AN INLAND GERMAN CITY--MANNHEIM.
It was comfort to get out of the beaten routes of tourists, and find
yourself in a city where you do not hear English, and where the
sight-seer with the inevitable guide book and field-glass, does not
display himself. It was a relief to get into a city that had not been
half Anglicised and Americanized by the constant stream of tourists that
pour over Europe every Summer, where you could see Germany and the
Germans, pure and simple. Such a place is Mannheim, at the confluence of
the Rhine and Neckar, twelve miles below Heidelberg.
[Illustration: MANNHEIM.]
Mannheim is a delicious old city, once the seat of the grand Dukes of
Baden, but now the seat of what is a great deal better than grand dukes,
much merchandising and manufacturing. It is the only city in Europe that
is laid out like Philadelphia, in regular squares.
The principal pride of the Mannheimers is their theater, and the
Mannheimers have every reason to be proud of it, for, in addition to its
being one of the best conducted in Europe, it is where Schiller and
other great German poets won their first successes.
The Germans amuse themselves at public cost whenever possible. For
instance, this beautiful theater, which contains costumes and stage sets
for all the standard operas, is supported by the city government. There
is a small fee for admission, (I believe the most expensive seat in the
house is a trifle less than a dollar, and ranging down from that to ten
cents), but the deficiency is put upon the tax duplicate and paid the
same as other taxes.
Nowhere in Europe are better performances given, either operatic or
dramatic. The principal characters are assigned to artists of the very
highest order, the orchestra is made up of picked musicians, every one a
soloist, and the chorus is not that mass of associated howlers that
drive us mad in America; but the members are trained singers, as well as
actors.
For the presentation of Wagner's "Lohengrin" there was an orchestra of
fifty-eight in number, a chorus of two hundred and fifty, and as many
more supernumeraries. Nowhere is the detail of a presentation so
carefully and conscientiously worked out, and nowhere an opera more
satisfactorily given than in this little German city of less than fifty
thousand.
The singers enter into a contract with the Direction for a term of
years, and if they sing or act the full term they may go elsewhere, but
they are pensioned by the city for life. Their salaries are very small,
but the resultant pension is so comfortable a thing that they never
break their engagements and never do slovenly work.
The Sunday night we reached Mannheim, Wagner's "Lohengrin" was given,
the performance commencing at half-past five in the afternoon and
continuing till eleven at night. It was not as in American opera houses.
There wasn't a note omitted, a song, or line of text cut; the entire
opera as it came from the composer was given with a degree of
conscientious care that the American party had never heard before.
[Sidenote: OPERA IN MANNHEIM.]
Tibbitts was in a state of surprise all the time. First going to an
opera, not a matinee, in daylight; and then another custom that was as
novel and strange as the hour at which the performance began. After
entering the vestibule we passed through a long hallway lined with
shelves; on these shelves the gentlemen placed their hats, overcoats,
canes and umbrellas, and then passed into the auditorium without getting
any check for the articles so left.
"Imagine," said Tibbitts, "an American theater with a free cloak room in
the lobby! How many hats, coats and walking sticks would be left by the
time the entertainment was over? Think of such a thing in New York, or
even Oshkosh! Why, in Oshkosh the boys out of one such audience would
supply themselves with overcoats, hats and umbrellas for a year. It is a
temptation even to me, as well as I have been brought up."
The opera of Lohengrin is extremely difficult to render, but in this
little German town of only forty-seven thousand inhabitants, it was done
in a manner that would surprise the grand opera goers of New York, or
even Paris or London. The stage settings were magnificent, every detail
being most carefully and faithfully attended to.
[Illustration: TIBBITTS IN THE CLOAK ROOM.]
Wagner's music, to be fully appreciated and enjoyed, must be heard under
the most favorable circumstances--at the Mannheim Court Theater, for
instance. There is an individuality about it, an expression of thought
by sound, that has never been equalled by any other composer. And when
performed by such a company as that at Mannheim it rises to the sublime.
Every member of that great company from the star down to the most humble
member of the orchestra, was a thorough artist, and having had the very
best training they interpreted the divine work of the great master in
the same spirit in which it was conceived. It was a rare performance.
"Tannhauser" was the next opera, and performed as carefully as
"Lohengrin". It was enjoyed by the entire party except Tibbitts. He is
not musical or asthetic. And so when the Young Man who Knows Everything
went into raptures over the wonderful orchestra, Tibbitts spoke of it
contemptuously as "sound factory." And he jeered at the procession of
pilgrims who, in the opera, are returning, to delicious music, from
Rome, where they had been for their sins. "Yes, that's the way of it.
They load up with iniquity and go to Rome, if they are Catholics, or
somewhere else if they are of other beliefs. Then they come back as good
as new and entirely ready to take another load."
