CARLSBAD--PRAGUE--DRESDEN.
If people would take only half the pains to keep their health that
they do to recover it when lost they would be spared a great deal
of trouble. At Carlsbad--the fashionable spa of Austria--we found
everybody getting up at five or six o’clock to drink doses of scalding
brine. A light leather strap slung across the shoulder of each person
supported a porcelain mug. The wearer took his place in a long queue,
and the procession moved slowly on to the fountain. Carefully surveying
the patients as they stood in line, one could see that they were mostly
a “damaged lot,” as the auctioneers say. Their dress and bearing
indicated that they belong to what is called “good society.” Their
ailments are the probable results of indolence and high living. If
overfeeding is the matter with them, then Carlsbad is the very place
for their cure. For I have never known a town where, at the hotels,
the minimum of portion and the maximum of price are so scientifically
adjusted in the interest of the landlords. It is bad manners to lick
the platter clean; but if the guests of the Carlsbad hotels refrain
from this, they miss an important part of their meals. It may be all
very well for the landlords to collude with the doctors for the benefit
of patients; but on behalf of those who are not invalids, and are
suffering sharply from hunger, I protest against the universal adoption
of the system.
It is the prescribed rule at Carlsbad to take as much hot water as
possible on an empty stomach. Everybody knows that there is more
available room in the human frame for such a purpose in the early
morning hours than at any other time of day. And so we find all
Carlsbad up with the sun. This rule is rather hard on the brass bands
of Carlsbad. For the municipal ordinances require them to play lively
tunes at the principal fountains while the melancholy processions are
filing on. With what contempt those mighty drinkers of beer and wine
over there in the orchestra must regard all the people who think so
highly of hot water! It seemed to me as I looked upon the ruddy faces
of the musical performers that the continual pounding of drums and
wrestling with trombones must be as promotive of health as any other
known form of manual labor. But of course it would be hard on the well
people if every patient should join a brass band to recover his “tone.”
When a member of the procession reaches the spring which is his goal,
he unslings his porcelain mug and hands it to a boy in waiting. The
water at most of the springs--they are many--issues with some force
amid a cloud of steam, from a small pipe. The mug is filled in a trice
and handed back to its owner. If he likes it very hot, he gulps it
rapidly. If he prefers it lukewarm, he lets it cool a little. Many
persons suck up the water through a glass tube, as if to prolong the
enjoyment. The Carlsbad waters taste differently, and perhaps no two
people find exactly the same flavor in the outcome of the same spring.
With regard to the stronger waters of the group, one often hears it
said, “Why, it tastes like chicken-broth, with too much salt in it!”
If this is true, then I can only say that some of the salt ought to be
extracted and the water put on the bill of fare of the Carlsbad hotels,
where the article called “chicken-broth” does not resemble the real
thing at all. Because of this pleasing flavor--reminiscence of the full
meals of happier days--the drinkers seem really to like the waters.
As each person can have only one mugful at a time, he must go back
again to the tail end of the line as often as he wants more. This gives
him plenty of exercise, if he happens to want two or three quarts the
same morning. Meantime, those who have dutifully taken their doses--as
ordered by some medical tyrant--saunter up and down the pleasant
walks of Carlsbad and chat with their friends, and make themselves as
cheerful and agreeable as it is in the nature of things possible for a
human being to be an hour or two before breakfast. No time of day could
seem more unfavorable for flirtations. But, unless all the usual signs
mislead at Carlsbad, I should say that, as in the familiar song, “the
old, old story is told again at five o’clock in the morning,” often, in
and about the peopled colonnades of that place.
The Sprudel Spring, which spouts the highest and sends out the most
water, is also the hottest. It is said that eggs may be boiled in it;
and I am prepared to believe the assertion, after observing the timid
way in which the most confirmed drinkers put the water to their lips.
The spring is irregular in its action. At intervals varying from five
to ten minutes it shoots with a force which makes the bystanders step
back to avoid the scalding spray. People who claim to be wiser than
the rest of us, say that the Sprudel and all the other springs result
from the following operations in Mother Earth: The water of some river
or lake in the vicinity of Carlsbad filters through the ground and
between the rocks to a depth of two or three miles or any distance you
like. On the way this water becomes saturated with salts of various
disagreeable kinds. At a certain point in its downward journey it
encounters the “internal fires,” or, at all events, a heat sufficient
to decompose some of the salts in the water and produce an explosive
gas. This gas, in its turn, projects the heated water through some
convenient hole clear to the surface of the earth, like shot out of a
gun. As nobody knows anything about what takes place away down there,
this explanation is, perhaps, as good as any that may be offered. It
is an interesting fact, by-the-way, that at the time of the great
earthquake which destroyed Lisbon and shook up so many other places,
the Sprudel stopped flowing for three days!
Sign-painters ought to make a good living in Prague. For its population
is about equally divided between Germans and Bohemians, and each
race prefers its own language to that of the other. As a result, the
enterprising merchant is obliged to hang out signs which may be read
by both races. In order to catch the custom of those who can not
read at all, he also calls the pictorial art into play. Everybody
can understand the picture of a sack of flour standing on end, or of
loaves of bread, or of bundles of hay or wood, or a pile of coal, or
a man pulling a tooth. But these embellishments are reserved for the
poorer quarters. In the really handsome, newer parts of Prague the
double sign suffices to meet the demands of all intelligent purchasers
among the two peoples. As every cashier and clerk is expected to
understand both German and Bohemian well enough to sell goods to either
race, you will readily see that accomplished linguists are a necessity
in the business circles of Prague, especially when French and English
and American visitors to that city are not uncommon.
