cobble-stones, which wore our shoes almost in pieces—until we were glad
to pause in front of the great old red-brick cathedral. Its towers
cut the big yellow moon in two at every angle we could see them.
We stretched our heads to take in the tremendous dimensions of the
cathedral, and the ornamentations of some of the best houses, until
we suddenly remembered that it was nearing midnight, and that we had
been in actual service at sight-seeing and traveling since an early
hour that morning, so we returned to our ball-room and two candles. The
next morning, we imagined, we would have a great treat in hunting up
old carved furniture, for which Danzig, we had been told by our German
friends, was equal to Augsburg; but the antiquarians had left no place
unexplored. No trace of massive-legged table or curiously-carved chairs
was to be found, save in the Museum and the Rathhaus (Council Hall).
The stairway of the Council Hall remains indeed a monument to the
ingenious designer and skillful carver, and the judge’s chair is most
curious.
A fine old convent has been turned into a museum. Its _kreuz gänge_, or
cross-passages, give the place a most mysterious, sequestered air, and
they are gradually collecting some great pictures and treasures within
its walls. But the Rathhaus, in its architecture, surpasses everything
in Danzig, excepting, perhaps, its fine old gateways.
The most distinguished houses in Danzig have on either side of the
entrance, at a distance of five feet, immense stones hewn out of
solid rock. They are nine feet, probably, in circumference. A chain
is attached, which is given a graceful swing before being fastened
again to either side of the front door, about as high up as the brass
knocker. As these big round stones grow smaller in perspective, they
give a peculiar air to a street. They seem to be peculiar to Danzig,
unless one or two dwellings in Edinburgh have them. The big stones,
the large chains, the tremendous brass knockers, and the innumerable
windows in the six stories of the pointed gables, suggest aristocratic
dwellings, and surpass the houses in Nuremberg.
An important political meeting at Stettin defeated our intention of
seeing Marienburg on our return to Berlin. Marienburg is a place few
foreigners find out, but Lübke, in his “History of Art,” represents the
architecture of the palace occupied by the knights, or crusaders, for
two centuries, as one of the most exquisite ruins in all Germany. Thorn
and Königsburg were also homes for this order of knights.
The following day at noon it was rather refreshing to drive into so
modern and gay a place as Berlin, and forget that so many people must
exist in places like Danzig. Mediæval life seems still to enwrap them
there as in a garment. Their eyes are closed to any modern idea or
project.
Berlin contains all that is new and progressive in Germany. That day
as we sat in the garden of the “Thiergarten Hotel,” eating delicious
salmon, the old emperor drove by in his open carriage, with his
faithful _jäger_. He was still a subject for curiosity, as it was
so soon after the attempt had been made to assassinate him, June 7,
1878. He was fired on as he drove by in this same open carriage with
this same faithful _jäger_. The sight of the old emperor recalled the
previous months which had been so full of political stir in Europe. The
session of the Berlin Congress, and the occupation of Bosnia by the
Austrians had taken place.
To describe Berlin to those who have not visited it, is simply telling,
generally, the size of palaces, the number of art collections, the
width of streets, the squares occupied by statues, the places of
amusement, etc., but even when these objects and interests are put in
writing they leave little impression until the place is seen. But there
is another aspect of the great Prussian capital. It is a wonderful
place just now, attracting so many foreign students to its university,
the best musical talent to its conservatories, and the first military
genius within its walls. No matter what branch of study one may choose,
the instruction and illustration is right at hand. To the student of
politics it is a most fruitful field, not only because distinguished
statesmen frequent its streets every day, but because grave problems
in political science are discussed in the Reichstag or taught in the
University. The student of physics or of natural science can work
under Helmholz and others; the student of music can secure Joachim
or Clara Schumann, or the student of art, Knaus, or Richter. Berlin
has no pulpit orator. The Dom is more frequented because of its tombs
than for any living influence it extends. It contains the coffins of
Frederick William the great elector, and Frederick I., king of Prussia.
The Mendelssohn choir chants its anthems, and the emperor and empress
bow at its communion table; but St. Hedwig’s Church is better attended.
The American Chapel, built by the efforts of Mr. Whright, our American
minister to the Prussian court, a devout Methodist, is still occupied
and attended by travelers of the American-English type.
The annual exhibition of pictures in the academy, the many fine
concerts, the treasures in the old museum, the Royal Library, the
palaces, and the lovely drives along “Unter den Linden,” are only
mentioned to show what Berlin does contain in the way of sights and
pleasures. This Unter den Linden, the street so well known, was planned
by Frederick William, in the seventeenth century, and is now worn by
many royal carriages and busy hurrying mortals. The street about the
opera house is crowded every morning by the eager buyers of tickets,
which must be secured in the morning.
Surely life in Berlin can be made very attractive, but after a long
residence there I am convinced that it has little religious life.
The climate is depressing, the expense of living great, two other
detractions. Potsdam, Sans Souci, Charlottenburg Tegel, and many other
places in the suburbs, are, historically and naturally, charming
resorts.
It is more compensating in Europe to go from place to place with some
special work or subject in view than to go for mere sight-seeing.
