PART II.—1842–1843.

155

LETTER I. Steam Voyage to Amsterdam.—Rubens’ Picture of the Descent from the Cross.—Various Misadventures.—Liege.—Cologne.—Coblentz.—Mayence.—Francfort.

Francfort, June, 1842.

I have delayed writing hitherto—for this is our first stazion. I know not of what clay those persons are made who write on board steamers, or before going to bed, when they reach an inn, after a long day’s journey. I rather disbelieve in such achievements. A date or reference may be put down; but during a voyage, I am at first too interested, and then too tired; and at night, on arriving, I confess, supper and the ceremonial of retiring to rest, are exertions almost too much for me: I cannot do more. And then we have travelled amidst a hurricane of misfortunes—money and other property disappearing under the malignant influence of the 156Belgian railroad and some rogue at the Hotel at Liege. Our missing luggage has been restored, but we have found no remedy for the loss of our money. Sixteen pounds were seized upon at one fell swoop. Imagine such an accident happening when we were abroad, two years ago! At present, it is not pleasant; but it is not fatal, as it would then have been.

Our last week in England was most delightfully spent at the seat of a friend near Southampton, on the skirts of the New Forest. A little quiet sailing in a yacht; drives in a beautiful neighbourhood, strolling about the grounds; the rites of good old English hospitality—varied the day. Our host was all kindness, and added the crowning grace of being really sorry when we departed; his saddened countenance, as the engine whistled and we were whirled towards London, gave us the flattering assurance that we were regretted; and we sincerely returned the compliment.

We spent a day or two in London, taking leave of a few old friends; and on Sunday, 12th of June, we embarked on board the “Wilberforce,” for Antwerp. I hate and dread the sea; having suffered—oh, what suffering it is!—how absorbing!—how degrading!—how without remedy! And then to wish for terra firma—only so much as the feet will stand upon: 157thus no longer to be the abject victim of the antipathetic element—a speck of rock, one-foot-by-one, would not that suffice to stand upon, and be still? I speak of times past. The mighty Power had, when trusting to its awful mutability, shewn itself merciful as great, as I crossed and re-crossed from and to Dover, in 1840. But this was a longer voyage; and as we steamed down the river, the wind was directly adverse, and felt strong. The sea looked dreary; and the evening set in gray, cold, and unpleasant. I was the last passenger that kept on deck. About ten o’clock, the increasing spray drove me down. However, I escaped the doleful extremity of seasickness, and slept till morning, when the slow waters of the Scheldt received us. The sun was bright; but nothing can adorn with beauty the low, nearly invisible banks of an almost Dutch river; and there was no busy craft to enliven the scene. It is strange to think how a scene, in itself uninteresting, becomes agreeable to look at in a picture, from the truth with which it is depicted, and a perfection of colouring which at once contrasts and harmonises the hues of sky and water.

Though it may be done a thousand times, still English people must always experience a strange sensation when they disembark on a foreign strand, and find every familiar object startlingly changed: 158but, if strange, it is very pleasing. I have a passionate love of travelling. Add to this, I suffer in my health, and can no longer apply to my ordinary employments. Travelling is occupation as well as amusement, and I firmly believe that renewed health will be the result of frequent change of place.

Besides, what can be so delightful as the perpetual novelty—the exhaustless current of new ideas suggested by travelling? We read, to gather thought and knowledge; travelling is a book of the Creator’s own writing, and imparts sublimer wisdom than the printed words of man. Were I exiled perforce, I might repine, for the heart naturally yearns for home. But to adorn that home with recollections; to fly abroad from the hive, like the bee, and return laden with the sweets of travel—scenes, which haunt the eye—wild adventures, that enliven the imagination—knowledge, to enlighten and free the mind from clinging, deadening prejudices—a wider circle of sympathy with our fellow-creatures;—these are the uses of travel, for which I am convinced every one is the better and the happier.

June 13th.

We landed on the quay at Antwerp, and walked to the hotel—a long walk, under a hot sun. After refreshing ourselves by a toilette, we hastened to the 159Cathedral—for we had no time to spare—to view the Descent from the Cross, the chef-d’œuvre of Rubens. Several people were being admitted as we arrived; but, with a rudeness of gesture and tone that far surpassed Westminster, the door was pushed to, and held jealously ajar, till we had paid a few sous, the price of entrance. The interior is spacious and lofty, and remarkable for its simplicity and its being totally unencumbered by screens of wood or stone. The Descent from the Cross is a very fine picture. You may remember that Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his Lectures, mentions the boldness of the artist in enveloping the dead body with a white cloth. A painter, less sure of his powers, would have relieved the livid hues of death by a dark background: the white sheet, under the pencil of Rubens, contrasts yet more fearfully with the livid tints of the corpse.

This is all we saw of Antwerp—this half hour spent in the lofty nave and the dim aisles of the Cathedral. Do not despise us! Some day, I mean to make a tour of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Holland. But we found it quite impossible to combine sightseeing at the commencement of our journey with our intention of proceeding as far as Italy. You know what it is that enables the tourist to loiter on his way; and you know how slenderly 160we are provided with the same. I have read, somewhere, the remark of a French lady, expressive of her astonishment at the English mania for travelling. She understood, she said, rich people, with comfortable carriages, amusing themselves thus; but how women, who can command the comforts of an ordinary English house, could leave the same, and by diligence and voiturier, harassed and fatigued, should find pleasure in exposing themselves to a thousand annoyances and privations, surprised her beyond measure. I have travelled in both ways. To undertake the last, requires a good deal of energy and an indefatigable love of seeing yet more and more of the surface of this fair globe, which, like all other passions or inclinations, must spring naturally from the heart, and cannot be understood except by those who share it. After having been confined many a long year in our island, I broke from my chains in 1840, and encountered very rough travelling. I did not find it more fatiguing than the more luxurious species, and enjoyed as much as I had ever done its pleasures. Now I have set out again, my choice being between staying at home and travelling as I could. I preferred, very far, the latter: I should prefer it to-morrow. Still, I do not deny that I did repine much, on various occasions, that I could not 161linger longer on my way, and visit a thousand places left unvisited. I hope to go to them another time. What I did see is all gain; and I ought rather to rejoice in the spirit of enterprise that enabled me to see so much, than to grumble at the smallness of the means that forced me to see so little.

We returned to dine at the table d’hôte, and were then hurried into the omnibus, waiting to take us to the railway. I have always avoided this mode of reaching the terminus in England, as too full of confusion; and I cannot tell why I changed my notion on the subject here abroad. I repented heartily afterwards, and renewed my resolve always to reach the station in a private conveyance. Just as we left the hotel, our three passports were put into our hands, one a piece: in the hurry I dropped mine—the first loss of a day, rendered memorable by many. On our arrival, everybody in the various omnibuses that arrived at the same time, at once went mad from hurry and confusion. Loss the second occurred here. M—— forgot her handbasket, containing a lady’s-maid’s treasures for a journey: many things of English birth were gone irreparably. A noisy crowd surrounded one window of the station at the terminus, eager for tickets, as if the train would set off without them. Before 162another door was piled all the luggage brought by all the omnibuses. It was only admitted piecemeal; and the selection of the articles belonging to each traveller was a scene of indescribable confusion. We none of us understood German—confession of shame! I had taken lessons in the winter; but my health prevented my making any progress. French was of little avail. We had divided our forces, to master the difficulties we encountered. K—— went for the tickets; P—— with the luggage, and I remained to wonder and expect. After a time, the noise ceased, the crowd disappeared, a bell rung, I had got my ticket, and, the gates being open, I walked into the yard. I found the carriages nearly full, and ready to start—it seemed very odd. My companions had left me, and had gone to look after the luggage. I saw nobody, so I took my seat in a carriage, and in a few seconds, we started.

The carriages are inconvenient, bearing no similitude, indeed, to carriages, but are small rooms or cells, boxed off into eight seats, and placed on a sort of platform. One merit they possessed—we were not locked in; there was no door, and the egress from the front was easy to the platform, and that was scarcely raised from the ground. The carriages were very full, the heat excessive; and several unruly children did not add to our comfort. At 163Malines (I think it was), we were to be transferred to another train: the one in which we commenced our journey going on to Brussels. Changing carriages is always a tiresome operation. I alighted in the middle of a large square, and was glad to find my companions safely assembled. Our luggage was turned out here; and, as we waited some time before we were taken up again, we amused ourselves with examining our property. With dismay, we discovered that two cloaks and a carpet-bag were missing. Certainly, for travellers somewhat experienced, our conduct appeared disgraceful. P——, who had passed the luggage, had witnessed that all was weighed; but he had not been allowed to remain in the weighing-room to see the things off, and his want of German had rendered the task difficult.

On our arrival at Liege, another scene of confusion at the unloading ensued. It must be said, however, that their method was good, and the noise arose from the numbers of travellers, and their exceeding vociferations. On weighing the luggage, they paste a piece of paper on each article, inscribed with a number—the same number for all the goods belonging to one name; and to this is added the number of articles. Thus all our things were marked “21,” and we had a paper given us that gave us a claim 164to nine articles marked “21.” The men, as they unload, cry out the number pasted on the articles; and the passengers, with their papers in their hands, claim their own. Seven only, however, appeared for us; the cloaks and the carpet-bag were missing. Waiting, in hopes that these might at last be forthcoming, detained us among the last. The omnibuses were nearly full; no carriages, nor post-horses for the carriages on the train, nor any other means of getting to Liege, were to be found. We got places, and we heard afterwards, that the confusion in some of the omnibuses had arisen to a scuffle. This we escaped.