He criticised other points in the opera. Tannhauser was in despair at
having committed the unpardonable sin of heathen worship. "You see how
it is. Other sinners who had merely committed murders and sins like
that, made a pilgrimage to Rome and were absolved, but Tannhauser knew
better. Religious power forgives everything except joining the
opposition shop." And he was particularly severe upon Tannhauser for
confessing his sin to his love. "For," he continued, "had he kept it to
himself it would have been just as well. But I suppose it had to be. Had
Tannhauser kept his counsel and married the girl, the opera would have
closed at the second act."
Mannheim is a purely commercial and manufacturing town. It enjoys a most
picturesque situation. Its streets are regular and handsome, and in the
outskirts of the city are numerous pretty parks, which add greatly to
the beauty of the place.
When, in 1821, the Elector, Charles Philip had ecclesiastical
differences with the Protestant citizens of Heidelberg, where up to that
time he had his court, he transferred the seat to Mannheim, which from
that time became an important place. The town was founded in 1606, and
destroyed by the French eighty-three years later.
During the residence there of Charles Philip, the spacious castle, which
occupies the entire southwestern portion of the town, was built, and
though it suffered partial destruction in 1795, it has been restored,
and with the lovely grounds surrounding it, forms one of the most
attractive spots in Mannheim.
[Sidenote: THE DIFFERENCE IN PEOPLE.]
In appearance Mannheim is quite modern, though some of its buildings
bear the impress of the hand of time. But as a rule, its wealthy
citizens, with the enterprise and go-ahead activity that characterizes a
mercantile people, have erected solid substantial buildings of the most
approved modern style, which gives the city the look of wealth and
business success it possesses.
The theater, next to the castle, is probably the oldest building in the
town. It was constructed during the last century, and restored in 1854.
The people of Mannheim are industrious, hard-working Germans, full of
enterprise and business tact. During business hours they are always on
duty, but, with the purely German characteristic, as soon as business is
over they devote themselves to innocent amusement with as much gusto as
they do to their work during the day. And the German citizen is not
selfish in his enjoyments. He wants his whole family to partake of them
with him. So in the evening, in the parks where the bands play, you will
see him surrounded by his whole family, wife, daughters and sons,
sipping beer, chatting with friends, and enjoying the music. They are a
social lot of people, these Germans, and know full well how to get all
the pleasure there is in life.
They differ materially from the French and the English. The French are
full of life and vivacity that spur them up to an unusual state of
activity all the time. They must have a constant excitement, and noise,
and show, or they are miserable. He is the most generous man in speech
and the closest man in action in the world. He is effusive. He will, on
a steamer, embrace you at parting, and insist upon your making his house
your home when you visit Paris. He will swear that he will devote his
whole time to you, that he will take it as a mortal affront if you do
not command him, and all that. But don't take too much stock in it. He
doubtless means it while he is saying it, but when he reaches Paris, and
you find him there, it is quite another thing. You are not necessary to
his happiness any more, and in the most adroit and suave way he gets rid
of you, and forever.
Very like people the world over, however. The man who applauds a
virtuous sentiment the most vehemently at a theater is the very fellow
who will go home and kick his wife, and the wildest approver of
patriotic sentiments is the very man who goes to Canada to avoid a
draft, or jumps the bounty for a thousand dollars. The Frenchman makes
the best outward show of any one in the world, but his goodness is very
thin. It will not bear the solid weight of actual use.
The Englishman delights in what he is pleased to think dignity, but what
is really overweening conceit. He is pompous, dull and heavy. If he does
a good thing, he does it in such a way as to make it an offense.
The German is neither the one nor the other. He goes through life
tranquilly, in perfect content with himself, always making the best of
his opportunities, and in a perfectly rational way getting all the
enjoyment he possibly can.
He does not profess to be your friend unless he is so in good faith, and
when he invites you to his house he always means it. He is rather
careful about his friendships, for as he never falsifies in this, he
needs to be, but when once said it is done. A rare good man to meet is
your German. He has his peculiarities, but he is good and solid all the
way through.
In Mannheim, as in all German communities, the absurd American fashion
of treating is most sternly discountenanced and tabooed. The true German
will not have it at all, at any price. Your friend asks you to join him
in a bottle of wine, and you accept, but that does not mean that he pays
for your drink. Not at all. He desires you to join him because you are
his friend, because he likes your society, and because he wants to talk
to you and have you talk to him. And when the bottle, or three, as a
German says, is consumed each pays for what he has had and they go their
way.
Consequently the bar-room beat so common in America is an unknown
institution in Germany, and the beery, bloated pimpled faces hanging
around public places waiting for invitations are never seen.
[Sidenote: A TREATISE ON TREATING.]
