This letter is going to be about nothing in particular. I make this
statement with an amiable desire to please, for so much advice in regard
to subjects comes to me, and so many subjects previously chosen have
failed to produce, among intimate friends, the pleasurable emotions
which I had ingenuously designed, there remains to me now merely the
modest hope that a rambling letter about things in general may be read
with patience by at least one charitable soul. Bless our intimate
friends! What would we do without them? But aren't they perplexing
creatures, take them all in all! "Don't write any more about
peasant-girls and common things," says one. "Tell us about the grand
people,--how they look, what they wear, and more about the king."
Anxious to comply with the request, I try to recollect how the Countess
von Poppendoppenheimer's spring suit was made in order to send home a
fine Jenkinsy letter about it, when another friend writes, "The simplest
things are always best,--the flower-girl at the corner, the ways of the
peasants, ordinary, every-day matters." Have patience, friends. You
shall both be heard. The Countess von Poppendoppenheimer's gown has
meagre, uncomfortable sleeves, is boned down and tied back like yours
and mine, after this present wretched fashion which some deluded writer
says "recalls the grace and easy symmetry of ancient Greece"; but if he
should try to climb a mountain in the overskirt of the period he would
express himself differently.
As to the king, one sees him every day in the streets, where he
courteously responds to the greetings of the people. He must be weary
enough of incessantly taking off his hat. The younger brother of Queen
Olga and of the Emperor of Russia, the Grand Duke Michael, came here the
other day. Seeing a long line of empty carriages and the royal coachmen
in the scarlet and gold liveries that betoken a particular
occasion,--blue being the every-day color,--we followed the illustrious
vehicles, curious to know what was going to happen, and saw a
gentlemanly-looking blond man, in a travelling suit, welcomed at the
station by different members of the court; while all those pleasing
objects, the scarlet and gold men, took off their hats. For the sake of
the friend who delights in glimpses of "high life," I regret that I have
not the honor to know what was said on this occasion, our party having
been at a little distance, and behind a rope with the rest of the
masses.
But really the common people are better studies. You can stop peasants
in the street and ask them questions, and you can't kings, you know.
Peasants just now can be seen to great advantage at the spring fair,
which with its numberless booths and tables extends through several
squares, and to a stranger is an interesting and curious sight. This
portion of the city, where the marketplace, the Schiller Platz, and the
Stiftskirche are, has an old, quaint effect, the Stiftskirche and the
old palace being among the few important buildings older than the
present century, while the rest of Stuttgart is fresh and modern. From
the high tower of this old church one has the best possible view of
Stuttgart, and can see how snugly the city lies in a sort of
amphitheatre, while the picturesque hills covered with woods and
vineyards surround it on every side. One sees the avenues of
chestnut-trees, the Koenigsbau, a fine, striking building with an Ionic
colonnade, the old palace and the new one, and the Anlagen stretching
away green and lovely towards Cannstadt. On this tower a choral is
played with wind instruments at morn and sunset, and sometimes a pious
old man passing stops to listen and takes off his hat as he waits.
In the little octagonal house up there lives a prosperous family, a man,
his wife, and ten children. The woman, a fresh, buxom, brown-eyed
goodwife, told us she descended to the lower world hardly once in three
or four weeks, but the children didn't mind the distance at all, and
often ran up and down twelve or fifteen times a day. How terrific must
be the shoe-bill of this family! Ten pairs of feet continuously running
up and down nearly two hundred and sixty stone steps! She was kind
enough to show us all her _penates_,--even her husband asleep,--and
everything was homelike and cheery up there, boxes of green things
growing in the sunshine, clothes hanging out to dry, canary-birds
singing.
There is a small silver bell--perhaps a foot and a half in diameter at
the mouth--at one side of the tower, and it is rung every night at nine
o'clock and twelve, and has been since 1348. It has a history so long
and so full of mediaeval horrors, like many other old stories in which
Wuertemberg is rich, that it would be hardly fitting to relate it _in
toto_, but the main incidents are interesting and can be briefly given.
On the Bopsa Hill where now we walk in the lovely woods, and from which
the Bopsa Spring flows, bringing Stuttgart its most drinkable water,
stood, once upon a time,--in the fourteenth century, to be exact,--a
certain Schloss Weissenburg, about which many strange things are told.
The Weissenburgs conducted themselves at times in a manner which would
appear somewhat erratic to our modern ideas.