Murray’s Hand-book was our guide: usually an admirable one. Among other useful information, none is more satisfactory to the traveller than to know the best hotel in a town. Murray directed us to the Aigle Noire, which we found large, clean, and pleasant.

June 14th.

Morning brought with it the discovery of another loss:—“Encore un objêt de perdu!”—and this objêt was more serious and irreparable than our former. We had changed what English bank notes we had at Antwerp, for German gold. My companions counted the contents of their purses—£8 165in each. It so happened that they could not get lodged separately, and they occupied a double-bedded room. After counting their money, they left their purses on a large table in the middle of the room: they did not lock their door. In the morning, the door was ajar, and the purses gone. Fortunately, they had placed their watches nearer to them. Perhaps it was the boots of the hotel, who, coming in for their clothes, was tempted by the sight of their glittering purses so easily to be taken. However it may be, they were gone. The master of the hotel behaved excessively ill; talked of sending for the Maire, to constater our loss, but professed his disbelief in our story; travellers, he declared, never leave their purses on a table, and always lock their door. We did nothing. We should probably have been tempted to do something; but we had to record our missing articles, and to arrange for their being sent after us. I, too, had dropped my passport. “Mais, Madame, vous êtes vraiment en malheur,” said the daughter of the hotel-keeper, who was as civil as her father was rude. We were; so we could only say—or rather, I said—in the Greek fashion: “Welcome this evil, so that it be the only one!” I said it from my heart; for, alas! I ever live with a dark shadow hovering near me. One whose life has been stained by tragedy can never regain a healthy 166tone of mind—if it be healthy—that is consonant to the laws of human life, not to fear for those we love. I am haunted by terror. It stalks beside me by day, and whispers to me, in dreams, at night. But this is being very tragical, apropos of our stolen money.

We hired a carriage to take us to Aix-la-Chapelle. It was a pleasant drive: the country is varied into hill and dale, and is very pretty. About five in the evening we arrived at the railway station, without entering the town of Aix-la-Chapelle, which looked agreeably placed in a valley encircled by hills. The works for the railroad are in full progress, and the mounds are on a vast scale. They spoil rather the beauty of a landscape; yet a railroad gives such promise of change and novelty to the traveller—transporting us at once from the known to the unknown—that, in spite of all that can be said against them, I delight to see or hear of them.

Everything connected with travelling in Prussia is in the hands of Government, and admirably managed. The carriages on this railroad were of the usual construction, and very comfortable. We could not see much of the country as we were whisked through it: the little we could glance at appeared to deserve visiting at leisure. In a very short time we arrived at Cologne, and drove at once to an hotel, near the 167river. We arrived too late—we departed too early—to see anything of Cologne. Do not despise us: I intend to go there again.

June 15th.

During my last journey, I had not seen the portion of the Rhine between Cologne and Coblentz, and one of my companions had never visited these scenes. We gazed, therefore, with eager curiosity, as at each succeeding mile the river became more majestic, its shores more picturesque; and every hour of the day brought its store of delight to the eye. One or two chance acquaintance on board the steamer were agreeable; and a few incidents of travel, such as are familiar to wanderers, and form the history of their days, amused us. The man who acted as steward on the steamer, a thin, pale, short, insignificant-looking fellow, had taken his bill to him of our party whom, I suppose, long experience in such matters had led him to divine was the most insouciant. The bill was paid without a remark, and then brought to me. I was startled at its amount, and examined it. First I cast it up, and found an overcharge in the addition. This was pointed out to the man. He acknowledged it very debonairely. “Ah, oui, je le vois, c’est juste;” and he refunded. Still the bill was large; and I showed 168it to a lady on board, who had paid hers, and had mentioned the moderation of the charges. I found that the man had charged us each half a florin too much for dinner. Again the bill was taken to him. This time he was longer in being convinced; but when our authority was mentioned, with a look of sudden enlightenment, he exclaimed:—“Madame, vous avez parfaitement raison,” and refunded. But this was not all: my maid came to me, to say she hoped I had not paid for her, as she had paid for herself. True enough, she was charged for in our bill. We were almost ashamed to apply again; but a sense of public justice prevailed, and again we asked for our money back. In this instance, the man yielded at once. Clasping his forehead, he exclaimed:—“Mon Dieu! que je suis bête!” and repaid us. In the evening of this day, as K—— was gazing on the splendour of the setting sun, the false steward stood beside him, sharing the rapture, and exclaimed:—“N’est ce pas, Monsieur, que c’est magnifique!”

We passed the junction of the Moselle with the Rhine, and under the rock of Ehrenbreitstein; and, landing, proceeded to the Hotel of Bellevue, where we had lodged for a night, very comfortably, two years before.

You know the fair town of Coblentz—its wide, white, clean, rather dull-looking streets: you know 169the monument erected by French vanity at the time of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, to commemorate with pompous vauntings an expedition that caused his downfall. Even before the carving of the empty boast had been overspread by a little dust, the Commandant of the Russian army, pursuing the flying invader, had the power, but disdained to erase it; adding only in the style of the Emperor’s passports—“Vu et approuvé par nous, Commandant Russe, de la ville de Coblence, Janvier 1^er, 1814.” You know the lofty rock and impregnable fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, which rises majestically on the opposite bank of the river, and looks proudly down on old Father Rhine and its picturesque assemblage of guardian hills.

June 16th.

We left Coblentz at eight in the morning, and embarked in a larger and more convenient boat. We left here our accidental acquaintance who had made the voyage in the “Wilberforce” with us, and kept on the same way ever since—they were bound for Wiesbaden, and meant to linger awhile on the banks of the Rhine. By some chance few travellers seemed to be making the voyage just now. The only English were a family, who had frequently been this route, and so despised it that the lady 170remained in a close carriage on deck, with the blinds drawn down, all day.

I believe I am nearly the first English person, who many years ago made a wild, venturous voyage, since called hacknied;—when in an open flat-bottomed sort of barge we were borne down the rapid stream, sleeping at night under the starry canopy, the boat tethered to a willow on the banks; and when we changed for a more commodious bark, how rude it was, and how ill-conducted, as it drifted, frequently turning round and round, and was carried down by the sheer force of the stream; and what uncouth animals were with us, forming a fearful contrast between their drunken brutalities and the scene of enchantment around. Two years ago I renewed my acquaintance with the Rhine, and emerging on it from the Moselle, it gained in dignity by contrast with the banks of a river only less beautiful. Then the diorama, as it were, of tower-crowned crag and vine-clad hills—of ruined castle, fallen abbey, and time-honoured battlements, sufficed to enchain the attention and satisfy the imagination; and now—was I really blasée, and did my fancy no longer warm as I looked around? No; but I wanted more: I had seen enough of the Rhine, as a picture, all that the steam-voyager sees;—I desired to penetrate the 171ravines, to scale the heights, to linger among the ruins, to hear still more of its legends, and visit every romantic spot. I shall be very glad some summer of my future life to familiarise myself with the treasure of delight easily gathered by a wanderer on these banks; but as it is—on, on, the Castle of Stolzenfels, restored by the present King of Prussia when Crown Prince, is passed,—but I will not make a list of names, to be found in a guide-book: on we went rapidly, now catching sight of, passing, and losing in distance the “castled crags,”—the romantic hills of the glorious Rhine.

I looked with pleasure also on the lower uplands, with their vineyards. Surely, the inhabitants of this region worship the sun. On one side, that of shadow, forest-trees clothe the ravines, and pine woods crown the mountains—a beautiful but poor growth. On the other, the open, sun-visited banks are rich in vines, whose vintage is almost the best in the world. What a store of merry hours clusters together with the grapes on those old snake-like roots; and how much glittering coin is pressed out from those clusters of fruit into the pockets of their owners. We had a specimen of the first part of its power; some young Germans on board got gloriously tipsy, and called for another, 172and yet another bottle—becoming with every glass more affectionate and happy.

On this occasion we arrived at Mayence in time to proceed to Francfort the same evening; more than in time; when we reached the station we found the train would not start for three hours. My companions passed the interval in viewing the Cathedral and other sights at Mayence. Most unfortunately, I was so indisposed as to be obliged to remain at the waiting-room of the station. O Life! O Time!—how dear and valuable are ye in the aggregate; how still more dear and valuable are certain gem-like portions that at intervals fall to our lot—treasures in themselves, dearly prized and hoarded; but how contemptible seems a shred torn off and unusable; such as these three hours spent on a horse-hair incommodious chair, in the bare dull waiting-room, incapable from illness of putting to use the avenues to perception; and uneasy and wearied, in no humour to exercise the jaded powers of the soul. Such three hours slowly dragged themselves along; at last we took our places, and were whirled to Francfort.

We have betaken ourselves as before to the Hôtel de Russie. We have better rooms, for then the hotel was full, and now it is empty; it was 173about the same season of the year; but there appears a capricious reflux in the tide of travellers, and we have encountered few. You know the peculiar physiognomy of these German hotels; more comfortable than perhaps any others in the world; characterised by order, comfort, and civility; also at this one in particular, by an excellent table; the cook is renowned; people come to the table d’hôte, for the sake of the dinner; the price whereof is a thaler, or three shillings.