Mr. Tibbitts most heartily approved of this custom. He remarked that the
American system of treating came very nearly ruining him. In Oshkosh he
had a very large circle of close friends, who loved him dearly. They
were very fond of him, why, he would not say, because he was a modest
man. It might have been that they admired his physical graces, or
possibly his intellectual endowments--men have tastes that cannot be
accounted for. I met one gentleman on this trip who admired the Young
Man who Knows Everything; that is, he said he rather liked him.
He was studying law in Oshkosh, and after wrestling all the forenoon
with his studies he was, naturally, mentally as well as physically
exhausted.
"I tell you," said Mr. Tibbitts, "when a young and enthusiastic student
at law has been poring all day over the pages of Walter Scott, or
Dickens, or Thackeray, with only an occasional intermission at a
beer-shop across the street, without feeling something like a squeezed
lemon, he is a strong man indeed. I am physically fragile, and my active
mental nature makes fearful drains upon my body.
"And so on my way to my boarding house for dinner I was accustomed to
stop over a minute at the Spread Eagle Hotel, to take one solitary
cock-tail, which I really needed as a bracer, as it were, to the system;
something that would encourage nature to the point of taking in a full
meal, a meal that would hold me up to the work of the afternoon.
"Now here is where the infernalism of the American system comes in.
There would be at the bar every day at the same hour seven fellows, all
good, jolly men, all particular friends of mine, who came there, as I
did, for just one drink. Now, understand, I went in there for one drink,
which I felt I needed, and one drink only. But seeing the other seven in
classical poses about the bar, I could do no less than to ask them to
join me, which, in the freshness of youth and the first blush of a
strong manhood, they always did promptly. After a minute of joyous
conversation, Snedeker would wink at the barkeeper, who would set before
us another. More talk, a little more cheerful than before, and Wilson
would insist upon all drinking with him. Still more talk, and Adams
would consider it an offense if we did not take just one more with him.
"By this time any one of us would have taken something with anybody, for
good sense, that faithful though easily overcome sentinel over our
passions, had been driven out, and we were on the high road to
inebriety. And there we would stand, and stand, taking 'just another
one,' till we had forgotten all about dinner and everything pertaining
to life, except of that article contained in the bottles before us.
"I have known these incidents to cover a great space of time and much
territory. I have gone into the Spread Eagle for just one cock-tail, and
in consequence of the infernal American system of treating, have found
myself a day or two later in St. Louis, paying a most recklessly
incurred hotel bill from money obtained by pawning my watch and
overcoat. And once I extended the excursion as far as New Orleans, and
probably would have gone on through Mexico if delirium tremens had not
kindly put in an estopper.
"If we did in America as they do in Germany I should have gone in and
taken one cock-tail and gone to my dinner and returned to my studies,
and gone home to my supper and have been a good and useful citizen."
And Tibbitts having got fairly launched upon the wide ocean of drinking
continued:
"Americans are fools in their way of drinking. All other peoples have a
defined idea of what they want to accomplish with stimulants, but the
American has not. Your Englishman wants to get stupid drunk; he wants
forgetfulness, which I can't blame him for. Were I living in England I
should want forgetfulness in large doses. I don't blame an Englishman,
condemned to London climate and London customs, for drinking. The
Frenchman and German drink just enough to produce the requisite
hilarity, the general good feeling which light stimulants in moderation
produces, and then they quit. An American does nothing of the sort. He
drinks through all the stages, the slightly exhilerant, the mild
hilarious, the boisterous idiotic, the brutally quarrelsome, the pitiful
maudlin, and then slips off his chair harmless because helpless.
"Why, I have heard a nine-tenths drunken man rouse up his companion by
shaking him, with the appeal: 'Jimmy, rouse up! Can't you _stand_
another one?'
[Sidenote: WHY MR. TIBBITTS WAS NOT A TEMPERANCE LECTURER.]
"Just think of it! In this fellow's case there was no pleasure to be had
from the drinking of 'another one.' His poor, outraged stomach rebelled
against it, the very smell of it was death, and the taste worse than
death, and yet he was asked if he could not endure 'another one!' He
was asked if his abused system could not be further outraged. And he did
manage to stagger up to the bar and swallow another dose of poison,
which was the last straw that broke the camel's back. His indignant
stomach deposited it on the floor with great promptness. A moment's
rest, and he did take 'another one,' and subsided into a miserable
sleep.
"I have seen so much of the infernalism of the American treating system
that I could deliver a wonderful lecture upon that and kindred
temperance subjects."
"Why don't you lecture on temperance?" asked one of the party.
"Alas! I am not a reformed drunkard," was Tibbitts reply.
Then up spoke the Young Man who Knows Everything.
"My dear sir, all you have to do is to reform."
Tibbitts disdained to answer this, and walked moodily away.
[Illustration: MAYENCE.]