets, and fifteen fell dead, some almost touching me, while the mob around never ceased their singing, and the sounds of that tremendous and terrible chorus mingled with the dying groans and cries of the victims and the great roar of the bell of Notre Dame. It was like a scene in the opera. This very barricade has been described by Victor Hugo in detail, but not all which took place there, the whole scene being, in fact, far more dramatic or picturesque than he supposed it to have been.

It seemed to be predestined that I should see every great event in that drama, from the charge of Changarnier down to the very end, and I hereby declare that on my honour I set forth exactly what I saw with my own eyes, without a shade of colour off the truth.

There was a garçon named Edouard, who always waited on me in the Café Rotonde. While I was working for life at my second barricade, he came out holding a napkin, and examining my labour critically, waved it, exclaimed approvingly, “Très bien, Citoyen Charles—très bien!” It was his little joke for some days after to call me Citoyen Charles.

Returning down the Rue de la Harpe before our house my landlady exclaimed to me in alarm, “Hide your pistols! there is a mouchard (spy of the police) following you.” I believe that I, my blood being up, said something to the effect that if she would point him out I would shoot him forthwith, but the mouchard had vanished. We had all got into cool earnestness by that time as regards shooting, having been in it constantly for three days.

Over the barricade came sprawling a tall ungainly red-haired Yankee, a student of medicine, whom I had met before, and who began to question me as to what I was doing. To which I replied, “What the devil do you want here, anyhow?” not being in a mood to be trifled with. To which he replied, “Nawthin’, only a kinder lookin’ reound. But what on airth—” “But are you for us, or against?” I cried. “Wäll, I ain’t on no side.” “See here!” I cried in a rage; “those who are not for us are against us. Any one of those fellows you see round here would shoot you at once if I told him to, and if you don’t clear out in double quick time, by God I will!” And at this he made himself scarce forthwith, “nor does he come again into this story.”

Then I went down the street, and as a large supply of ammunition came to us from our friends, with the aid of a student of the Ecole Polytechnique, I distributed it to the mob. I had principally boxes of percussion-caps to give. I mention this because that young man has gone into history for it, and I have as good a right to a share in this extremely small exploit as he. Besides, though not wounded by the foe, I got a bad cut on my hand from a sharp paving-stone, and its scar lasted for many years.

I had that day many a chance to knock over a piou-piou or shoot a soldier, as Field said, but I must confess that I felt an invincible repugnance to do so. The poor devils were, after all, only fighting unwillingly against us, and I well knew that unless they came over to our side all would be up with us. Therefore it was our policy to spare them as much as possible. I owe it to Field to state that through all the stirring scenes of the Revolution he displayed great calmness and courage.

All at once we heard a terrible outcry down the street. There was a tremendous massing of soldiers there, and to defend that barricade meant death to all defenders. I confess that I hesitated one instant, and than rushed headlong to join the fight. Merciful God! the troops had fraternised with us, and they were handing over their muskets to the mob, who were firing them in the air.

The scene was terribly moving. My men, who a minute before had expected to be shot, rushed up, embraced and kissed the soldiers, wept like children—in short, everybody kissed and embraced everybody else, and all my warriors got guns, and therewith I dismissed them, for I knew that the war was now about at an end.

There was a German-French student named Lenoir, and he, with Field and I, hearing that there was sharp work at the Tuileries, started thither in haste. And truly enough, when we got there, the very devil was loose, with guns firing and the guard-house all in a blaze. The door was burst open, and Field and I were among the very first who entered. We behaved very well, and did not steal anything. I remember that there was a great pile of plate and jewellery soon laid by the door.

I went into the throne-room. There was a great silver inkstand on the table, paper and pens, and we wrote, “Respect Property!” “Liberty for Italy and Hungary!” and hung the papers up around the room. I wrote one or two myself, and touched the inkstand for luck, in case I should ever write about the event.

It was a great and indeed a very touching and beautiful sight, for all present were inspired with a feeling like that of men who have passed a terrible, racking crisis. Nous avons vaincu! Yes, we had conquered. And the Revolution had marched sternly on through years of discontent unto the year of aggravation, Forty-Eight, when there was thunder all round in Europe—and after all, France at one desperate bound had again placed herself in the van! And it was first decided by the taking of the Tuileries!

