There is a wild, fantastic poem, thronged with more phantoms, goblins,
and horrors than are the legends of the Blockberg. It narrates in
singularly vivid style the deeds of a frightful fiend, and is, believe
me, a truly remarkable work. I beg you will not scorn it because it
exists only in the brain which it entered one stormy night at sea. There
it reigned, triumphant, through long sleepless hours; but for certain
reasons--which are, by the way, perfectly satisfactory to my own
mind--it will never be committed to paper. Its title is "The
Screw,"--the screw of an ocean steamer.
Christmas is the best wishing-time in the year. One can wish and wish at
Christmas, and what harm does it do? So I will wish my poem all written
in stately, melodious measure, yet with thoughts that would make your
cheek pale, and your very soul shudder; and then--since wishing is so
easy--I will wish that I were an intimate friend of Gustave Dore, to
whom I would take my masterpiece to be illustrated; and I would beg him
to allow his genius for drawing awful things full sway, and I would
implore him not to withhold one magic touch that might suggest another
horror, so that extending from the central object--the terrible
Screw--there should be demons reaching for their prey, howling and
laughing in fiendish glee. Then I would say, "More, more, my good M.
Dore!--more hideous faces, more leering phantoms, more writhing legs and
arms, please!" For perhaps Dore never crossed the ocean in bad weather;
perhaps he never occupied a state-room directly over the Screw; perhaps
he never experienced the sensation of lying there in sleepless,
helpless, hopeless agony, clinging frantically to the side of his berth,
hearing the clank of chains, the creaking of timbers, the rattling of
the shrouds, the waves sweeping the deck over his head,--most of all,
the Evil Screw beneath, rampant and threatening. It may be Dore does not
know how it feels when that Screw rises up in wrath, takes the steamer
in his teeth and shakes it, then plunges deep, deep in the waves; while
all the demons, great and small, stretching their uncanny arms towards
the state-rooms, shriek, "We'll get them! We'll have them!" and the
winds and waves in hoarse chorus respond, "They'll have them--have
them--have them!" and again uprises the Screw and shakes himself and the
trembling steamer. So through the night, and many nights, alas!
And yet, O Screw! thing of evil, thing of might, I humbly thank you that
you ceased at last your terrible thumps, your jarrings and wicked
whirls,--and silenced your chorus of attendant demons, with their
turnings and twistings and mad laughter; I thank you that you _did not_
get us! Truly, I believed you would. I thank you that you did not choose
to keep us miserable souls wandering forevermore through the shoreless
deep, or to sink us, as the phantom-ship sinks in "Der Fliegender
Hollaender," amid sulphurous fumes and discordant sounds, down to that
lurid abyss from which you came.
Do you all at home know this legend of the Flying Dutchman? At least, do
you know it as Wagner gives it to the world, in words as lovely as its
melodies? The music is worth hearing, and the story well worth a little
thought. But perhaps you know it already? Because, if you do, of course
I shall not tell it, and in that case we need not sail off in strange
crafts for the wild Norway coast, but will only steam safely up the Elbe
to Hamburg.
There are travellers from the Western World who, after months of
sight-seeing, return home weary and disappointed because they have never
once been able to "realize that they were in Europe." Not realize! Not
know! Not feel with every fibre that one has come from the New to the
Old! Why, the very lights of Hamburg gleaming through the rain and
darkness, as we cold and wet voyagers at last drew near our haven, even
while they gave us friendly greeting, told us unmistakably that their
welcome was shining out from a strange land, from homes unlike the homes
we had left behind.
Dear people who never "realize" that it is "Europe," who never feel what
you expected to feel, may one less experienced in travel than yourselves
venture to tell you that it is that fatal thing, the guide-book, that
weighs you down? Not total abstinence in this respect, but moderation,
would I preach. Too much guide-book makes you know far too well what to
do, where to go, how long to stay. It leaves nothing to imagination, to
enthusiasm, to the whim of the moment. Dear guide-book people, _don't_
know so much, don't calculate so much, don't measure and weigh and test
everything! Don't speak so much to what you see, and then what you see
will speak more to you. Even here in old Hamburg, the haughty free city
of commerce, the rich city boasting of her noble port filled with ships
from every land,--proud of her wealth, her strength, her merchants, and
her warehouses,--looking well after her ducats, caring much for her
dinner, plainly telling you she is of a prosaic nature, leaving tales of
love and chivalry to the more romantic South,--even here the air is full
of subtle intangible influences, that will move you deeply if you will
but receive them. A city a thousand years old must have something to say
of far-off times and of the living present, if one has ears to hear.