Good-night. I will tell you more to-morrow of our plans and future proceedings. I cannot now, for I have not the slightest idea at present what they will be.

18th June.

Madame de Sevigné sagely remarks, that “nothing seems to impede the exercise of our free will so much as not having a paramount motive to urge us one way or the other.” Here lies, in a great measure, our difficulty: we intend spending this next winter at Florence, but we have no fixed idea as to how to pass the summer. I incline to some German Bath, as I think it would benefit my health. I should like the Tyrol—any part of the world where the scenery is beautiful; but then I want a few months of peace, and not to be near a lake, so to 174live in one ecstasy of fear. We find it very difficult to decide, and have determined meanwhile to visit Kissingen. I have heard that it is a pleasant place, very prettily situated. I have an idea that the waters will benefit me; at least it is something new: we penetrate at once into Germany. It is true, we do not understand German; but where better learn a language than in its native country?

“What’s in a name!”—You know the quotation: it applies to things known; to things unknown, a name is often everything: on me it has a powerful effect; and many hours of extreme pleasure have derived their zest simply from a name; and now a name is drawing me on—Germany—vast, unseen Germany! whence has poured forth nearly the whole population of the present civilised world,—a world not gifted, like the ancient, with a subtle organisation which enabled them to create the beauty, which we do little more than admire—nor endowed with that instinctive grace that moulded even every stone which the Greeks touched into imperishable types of loveliness—nor with that vivacious imagination that peopled the unseen universe with an endless variety of beautiful creations,—but the parent of a race in which women are respected—a race that loves justice and truth—whose powers of thought are, if slow, yet profound, and, in their way, creative. Tacitus’s 175Germany—a land of forests and heroes. Luther’s Germany, in which sprung up the Reformation, giving freedom to the souls of men. The land of Schiller and Goëthe. Do you remember La Motte Fouqué’s Magic Ring—and the old Baron, sitting in his ancestral hall, where banners waved and armour clashed, and the wild winds whispered prophecies, and Power brooded ready to fly abroad and possess the world? Such a mysterious shape is Germany to me. And this, too, is the stage on which Napoleon’s imperial drama drew to a close. What oceans of human blood have drenched the soil of Germany even since my birth. Since I love the mysterious, the unknown, the wild, the renowned, you will not wonder that I feel drawn on step by step into the heart of Germany. It will doubtless continue a mysterious and unknown region, since we cannot speak its language; but its cities and its villages will no longer be dim shadows merely; substance and reality will replace misty imaginings; my rambles will be something novel; of the people whom I cannot understand, I shall have so little to say. A mighty outline is all I can present, if, indeed, I do penetrate at all into its recesses. But our plans are so vague, that really, till something is done, I scarcely can conjecture what we may do.

There is nothing very amusing at Francfort for 176a passing visitor. This time, however, we did see Dannecker’s Ariadne. It is among the best modern statues representing a woman. She is sitting on, and being carried along by, a panther. Her attitude is of repose, of enjoyment: there is something harsh in the face, which I do not like; but there is softness and roundness in the limbs; nothing angular; nor anything narrow or pared away like Canova’s female figures. This statue is one in the collection of Mr. Bethman; being the gem of his Gallery, it has a room to itself, and by shutting shutters and drawing down a crimson blind, the statue is seen clad in roseate light, beaming amidst darkness. Such arts for showing off marbles have been termed meretricious; but the finest statues of the Romans were found in chambers where the light of day never entered, and were therefore illuminated artificially.

Goëthe was born at Francfort, and we saw the outside of the house with the three prophetic lyres over the door.

My companions have just returned from the opera; they say that “they found a good orchestra, and singers with very tolerable voices, but mortally ugly, and their action totally devoid of grace; so that it would be much better if they did not ape it, as their abortive attempts make the deficiency more glaring.” 177So it was, you may remember, with the company we had in London, with the exception of Staudigl, whose voice and style is full of elegance as well as power. In spite of the enchantment of the Zauberflaüte, how happy and at home I felt at the Italian Opera, after several visits to that of their rivals in the art.

We have engaged a voiturier to take us to Kissingen in two days, a distance of about eighty miles. With a thrill of pleasure I feel I am going to scenes entirely new. I am not sure that I am rich enough for such an enterprise: yet I suspect much of the half eager, half timid feeling that urges me on, arises from our being comparatively poor,—all is so easy and same to the wealthy. As it is, there is the dangerous attraction of forbidden fruit in our wanderings.—Adieu.

178

LETTER II. Journey to Kissingen.—Taking Lodgings.—The Public Gardens.

Kissingen, June 21st.

The country immediately round Francfort is flat and uninteresting; but as soon as we entered Bavaria, we came upon very agreeable scenery. The valley of the Main, which we thridded during our first day’s journey, is quite beautiful. Magnificent forests of oak and beech cover the hills; and the little rural plain at their foot, bordering the river, is rich in pasture and ripe grain. There is a steamboat from Francfort to Wurzburg, of which I am half sorry we did not avail ourselves; for I like following the course of a river as it meanders through a country. But Wurzburg is at some distance from Kissingen, and the intervening country by no means so pretty as that we have just traversed. For several miles our route ran close to the river; then, quitting the low valley, we wound along the ridges of the hills, entering the forests, which gathered round us with their 179pleasant shade. We slept at Lohr. This town is delightfully situated on the Main; the inn, good; the only drawback was, that they had no bread—an extraordinary circumstance, it appeared to me, in Germany, as I have always enjoyed and vaunted its peculiar blessing of excellent bread, even when all else was repulsive. There was some very black bread I could not touch, and some sort of cakes, stale, and even mouldy. We showed them complainingly to our dirty-handed waiter, who caught them up. “These not good,” he cried, turning them about and tossing them from one hand to the other—from bad to worse—“they were new yesterday—they are excellent.” This manipulation succeeded in rendering them absolutely uneatable. We did not like even to look at them.

Our next day’s journey was hilly, as we crossed a height and passed from the valley of the Main to the valley of the Saale. The hills are lower, but the country bears the same characteristics—a clear stream, bordered by a grassy plain—wooded hills, forming amphitheatres, closing around. The villages are miserable enough.

With eager eyes we caught a view of Kissingen, as we descended the hill from Hammelburg. It looked a small village interspersed with a few large houses on the banks of the Saale. The river meanders 180through green meadows from east to west, and wooded hills close in the vale. It was a scene of great tranquillity, without any striking beauties; verdant, peaceful, and secluded.

We alighted at the hotel of the Kurhaus, a spacious and good inn. They were expecting the Queen of Wurtemburg and her suite in a few days, but were tolerably empty; and we easily procured rooms. Our next care was to look for a lodging. My companions went on this task, I was so very tired. There is a Commissaire des Voyageurs appointed by Government, to whom strangers can apply, who keeps lists of lodgings and mediates with regard to the price. He pretended to speak French and English; but, as Dangle says in “The Critic,” “Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!” He said he should spend the winter in England, and really learn English for the next season. He seemed straight-forward in his dealings, and went with my friends to various houses. They selected one across the bridge, out of the town. I went to look at it. The terms were tolerably moderate. The rooms had a southern aspect; they were large; and the floors, of white new deal, only wanted a little scouring: in short, though of course somewhat bare of furniture, the lodging, in this summer season, looked cheerful, 181and even pleasant. We agreed for it and instantly took possession.

I despair of describing the scene of our entrance. Madame Fries, the landlady, was an invalid, and did not appear. Herr Fries, a tall, fair German, is an employé in the police, and was absent. No one spoke a word of anything but German in the house. We were at our wits’ end. Dictionary in hand, we tried to impart our wants; there was an ugly good-humoured looking maid, and a rather pretty girl to wait on us, in addition to an uncouth sort of lad. These people gathered round us very earnest to please; but how were we to be pleased? We wanted the floors washed, for they looked unhealthy. We wanted our beds arranged in our own way (German beds are so strangely uncomfortable from the queer odds and ends of mattresses with which they are garnished); and above all, we wanted something besides a pie-dish and water-bottle for our washing apparatus. The way to secure this was to insist on a fuss-bad in each room; so small tubs were at last provided. Then we wished for tea: by dint of gesture and dictionary we tried to make ourselves understood. The women stood by laughing; the lad looked all eagerness to catch our meaning. At length he gave an exulting hop, snapt his fingers and rushed out, 182and brought back a tea-pot. Happy apparition! but it was more difficult to procure boiling water.

After about two hours order was established, and hopes of cleanliness for the morrow brightened round us. We sat down to tea, when lo! Herr Fries entered with another German, whom he introduced as a German Master. We did not like his appearance, and his attempts at English less, so we declined engaging him. This, however, was not the real object of Herr Fries’s visit. It was to inform us, by means of his interpreter, for he himself spoke German only, that we had taken his rooms for four months. This startled us; as our bargain was really for four weeks. Our compact, however, had been made by the Commissaire, and we referred to him. Reluctantly, and still arguing the point, Herr Fries at last withdrew.