Let me dwell an instant on some minor incidents. Many of the insurgents had been all night without food. The royal dinner was cooking in the kitchen, and it was droll to see the men helping themselves and walking off with the chickens and joints on their bayonets. I had never seen a royal kitchen before. Soon all along the street loafers were seen with jars of preserved cherries, &c., emptying them into their caps. I went into the burning guard-house. A savage fellow offered me a great tin pail, containing about two gallons of wine, which he offered me to drink. I was very thirsty, but I had a scruple against plunder. Grasping his sword, he cried, “Buvez, citoyen; c’est du vin royal.” Not wishing to have a duel à l’outrance with a fellow-patriot, and, as I said, being thirsty, I took a good long pull. We mutually winked and smiled. He took a pull also to my health and Liberty. We both “pulled.”

I forgot to mention how my cohort had partially armed themselves that morning. They burst into every house and carried off all the arms they could find, and then wrote in chalk over the doors—“Armes données.” The Musée Cluny was very near my hotel and I saw it plundered. Such a sight! I saw one vagabond on a fine stolen horse, with a mediæval helmet on his head, a lance in his hand, and a six-feet double-handed sword or flamberg hanging behind his back. He appeared to be quite drunk, and reared about in eccentric gambades. This genius of Freedom reappeared at the Tuileries. Mortal man was never under such temptation to steal as I was—just one fifteenth-century poignard as a souvenir—from that Museum—in fact, it was my duty at that instant to do so, whispered the tempter in my ear. But I resisted; and lo! it came to pass in later years that I became possessed, for a mere trifle, in Dresden, of the court dagger, in exquisite carved ivory, which was originally made for Francis II. of France, and which has been declared by competent authority to be authentic. Owing to his short reign there are very few relics of this monarch.

Some of the blackguards in the mob drew out the royal carriages, set fire to them, and rolled them gaily along the quai.

A noble-looking very old gentleman in military costume spoke to me before the Tuileries, and saying that he had seen all of the old Revolution and Napoleon’s wars, actually with tears in his eyes implored me to use my influence to prevent any plundering. “Respectez la properté.” There were very few gentlemen indeed among the insurgents. I only observed two or three in our quarter, and they were all from our hotel, or rather lodgings. But the next day every swell in Paris came out as an insurgent. They had all worked at barricades—so they said. I certainly had not seen any of them at work.

That afternoon I strolled about with Field. We came to a barricade. A very pretty girl guarded it with a sword. She sternly demanded the parole or countersign. I caught hold of her and kissed her, and showed my pistols. She laughed. As I was armed with dirk and pistols, wore a sash, and was unmistakably a Latin Quarter étudiant, as shown by long hair, rakish cap on one side, red neck-tie, and single eyeglass, I was everywhere treated as a man and brother, friend and equal, warrior, and—by the girls—almost like a first-cousin. Field shared the glory, of course. And we made a great deal out of it, and were thought all the more of in consequence. Vive la jeunesse!

Coming to a corner, we heard three or four musket-shots. We turned the corner, and saw a man lying dead or dying in the last quiver, while at his head there was at once placed a stick with a paper on it, on which was written with lead-pencil, “Mort aux voleurs!”

The day before, one insurgent had offered me a beautiful old silver-mounted sword for one of my pistols, fire-arms being so much in demand, but I declined the offer.

The day after, I went into a café. There were some students there who had laid their arms on a table. There was a very notorious little lorette, known as Pochardinette, who was so called because she was always half-tipsy. She was even noted in a popular song as—

“La Pochardinette, Qui ne sait refuser Ni la ponche a pleine verre, Ni sa bouohe à baiser.”

Pochardinette picked up a horse-pistol, when its owner cried, “Let that be! That is not the kind of weapon which you are accustomed to manage!” I stared at him with respect, for he had actually translated into French an epigram by Jacopo Sannazar, word for word!

I should here mention that on the 24th there was actually a period of two hours during which France had no Government—that is, none that it knew of. Then there appeared on the walls all at once small placards giving the list of names of the Gouvernement Provisoire. Now, during this period of suspense there appeared at the Hôtel de Ville a mysterious stranger; a small, bustling, active individual, who came in and announced that a new Government had been formed, that he himself had been appointed Minister, that France expected every man to do his duty, and that no one should lose their places who conformed to his orders. “I appoint,” he said, “So-and-so to take command of Vincennes. Here, you—Chose! notify him at once and send orders. I believe that Tel-et-tel had better take Marseilles. Do any of you fellows know of a good governor for Mauritius?” So he governed France for half-an-hour and then disappeared, and nobody ever knew to this day who this stupendous joker was. A full account of it all appeared some time after, and the cream of the joke was that some of his appointed ones contrived to keep their places. This brief dynasty has not been recorded in any work save this!