Though differing widely in race and language, the people of Prague are
one in the matter of dress. Their costume is that of the rest of the
world, as affected by that great equalizer, the railway. The Graben
is full of precisely the same persons, externally considered, that
one sees on the boulevards of Paris, in Oxford Street, or Broadway.
During my drives and walks about Prague I did not note a single item
of attire which might not be found in the most conventional of New
England villages. Jews abound in Prague, but not one of them could be
identified by that peculiar and very gloomy apparel which is worn by
their brethren in some other parts of Austria--say, in Carlsbad. There
the Jew is known afar off by his long, flowing black robe, matched by
a cap which he pulls down on the back of his head. This robe lends to
the wearer a gravity and dignity in full accord with his serious face.
The Carlsbad Jews are good-looking, and the human parade at and about
the springs would lose much of its interest if they were left out. The
tiresome uniformity of dress which we find in all the cities of Central
Europe is fast robbing Continental travel of a charm once potent. It
is bad enough to have the hotel bills-of-fare everywhere just alike,
though one can put up with lack of variety if the food is well cooked
and wholesome; but, when one sees, on all sides, the same dresses, even
to the cut of a collar, and the nice adjustment of a neck-tie, he feels
cheated out of his just and reasonable expectations. This is one of the
worst respects in which pictorial geographies and cyclopædias too often
lead their readers astray.
You would hardly expect ever to be called on to complain that people
were too courteous. Yet, when it involves you in the necessity of
taking off your hat and describing a semicircle with it every minute
or two, you get just a little tired of the extreme politeness that
greets you all through Bavaria and Austria. I do not now allude to the
profound bows of your hotel landlord, your porter, your “boots,” and
your cabman. I do not speak of the man who sells you something--if it
is nothing more than a cake of soap--and bends almost to the floor
when you leave his shop. These men have relations with you which make
their courtesies a matter of course. You do as you please about bowing
back to them. As a rule, you do it if you are not stiff-necked and
hard-hearted. I now refer to the army officer or other gentleman who
doffs his cap to you most politely every time he enters or leaves a
railway-carriage in which you are sitting. But I have chiefly in mind
the pedestrians of high and low degree whom you meet in great numbers
along the country roads of Austria and Bavaria. These men, if natives,
never fail to bare their heads to you. And you must do the same to
them, or lose that good opinion of your own manners which every man
naturally wishes to preserve. Perhaps we Americans need those lessons
in politeness which are forced upon us in some parts of Europe. But it
is nevertheless a little trying to be continually required to exchange
the most respectful salutes with perfect strangers. I don’t think there
is any danger that our fellow-countrymen will ever catch the habit very
badly.
The superintendent or chief inspector of the great Picture-Gallery of
Dresden was quite indignant when I asked him if the Saxon Government
intended to refuse to American artists and students access to that
treasure-house, as had been reported. For his answer he sent at once
for a promising young American, who was then copying one of the
masterpieces of the gallery. Placing his hands affectionately on this
young man’s shoulders, he simply said, “No! no! impossible!” Then he
fled from the scene, as if my question had stung him. It is true, as
I have since learned, that Saxony, while feeling affronted by the
American thirty per cent duty on the paintings and statuary of her
subjects, does not propose to retaliate by excluding our compatriots
from her world-famous collections of art. On the contrary, American
artists are very popular there, and will continue to be welcome
visitors at all the galleries. The Saxon Government hopes that the
American art-tariff will be abolished or reduced some day, in response
to the demand of the best artists of our own country, and without
the pressure of any reprisal. If one would know how valuable are the
privileges enjoyed by American artists and students abroad, let him
enter the famous gallery of paintings, which is the chief glory of
Dresden, and look around him. He will see in almost every corner some
person sitting before a renowned picture and copying it at leisure.
Sometimes the picture still hangs on the wall, in which case the
body and the easel of the artist half conceal it from view. Several
masterpieces which I wanted to inspect closely were partly eclipsed
in this way. Sometimes the gem is taken down and put at the artist’s
exclusive disposal. You find its wooden back confronting you in some
nook of the gallery, and, if you try to peep round for a look at it,
the person at work copying it is apt to make you feel that you are an
intruder. I say that it is a great thing to enjoy these advantages over
the general public, and be able to derive a profit from them by selling
copies to American customers, who can take them home duty free. One may
not like the thirty per cent tariff, and still may feel most kindly
disposed toward every American artist and art-student in Europe, and
earnestly hope that their privileges will not be curtailed in the least.
There is one room in this picture-gallery where I have not yet seen
an easel set up with a man or woman toiling behind it. That is the
apartment solely occupied by the immortal Sistine Madonna of Raphael.
Such a presence there would seem almost a profanation. For that
greatest work of the greatest of artists is a shrine before which men
of all religions and of no religion pay the same unaffected homage. You
remove your hat instinctively as you enter the little room. You cross
the floor on tip-toe. You gaze upon the wonderful canvas in silence.
If you exchange words of admiration about it with your companion or
neighbor, you do it in a whisper. As you reluctantly quit the place to
go directly to your hotel--for nothing in the gallery interests you
much after you have seen the Sistine Madonna--you realize better than
before what is the highest and truest mission of art in the world.