At the baptism of an infant daughter, Papa von Weissenburg was killed by
the falling of some huge stag-antlers upon his head. We are glad to read
about the baptism, for later there doesn't seem to have been a strong
religious element in the family. Shortly afterwards Rudolph, the eldest
son, was stabbed by a friend through jealousy because young Von
Weissenburg had won the affections of the fair dame of whom both youths
were enamored. Then followed strife between the surviving brother and
the monks of St. Leonhard, who would not allow the murdered man to be
buried in holy ground, the poor boy having had no time to gasp out his
confession and partake of the sacrament, and they even refused to bury
him at all. Hans von Weissenburg swore terrible oaths by his doublet and
his beard, and cursed the monks till the air was blue, and came with his
friends and followers and buried his brother twelve feet deep directly
in front of St. Leonhard's Chapel (there is a St. Leonhard's Church here
now on the site of the old chapel), and forbade the monks to move or
insult the body. Later, when they wished to use the land for a
churchyard, they were in a great dilemma. Rudolph's bones they dared not
move and would not bless; at last, what did they do but consecrate the
earth only five feet deep, so the blessing would not reach Rudolph, who
lay seven feet deeper still,--and they also insulted the grave by
building over it. Hans, on this account, slew a monk, and was in turn
killed because he had murdered a holy man, and that was the end of
_him_.
There remained in the castle on the hill Mamma von Weissenburg, or
rather Von Somebodyelse, now, for she had wept her woman's tears and
married again. When the infant daughter, Ulrike Margarethe, whose
baptism has been mentioned, had grown to be a beautiful young woman, the
mother suddenly disappeared and never was seen again. The daughter
publicly mourned, ordered a beacon-light to be kept continually burning
at the castle, gathered together all her silver chains and ornaments,
and had them melted into a bell, which was hung on the castle tower, and
which she herself always rang at nine in the evening and at midnight,
for the sorrowing Ulrike said her beloved mother might be wandering in
the dense woods, and hearing the bell might be guided by it to her home.
Ulrike was a pious person. She said her prayers regularly, went about
doing good among poor sick people, never failed to ring the bell twice
every night, and was always mourning for her mother. When at last she
died, she gave orders that the bell should always be rung, as in her
lifetime, from the castle; and in case the latter should be disturbed,
or unsafe, the bell was to be transferred to the highest tower in
Stuttgart. So Ulrike the Good bequeathed large sums of silver to pay for
the fulfilment of her wishes, and died. Accordingly the little bell was
brought, in time of public disturbance, to the small tower on the
Stiftskirche in 1377, the higher one not then existing, and in 1531 was
moved to its present position.
The next important item in the bell-story is that in 1598 the Princess
Sybilla, daughter of Duke Friedrich I. of Suabia, was lost in the woods,
and, hearing the bell ring at nine, followed the sound to the
Stiftskirche, and in her gratitude she also endowed the bell largely,
declaring it must ring at the appointed hours through all coming time.
So the little bell pealed out for many years,--just as it does this
day,--until one night, two days after Easter, 1707, and three centuries
and a half after the death of the exemplary Ulrike, it happened, in the
course of human events, that the man whose office it was to ring the
midnight bell was sleepy and five minutes late. Suddenly a woman's
figure draped in black, with jet-black hair and face as white as paper,
appeared before him, and asked him why he did not do his duty. He rang
his bell, then conversed with the ghost, who was Ulrike von Weissenburg,
and obtained from her valuable information. She must ever watch the
bell, she said, and see that it was rung at the exact hours; and she it
was who carried the light that confused travellers and led them to
destruction near the ruins of Weissenburg Castle; and she was altogether
a most unpleasant ghost, who could never rest while one stone of the
castle remained upon another.
This was her condemnation for her evil deeds. She had murdered her
mother, for certain ugly reasons which in the old chronicle are
explicitly set forth, and she had stabbed her two young sons of whose
existence the world had never known; and her career was altogether as
wicked as wicked could be; but this Ulrike, like many another clever
sinner, never lost her saintly aspect before the world.
They granted her rest at last by pulling down the remaining stones of
the castle, and giving them to the wine-growers near by for foundations
for the vineyards; so now no ghost appears to rebuke the bellringer when
too much beer prolongs his sleep. Bones were found beneath the castle
where Ulrike said she had hidden the bodies of her mother and children,
thus clearly proving, of course, the truth of the tale. It is the most
natural thing in the world to believe in ghosts when you read old
Suabian stories. The Von Weissenburgs seem to have been, for the age in
which they lived, a very quiet, orderly, high-toned family.
Now how do I know but that somebody will at once write, "I don't like
stories about silver bells," which will be very mortifying indeed, as it
is evident I consider this a good story, or I should not take the
trouble to relate it.
O, come over, friends, and write the letters yourselves, and then you
will see how it is! Worst of all is it when we write of what strikes us
as comic precisely as we mention a comic thing at home, or of mighty
potentates, giving information obtained exclusively from German friends,
and other German friends are then displeased. But is it worth while to
resent the utterance of opinions that do not claim to be the infallible
truth of ages, but only the hasty record of fleeting impressions? Peace,
good people; let us have no savage criticism or shedding of blood,
though we do chatter lightly of _majestaete_, saying merely what his
subjects have told us.