Your special work brings you nearer the people. If your landlady asks
you what it is, and you take the trouble to tell her, she or some of
her friends will at once see that you know all their acquaintances
who are engaged in the same line of inquiry, and while the new
acquaintances may not be socially or intellectually your ideals, yet
their conversation will help you in the language and give you many
opportunities.
Dresden I only know through hard work in the galleries, as though all
its sights are familiar—the Schloss, Green Vaults with their immense
treasures, the Military Museum, Museum of Natural History, the Grand
Opera House, the Frauenkirche, Japanese Palace, cafés, coinages and
statues; yet the picture gallery, with its priceless “Madonna di San
Sisto” of Raphael is to me the starting point of interest and the
essence of Dresden life.
From eight o’clock in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon
faithful copyists labor in the gallery. The price received for their
work scarcely keeps them from starving. To go in among them for a time
and work and feel as they do, enlarges one’s sympathies, and teaches
one to love the masterpieces of the great artists. To the uninitiated
in such matters it may be well to explain that before the permission
is given to copy a picture in any of the European galleries, a good
deal of red tape must be looked after, especially in Germany. The
director demands a specimen of the applicant’s work, which must be a
study from nature, either figure or landscape or still life. It is with
considerable trepidation that the office of the “Herr Director” is
entered. If the applicant is successful, he or she comes out with an
elaborate paper containing the agreement, the name of picture to be
copied, the number, room, etc., with the director’s name and the seal
attached. One of the _gallerie diener_, as they are called in Germany,
takes you under his care, arranges an easel, a piece of carpet, a
rest-stick and table. You are recognized among the copyists, and the
hat of every _gallerie diener_ is raised at your approach or departure.
When you have finished, the inspector is allowed to criticise your
work. You must pay the _diener_ who has waited upon you some _trink
geld_, or a fee, as we would express it. At noon you can eat your cold
lunch, in company with the other copyists, in front of a Raphael or
a Correggio, a Titian or a Rubens, scrutinize its merits or laugh at
its blunders, or speculate on the old master’s methods of using their
pigments, without being amenable to any court. An artist’s life is a
life of liberty—of thought, at least. Many of these copyists spend
their afternoons in sketching, thus establishing their originality and
emancipating themselves from servile observance of other men’s methods.
In company with these plodding, intelligent artists, I have spent many
delightful hours sketching in the “Alt Markt,” or the Zwinger, or at
Sans Souci or Charlottenburg.
I have often wondered if the little Greek church in the suburbs of
Dresden was as attractive to all travelers as to me. It is surrounded
on one side by golden wheat fields, with red poppies and dark blue corn
flowers growing among it. Its gilded dome, semi-domes, and minarets,
shine like blazing lights against the dark blue sky. The style is such
pure Byzantine and the inside so perfect in its appointments, and yet
so simple; the service conducted in so solemn and devout a spirit,
there seems to be much to impress the looker-on. There are no seats.
On one side stand the women and on the other side the men, and before
the altar the patriarch, or priest. The service is short, consisting
almost entirely of singing by the men and boys, without the aid of an
instrument. When the plate is passed for the collection it contains a
roll of bread, the meaning of which I have never discovered, although
James Freeman Clark may give it in the account of the Greek church in
his “Ten Great Religions.” Their belief that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from the Father, and not from the Father and Son, seems to be the most
essential difference in prayer between the English Church and the Greek.
A summer in the Harz Mountains, taking in Weimar and Eisenach, and the
“Wartburg,” is a charming experience. To find out that one can live in
this age in so interesting a retreat as Weimar, for twenty dollars a
month, gives back some of the simplicity to German life.
To a student of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland and Herder, no spot offers
more pleasure than the quiet, old streets and groves and houses of
Weimar. A mere drive through the park, passing Goethe’s summer house
and on out to “Tiefert,” where the Grand Duchess Amelia held her
little court, and the open air theater attracted a charming coterie to
listen to Goethe or Schiller in some representation, re-awakens the
genius of the times and arouses the appetite of the traveler for more
acquaintance with the place. The next drive or stroll through the park
will prove that every stone contains some rhyme, and every bench some
association with those great men. There is a line to Frau Von Stein in
the garden of Goethe’s country house, an elegy engraved on the stone
as one ascends to the Roman house in the park. The front approach to
this house is not so attractive, but the back is a fascinating place.
It contains on the first floor an open room with round table and
benches, where the Duke and his poets sat for hours, looking over the
old stone steps into the park. A short stroll from there brings one to
the large open space, in the middle of the park, which was laid out by
Goethe, and represents precisely the dimensions of St. Peter’s in Rome.
The immense ground plot of that church is here to be recognized more
definitely than when one stands under its dome.
The grand ducal palace at Weimar contains one unique room, while all
the others are handsome. The one which differs from similar palatial
apartments is frescoed with scenes from the works of Weimar’s great
poets. The halls are silent and one longs to see little fat Karl August
step out of a _saal_ or the Duchess Amelia greet Goethe or Schiller
on the stairway as in days of yore. Mr. Lewis, in his life of Goethe,
portrays such scenes with a graphic pen.
