We are on our way to Nürnberg next morning—one of the pleasant
railroad rides of our tour—ever-changing pictures, from undulating
stretches to rugged mountains; we had but to look pleasantly at the
conductor and accompany the billet with a mark—that meant that we
could probably have the entire carriage to ourselves for the long ride.
Thus it proved. Amid cushions and books we spent another delightful
day, so that we were ready and in earnest after our delightful rest at
Wiesbaden for sight-seeing. The advantage a trip has with neither
laid-out plans nor places to make within a limited number of days or
hours, was clearly shown to us. We never knew where we were going, and
seldom went where we set forth. Nürnberg is such an exceedingly
interesting town that most tourists you meet say, “Don’t miss
Nürnberg.” Why it is such a city was the question. All we could find
out that they did there to make it such a busy centre, was the
manufacture of toys and fancy articles.
Nürnberg is characteristically South German, and the quaintest town in
the Empire. In order to preserve that unity of mediæval aspect for
which it is remarkable, the municipal surveyors insist on all new
erections being designed in keeping with the older structures. Through
the centre of the town flows the many-bridged Pegnitz. Here are old
bridges, obelisks, and memorials of triumphal entries of conquerors and
princes. Around the older district runs a well-preserved wall, with
nearly fourscore towers. We visited the old castle standing on the hill
overlooking the old town, and saw the “Deutsche Mädchen” drop the water
in the deep, deep well that takes six seconds to reach the bottom, by
actual count. Here soldiers had to come a half-mile underground for
their drinking-water. We gazed on the house in which Albrecht Dürer
lived; this still possesses many interesting relics of that great
German artist. We noticed the “Rathaus,” whose interior contains a
considerable quantity of mediæval German work, including specimens of
Dürer. A relief facing “Rathaus” is considered the finest of Krafft’s
works; the interior contains some painted glass by Hirschvogel, and
Peter Vischer’s masterpiece, the Sebaldus tomb. One more thing—St.
Lorenzkirche—a beautiful Gothic, dating back to the thirteenth
century; the most striking points of the exterior are the western
façade and its porch, with a splendid rose window above it. It contains
magnificent stained-glass works of art, from the fifteenth to the
sixteenth centuries, including the so-called pyramid, designed and
executed by Adam Krafft, the most exquisite thing I ever saw; and a
candelabra by Peter Vischer. I insisted upon lingering in this artistic
atmosphere of the fifteenth century, but my constant companion balked,
saying, “It might be an artistic atmosphere to some, but it was a
nasty, musty old one to him.”
These old Gothic builders let their fancy riot in grotesque figures of
animals, saints, and imps. Saints and angels and monkeys climb over one
portal of the Cathedral. From the ground to the top is one mass of rich
stonework, the creation of genius that hundreds of years ago knew no
other way to write its poems than with the chisel. This city is a
“has-beener,” no “is-er.” It lives upon the memory of what it has been,
and trades upon relics of its former fame. What it ever would have been
without Albrecht Dürer, and Adam Krafft the stone mason, and Peter
Vischer the bronze-worker, and Viet Stoss the wood-carver, and Hans
Sachs the shoemaker and poet-minstrel it is difficult to say. Truly
their works live after them, their statues are set up in the streets,
their works in almost every church and city building. Pictures and
groups in stone and wood and all sorts of carving are reproduced in all
shop windows for sale. The city is full of their memories, and the
business of the city, aside from its manufactory of endless toys, seems
to consist in reproducing them and their endless works to sell to
strangers. Nürnberg lives in the past, and (like some people we know)
traffics on its ancient reputation. At the fish market we see odd old
women with Rembrandt colors in faces and costumes. During our drive
through crooked, narrow streets, with houses overhanging and thrusting
out gables, we saw many with quaint carvings and odd little windows
above, with panes of glass—hexagons—resembling sections of honeycomb;
with stairs on the outside, and stone floors in the upper passages;
others with dozens of dormer windows, hanging balconies of stone
(carved and figure-beset) and no end of queer rooms.
While we strayed about this strange city, the chimes from lofty towers
fell down. What history crowds upon us, portions of it as old as the
tenth century!
[Illustration]