We are all apt to be too sensitive about our own lands and their
customs. Yet have _we_ not learned to smile quietly when we are told
that American _gentlemen_ sit in drawing-rooms, in the presence of
ladies, with their feet on the mantels; that American wives have their
husbands "under the _pantoffel_" (would that more of them had); that
America has no schools, no colleges, no manners; that American girls
are, in general, examples of total depravity; that pickpockets and
murderers go unmolested about our streets, seeking whom they may devour;
that we have no law, no order, no morality, no art, no poetry, no past,
no anything desirable? What can one do but smile? Smile, then, in turn,
you loyal ones, when I have the bad taste to call ugly what you are
willing to swear is beautiful as a dream. Thoughts are free, and so are
pens; and both must run on as they will.
Let me, therefore, hurt no one's feelings if I say that Stuttgart in
winter, with little sunshine, a dreary climate, and a peculiar,
disagreeable, deep mud in the streets, does not at first impress a
stranger as an especially attractive place. But now, with its long lines
of noble chestnut-trees in full blossom; with the pretty Schloss Platz
and the Anlagen, where fountains are playing and great blue masses of
forget-me-nots and purple pansies and many choice flowers delight your
eyes; with the shady walks in the park, where you meet a dreamer with
his book, or a group of young men on horseback, or pretty children by
the lake feeding the swans and ducks; with the lovely air of spring,
full of music, full of fragrance; and, best of all, with the beauty of
the surrounding country,--he would indeed be critical who would not find
in Stuttgart a fascinating spot.
There is music everywhere, there are flowers everywhere. Your landlady
hangs a wreath of laurel and ivy upon your door to welcome you home from
a little journey, and brings you back, when she goes to market, great
bunches of sweetness,--rosebuds and lilies of the valley. You climb the
hills and come home laden with forget-me-nots,--big beauties, such as we
never see at home,--violets, and anemones. It has been a cold spring
here until now, but the flowers have been brave enough to appear as
usual, and, wandering about among the distracting things with hands and
baskets as full as they will hold, a picture of days long ago darts
suddenly before me,--two school-girls, their Virgils under their arms,
rubber boots on their feet, stumbling through bleak, wet Maine
pasture-lands, bearing spring in their hearts, but searching for it in
vain in the outer world around them. The other girl will rejoice to know
that here I have found spring in its true presence.
And then there is May wine! Do you know what it is, and how to make it?
You must walk several miles by a winding path along the bank of the
Neckar. You must see the crucifixes by the wayside, and the three great
blocks of stone,--two upright and one placed across them,--making a kind
of high table, for the convenience of the peasant-women, who can stand
here, remove from their heads their heavy baskets, rest, and replace
them without assistance. You must peep into the tiniest of chapels,
resplendent with banners of red and gold and a profusion of fresh
flowers, all ready for the morning, which will be a high feast-day. You
must pass through a village where women and children are grouped round
the largest, oldest well you ever saw, with a great crossbeam and an
immense bucket swinging high in the air. And at last you must sit in a
garden on a height overlooking the Neckar. There must be a charming
village opposite, with an old, old church, and pretty trees about you
partly concealing the ruins of some old knight's abode. Don't you like
ruins? But just enough modestly in the background aren't so very bad.
You hear the sound of a mill behind you, and the falling of water, and,
in the branches above your head, the joyful song of a Schwarz Kopf. And
then somebody pours a flask of white wine into a great bowl, to which he
adds bunches of Waldmeister,--a fragrant wildwood flower,--and drowns
the flowers in the wine until all their sweetness and strength are
absorbed by it, and afterwards adds sugar and soda-water and quartered
oranges,--and the decoction is ladled out and offered to the friends
assembled, while there is a golden sunset behind the hills across the
Neckar. And you walk back in the twilight through the village that is so
small and sleepy it is preparing already to put itself to bed. And the
peasants you meet say, "Gruess Gott!" "Gruess Gott!" say you, which
isn't in the least to be translated literally, and only means "Good
day," though the pretty, old-fashioned greeting always seems like a
benediction. You hear the vesper-bells and the organ-tones pealing out
from the chapel; you see some real gypsies with tawny babies over their
shoulders (poor things! they will steal so that they are allowed to
remain in a village but one day at a time, and then must move on). You
feel very bookish, everything is so new, so old, so charming,--and that
is "Mai Wein."
How it would taste at dinner with roast-beef and other prosaic
surroundings,--how it actually did taste, I haven't the faintest idea.