FRANKFORT.
WITH faces at last fairly turned towards Russia, we stopped to rest for
a day at the old town of Frankfort—the _Ford of the Franks_. Towards
evening I wandered out to an old graveyard.
Like some in our own cities, it had ceased to be used for interments,
and its walks and shade and vacant squares had become places of
recreation for the children of the town. The gates were never shut, and,
indeed, the walls were broken, so that it was a public square for the
living rather than a quiet resting-place for the dead. A party of little
folks were amusing themselves with children’s plays, and I paused in my
solitary stroll to see them go through the old-time game of “Oats, peas,
beans, and barley grow,” the same that our children from generation to
generation play with so much zest on the grass or the carpet at home. It
was pleasant to know that the young ones, in another language, were
singing the same simple song that millions on the other side of the sea
have sung and will sing in their childish glee. It was a queer place for
children to make a playground. Our children would not fancy it. The
Germans have more pleasing associations with the burial-places of their
dead than we have. They indulge in cheerful sentimentalism more than we
do, in this direction. These old graves are covered with flowering
shrubs; some of them are cared for by the children or friends of the
sleepers who have been here so many years that their names might be
forgotten but for the tombstones. I read the inscriptions on many, and
sought and found names familiar in history.
One grave was covered with wreaths and flowers. Yet it was an old grave,
and evidently some special interest attached to it. I drew near and read
in German,—
“THE GRAVE OF THE MOTHER OF GOETHE. BORN FEB.
19, 1731. DIED SEPT. 13, 1808.”
It was her request that this inscription should be put upon her
headstone. The mother’s pride is in it, but so beautiful and so just! No
man of this century has wrought himself more thoroughly into the German
mind, and only one writer has led captive more minds in the world at
large, than Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, whose mother lies under this
brick wall, with deep shade-trees hanging over her grave, and fresh
flowers lying on it, though she was laid here sixty years ago. “From my
dear little mother,” said the poet in one of his poems, “I derive my
happy disposition and my love of story-telling.” And she said of
herself, “Order and quiet are my characteristics. I despatch at once
what I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down
the devil without looking at him. I always seek out what is good in
people, and leave what is bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to
round off the angles.”
If this saying of Goethe’s mother could be told in all the world as a
memorial of her, it is quite likely it would do as much for the good of
mankind as all that her son ever wrote, though he was the prince of
German poets, and the master intellect of the age.
His coffin lies in the Duke’s vault at Weimar, or did when I was there,
by the side of Schiller, and not by the side of the Duke, as royal
etiquette forbade, even in the grave, such common dust as that of these
two great poets to be laid along with that of royal clay. Yet the Duke
is more honored by having had the friendship of the poets than by his
crown or kingdom.
Twelve years after the birth of Goethe’s mother, in 1743, a Jew was born
in Frankfort, whose name and power in the world are quite as great as
that of the poet. It is a question for the debating societies, whether
money or mind rules in this age; but there is little doubt that the
Rothschilds have been more of a power in Europe during the present
century than Goethe and all the poets put together. This man was named
Anselm. He had five daughters and five sons: all of the sons becoming
bankers like the father, and establishing themselves in various cities,
London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, came to control the finances of
Europe, and to wield an influence before which the conquerors of
kingdoms were often compelled to bow. They furnish one good lesson that
is rarely mentioned or thought of: the father and five sons, and their
children, have continued in one firm,—the five brothers were at one time
the firm,—and, thus standing by one another, have been strong and
prosperous; in this particular, Jews as they are, they set an example
for Christians to follow. So great is their wealth and credit, that when
the revolutions of 1848 in Europe instantly robbed them of forty
millions of dollars, it did not disturb them, nor the confidence of the
world in their stability. Kings and emperors are their guests as well as
their customers; and this summer, one of them on the banks of Lake
Leman, and another at his palace in Paris, has entertained royalty in
right regal style. To us sovereigns in our own right, this is nothing
very remarkable; but here, in the land of kings and princes, it is a
matter always of wonderment, and it is also just a little detriment to
dignity, when a crowned head condescends to eat off the plate of anybody
but a brother of blue blood.