I shall see a physician to-morrow and begin the waters; the place is rather empty as yet. We walked in the public gardens, in which the medicinal springs flow. Crossing the bridge we entered the gardens at one extremity; they are oblong, occupying about a couple of acres, of course gravelled, or rather shingled, and planted with avenues of trees. To the left they are bordered by the high-road, on the other side of which are all the large hotels. On the right is the Conversation 183Haus, consisting of a very large and well-built assembly-room with various appendages. At the other end are the springs; they are in a sort of paved court, about twenty feet below the soil; a low iron railing runs round the court; and they are covered with a light open-worked wire canopy. Two springs are here—the Pandur and Ragozzi: there is another, the Max Brunnen, resembling Seidlitz water, but without iron, which is in another part of the garden. A band plays under the trees from six till eight in the morning, and from six till eight in the evening; at which hour the visitors walk and drink the waters.

184

LETTER III. Kissingen.—The Cur.—The Table d’Hôte.—The Walks.—German Master.—Bathing.

Kissingen, July 4.

I am in the midst of my cur, and we are all in the midst of a general cure of a regiment of sick people. It is odd enough to seek amusement by being surrounded by the rheumatic, the gouty, the afflicted of all sorts. I do not think I shall be tempted to a German bath again, unless I am seriously ill.

Kissingen, until lately, was not much visited, even by the Germans, and was quite unknown to the English. The Bubbles of the Brunnens brought the baths of Nassau into fashion with us. Doctor Granville’s book extended our acquaintance with the spas of Germany; and, in particular, gave reputation to those situated in Bavaria. Kissingen has thus rapidly acquired notoriety; and soon the English, who are flocking hither, will effect a change in the homely habits we have found. A throng of our 185country people soon effects a revolution, increasing both comforts and prices in a very high degree.

All the Germans get up at four, and parade the gardens to drink the waters till nearly eight; I contrive to get there soon after five. These waters are not mere salts, like Carlsbad, nor mere iron, but a very diluted mixture of both. I believe them to be very conducive to the restoration of health; but they must only be taken under a physician’s superintendence, as it is dangerous to play with them. The morning walk I find pleasant: I leave the gardens after each glass, and stroll beyond into the meadows bordering the Saale, away from the garish spectacle of the smart toilettes, and the saddening sight of the sick. I return to breakfast at eight, if that may be called breakfast, which is not one. So many things are supposed to disagree with the waters, that not only everything substantial, but also butter, fruit, tea, coffee, and milk are prohibited. We dine at one at the table d’hôte of the Kurhaus; the ceremony is, to the last degree, unsatisfactory and disgusting. The King of Bavaria is so afraid that his medicinal waters may fall into disrepute if the drinkers should eat what disagrees with them, that we only eat what he, in conjunction with a triumvirate of doctors, is pleased to allow us. Every now and then a new article is struck out from our bill of fare, notice 186being sent from this council, which is stuck up for our benefit at the door of the salle-à-manger, to the effect that, whoever in Kissingen should serve at any table pork, veal, salad, fruit, &c. &c. &c., should be fined so many florins. Our pleasures of the palate are thus circumscribed, not to say annihilated; for the food they give us is so uninviting, that we only take enough barely to sustain life: for, strangely enough, though butter is prohibited, their dishes overflow with grease. Oh! the disgust of sitting down with two hundred people in one hall, served slowly with uneatable food: each day we resolve to try to get a dinner at home; but there is a little knot of English about us, and we agree to endure together; but it is sad.

Our evening walks are pleasant. We desert the public gardens, as you may believe: sometimes we walk in the meadows bordering the Saale to the Soolen Sprudel, where the salt works are established, and where there is a spring of water strongly impregnated with gas, which boils up furiously at intervals. People have gas baths here—they ought to be carefully conducted; for though I believe efficacious cures, they sometimes kill. A Russian nobleman since our arrival, died under the operation of bathing in one.

Sometimes we cross the valley, and ascend the 187hills to the ruined castle of Bodenlauben, which commands a view of this rural vale; but our favourite walk is in the wood that clothes the hill on our side of the valley. They have the practice in Germany, in the neighbourhood of Baths, of laying out innumerable paths all through the woods, and across the hills, for the convenience of the visitors—long walks entering into the course of treatment. The woods, oak and elm, varied by magnificent silver birch, with their graceful tresses, are very fine. We find here a few fire-flies: like unfortunate Italian exiles, they gleam with subdued brightness in an ungenial clime, and one wonders how they can endure so northern a temperature.

We have tried to get a German master. Our first attempt was infelicitous, being an “unwashed” metaphysician, who fairly beat our faculties of enduring disagreeable odours. We have now another, who assures us that he is first-rate; and that it is much better to learn German of the rough Bœotian (Bavarian) sort, than the effeminate softness of Saxony and Hanover. I am afraid I shall not make much progress. We malades are forbidden to exert our intellects; and, to make this prohibition more stringent, the gas one imbibes with the water produces a weakness in the eyes, which has rendered this letter the work of many days.

188The progress of the cur, or treatment, indeed, is not pleasant; I find the waters have a very agitating effect on the nerves. I drink the Ragozzi, which contains more iron than the Pandur. It is not disagreeable; that is, the first glass seemed so; but after that one forgot that it had any taste, and the effervescence of the gas makes it rather agreeable. Those to whom iron is hurtful put the glass in warm water, when the gas quickly flies off. We bathe in the water of the Pandur, brought boiling in casks to the house; the baths are mere wooden coffins, and on first entering them their shape rather shocks the feelings. The water made hot has the colour of iron rust, and is opaque. The bathing rooms in our house are badly managed and very dirty; but it is soothing to sit for an hour in hot water, which does not, like a common warm bath, weaken afterwards.

I trust to receive benefit in the end; but it is rather an infliction upon my companions to be dieted by the King of Bavaria, and to live, as they say, surrounded by lepers. We are still undecided as to our ulterior movements.

189

LETTER IV. Medical Treatment.—Amusements.—German Master.—Broklet.—Preparations for Departure.

Kissingen, 10th July.

As I was sitting at breakfast this morning I had a visit from my physician. He looked with consternation on the table. “Butter!” he exclaimed; “strawberries! tea! milk!” There was a crescendo of horror in his voice. One by one, these slender luxuries were withdrawn, and I was left with a little bread, and water (the staple of the place) ad libitum.

Though the cur of these waters is not an agreeable process, I have great faith in the advantages that accrue. There is a day or two called the crisis, which I have just passed—about the fifteenth or sixteenth after beginning the waters—which, indeed, resembles the crisis of a serious illness. The body becomes inert and languid, with a sense of illness pervading the frame; the mind is haunted by apprehension of evil, and is disturbed by a nervous 190restlessness and irritability of the most distressing kind. After a day or two these symptoms disappear. I experienced it most painfully, and am now quite well, but rather eager to get away: I am heartily tired of the waters, the promenade, the dinners, the sick; and the surrounding scenery is by no means interesting enough to compensate for our disagreeable style of life.

Generally, the assembling at a German bath is a signal for gaiety; but the physicians here discountenance every sort of excitement, and their malades are very obedient. The Queen of Wurtemburg is here incog. as Frau Grafinn von Teck, with two Grafinnin her daughters—fine girls, with all the beauty of youth and health. The artificers of Kissingen celebrated her arrival by walking in procession, with torches, into the court-yard of her hotel, where the band played, and the torches flared and smoked, till everybody was blinded and begrimed. The Queen walks in the morning early to drink the waters, and the centre allée of the gardens is left free for her. Such persons as have been presented, she has asked to dinner, but gives no further sign of life. Once a week there takes place what they call a reunion, when everybody meets in the Conversationhaus built by the King of Bavaria for the benefit of the baths. It is as good a ball-room as that of 191Almack, or in the palace of the King of Holland at the Hague; but the miserable use they made of it shocked us. At half-past eight the room is crowded; but the company do not dance, although there is a good band playing quadrilles, waltzes, and galoppes, the whole evening; sometimes two couples may be seen turning in the midst of the crowd; sometimes these may augment to six—but it is rare—and this in a room where several hundred people are assembled. The cause is the despotic decree of the triumvirate of doctors above-mentioned, who maintain dancing to be absolutely incompatible with drinking the waters.

They tried to get up the appearance of a fête on the birthday of the Queen of Bavaria. They dressed the salle a manger at the Kurhaus with boughs of trees; the Governor dined at our table, and gave a toast, “the Queen;” while the band (we always have music at dinner) played our National Air, which the Bavarians claim for their own. The ceremony of dining was thus longer and more tiresome than usual. There was an illumination in the evening; and the canopy to the mineral springs looked pretty, picked out in lamps.

192July 13th.

The King of Bavaria came over this morning. He is popular as a good king and a clever man, fond of the arts; but is esteemed to have “a bee in his bonnet,” which “bee” appears to have degenerated into a wasp with his son Otho. The Crown Prince of Bavaria is much respected, and has the reputation of being gifted with his father’s talents, with judgment superadded. The appearance of the King is droll enough; tall, with long legs and arms, he walks furiously fast, talks earnestly and loud, and gesticulates violently; he dresses shabbily, and his thin, adust face is inconceivably wrinkled.

