1879
AMERICAN ARTISTS AT MUNICH--I MEET MARK TWAIN--TAKE HIM TO
AN ARTISTS’ CLUB--CONVERSATIONS WITH HIM--BEER DRINKING--
HE READS THE ORIGINAL OF “WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE GERMAN
LANGUAGE”--WE ENTERTAIN THE AMERICANS AT ZURICH--A LETTER FROM
GENERAL SHERMAN--CONFEDERATES MORE POPULAR THAN UNION MEN--
SHERMAN READY TO SURRENDER.
_February 1, 1879._--Spent part of January in Munich, and very much of
the time among the studios of the American artists. There are not less
than fifty of our countrymen here, either practicing art or learning it.
Frank Duveneck (later widely known) had a large class of devoted
students, who were also his followers in a style of painting peculiar
to himself. There was a strong belief that he was a man of genius,
but he spent much time teaching, when he ought to have been painting.
Duveneck’s students followed him later to Florence, where I saw them
again.
Chase was also at Munich at this time. I can imagine no city more
desirable for a student of art. The social atmosphere breathes of
art; the galleries, of course, are unsurpassed. There are plenty of
teachers--and models are plenty, and all very cheap.
I was introduced to Carl Piloty, head of the Academy of Arts. It was on
the street a friend and I met him. The day was cold, the wind blowing.
There could be little conversation. He wore a big paletot wrapped about
him, and his face and head were so covered that I could not tell
what he looked like. Saw him the same evening on the platform in the
academy, posing models for the students. There was great enthusiasm for
him.
Like most strangers, we visited the famous breweries, and at the “Hof
Brauerei” waded around over the wet, stone floors and helped ourselves
to beer, as was the custom. The place was full of loud-talking people,
with many soldiers among them, some sitting at tables with schooners of
beer before them, others carrying their beer glasses about with them as
they gesticulated together in groups. A band played all the time. It
was to me a wet, noisy, half-lighted, disagreeable place; but it was
“the thing” to go there and help yourself to the world-renowned beer.
This brewery, too, is a great place, where one can see German types of
many curious kinds, and know what German beer-drinking really is. As we
came out into the court, we were near being drowned by some careless
employee’s turning loose several barrels of dirty water, from a spout
over the doorway. Some soldiers in the vicinity laughed at the speed
with which we escaped the flood of beer and water.
Out in the street we noticed a not uncommon Munich sight. It was a
little parade of University students in open carriages. They wore
their corps uniforms of high boots, jaunty caps, and ribbon across the
breast. Some of them held aloft a schooner of beer. The front seat,
or the place of honor, in each carriage was occupied by a stately
bull-dog, arrayed in ribbons and brass collar.
The great bronze foundry was a place that entertained us greatly. The
method of casting statues and monuments was explained to us, and the
copies of noted American figures they had cast at different times, now
in the exhibition room, made us feel very proud.
It was a group of great men who long ago won for our country the
respect of the world. There is not a spot in America, or elsewhere,
where one can see more of American genius represented in one room than
is seen here in the museum of this foundry.
The sights of the city were not so different from the sights of
other cities. King Otto drove by us a time or two on his way to that
wonderful palace of his, with its gardens and lake and swans, and all
that, up in the top of the building.
One of his Cabinet had spent a summer with us at Obstalden, in
Switzerland. His family invited us to a little lunch, where we could
talk much about the King; but it had to be in a complimentary way, for
these good people saw nothing of what everybody else saw--that is,
that he was a very unique personage, and probably going crazy. All the
world, though, has been glad that he was sane enough to give it Wagner,
for without Otto’s long and splendid patronage, Wagner’s music would
still have been “a music of the _future_.”
One of King Otto’s freaks is his wonderful fairy castle, built high
up in the Bavarian Alps. When the snow is deep on the mountains,
and the wind blows, he goes sleigh-riding late at night, and quite
alone, in his wonderful sleigh. This sleigh is a gorgeous little coupé
on runners. Inside, it is all cushions, luxury and shining lights.
Outside, it is illuminated too, and when the mountaineers hear the
jingling of bells late at midnight, and see the apparition passing,
they cross themselves, and say: “God keep King Otto in his right mind.”
We heard Wagner’s operas given by his own trained orchestra, almost
nightly. They were so long as to be absolutely fatiguing, and made me
wonder if this craze for his music is not in part affectation. Enough
is enough of anything. We went to bed nights, tired to death; but “it
was the thing” to hear Wagner to the end, so we heard.
I think few things interested me so much in Munich as to stand and look
at the river Iser. It was full, and dark, and rapid, and great cakes
of broken ice floated past. I thought of that night at Hohenlinden
When dark as Winter was the flow
Of Iser rolling rapidly.
Later, as a souvenir of the visit, we bought a little painting by Wex,
representing a pretty scene on the upper Iser River.
One of the pleasant incidents of the Munich visit was the meeting with
Mark Twain. I copy a few lines from my diary:
Saw Mark Twain several times, and one night had the pleasure of taking
him to the American Artists’ Club. The young men had insisted on my
asking him to come and make a speech. I went to his apartments, near my
own, and together we walked clear across the city. It must have been
miles, but I was glad of it. He talked all the way, not with the humor
that has made him famous, but in an earnest, thoughtful, sincere mood.
He told me how he did his literary work, when in Munich. “I hire a
room,” said he, “away off in some obscure quarter of the town, far away
from where we live; where no one, not even Mrs. Clemens, could find me.
The people who let the room do not know who I am. I go there mornings,
stay all day, and work till evening. When at my book-writing, I never
sleep a wink, no matter how many days or weeks the undertaking. It is
now two weeks since I have slept one single hour.” I wondered such a
life was not killing him.