It was a droll fact that I had, the year before, at Heidelberg, drawn a picture of myself as an insurgent at a barricade, and written under it, “The Boy of the Barricades.” I had long had a strange presentiment as to this event. I gave the picture to Peter A. Porter, then a student, and owner of a singular piece of property—that is, Niagara Falls, or at least Goat Island and more or less of the American side. Some time after the 24th he showed me this picture in Paris. He himself, I have heard, died fighting bravely in our Civil War. His men were so much attached to him that they made, to recover his body, a special sally, in which twelve of them were killed. He was bon compagnon, very pleasant, and gifted with a very original, quaint humour.

If our ungrateful temporary stepmother, France, did not know it, at least the waiters in the cafés, shopkeepers, and other people in the Latin Quarter were aware that Field and I were among the extremely small and select number of gentlemen who had operated at the barricades for the health of Freedom, and for some time we never entered a restaurant without hearing admiring exclamations from the respectful waiters of “Ces sont les Américains!” or “Les Anglais.” And indeed, to a small degree, I even made a legendary local impression; for a friend of mine who went from Philadelphia to Paris two years later, reported that I was still in the memory of the Quarter as associated with the Revolution and life in general. One incident was indeed of a character which French students would not forget. I had among my many friends, reputable and demi-reputable, a rather remarkable lorette named Maria, whose face was the very replica of that of the Laughing Faun of the Louvre—or, if one can conceive it, of a very pretty “white nigger.” This young lady being either ennuyée or frightened by the roar of musketry—probably the former—and knowing that I was a Revolutionist and at work, conceived the eccentric idea of hiring a coach, just when the fighting was at the worst, and driving over from the Rue Helder to visit me. Which she actually did. When she came to a barricade, she gave five francs to the champions of liberty, and told them she was bearing important political orders to one of their leaders. Then the warriors would unharness the horses, lift the carriage and beasts somehow over the barricade, re-harness, hurrah, and “Adieu, madame! Vive la liberté!” And so, amid bullets and cheers, and death-stroke, and powder-smoke—hinc et inde mors et luctus—Maria came to my door in a carriage, and found me out with a vengeance—for I was revelling at the time in the royal halls of the Bourbons, or at least drinking wine out of a tin pail in the guard-house, whereby I escaped the expense of a truffled champagne dinner at Magny’s—while the young lady was about fifty francs out of pocket by her little drive, probably the only one taken that day in Paris. But she had a fearfully jolly time of it, and saw the way that guns were fired to perfection. This, too, became one of the published wonders of the day, and a local legend of renown.

Of course all these proceedings put an end to lectures and study for the time. Then Mr. Goodrich, our Consul, as I have before said, organised a deputation of Americans in Paris to go and congratulate the new Gouvernement Provisoire on the new Republic, of which I was one, and we saw all the great men, and Arago made us a speech. Unfortunately all the bankers stopped paying money, and I had to live principally on credit, or sailed rather close to it, until I could write to my father and get a draft on London.

But when the Revolution of June was coming, I determined to leave Paris. I had no sympathy for the Socialists, and I knew very well that neither the new Government, nor the still newer Louis Napoleon, who was looming up so dangerously behind it, needed my small aid. There was a regulation in those days that every foreign resident on leaving Paris must give twenty-four hours’ notice to the police before he could obtain his passport. But when I applied for mine, it was handed out at once “over the counter,” with a smile and a wink, as if unto one who was merrily well known, with an intimation that they were rather glad that I was going, and would do everything to facilitate my departure. I suspect that my dossier must have been interesting reading! M. Claude, or his successor, was probably of the same mind regarding me as the old black preacher in Philadelphia regarding a certain convert, “De Lawd knows we don’ want no sitch bredderin in dis congregation!”

So I went to Rouen and saw the cathedral and churches—it was a very quaint old town then—and thence to Havre, where I took passage on a steamboat for London. The captain had a very curious old Gnostic-Egyptian ring, with a gem on which were four animal heads in one, or a chimæra. I explained what it was, and that it meant the year. But the captain could not rest till he had got the opinion of a fussy old Frenchman, who, as a doctor, was of course supposed to know more than I. He looked at it, and, with a great air, remarked, “C’est grecque!” Then the captain was quite satisfied. It was Greek!

