What the Germans call an _Ausflug_, or excursion, deserves to be
translated literally, for it is often a veritable _flight out_ of the
region of work and care into a tranquil, restful atmosphere. The ease
with which middle-aged, heavy-looking men here put on their wings, so to
speak, and soar away from toil and traffic, at the close of a long, hard
day, is always marvellous, however often we observe it. It seems a
natural and an inevitable thing for them to start off with a chosen few,
wander through lovely woods, climb a pretty hill, watch the changing
lights at sunset over a broad valley, then return home, talking of poets
and painters, of life problems, of whatever lies nearest the heart.
Their ledgers and stupid accounts and schemes and the state of the
markets do not fetter them as they do our business men. Such enjoyment
is so simple, childlike, and rational, that the old question how men
accustomed to wear the harness of commercial life will ever learn to
bear the bliss of heaven, in its conventional acceptation, seems half
solved. The Germans, at least, would be blessed in any heaven where fair
skies and hills and forests and streams would lie before their gaze.
However inadequate their other qualifications for Elysium may be, they
excel us by far in this respect. Even the coarser, lower men who gather
in gardens to drink unlimited beer are yet not quite unmindful of the
beauty of the trees whose young foliage shades them, and look out,
oftener than we would be apt to give them credit for, upon the vine-clad
hills beyond the city. A friend, a prominent banker, who is almost
invariably in his garden or some other restful spot in the free air at
evening, now goes out to Cannstadt, two miles from here, mornings at
seven, because "one must be out as much as possible in this exquisite
weather." If bankers and lawyers and our busiest of business men at home
would only begin and end days after this fashion, their hearts and heads
would be fresh and strong far longer for it, that is, if they could find
rest and enjoyment so, and that is the question,--could they? And why is
it, if they cannot? I leave the answer to wiser heads, who will probably
reply as usual, that our whole mode of life is different, which is quite
true; but why _need_ it be, in this respect, so very different? Here is
a valuable hint to some enormously wealthy person, childless and without
relatives, of course, and about to make his will, who at this moment is
considering the comparative merits of different benevolent schemes, and
is wavering between endowing a college and founding a hospital. Do
neither, dear sir. Take my advice, because I'm far away, and don't know
you, and am perfectly disinterested, and, moreover, the advice is sound
and good: Make gardens and parks everywhere, in as many towns as
possible. Not great, stately parks that will directly be fashionable,
but little parks that will be loved; and winding ways must lead to them
through woodlands, and seats and tables must be placed in alluring
spots, and all the paths must be so seductive they will win the most
inflexible, absorbed, care-worn man of business to tread them. Do this,
have your will printed in every newspaper in the land, and many will
rise up and call you blessed. And if you are not so very rich, make just
one small park, with pretty walks leading to it and out of it, and say
publicly why you do it,--that people may have more open air and rest;
and if they only have these, Nature will do what remains to be done, and
win their hearts and teach them to love her better than now. Of course
it is a well-worn theme, but no one can live in this German land without
longing to borrow some of its capacity for taking its ease and infuse it
into the veins of nervous, hurrying, restless America.
A pleasant _Ausflug_ from Stuttgart is to the Solitude, a palace built
more than a hundred years ago by Carl Eugen, a duke of Wuertemberg,
whose early life was more brilliant than exemplary. Many roads lead to
it, if not all, as to Rome. In the fall we went through a little
village,--throbbing with the excitement of the vintage-time, resplendent
with yellow corn hanging from its small casements,--and by pretty
wood-roads, where the golden-brown and russet leaves gleamed softly, and
the hills in the distance looked hazy, and all was quietly lovely,
though the golden glories and flaming scarlet of our woods were not
there; and where now softly budding trees, spring air and spring sounds,
anemones and crocuses, and forget-me-nots and Maigloeckchen, tempt one
to long days of aimless, happy wandering. On one road, the new one by a
waterfall, is the Burgher Allee, where once the burghers came out to
welcome a prince or a duke returning from a wedding or a war, and stood
man by man where now a line of pines, planted or set out in remembrance,
commemorates the event. If exception is taken to the uncertain style of
this narration, may I add that positiveness is not desirable in a story
for the truth of which there are no vouchers? The idea of a prince
welcomed home from the wars is to me more impressive; but choice in such
matters is quite free.