As we trudged along under the lamp lights of the streets, we had much
small talk of the West, of the time when he was young and when he
was “roughing it.” I amused him by relating how I kept a copy of his
“Roughing It” at the consulate, to lend to travelers who came along
with the “hypo” and like afflictions.
[Illustration: Castle Chillon.]
Something was said of certain American writers, recently sprung to
fame. I mentioned a letter Charles Dickens, just before his death,
wrote to Bret Harte. The letter, in fact, only reached Harte after
Dickens’ death, and was followed by Harte’s beautiful verses, “Dickens
in Camp.”
“Dickens could well afford to write nice letters to Bret Harte,” said
he, “for he has no more faithful admirer and student, and he has
adopted the Englishman’s style. Why not? He could not find a better
model, and even as great a genius as Balzac boasted of his dependence
on the style of Victor Hugo. Solomon, when he said there was nothing
new, meant also there were no new literary styles under the sun,
either.”
My own belief is that Bret Harte’s short California sketches are better
than anything Dickens ever wrote.
When we reached the new art room that night, the artists and students
were already assembled, and were sitting at a couple of long tables,
drinking beer and smoking. An enormous schooner full of beer stood at
every plate, and the smoke in the room was almost thick enough to slice
up and carry out.
The students all rose as we entered, and gave Mark Twain a little
cheer. As he hung his overcoat up in the corner, he took from the
pocket an enormous roll of manuscript. The young men saw it, and
possibly began to tremble a little. “Don’t be alarmed,” he cried out,
holding the mighty roll up to their view. “I don’t intend to read
all this.” The place of honor at the center of one of the tables was
waiting him, and the largest beer schooner of all stood in front of it.
I was amazed to see him empty it almost before he sat down. “Let’s have
some beer, gentlemen,” he said laughing, and schooner after schooner
came and disappeared.
The paper was “What I Know About the German Language.” It was the first
time this now famous bit of humor saw the light. It did not seem to me
so very funny in itself, but his way of reading it made it exceedingly
droll.
When he had finished, every one had something equally ridiculous to
tell of the bulls and blunders of ignorant Teutons writing English.
Some had received wonderful letters that bordered on uttermost farce.
Mark Twain begged possession of all these fool epistles, and possibly
made his paper funnier than before from their contents.
The smoke, and the beer, and the jokes went on till midnight. In
fact, these beer drinking Americans could beat a Heidelberg students’
“Kneipe” all to pieces, and Mark Twain did not propose to be left
wholly in the rear.
At last, we all shook hands and started homewards. It was a good hour’s
walk he and I had before us, but the cool night air was refreshing.
For my own part, I was glad to get out of the dense smoke, and have a
chance to talk alone with the humorist.
I liked Mark Twain. He is a small, slight man, with big, blue eyes and
a great shock of reddish hair. He has a habit of saying “Thank you
kindly.” He has youth yet, lots of money and a very pretty wife.
_February 23._--On coming back from Munich, wrote a paper about the
Iser. Also wrote for the Atlantic Monthly the account of my experiences
inside Atlanta.
Last evening we had all the Americans who are in town at our home,
celebrating Washington’s birthday. A few Swiss and German friends were
also with us--among the Germans the family of Director Witt. These were
among our first and truest friends abroad. We have spent whole summers
together at Bocken, Wangensbach and elsewhere, and we are god parents
to one of the little girls. Numbers of guests made speeches last night.
Sure it is, the flag never seems so dear to Americans as when they can
touch it with their hands in a foreign land. Kinkel, the poet, and his
wife and son also, were present.
_April, 1879._--There are a million Northern soldiers still living in
the United States who were true to the Union, and yet the United States
Senate elects a clerk whose principal recommendation is disloyalty to
his country. It seems to me a nation is in danger of collapse that can
not tell its friends from its enemies.
General Sherman writes thus of the situation:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., March 22, 1879.
“DEAR BYERS:--I was glad to receive your letter this morning, and
have sent it down to Mrs. Sherman, who is always glad to see your
letters. And now without waiting, will answer your inquiries. We
are still here in Washington at the Ebbitt House, Mrs. Sherman,
Elly, Rachel and I. Cumpsey is at Baltimore at school, and Mrs.
Sherman goes over quite often to look after him. Minnie lives in
St. Louis, and at this minute of time Lizzie is there also on a
visit. I took Elly and Lizzie with me South, but on our return,
as I was somewhat in a hurry and could not well take St. Louis in
my route, Lizzie switched off in West Tennessee and went straight
to St. Louis. We hear from her daily. All are well there. I
suppose you, in common with others, may have seen reports of
the illness and death of General and Mrs. T. W. Sherman, but I
suppose you recognized the difference of initials. It was another
General Sherman, who was on the Army Retired List, who died
last week at Newport, R. I. Politics are now awfully mixed. We
have an extra session of Congress in which the Democrats have
majorities in both branches, and the Southern members, mostly all
Confederate officers, are in the majority of the Democrats, and
thus rule all. So at this minute the rebels have conquered us,
and we are at their mercy. Who would have thought this in 1865?
Our paper announced yesterday the election of a clerk of the
Senate, with the recommendation that ‘he had served _faithfully_
on Lee’s staff.’ Little by little it has come about, and we find
that it is popular to have belonged to the Confederate Army, and
correspondingly suspicious to have served in the Union Army.
Popular revolutions are hard to comprehend. For this reason I
hold myself ready to surrender when called on, which may be at
any day.
“My trip South was pleasant and I am glad I made it. Of course I
confined myself to purely social matters. Love to Mrs. Byers and
the children.
“Yours truly,
W. T. SHERMAN.”