The baths which he particularly patronises are those of Brukenau, about twenty miles distant, where he has a palace: these are steel waters, and most people go to strengthen themselves there, after being diluted by the Kissingen springs. The King has perceived the flow of money brought into other States by the resort of strangers to the baths, and is very anxious that his should be celebrated. For this reason, he decorated Dr. Granville’s button-hole with a bit of ribbon, much to the disgust of the native physicians, who are provoked to remark, “Our King is sometimes one fool.” Dr. Granville is practising 193here, also to the discontent of the native medical people, who see the rich current of English guineas turn away from themselves. However, as he is the cause of many coming here, he has certainly a right to profit by their visits. The King is very fond of receiving the English; he understands our language, and asks, in royal style, a thousand rapid questions; being somewhat deaf, he does not always hear the reply, and droll equivoques have taken place.

Now that the Queen of Wurtemburg, who changes her dress three times a day, and never wears the same gown twice, promenades the gardens, the ladies pay more attention to their toilettes; but there is a great absence of beauty among us. There are no good-looking Germans,—and the handsomest women are one or two Russians. The English do not shine as much as usual. As yet, few persons of rank are arrived; the season for touring with us is not yet commenced, and the good people of Kissingen will hail a second harvest when we hurry across the channel at the end of the London season. Most of the men here are really ill, and come to take care of their health. Accordingly, they obey the physicians, who forbid gambling. It is only on Sunday, when it is the fashion for all our neighbours, from many miles round, to come over to 194dine at Kissingen, and that gaming-tables are opened in some rooms of the Kurhaus, but they are thinly attended. No gaiety goes on in the Conversation House, with the exception of the réunions; but it is always open—a retreat and a lounge from the promenade in the gardens. There is a piano in it; and it is a specimen of German manners, that ladies go in all simplicity to practise, and even exercise their voices in a public room, without any of the false shame, or vanity, or modesty that an Englishwoman would experience, and also without exciting any observation.

I am ashamed to say I make no progress in German; my eyes and health have both held me back, and our master does not lead me on. Yet, though it is the fashion of his pupils to rebel, he has a practice which I am sure is a good one for any person desirous to speak the language quickly. With perseverance, and a haughty sense of our duty towards him, he gathers us together (about six or eight) in the rooms of some one of us, to read aloud a play of Schiller—we each having a copy of the play with a literal translation on the other side. It is strange how quickly the eye can turn from the original to the translation, and the ear get habituated to remember the words and phrases; it is a royal road to a smattering of the language to which I shall certainly 195have recourse again, so to try to acquire a better knowledge of this crabbed, and to my memory, antipathetic German.

July 17th.

This evening we drove over to Brocklet, about four miles off, described by Murray as “another watering-place, possessing four strong chalybeate springs, in which the salts and soda are largely mixed with iron. The action of the water is powerfully tonic and exciting.” They taste like ink, but I liked them much, and drank several glasses, with a great sense of deriving benefit from them. I really believe I ought to take a course of steel waters after those of Kissingen; but we are so tired of living at a watering-place that I shall not.

Brocklet is situated in a little wooded dell, quite shut in; it is as secluded, shadowy and still, as the abode of Morpheus, described by Ovid. A few convalescent sick wandered silently under the trees, and a band tried to play, but only produced a lulling murmur, in accordance with a trickling rill and the gentle rustling of the leaves of the trees. In this dim limbo you can live as well and cheaper than at Kissingen. The expense here is not large, but for a family it is not small; our household (three of us and my maid) cost us about eight or nine pounds 196a week—house-rent and everything included. We could easily spend more, but it is impossible, from the system of things, to spend less. The most agreeable luxury, indeed the only one that there is any opportunity of enjoying, are horses to visit the surrounding country. I wish we had our little Welsh ponies to scamper over the hills away from the malades.

The incidents of our day are few. Now and then Herr Fries, sometimes accompanied by his soi-disant English master, sometimes in all the desolating impotence of his unintelligible German, presses on our attention our pretended compact for four months; we have but one answer—the Commissaire through whose mediation we made the bargain. I do not think Herr Fries has even applied to him, and when we mention the subject he treats it with lofty contempt. Meanwhile our month is nearly concluded, and we shall soon leave Kissingen. I assure myself that I have benefited by the waters, though I gain no belief from my companions who do not drink them, and find the place and its dinners very intolerable. In the midst of our balancing whither to go, a few circumstances have turned the scale. Letters have arrived from a college friend of P. and K., begging us to come to Dresden. There is a railroad we find from Leipsig to Berlin, and from Leipsig to 197Dresden. My mind has for years been set upon seeing the galleries of pictures in these towns. We have had no warm weather; at the end of July the summer may be considered as well-nigh over. We shall quit this place in a day or two, and penetrate still deeper into Germany, visit cities renowned in history, and pass over ground—the fields of ten thousand battles.

198

LETTER V. Leave Kissingen.—Baths of Brukenau.—Fulda.—Eisenach.—Castle of Wartburg.—Gotha.—Erfurt.—Weimar.—The Elster.—Leipsig.

Leipsig.

At length we have left Kissingen; and though, while there, we made the best of it, we find, on looking back, that it was very intolerable, and that it is a great blessing to escape from the saddening spectacle of a crowd of invalids assembled en masse. Enormously fat men trying to thin down—delicate women hoping to grow into better case—no children. This is another decree of the physicians: children are prohibited, because the mind must enjoy perfect repose, and children are apt to create disturbance in the hearts of tender parents. It is surprising that, to forward the cure, all letters are not opened first by the doctors, and not delivered if they contain any disagreeable news. As yet, they only exhort the friends of the sick to spare them every painful emotion in their correspondence; but Kissingen will not be perfect, until the post is put under medical surveillance. Do not misunderstand me. I believe 199the waters of Kissingen to be highly medicinal, and the hours and walks and everything, but the dinners, exceedingly conducive to the restoration of health; but during this season it has not offered any attraction to those who come to a watering-place in search of amusement.

By the help of our German master, Mr. Wertheim, of Munich, who showed himself most zealous and kind, we engaged a voiture to take us to Leipsig in six days. The only error we have found in Murray is, that the price he mentions for the hire of carriages and horses is less than we find it. He may retort, and say we are cheated: but we apply to natives, and, if it be possible, I am sure it would be difficult, to make a better bargain than we have done.

July 19.

The town of Brukenau lay in our route; the Baths, two miles beyond, were out of it: however, we bargained to visit them. The road lay along the level close under the hills, and we wound for twenty miles through the wooded ravine. The characteristic of Franconia, on the edges of which we still were, appears to be gentle valleys, thridded by small clear streams; the immediate banks either meadow or arable, and closed in by hills, covered with forests of beech, interspersed by the weeping birch. Brukenau 200itself is beyond this circle, and entered into the territories of the Bishops of Fulda: but in the new distribution of kingdoms, Brukenau fell to the share of Bavaria, and the town of Fulda to the Duke of Hesse Cassel. At Brukenau, leaving the high-road, we entered the valley of the Sinn, and penetrated into the very sheltered bosom of the hills towards the Baths. There is a sense of extreme tranquillity in these secluded spots in Bavaria, where you seem cast on an unknown, unvisited region, and yet, on reaching the watering-place itself, find all the comforts of life “rise like an exhalation” around.

The hills round Brukenau are much higher and more romantic than at Kissingen. They are covered with fine beech forests, and traversed in every part by paths, interspersed with seats, constructed for the convenience of the visitors; and so extensive, that you may wander for ten or twenty miles in their depths. The public gardens, instead of being a melancholy strip of ground, planted with dry and dusty-looking trees, are extensive, and resemble an English pleasure-ground; a brawling stream, the Sinn, adorns them; everything invites the wanderer to stroll on, and to enjoy in fine weather Nature’s dearest gifts, shady woods, open lawns, and views of beautiful country; loitering beside a murmuring 201stream, or toiling on awhile, and then resting as you gaze on a wider prospect. The waters here are chalybeate and tonic; they taste of ink, but sparkle in the glass, and I found them pleasant. We arrived at the dinner hour, and sat down in the large and well-built Kursaal, where the tables were spread, to a dinner somewhat better than that allowed us at Kissingen, and we enjoyed the novelty of salad, fruits, and ice. We found several familiar faces from Kissingen come here to strengthen themselves with steel waters. Altogether the place looked at once more sociable and more retired; and, above all, the country around was, without being striking from crag and precipice, far more picturesque than at Kissingen. The whole establishment is in the hands of government, and the houses where the visitors lodge are placed in the midst of the garden. Things are managed both more cheaply and more agreeably than at Kissingen. The visitors, however, are never so numerous, and the style of the place is more quiet. The king has a palace, where he spends the season, and is very courteous to the English. We wished to sleep at the Baths, but unfortunately no beds were to be had, though great exertion was made by several good-natured visitors to procure them for us. Oddly enough, persons we had been accustomed to meet, without speaking, day after day 202at Kissingen, here had the air of familiar acquaintance. We were sorry to go away, and loitered several hours in the gardens, and visited the old kursaal, a rather dilapidated room. The walls were hung with portraits of the ancient Prince-Bishops of Fulda—the discoverers, and erst the possessors, of these medicinal springs. I should have been glad to stay at least a week in this agreeable retirement, and drink the waters; but we could not now alter our arrangements.

We were obliged to return to the town of Brukenau to sleep; as the golden hues of evening increased at once the beauty and the stillness of the happy valley, with regret we tore ourselves away. Murray bids us go to the Hotel of the Post at Brukenau, and we learned afterwards that this is really a good and comfortable inn. I fancy the master has had some quarrel with the authorities at the Baths, for we were bidden go to another inn; in an evil hour we obeyed. It was very dirty and comfortless.