You can go to the Solitude, if you please, through the Royal Game Park,
a pretty, quiet spot, where a broad carriage-road winds along among
noble oaks and beeches, and through the trees peep the great, soft eyes
of animals who are neither tame nor wild, and who seem to know that they
belong to royalty and may stare at passers-by with impunity. A superb
stag stood near the drive, gave us a lordly glance, turned slowly, and
walked with majestic composure away. We did not interest him, but it did
not occur to him to hurry in the least on our account. We felt that we
were inferior beings, and were mortified that we had no antlers, that we
might hold up our heads before him. Two little lakes, the Baerensee and
Pfaffensee,--the latter thick with great reeds and rushes, and haunted
by a peculiar stillness,--invite you to lie on the soft turf, see
visions, and dream dreams. A small hunting-pavilion stands on terraces
by the Baerensee, with guardian bears in stone before it, and antlers
and other trophies of the chase ornamenting it within and without. It
was erected in 1782, at the time of a famous hunt in honor of the Grand
Duke Paul of Russia, afterwards emperor, who married Sophie of
Wuertemberg, niece of Carl Eugen. From all hunting-districts of the land
a noble army of stags was driven towards these woods, encircled night
and day by peasants to prevent the animals from breaking through. The
stags were driven up a steep ascent, then forced to plunge into the
Baerensee, where they could be shot with ease by the assembled hunters
in the pavilion. Seeing the pretty creatures now fearlessly wandering in
the sweet stillness of the park, and picturing in contrast that scene of
destruction and butchery, it seems a pity that the grand gentlemen of
old had to take their pleasure like brutes and pagans.
The Solitude is not far from here. Built first for a hunting-lodge
between 1763 and 1767, it was gradually improved, enlarged, and
beautified, grew into a pleasure palace, had its time of brilliant life
and of decay; and now, renovated by the king's command, is a place where
people go for the walk and the view, and where in summer a few visitors
live quietly in pure air, and drink milk, it being a _Cur-Anstalt_. The
adjacent buildings were used as a hospital during the late war. The
Solitude is not in itself an interesting structure; it is in rococo
style, having a large oval hall with a high dome, adjoining pavilions,
and it looks white and gold, and bare and cold, and disappointing to
most people. There is nothing especial to see,--a little fresco, a
little old china, some immensely rich tapestry, white satin embroidered
with gold, adorning one of those pompous, impossible beds, in which it
seems as if nobody could ever have slept. But there is enough to feel,
as there must always be in places where the damp atmosphere is laden
with secrets a century old, and the walls whisper strange things. There
are narrow, triangular cabinets and boudoirs with nothing at all in
them, which, however, make you feel that you will presently stumble upon
something amazing. All of Bluebeard's wives hanging in a row would
hardly surprise one here. The place is full, in spite of its emptiness.
It seems scarcely fitting that the many mirrors should reflect a little
band of tourists in travelling suits and with umbrellas, instead of
stately dames and cavaliers affecting French manners and French morals,
and gleaming in satin and jewels beneath the glass chandeliers. There is
a walk, always cool even in the hottest summer days, where in a double
alley of superb pines the company used to seek shade and rest, and the
fair ladies paced slowly up and down in their long trains, and fluttered
their fans and heard airy nothings whispered in their ears. Wooded
slopes rise high around, and this walk, deep down in a narrow valley,
being quite invisible from the ordinary paths, is called the Underground
Way. The breath of the old days is here especially subtle and
suggestive.
The map of the place, as it was, tells of orangeries, pleasure
pavilions, rose and laurel gardens, labyrinths, artificial lakes and
islands, and many things of whose magnificence few traces remain. The
common-looking buildings, formerly dwellings of the cavaliers in
attendance, stand in a row; there are a few small houses with queer
roofs; the Schloss itself stands on its height in the centre of an open
space, fine old woods around, and an unusually extended view, from its
cupola, of a broad, peaceful plain, a village or two, the Suabian Alb to
the south; a straight, white-looking road intersects the meadows and
woods, and leads to Ludwigsburg. This road was made by Carl Eugen, to
avoid passing through Stuttgart, his choleric highness having had a
grudge against the city at that time,--and indeed it has a spiteful air,
with its utter disregard of hills and valleys, going straight as an
arrow flies, never turning out for obstructions any more than the
haughty duke would have turned aside for a subject. Fabulous stories are
told of the speed with which his horse's hoofs used to clatter over this
turnpike, and the incredibly short time in which, by frequently changing
horses, he would arrive at his destination.
The romantic story of Francisca von Hohenheim and many interesting facts
in Schiller's early life, during his attendance at the Carlsschule, a
famous military academy, instituted by, and under the patronage of, Carl
Eugen, are inevitably interwoven in any history of the Solitude; but
both need more time than can be given at the close of so hasty a sketch.
And indeed, from almost any point that might be taken here, threads wind
off into a mass of stories and traditions far too wide-reaching to be
more than hinted at when one is only making a little _Ausflug_ and
carelessly following one's will on a fair April day.