This old city of Frankfort has had its ancestral pride sadly humbled in
being swallowed by all-devouring Prussia. A lady said to me, “I hate the
Prussians; I know it is not very Christian, but I do hate them; and I
believe the royal family will be poisoned yet!” This venerable city was
once the capital of the German empire, the seat of its Congress; here
the German emperors were elected, for successive generations. The glory
that invests a spot so sacred has now departed; and the firm policy of
Bismark, and the unification of Germany, have reduced the proud old town
to one of the many second-rate cities of Europe. A city, now-a-days,
cannot live on the past. Trade and travel will not obey traditions.
Frankfort still holds a financial importance that is fast passing away;
and more people will linger here for a day to see the marble ARIADNE, by
Danneker, than to visit the “Hall of the Cæsars,” where the portraits of
the emperors are hung.
We left by rail at nine in the morning. The cars were large, convenient,
and elegant. For first-class passengers they were divided into
apartments for six, and were lined with red plush. The second class were
quite as good, but lined with drab; and the chief difference was in the
price, which, being high in the first class, makes the company more
_select_. In all the cars _smoking_ is allowed, unless notice is posted
on the outside to the contrary. In our compartment, which was one of the
_interdicted_, there were three ladies and as many men, only one of them
a smoker; and he kept on, regardless of the notice and the company. The
third-class cars had plain board seats with no backs; but they were
clean, and very decent-looking people rode in them. A fourth class were
like our cattle cars, only not so good, for ours are well ventilated,
whereas these were close, and were filled with dirty people, standing
up, and getting what air they could through one or two little windows.
Yet these people were generally smoking, their poverty compelling them
to ride like cattle, but not prevailing to make them give up tobacco.
We passed through large pine forests. Wind-mills were frequent, as they
are in flat countries, where no waterfall power can be had. Women were
at work repairing the railroads; showing that here woman has her
“rights,” as the women reformers call the privilege of doing any thing
that men do. Of course they are degraded, as they will be with us just
as fast as public sentiment allows them to assume the duties that do not
belong to their sex. The waiting-rooms at the stations are restaurants
also, and beer is guzzled incessantly. Little children drink beer with
their parents.
Vast tracts of level country are on our right and left. Not a hill is in
sight. The scenery is uninterrupted prairie. Passengers are informed, by
notice posted in the cars, that they can have a dinner served at certain
stations ahead, and that the conductors will send on the order by
telegraph without charge. At all the stations cake and beer are passed
along by waiters at the windows of the cars, and you may take in the
dishes if you please, and leave them at the next station.
_Frankfort-on-the-Oder_ is a venerable town of 37,000 inhabitants,
memorable as the scene of a great battle in 1759, when Frederick the
Great was defeated by the Russians and Austrians. We crossed the Oder at
Castion, the bridge being strongly fortified, as if war were imminent or
guns relied on as the best peace preservers. Immense tracts of peat-beds
are on the route, and women are at work wheeling heavy loads of it just
cut out, and men cutting it, the women being made to do the hardest
work.
[Illustration: FRANKFORT DINNER-TABLE.]
At Krewz we stopped for dinner. We had sent forward our names by
telegraph, and were curious to see what was the result. It proved to be
a good soup, a stew of beef and potatoes, roast veal with stewed prunes,
and the usual condiments, but no dessert or wine, unless extra. The
tables for dinner were set out on the platform, under shade, and every
thing neat and clean, and the table furniture good. Beautiful gardens
are around the railroad stations: large peonies and lilacs, seringas and
roses, and other flowers like our own, in full bloom. We met an
excursion train with two or three hundred people, who had left the cars
at a way-station to get water; and as our train came between them and
theirs, they were thrown into the greatest alarm and confusion, lest
they should be left behind. The cottages of the peasantry are very neat
and comfortable; no signs of great poverty, no beggars at the stations.