July 20th.

Leaving Brukenau the following morning early, we by degrees quitted the wooded hills and grassy valleys of Franconia, and entered the domains of the Prince of Hesse Cassel.

203It was in these territories that a scene was enacted during the last century, so overlooked by history, that I believe by-and-bye it will only be remembered (how is it even now?) by the commentators on Schiller. When we read of the Hessians in the American war, we have a vague idea that our government called in the aid of foreign mercenaries to subdue the revolted colonies; an act which roused Lord Chatham to exclaim in the House of Peers, “If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms, never—never—never!” We censure the policy of government, we lament the obstinacy of George III., who, exhausting the English levies, had recourse to “the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder;” and “devoted the Americans and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty.” But our imagination does not transport itself to the homes of the unfortunate Germans; nor is our abhorrence of the tyranny that sent them to die in another hemisphere awakened. Lord Chatham does indeed in the same speech, from which the above quotations are made, cast a half-pitying glance on the victims of their native sovereign, when he talks of “traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign sovereign.” Schiller, in his 204tragedy of “Cabal and Love,” describes the misery brought on his own countrymen more graphically. “A petty German prince,” namely, the Duke of Hesse Cassel, or perhaps the Margrave of Anspach, who also dealt in this unholy traffic, sends a present of jewels to his mistress—she is astonished at their magnificence, and asks the bringer of them, how the Duke could pay for such immeasurably costly jewels? The servant replies—“They cost him nothing. Seven thousand children of the soil started yesterday for America; they pay for all.” “But not compelled?” the lady demands; the poor man, who has two sons among the recruits, replies—“O God, no! perfect volunteers. True, some forward lads stepped out of the ranks and asked the colonel, how dear the prince sold his yoke of men? But our gracious lord caused all the regiments to be marched to the parade ground, to shoot down the jackanapes. We heard the report of the firelocks, saw their brains scattered on the ground, and the whole army shouted ‘Hurrah for America!’ Then the loud drums told us it was time. On one side shrieking orphans followed their living father; on the other a distracted mother ran to cast her sucking child on the bayonets; here a pair of betrothed lovers were parted by sabre blows; and there grey beards stood struck by despair, and at last flung their 205crutches after the young fellows who were off to the New World. Oh! and with all that the deafening roll of the drum mingled, for fear the Almighty should hear us praying!” We were told that the facts were worse even than this picture; since when first the order was given out for the enlisting of the soldiers, hundreds deserted their homes and betook themselves to the neighbouring mountains of Franconia, and were hunted down like wild animals, and starved into surrender.

History fails fearfully in its duty when it makes over to the poet the record and memory of such an event. One, it is to be hoped, that can never be renewed. And yet what act of cruelty and tyranny may not be reacted on the stage of the world, which we boast of as civilised, if one man has uncontrolled power over the lives of many, the unwritten story of Russia may hereafter tell.

The country, as we went on, became uninteresting—a sandy soil, and few trees. We dined at Fulda, an agreeable, quiet-looking, old German town, once the capital of the prince-bishops of that diocese. We visited the Cathedral, a fine old building, containing some holy relics, which are preserved in little painted wooden boxes kept behind the altar. They had not the air of sanctity about them, and the man who shewed the chancel handled them with 206great indifference. Afterwards, we went to the Church of St. Michael, where we were taken to some subterranean vaults, in which Aniaschiadus, a saint and confessor, lived, I think, they said, for seven years, hid from the persecution of the Arians. Do not wonder that I speak in doubt, for our guide was German, and we could only guess at his meaning. Enough to learn that one persecuted for his religious faith did pass a number of years in this dark vault, in fear, want, and suffering; and came out, probably, to persecute in his turn—such is the usual result of this sort of controversy. Ministers of religion have been in all ages too easily led to destroy the bodies of those whose souls they believe to be lost. There is a palace here, standing on the highest part of the town; and a show of military. The city has, indeed, an individual appearance, that stamps it on the memory, without being sufficiently striking for description.

This evening we slept at Buttlar, at a quiet, comfortable, country inn. Buttlar is a small village; this the only good house; but it had all the charm of an English way-side inn in a retired spot, where they are accustomed to receive visitors in search of the picturesque. The charges in this part of the journey were very moderate. We paid highest, of course, at the bad inn, at Brukenau; and the 207charges at all appear quite arbitrary. Fancy prices put on by the landlord, according to the appearance of his guests. As we pass also, without knowing it, from one State to another, the coins vary. The money is easy enough when not confounded: a Bavarian florin is reckoned as two francs; a thaler, as three shillings. Sometimes we pay in one money; sometimes in another. On the whole, the Prussian thaler, divided into three coins of ten groschen each, equivalent to a shilling, is the most intelligible; but the Bavarian florin denotes greater cheapness in price.

July 21st.

We now entered the depths of the Thuringerwald; and, stopping at Eisenach for dinner, hired a carriage—the distance was not much more than a mile, but the day was wet—to take us to the Castle of Wartburg. Luther, on his return from the Diet of Worms, was waylaid by his friend, the Elector of Saxony, and carried thither as to a place of safety. He remained ten months, passing for a young nobleman; and busily employed in translating the Bible, and composing other works. The Castle of Wartburg is situated on a steep wooded eminence, ascended by a winding road, thickly shaded by trees. The chamber that Luther inhabited has one large window, overlooking 208a wide extent of hill and dale, stretching far away over the Thuringian Forest—a noble prospect; and the very site, high-raised and commanding, was well suited to the lofty and unbending soul of the recluse. This chamber is preserved in the same state as when it harboured its illustrious guest; and, except his bed, his furniture remains: his table, his stool, his chair, and ink-stand, are there; and if not the stain on the wall, marking his exploit of throwing his ink-stand at the Arch Tempter’s head, there is at least the place where the ink was—some tourist has carried off the memorable plaster. We saw, also, several suits of armour belonging to various heroes of olden time here preserved. Hearing the names of prince, heroine, or even of illustrious robber (names honoured in history), who once endued these iron vestments—looking round on the armoury, or out of the window on the Thuringerwald—I felt happy in the sense of satisfied curiosity; or rather, of another sentiment to which I cannot give a precise name, but which swells the heart and makes the bosom glow, as one views, and touches, and feels surrounded by the remains of illustrious antiquity. The honoured name of Luther had more than any other right and power to awaken this: those of warrior or king only influence the imagination, as associated with poetry and romance; his is rendered sacred by his struggle, 209the most fearful human life presents, with antique mis-beliefs and errors upheld by authority.

We saw nothing of Gotha, where we slept; though, for Prince Albert’s sake, I would willingly have become better acquainted with his native place. There is something pleasing in the mere outward aspect of these Protestant German towns: they look clean, orderly, and well-built. Hail to the good fight, the heart says everywhere; hail to the soil whence intellectual liberty gained, with toil and suffering, the victory—not complete yet—but which, thanks to the men of those time, can never suffer entire defeat! In time, it will spread to those countries which are still subject to Papacy.

July 22d.

We breakfasted this morning at Erfurt, and made duteous pilgrimage to the Augustine convent which Luther inhabited as a monk. In the church, he said his first mass; and it remains in the same state, with a rude old pulpit, in which Luther preached, and carved wooden galleries. His cell is preserved as when he lived in it. It is, like conventual cells all over the world, a small, square, high chamber. Here is the Bible that he first found in the library of the Convent; studying which his powerful mind began to perceive the errors of the Church to which 210he belonged. The convent is now used as an Orphan-house. There is a gallery in it, with a strange series of pictures. Death is represented as coming upon men and women at all moments, during every occupation—the Beauty at her toilette—the Miser counting his money—the Hero in the hour of victory—the King on his throne—the Mother fostering her first-born—the Bride, proud in her husband. It is a strange idea: the pictures are badly executed enough, yet some are striking.

The country lost, as we proceeded, all its beauty—vast uninclosed tracts of arable land spread out round. From a height, we looked down on Weimar. The trees of its park were the only verdure visible; for the harvest being over, the land was all stubble: no hedge, no meadow, no shady covert. I pitied the poets who had been destined to live there; for however agreeable royal parks and gardens may be, they are a poor compensation for the free and noble beauty of nature.

Dining at Weimar, we spent two or three hours in running about to visit the lions. It is a pleasant looking town. I do not know exactly how to present to your imagination the appearance of these German towns. The streets are wide; and thus, though the houses are high, they look airy, and, though badly paved, clean: the houses are white, and have not the 211air of antiquity. As I have said once or twice before, an appearance of order and tranquillity is their characteristic. We visited the abodes of Wieland, Schiller, and Göthe, who are the great people here: that is, we saw the outside of the houses in which they had dwelt; for, being inhabited by a fresh generation, the insides are not show places. The palace is a handsome building; and three apartments are being decorated in honour of those chosen poets. The larger one for Göthe; a smaller for Schiller; a sort of octagon closet for Wieland. The walls are adorned with frescoes of subjects taken from their works. I am not sure that I should give this superiority to Göthe: Schiller has always appeared to me the greater man: he is more complete. The startling quality of Göthe is his insight into the secret depths of the human mind; his power of dissecting motives—of holding up the mirror to our most inmost sensations; and also in dramatic scenes of touching pathos, and passages of overflowing eloquence: but he wants completeness, and never achieves a whole. “Faust” is a fragment—“Wilhelm Meister” is a fragment. It is true, this has a closer resemblance to life which seldom affords an artistic beginning, middle, and end to its strange enchainment of events. Still, the conception of a perfect whole has ever held the highest place in our 212standard of a poet’s power of imagination. But I will spare you further criticism from an ignorant person.