I went in London to a very modest hotel, where I was, however, very comfortable. In those days a bottle of the very vilest claret conceivable, and far worse than “Gladstone,” cost four or five shillings; therefore I took to pale ale. Ewan Colquhoun soon found me out, and, under his guidance, and that of two or three others whom I had met, I soon explored London. Firstly, he took me daily to his house in St. James Street, where I can recall his mother, Mrs. Colquhoun, and father, and brothers, Patrick and James. Patrick was a remarkable young man. He had graduated at Cambridge and Heidelberg and filled diplomatic capacities in the East, and was familiar with many languages from Arabic to Gaelic, and was the first amateur light-weight boxer in England, and first sculler on the Thames, and had translated and annotated the principal compendium of Roman law. He took me to see a grand rowing match, where we were in the Leander barge. So here and there I was introduced to a great many people of the best society. Meanwhile, with Ewan, I visited the Cider Cellars, Evans’, the Judge and Jury Club, Cremorne, and all the gay resorts of those days, not to mention the museums, Tower, and everything down to Madame Tussaud’s. I went down in a diving-bell in the Polytechnic, and over Barclay and Perkins’ Brewery.

One night Colquhoun and I went to Drury Lane, and, after hearing Grisi, Mario, and Lablache together, saw the great pas de quatre which became a historical marvel. For it was danced by Taglioni, Cerito, Carlotta Grisi, and Lucile Grahn. In after years, when I talked with Taglioni about it, she assured me that night I had witnessed what the world had never seen since, the greatest and most perfect execution conceivable. For the four great artists, moved by rivalry, were inspired to do their best before such an audience as was seldom seen. Colquhoun kept pointing out one celebrity after another to me; I verily believe that I saw most of the great men and women of the time. And afterwards I saw a great number in Parliament.

There was a rather distinguished-looking Frenchman very much about town in London while I was there. He was always alone, and always dressed in a long, light overcoat. Wherever I went, to Cremorne or the Park, there he was. When Louis Napoleon came up in the world and I saw his photograph, I at once recognised my Frenchman.

There roomed next to me in our hotel a German from Vienna named Becker. He was an opera-singer, and the newspapers said that he was fully equal to the first baritone of the day. I forget who that was: was it Pischek? I liked him very much; he was always in my room, and always singing little bits, but I was not much impressed by them, and once told him that I believed that I could sing as loudly as he. He never said a word, but at once let out his whole voice in a tremendous aria. I clapped my hands to my ears; I verily believed that he would shatter the windows! I have heard of a singer who actually broke a goblet by vibration, and I now believe that it is possible. I was once shown in the Hague Museum a goblet which rang marvellously in accompaniment when one sang to it, and have met with others like it.

I was invited by a young friend named Hunt (a son of the great Chartist), who had been a friend of mine in Heidelberg, where he had taken his degree as doctor of Philosophy, to pass a week in the country at a charming old Elizabethan place, said to have been the original Bleak House. Everything there was perfectly delightful. There were two or three charming young ladies. I remember among them a Miss Oliphaunt. There was a glorious picnic, to which I and all walked eight miles and back. I admired on this occasion for the first time the pedestrian powers of English girls.

I visited Verulamium and St. Alban’s Abbey, not then “restored,” and other beautiful places. It all seemed like a fairy-tale, for the charm of my early reading came over me like enchantment. One night Hunt and I went into a little wayside inn. There were assembled a number of peasants—hedgers and ditchers, or such like. We treated them to ale, and they sang many strange old songs. Then I was called on, and I sang “Sir Patrick Spens,” which was well received.

I returned to London, and found, to my dismay, that I had not enough money to take me home! I had received a bill of exchange on a merchant in London, and, in my innocence, never dreamed that it constituted no claim on him whatever for a further supply. I called at his office, saw his son, who naturally informed me that they could advance me no more money, but referred me to his father. The old gentleman seemed to be amused, and questioned me all about myself. When he found that his Philadelphia correspondent was very well known to my father, and that the son of the correspondent was a fellow-student of mine at Heidelberg and Paris, he asked me how much I wanted. When I replied, “Only enough to pay my passage,” he replied, “Is that all?” and at once gave me the money. Then he questioned me as to my friends in London, and said, “You have seen something of the aristocracy, I would like you to see some of the business people.” So he invited me to a dinner at the Reform Club, to meet a few friends. Among these was a Mr. Birch, son of the celebrated Alderman Birch. He had directed the dinner, being a famous gourmet, and Soyer had cooked it. That dinner cost my host far more than he had made out of me. We had six kinds of choicest wines, which impressed me then.

Mr. Birch was a man of literary culture, and we went deeply into books. The next day he sent me a charming work which he had written on the religious belief of Shakespeare, in which it was fairly proved that the immortal bard had none. And I was so well pleased with England, that I liked it better than any country I had ever visited.