I have scarcely been solicited by a beggar in Germany. As we are going
north, the country appears less fertile: there is more grass and less
grain; few fruit-trees, some apples, cherries, and pears; poplar trees,
sycamores, and some willows are seen. We have ceased to see forests on
the line of the road: we pass another peat-bed, and a dozen women are
working it, one man overseeing them.
At _Nakal_ twenty peasants were standing, each with a staff in hand, as
if they had just arrived from a journey on foot, and were waiting for a
train to take them on to the seaboard to emigrate. They were swarthy,
stout, and well clad. They will all be voters soon on the other side of
the sea.
Two hundred miles from Berlin, on our way to Warsaw, we came to
Bromberg. We had marked it down as the half-way place, and here we were
to pass the night. We found an elegant railroad station; porters from
three hotels, with plates on their hats, begged the pleasure of our
company at their respective houses. The _Englischer Hof_ had the honor
of taking us in, and we were hospitably and comfortably cared for. This
city was once in Poland. When the kingdom was carved and partitioned,
this fell to Prussia. But Polish names predominate upon the signs, and
the Polish language still prevails. Its trade is in wool and iron and
steel, by canal connecting it with Oder and Wexsel. We went to the top
of a hill near the hotel, and found beautiful walks and seats,
commanding fine views of the town. The churches are both Protestant and
Catholic. We were near a cemetery, and all the tombstones had their
inscriptions in Hebrew. It was a Jewish burial-place. Adjoining it was a
dead-house, into which every dead person of this people is brought, and
washed, and ceremonially prepared for the grave. A young man showed us
over the apartments. He seemed to be the solitary dweller in this gloomy
house. A fine monument in the grove near by is in memory of the good
citizen who had given the grounds, and embellished them, as a resort for
the people.
Only in Germany have we had bolsters in shape of a _wedge_, hard, and
designed to be laid with the edge under the shoulders, making an
inclined plane, from which one is slipping down all the time. The old
feather-bed comforter on top is now dispensed with; but in place of it
is a quilt inside of a sheet, like a bag to hold it, and a very
uncomfortable thing to manage. It requires a deal of patience to put up
with the curious ways of other people; but when one gets used to them,
they are just as well as his own.
We were to take an early start, and the servant was so anxious to do his
whole duty, that he called us, as Samuel the prophet was called, three
times in the course of the night, and finally succeeded in getting us
out an hour too soon. But that was better than to be an hour too late,
and so we had breakfast, and were off again by the rail at six in the
morning. By eight we were at the frontier of Poland, now Russia. Our
passports were demanded, and our baggage searched. Even the little bags
were taken out of the cars and examined. The only article sought for was
tobacco, and nobody ever found a bit of that in any luggage of mine. At
the station signs of progress were evident. Carts drawn by oxen were
loaded with brick, each brick twice as large as one of ours. Large iron
pipes for aqueducts were lying around. A photographic apparatus, of a
pattern quite novel to me, was in use, taking views of the works going
on. The names of all the passengers were copied from their passports
into a register; the passports were returned to their several owners,
then each passenger was asked if he had his passport, and, the formality
being over, we were allowed to proceed after an hour’s detention.
We are now travelling in Poland. We soon pass miserable dwellings, half
under ground, and with stagnant water about them, giving every
appearance of unhealthiness and wretchedness. Yet the country was better
tilled than in Northern Germany. We are now on the Vistula. At one of
the stations we saw a meeting of friends, men kissing each other; young
people stooped down, and old men kissed them on the back of their heads.
Elegant parks and gardens surrounded the villa of the Princess
Racziwill. For centuries it has been the residence of the titled and
rich.
At half-past three P.M. we arrived at Warsaw. All the passengers, as
they left the cars, were required to give up their passports again; were
led into a room where all ingress and egress was cut off; here to each
person was given a receipt for his passport, and he was required to give
the name of the house at which he intended to stay, also to state when
he expected to leave. He was then allowed to go. At the door a metal
check was handed him, having on it the number of the hack in which he
would ride; and thus, with a deep conviction that we are at last in a
country where we are to be looked after, we were taken to our hotel.