Stand on the heights by the river and look down on all the noble ships
at anchor there. The old windmill turns lazily before you. The flag on a
building near by moves softly in the breeze. The tender, hazy,
late-autumn day, kind to all things, beautifies even bare trees and
withered grass. A large-eyed boy, his school-books under his arm, stares
curiously at you, then longingly looks at the water and the great ships.
The picture has its meaning, which you may breathe in, drink in if you
will, but you will never find it if you are comparing your "Appleton"
with your "Baedecker," or estimating the number of square feet in the
grass-plot where you stand, or looking hard at the ugly "Sailors'
Asylum" because you may be so directed, and refusing to see my pretty
boy with the wistful eyes because he's not mentioned in the guide-book.
Everywhere are little stories, pictures, glimpses of other people's
lives, waiting for you. The flower-girl at the street-corner holds out a
bunch of violets as you pass. Pale, thinly clad, she stands there
shivering in the cold November wind. On you go. The shops are large and
brilliant, the people seem for a time like those in any large city. You
think you might as well be in New York, when suddenly you see, walking
tranquilly along, a peasant-woman in the costume of her
district,--short, bright gown, bodice square and high, with full white
sleeves and a red kerchief round her shoulders, and on her head the most
curious object, a thing that looks like a skullcap, with a flaring black
bow, as large as your two hands, at the back, from which hangs her hair
in two long braids. Sometimes there is also a hat which resembles a
shallow, inverted flat basket. Why it stays in place instead of wabbling
about as it might reasonably be expected to do, and whether there is any
hidden connection between it and that extraordinary black bow, are
mysteries to me, though I peered under the edge of the basket hat of one
Vierlaenderin with great pertinacity.
The Hamburg maid-servants also wear a prescribed costume. A casement
high above you swings open and discloses a little figure standing in the
narrow window. A blond head, with a white bit of a cap on it, leans out.
You catch a glimpse of a great white apron, and of a neat, sensible,
dark cotton gown, made with a short puffed sleeve which leaves the arm
bare and free for work. You wonder _why_ the girl looks so long up and
down the busy street, and what she hopes to see. To be sure, it may be
only Bridget looking for Patrick, or, worse, Bridget thinking of nothing
in particular; simply idling away her time, instead of sweeping the
garret. But if her name is perhaps Hannchen, and she looks from a
window, narrow and high, and the morning sunshine touches her yellow
braids, and she stands so still, far above the hurrying feet on the
pavement, how can one help finding her more interesting, as a bit of
human nature to study and enjoy, than a beflounced and beribboned
Bridget at home? And when, in her simple dress, well suited to her
degree, she runs about the streets on her mistress's errands, carrying
many a parcel in her strong round arms, she is a pleasant thing to see,
and, because she does not ape the fine lady, loses nothing when by
chance she walks by the side of one in silk attire.
Ah! if one has ever groaned in spirit to see the tawny daughters of the
Penobscot Indians, those dusky maidens who might, in reason, be expected
to bring into a prosaic town some wildwood grace, some suggestion of the
"curling smoke of wigwams," of "the dew and damp of meadows," selling
their baskets from door to door in gowns actually cut after a recent
Godey fashion-plate, much looped as to overskirt, much ruffled and
puffed and shirred,--then indeed must one rejoice in the dress of the
Hamburg maids, and in these sturdy country-women trudging along in their
picturesque but substantial costume, to sell their fruit and vegetables
in the city markets.
In the olden time the good wives of Hamburg no doubt wore such gowns.
One sees now in the street called Grosse Bleichen great buildings, banks
and shops, and all the evidences of busy modern life; but one shuts the
eyes and sees instead groups of women in blue and red, coming out from
the city walls to lay on the green grass the linen they have spun, that
it may whiten in the sunshine. They spun, and wove, and bleached. They
lived and died. The growing city built new walls, and took within its
limits those green banks once beyond its gates. The women knew not what
was to be, when their spinning was all done. Nor did the maids, whose
busy feet trod the path by the river-side, dream that the Jungfernstieg,
or Maiden's Path, would be the name, hundreds of years after, of the
most-frequented promenade of the gay world of a great city.