In 1870, when I came to London, and found my character of “Hans Breitmann” on three stages at once, I received, of course, a great deal of attention. Somebody said to me, “Oh, of course; you come here well known, and are made a great deal of.” I replied, “Twenty years ago I came to London without a single letter of introduction, and had only two or three student friends, and received just as much kind hospitality.” I think that like generally finds its like, so long as it is honest and can pay its bills.

I left Portsmouth for New York in a sailing-vessel or packet. I could have returned by steamer, but preferred the latter, as I should now, if there were any packets crossing the ocean. In old times travel was a pleasure or an art; now it is the science of getting from place to place in the shortest time possible. Hence, with all our patent Pullman cars and their dentist’s chairs, Procrustean sofas, and headlong passages, we do not enjoy ourselves as we did when the coach went on the road so slowly as to allow us to see the country, when we halted often and long, many a time in curious old villages. But “the idea of dragging along in that way!” Well, and what, O tourist, dost thou travel for?

There was on the vessel in which I sailed, among the few passengers, Mrs. and Mr. John Gilbert, a well-known dramatic couple, who were extremely agreeable and genial, the husband abounding in droll reminiscences of the stage; a merry little German musician named Kreutzer, son of the great composer; and a young Englishwoman with a younger brother. I rather doubted the “solidity” of this young lady. By-and-bye it was developed that the captain was in love with her. Out of this, I have heard, came a dreadful tragedy; for the love drove him mad, the insanity developing itself on the return voyage. The captain had to be imprisoned in his own state-room, where he committed suicide in a terrible manner by tearing his throat open with the point of a candlestick or sconce. The second mate, who was as coarse a brute as a common sailor could be, took command, and as he at once got drunk, and kept so, the passengers rose, confined him, and gave the command to the third, who was very young.

“Thus woman is the cause of fearful deeds.”

However, I freely admit that this incident resulted from a long voyage, for we were thirty-five days in going from port to port. In only a week, with three or four days’ preliminary sea-sickness, there is hardly time for “flirtation and its consequences.” Nor was it so much a stormy trip as one with long sunny calms. Then we hauled up Gulf-weed with little crabs—saw Portuguese men-of-war or sea-anemones sailing along like Cleopatra’s barges with purple sails, or counted flying-fish. Apropos of this last I have something to say. During my last trip I once devoted an afternoon to closely observing these bird-like creatures, and very distinctly saw two cases in which the fish turned and flew against the wind or tacked—a fact which has been denied.

One day I saw a few rudder-fish playing about the stern. They weigh perhaps some six or seven pounds; so, standing on velvet cushions in the cabin, I fished out of the stern-window. Then came a bite, and in a second I had my fish flapping about on the carpet under the table, to the great amazement of the steward, who had probably never had a live fish jump so promptly before into his hands. And we had it for dinner. One day a ship made to us a signal of distress, and sent a boat, saying that they were completely out of fuel; also that their passengers consisted entirely of the celebrated Ravel troupe of acrobats and actors. It would have been an experience to have crossed in that packet with their chief, Gabriel!

Gabriel Ravel—it is one of my brother’s published tales—was a good boxer as well as a marvellous acrobat, and he could look like what he pleased. One morning a muscular and vain New York swell saw in a gymnasium one whom he supposed to be a very verdant New Jersey rustic gaping about. The swell exhibited with great pride his skill on the parallel bars, horizontal pole, et cetera, and seeing the countryman absolutely dumbfounded with astonishment, proposed to the latter to put on the gloves. “Jersey” hardly seemed to know what gloves were, but with much trouble he was got into form and set to milling. But though he was as awkward as a blind cow, the swell pugilist could not for a very long time get in a blow. Jersey dodged every hit “somehow” in a manner which seemed to be miraculous. At last one told on his chest, and it appeared to be a stunner, for it knocked him into the air, where he turned a double somersault, and then fell on his feet. And it seemed as if, during this flight, he had been suddenly inspired with a knowledge of the manly art, for on descending, he went at the swell and knocked him from time. It was Gabriel Ravel.

We saw an iceberg far away, and lay off on the Grand Banks (where our steerage passengers caught cod-fish), and beheld a water-spout—I once saw two at a time in the Mediterranean—and whales, which were far commoner then than now, it being rumoured that the one, and no more, which is regularly seen by passengers now is a tame one belonging to the White Star or some other line, which keeps him moored in a certain place on exhibition; also that what Gulf-weed there is left is grown near New York and scattered by night from certain boats. It may be so—this is an artificial age. All that remains is to learn that the flying-fish are No. 3 salt mackerel set with springs, and I am not sure that I should doubt even that.