We saw the coffins of the poets in the dark tomb, placed not side by side, princely etiquette forbad, but in the same narrow chamber with those of the princes who honoured them. These coffins suggest a wonderful contempt for the material of life; Camoëns exclaimed, when dying in an hospital, “Lo! the vast scene of my fortunes is contracted to this narrow bed!” This tomb told us that princely protection and the aspirations of genius were shut up in those dust-containing coffers; yet not so, while the works of the one endure, and the memory of the acts of the others survive in the minds of posterity. This friendship after death, this desire to share even in the grave the poet’s renown, after having sheltered and honoured him during life, makes one love these good German sovereigns. Mr. Landor says the Germans possess nine-tenths of the thought that exists in the world. There is in even larger proportion honour for thought. The gardens of the palace are agreeably laid out; and except that turf is wanting, resemble an English park, with fine old trees and a river running through. This spot was a favourite resort, and there is a pretty shady summer-house overlooking 213the river, where the sovereigns held réunions, and entertained their poet friends; many a June evening was there spent in refined intercourse. There is also a pavilion in the garden which Göthe inhabited in the summer months.

The park of Weimar was an oasis in the desert. We found for many miles after leaving it, the same dreary landscape; flat and unmarked as the sea; not as barren, for the country is all corn-fields but as no hedge intersects them, nor any bush shows its tufted top, nor any trees appear except the ill-looking poplars mixed with cherry-trees that line the road, nothing can be more unvaried or uninteresting than these vast plains; uninteresting indeed, in outward aspect, yet claiming our attention and exciting our curiosity as the scene of a thousand battles, above all, of that last struggle, when yielding the ground inch by inch, mile by mile, Napoleon was driven from Dresden to the Rhine.

Some slight interruption occurs in the uniform aspect of these bare plains, when they are intersected by the course of the Saale, a common name for a river in Germany, which winds through a pleasing village. On the heights that surround, stand old castles renowned in story. We soon left this pleasant change behind, and came again on the 214naked country, sweeping over miles and miles; our guide-books speak of this as the scenes of battles and victories of Gustavus Adolphus, and Frederic the Great. The first name claims our admiration, and we looked with respect on the stone that marks the spot where he fell. Frederic was a very clever man, and except for the evils which, as a conqueror, he brought on his subjects, he did them good as far as his limited views permitted him. But there is no sovereign whose acts fill so many pages in history, for whom one cares so little as Frederic. Cold-hearted, if not false, the dogged determination and invincible purpose that form his best characteristic, yet centred so narrowly in self, that he excites no jot of interest. It was otherwise in his own day. He was a king, a man of talent, a warrior who encountered difficulties that had overwhelmed a weaker mind, and surmounted them. He had the charm of manners, which, though cruelly capricious to his dependents, were, when he chose, irresistibly fascinating; such qualities awoke, while he lived, the admiration of the world; but with the Prince de Ligne died the last of his enthusiastic admirers.

Another name, greater and newer than his, has thrust him from his place, and occupies our attention—in one respect his entire opposite; for 215Napoleon was great in success, Frederic in defeat. Perhaps the absence of heaven-born legitimacy took from the latest hero of the world who has joined the dead, the unflinching, stubborn will of Frederic in adversity; besides, it would seem that Napoleon disdained to fight, except when he could gain a world by victory. Here he lost one; and a struggle that lasted many days in the environs of Leipsig, drove him from Germany. When reduced to what he seemed to look upon as the paltry kingdom of France, he played double or quits with that and lost all.

We looked out for the Elster, where the bridge was blown up which cost Poniatowski his life, and lost to Napoleon twenty-five thousand French soldiers taken prisoners. I am told that I now look upon the very spot; that at the end of the garden of the Hôtel de Saxe this tragic scene was enacted: it seems as if a good hunter might leap the narrow stream which decided the fate of an empire.

Here ends a very fatiguing journey. The carriage we hired was to appearance roomy and comfortable; but being badly hung, it was inconceivably uneasy; and partly, I believe, the effect of the Kissingen waters still hanging about me, (I ought to have spent a week at least at Brukenau,) I never suffered more fatigue and even distress on a journey. Right glad I am to be here. To-morrow we commit ourselves 216to a railroad—blessings on the man who invented them. Every traveller must especially bless him in these naked, monotonous plains.

The Hôtel de Saxe is very good, and not much dearer than any other. They are expecting the King of Prussia to-morrow, and the staircases are carpeted and decorated with evergreens. The Oberkellner, or upper waiter—a very important personage in these German hotels—is an intelligent little fellow, and speaks English perfectly.

Congratulate me that so far I am advanced in the heart of this mighty country. Though I skim its surface without having any communication with its inhabitants, still the eye is gratified, the imagination excited, and curiosity satisfied.

217

LETTER VI. Railroad to Berlin.—Unter-den-Linden.—Gallery.—Palace.—Museum.—Opera.—Iron-Foundry.

Berlin, 27th July.

The distance from Leipsig to Berlin is 105 miles; the greater part an arid sandy plain. Earlier in the season it had not been so bad, for the land is arable; but now the stubble remaining after harvest was the only sign left of cultivation. The sense the eye received of nakedness was in no way relieved—no hedge, no tree, no meadow, no bush. One break there was when we crossed the Elbe, and a line of verdure and wood follows the course of the river. I read “The Heart of Mid-Lothian” during the journey, which occupied six or seven hours, and the time passed rapidly.

There are three classes of carriages, and the price is not dear:—1st class, five and a half thalers (a thaler is three shillings); 2d class, three and a half thalers; 3d class, two and a half. A few miles beyond Leipsig we entered the Prussian territory, and changed carriages. The Prussian carriages are 218very much more roomy and comfortable. The pace we went, when going, was very great, so that I heard passengers call out from the windows imploring that the speed might be lessened. Much time was lost, however, at every one of the numerous stations, where the carriage-doors were thrown open with the announcement of stopping for funfzehn minuten, or funf minuten, or even drei minuten, (fifteen, five and three minutes,) when the passengers poured out, and comforted themselves with all sorts of slight refreshments—light wine, light beer, light cakes and cherries, nothing much in themselves, but a good deal of it—offered by a whole crowd of dealers in such wares. On arriving at Berlin we went to the hotel Stadt Rom, Unter-den-Linden, which we find very comfortable, the host attentive, and the table d’hôte good.

We are here in the best street, which has a double avenue of lime-trees in the middle, running its whole length. One way it leads to the Brandenburg gate, the other to a spot that forms the beauty of Berlin as a capital—a wide open space, graced by a beautiful fountain, and an immense basin of polished granite, made from one of those remarkable boulders found on the sandy plain, fifty miles from Berlin; adorned also by the colonnade of the New Museum, opposite to which stands the Guard-house, the Italian 219Opera, and the University. The building of the Arsenal is near, and the whole forms a splendid assemblage of buildings. After dinner, we have walked under the lime-trees to the Brandenburg gate—a most beautiful portal, built on the model of the Propylæum at Athens, on a larger scale. Napoleon carried off the car of Victory which decorates the top; it was brought back after the battle of Waterloo. Before its capture it was placed as if leaving the city behind, to rush forward on the world; on its return, it was placed returning to and facing the city. The square before this gate is chiefly inhabited by foreign Ministers: Lord Burghersh has his house here. Outside are extensive public gardens, in the usual foreign style—that is, numerous avenues of trees, in a herbless sandy soil.

28th July.

Our first visit in the morning was to the Museum. It is at some little distance from the hotel, and the walk led us through the best part of Berlin. The building itself is beautiful; the grand circular hall by which you reach the statue-gallery, and which again you look down upon from the open gallery that leads to the pictures, surpasses in elegance and space anything I have ever seen, except in the Vatican. At once we rushed 220among the pictures—our only inducement, except curiosity to see a renowned capital city, to visit Berlin. The gallery is admirably arranged in schools, and the pictures have an excellent light on them; and in each room is hung up a list of pictures and their painters contained in it. First we saw the Io, of Correggio, a most lovely picture, and near it Leda and the Swan, by the same artist; and then our eyes were attracted to one still lovelier in its chaste and divine beauty—a Virgin and Child by Raphael. The Mother is holding a book in one hand, the other arm encircles her infant. It bears the impress of the first style of the divinest of painters, when his warm heart was animated by pious enthusiasm, and his imagination inspired by a celestial revelation of pure beauty. It was once the gem of the Colonna Gallery at Rome, and was sold by the Duke of Lanti to the King of Prussia.

Next to these I was most struck by a picture by Francia, the Virgin in glory, worshipped by six saints. There is a remarkable picture by Rembrandt, a portrait of the Duke Adolph of Gueldres, shaking his fist at his father. The countenance bears the liveliest impress of angry passion: the impious madness of the parricide mantles in the face, and gives wild energy to the furious gesture. The gallery is rich in portraits by Van Dyck—some of his finest: 221but I must not send you a mere catalogue. From room to room we wandered; sometimes desirous of seeing all, and so penetrating into every nook—sometimes satisfied to sit for hours before a masterpiece.