Those women with the spinning-wheels, silent now so long, the young
maids with their waterjars, chatting together in the early morning by
the river, still speak to us, if we but listen. Though the voices of the
city are so loud, we can hear quite well what they tell us; but indeed,
indeed, dear friends, it is not written in the guide-book.
----
Stories everywhere, did I not say? Why, I even found one imbedded
in--candy!
Listen, children, while I tell you about marzipan. The grown people need
not hear, if they do not wish.
Marzipan (or St. Mark's bread--_marzi panis_) is the name of a dainty
which is made into bonbons of every shape and size and color imaginable;
all, however, having the same flavor, tasting of sugar and vanilla and
rose-water and almonds, and I know not what beside. There are tiny
potatoes, dark and gray, with marvellous "eyes," that would delight your
souls; there are grapes, and nuts, and large, red apples, all made from
the delectable marzipan. And most particularly there are little round
loaves, an inch long, perhaps, which are the original celebrated
marzipan, pure and simple, the other form being modern innovations. And
why Mark's bread? Because, my dears, there was once a famine in Luebeck,
and tradition saith that the loaf which each poor woman took from the
baker to her starving bairns grew each day smaller and smaller, until
finally it was such a poor wee thing it was no more than an inch long;
and on St. Mark's Day was the famine commemorated, while the shape and
size of the pitiful loaves are preserved in this sweetmeat, peculiar, I
believe, to North Germany. Hamburg children--bless them!--will tell you
the tale of famine, and swallow the tiny loaves as merrily as though
there was never a hungry child in the world.
Hamburg children! Indeed, I have reason to bless them. Shall I not
always be grateful to the fate that showed to eyes weary with gazing
upon wet decks, dense fog, and the listless faces of fellow-voyagers, a
bright and beautiful vision? Most travellers in Hamburg visit first the
Zooelogical Gardens, and then immediately after--is it to observe the
contrast or the similarity between the lower animals and noble man?--the
Exchange or Boerse, where they look down from a gallery upon hundreds,
thousands of busy men, whose voices rise in one incessant, strange,
indescribable noise--hum--roar--call it what you will. Neither of these
spectacles, happily, was thrust at once before me. Did I not interpret
as a happy omen that _my_ first "sight" was twenty little German
children dancing?
Can I ever forget those delicious shy looks at the queer stranger who
has suddenly loomed up in the midst of their festivities? And the
carefully prepared speech of the small daughter of the house who with
blushes and falterings, much laughter, many promptings, and several
false starts, finally chirps like a bird, trying to speak English, "I am
va-ry happy to zee you," and for the feat receives the felicitations of
her friends, and retires in triumph to her bonbons.
Sweetest of all was the gracious yet timid way in which each child, in
making her early adieus, gave her hand to the stranger also, as an
imperative courtesy.
Each little maid draws up her dainty dancing-boots heel to heel, extends
for an instant her small gloved hand, speaks no word except with the shy
sweet eyes, gravely inclines her head, and is gone, giving place to the
next, who goes through the same solemn form.
Dear little children at home, you are as dear and sweet as these small
German girls--dearer and sweeter, shall I not say?--but would you,
_could_ you, prompted only by your own good manners, march up to a
corner where sits a great, big, entirely grown-up person from over the
sea, and stand before her, demure and quaint and stately, and make your
stiff and pretty little bows? Would you now, you tiniest ones? Really?
Yet, do you know, if you would, of your own free will, without mamma
visible in the background exhorting and encouraging, you would do a
graceful thing, a courteous and a kindly thing, in thus including the
dread stranger within your charmed circle, and in welcoming her from
your child-heart and with your child-hands. You would be telling her,
all so silently, that though her home is far away, she has her place
among you; that kindness and warmth and free-hearted hospitality one
finds the wide world over. And your pretty heads, bending seriously
before her, and your demure, absurd, sweet, pursed-up baby-mouths might
conjure up visions of curly gold locks, and soft dimpled faces far off
in her home country, and she would--why, children, children, I cannot
say what she would do! I cannot tell all that she would think and feel.
But this I know well, she would love you and your dear little,
frightened, welcoming hands, and she would say, with her whole heart, as
I say now,--
"Merry, merry Christmas, and 'God bless us every one!'"