Yes, I dedicated hours this morning,—I know not how many,—to a painting that has given me more delight than any I ever saw. I had often heard the first style of Raphael preferred to his third, and thought it a superstition; but I am a convert—entirely a convert. Apart, locked up in a room with some of the gold-grounded deformed productions of the Byzantine artists, stands, except one, the largest painting of Raphael’s in the world; the subject is the adoration of the Magi. It is in his first style—it is half destroyed—the outline of some of the figures only remains; no sacrilegious hand has ever touched to restore it, and in its ruin it is divine. The Baby Jesus is lying on the ground, and Mary, with an angel at each hand, kneels before the lowly couch of her child; on the other side are the kings bearing their gifts; and far in the background are the shepherds visited by angels, announcing peace and good-will to man. I never saw such perfect grace and ideal beauty as in the kneeling figures of the Virgin and her attendant angels. Composed majesty and 222deep humility are combined in the attitudes. The countenances show their souls abstracted from all earthly thought, and absorbed by pure and humble adoration. Adoration from the adorable: this is what only an artist of the highest class can portray. You perceive that the painter imagined perfect beings, who deserve a portion of the worship which they pay unreservedly to the Creator, and such are saints and angels in the mind of a Catholic. You who so much admire the unfinished ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, would delight in this relic of a greater man: will you receive any from this attempt to convey what I felt? I read somewhere the other day, that speech is one mode of communicating our thoughts—painting another—music another—neither can, with any success, go beyond its own department to that of the other—thus, words can never show forth the beauty of which painting presents the living image to the eyes.

It may be a defect, that I take more pleasure in graceful lines, and attitudes, and expression, than in colouring. Sir Thomas Lawrence told me that it was one, and that an uncultivated eye was, therefore, often better pleased by statuary than painting; and he said this, because I looked with more delight on some inimitable bronze-statues standing on his mantel-piece, preferring them to a 223richly-coloured painting on which he was accustomed to rest his eye while at work; so to familiarise it to the fullest and most glowing hues—I am not sure that he is right.

Let us take, for instance, two pictures by the prince of painters—the Adoration of the Magi among his first;—The Transfiguration his last work. In artistic power, this picture is said to surpass every other in the world. The genius of its author is shown in its admirable composition, in the spirit of the attitudes, in the life that animates each figure, without alluding to technical merits, which, of course, are felt even by those who cannot define, nor even point them out. Yet, this picture does not afford me great pleasure—no face is inspired by holy and absorbing passion; and the woman, the most prominent figure, is a portrait of the Fornarina, whose hard countenance is peculiarly odious. Turn from this to the half-effaced picture at Berlin—the radiant beauty here expressed, strikes a chord in my soul—all harmony, all love. It is not the art of the painter I admire; it is his pure, exalted soul, which he incarnated in these lovely forms. I remember Wordsworth’s theory, that we enter this world bringing with us “airs from heaven,” memories of a divine abode and angelic fellowship which we have just left, that flake 224by flake fall from our souls as they degenerate and are enfeebled by earthly passions. Raphael seems to confirm this theory; for, in his early pictures, there is a celestial something absent from his latter, a beauty not found on earth—inspiring as we look, a deep joy, only felt in such brief moments when some act of self-sacrifice exalts the soul, when love softens the heart, or nature draws us out of ourselves, and our spirits are rapt in ecstacy, and enabled to understand and mingle with the universal love.

The gallery is open from ten till three. Unfortunately, the fatigue of the journey made me very ill able to endure much toil; and you know,—who knows not?—that visiting galleries produces extreme weariness. I went back to the hotel several times to repose, and then returned to the gallery. I desired to learn by heart—to imbibe—to make all I saw a part of myself, so that never more I may forget it. In some sort I shall succeed. Some of the forms of beauty on which I gazed, must last in my memory as long as it endures; but this will be at the expense of others, which even now are fading and about to disappear from my mind. I feel, though usually I prefer statuary to painting, and there are some statues—and particularly an ancient bronze of a boy praying, that I have regarded with 225delight; still my mind was full before, the rest can but overflow. The gallery of Berlin will, I fear, become a vague, though glorious dream, for the most part, leaving distinct only a few images that can never be effaced.

July 29th.

Yesterday evening we went to the opera—the house is small, but pretty. The piece was Massaniello, at which I grieved. I want German music in Germany. There was no remarkable singer. There was no ballet; and all was over, according to the good German custom, by ten o’clock.

To-day, we have been doing our duty in sightseeing; though I grudged every minute spent away from the gallery. There are some good pictures, however, in the palace, especially the portraits of our Charles I. and his Queen, by Van Dyck. The apartments are very handsome. They have an ungainly custom here, as in Holland, of providing the visiter with list-shoes, to preserve their shining parquets. I rebelled against putting on slippers other people had worn, and forced the Custode, grumblingly, to acknowledge that my shoes could not hurt the floor. The rooms of the palace are chiefly associated with the name of Napoleon, and are decorated 226by vases of Sèvre china and by portraits of himself and Josephine, presents from the conqueror to the conquered, which were impertinent enough at the time; but the spirit is changed now, and they remain as trophies of Prussian victories. I looked with great interest on the various portraits of the celebrated Queen of Prussia. In all, she is inexpressibly beautiful. Her face is thoroughly individual;—animation—independence—a truly feminine, yet, (for want of a better word I must say,) a wild loveliness gives it a peculiar charm. There is a portrait of her at twelve years of age—dignity, true nobility, artless innocence, and evident strength of character, adorn a countenance in the first bloom of untainted girlhood.

We visited the Museum. I did not much care for what I saw. There are many relics of Frederic the Great, and a wax figure, dressed up in his old clothes, is placed on a faded throne beneath a shabby canopy—all such as he used in life. There is nothing to excite respect in this sort of spectacle. It is the misfortune of those who live to be old that they are always handed down to posterity as decrepid and feeble. If I were a queen, I would never suffer myself to be painted after thirty; or, if well preserved, five-and-thirty at the latest. Queens and beauties—kings and heroes—all must pay our nature’s sad 227tribute, and lose even individuality and charm, as the moss of age creeps over the frame, which, becoming weak and shattered, loses proportion and grace; but it is foolish to leave behind these emblems of decay. Frederic the Great, as he first met Voltaire at the castle of Meuse, near Cleves, or as he wrote his dispatch on a drum after one of his first battles, would indeed be the Frederic, whose deeds, if evil, at least were instinct with power and life. This doll, dressed up to represent a decrepid, feeble old man, is the most dreary sarcasm that can be imagined.

The prospect from the palace windows is really grand: the Platz in front—the Museum—the Fountain—the whole range of buildings—form a coup-d’œil that transcends that of the Place de la Concorde, at Paris.

I desired to visit some of the manufactures of Berlin steel, and expected to see beautiful specimens. It is a curious fact, how difficult it is to find out where you ought to go, and how to see any sight, unless it be a regular lion, or you have an exact address. We took a drosky, and drove to a shop; it was closed: to another; there was no such thing. We returned to our hotel, and learnt that we had been spending many useless groschen by not taking the drosky by the hour instead of the course. Having reformed this oversight, we set off again in search of 228the manufactory. You know the history of the building of Berlin. Frederic the Great, desirous that his capital should rival that of other kingdoms, inclosed a large space within its walls, and ordered the vacancy to be filled up with houses. This occasions a great difference between Berlin and most foreign cities. In the latter, the aim is to save land, and to encroach on heaven. Here, the builders endeavoured to cover as much space as possible, and many of the finest houses are only two stories high. Wide and grass-grown, the streets, all straight and at right angles, stretch far away, with scarce a solitary passenger or drosky here and there, making the solitude even more felt. There is another peculiarity in this wide-spread city. It is built on the flattest plain in the world. The Spree stagnates beneath its bridges, and the drains, just covered by planks, stagnate in the streets, and are by no means agreeable during the present heat and drought.

At length, after driving about from one place to another, asking our way as well as we could, resolved not to give in, but much puzzled, we reached the Eisengiesserei, or iron-foundry, just outside the Oranienburg gate. We alighted from the drosky and walked into a large court-yard, and into the sort of immense shed in which is the foundry. We asked every one we met where the works in steel 229were sold; no one could tell us. We wandered about a long time. The men were at work making moulds in sand. At length a vast cauldron of molten metal was brought from the furnace, and poured into a mould. There is something singular in boiling metal, the sight of which gives a new idea to the mind, a new sensation to the soul. Boiling water, or other liquid, presents only an inanimate element, changed to the touch, not to the eye; but molten metal, red and fiery, takes a new appearance, and seems to have life,—the heat appears to give it voluntary action, and the sense of its power of injury adds to the emotion with which it is regarded; as well as the fact that it takes and preserves the form into which it flows. In this every-day world a new sensation is a new delight. I have read somewhere of a French lady, who went to Rome to kiss the Pope’s toe, because it made her heart beat quicker so to do. Certainly, seeing the diminutive Cyclops pour the glowing living liquid from their cauldron, viewing it run fiercely into the various portions of the mould, and then grow tranquil and dark as its task was fulfilled, imparted, I know not why or how, a thrill to the frame.