In 1832 the house in the Goethe-platz was left vacant by its great
occupant. Its art treasures, its library, its various collections,
showing how comprehensive Goethe’s mind was, and how many things he had
investigated, were abandoned, as all human efforts must be abandoned,
when the silent messenger calls the soul into the presence of its Great
Creator. If self-denial is required of those on earth who hope to enter
into his rest, then who can answer for Goethe? But surely the choir of
angels in “Faust” sing beautifully of it:
“Christ is arisen,
Praised be his name;
His love shared our prison
Of guilt and of shame;
He hath borne the hard trial of self-denial,
And triumphant ascends
To the hills whence he came.”
This house still stands as he left it, and is shown every Friday
afternoon to visitors. It has been occupied by his grandson for years.
The church in which Lucas Cranach’s great picture is to be seen, and in
which Herder preached, is a cold, heartless structure to a stranger,
but its very stones and walls must respond to the prayers of the old
inhabitants. The _brunnen_, or town well, in front of Lucas Cranach’s
house, when surrounded by a crowd of peasants offers a _genre_ picture
for an artist. The picture gallery is new and good. A large fresco
representing Weimar celebrities is in the front entrance. Bettina Von
Arnim is the only woman in the group. Perhaps her correspondence, which
is by many considered spurious, will make the artist regret that he
has given her so important a position in this fresco. To take an early
breakfast in some lovely arbor, overlooking some historic grounds, then
spend the morning in the gallery and the afternoon in the park, and the
evening at the concert, is about the happiest program one can follow in
a small German town.
Eisenach, the capital of Saxe-Weimar, a town of 10,000 inhabitants,
will always remain associated with Martin Luther. It is the principal
town in the Thuringian forest. The old “Wartburg,” one and a half
miles south of the town, is famous for its architecture and history.
Martin Luther, the Elector of Saxony, who rescued him, and earlier
the saintly Elizabeth and her cruel husband, are only a few names
which are associated with it. Of course the story of the Elector of
Saxony rescuing Luther, after the Diet of Worms, is well known. Yet
who can resist dwelling upon this bold character at this period. After
the Pope’s excommunication Luther defies all threats and starts out
on his return journey, with the emperor’s promise of a safe-conduct;
the decree for arrest follows closely every step. What a picture! to
have these armed knights attack him and carry him prisoner to the old
Wartburg. Then to discover afterward that a friend’s hand, and not an
enemy’s, had done this thing. There he remained ten months, and there
still remain the traces on the wall of the ink he threw at the devil.
Perhaps the chapel, where he preached on Sundays, is a more becoming
and decorous place to associate him with than this little room, always
pointed out first.
The Wartburg has been so beautifully renovated of late at the expense
of the government, it is really worth a second visit to those who
may have seen it years ago. The banquet hall is certainly superb,
and the St. Elizabethangeng, with its beautiful frescoes and long
narrow proportions, almost enables one to see the good woman walking
up and down with her prayer-book, in deep meditation, before starting
out through the forest with her attendants, and her apron full of
provisions for the poor. It is told that once, when her liege-lord met
her, and inquired what she had in her apron (he had strictly forbidden
her taking things to the poor), she, with legendary faith, opened her
apron and forthwith the bread became roses.
Taking your faithful donkey which has brought you up the hill, and
your Wartburg album collection of photographs, you find yourself soon
wandering through the lovely and fantastic _Annenthal_, and finally
resting near the depot at Eisenach. There the untiring finger of your
old guide points to Fritz Reuter’s house, and at last to his own little
bill, which he has carefully prepared and which he expects you as
carefully to pay. Never goes money from your pocket more liberally!
The Harz Mountains, their legends and songs, have been so often written
of there is danger of stupid repetition if one goes over the ground.
A novel experience for an American is to have an attack of rheumatism
in the house of an old Polish major in midsummer, in Wernigerode, and
be attended by the physician of Count Von Stolberg. To inform those
who may be so unfortunate as to meet with a similar fate what will
become of them, I would simply remark that the subterfuge of every
German doctor, when he finds a case getting beyond his control, is
to recommend a water-cure. The one at Magdeburg being the nearest to
Wernigerode, is the one which Count Von Stolburg’s physician would
be best acquainted with, so off to the old city and farewell to the
Harz! What rheumatic patient cares for a view of a fine old cathedral
from a window, or to be informed that the city has existed since the
eighth century? Do these facts lessen the pain or quiet the nerves?
After the bath has restored the patient, and he or she can walk out and
examine the cathedral, and read of the sufferings of the people in the
sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, and again how the Austrian army was
resisted by Wallenstein for seven months, and how the French besieged
and took it in 1806, and again in 1813—thus there is diversion in
finding oneself on such historic grounds and picturesque surroundings.
[To be continued.]
IN FLOWERY FIELDS.
By MARY HARRISON.
Ye flowers in your wonderful silence,
Ye birds with your wonderful sound,
The love of my God are declaring;
For ye are the language he found.
Ye smile to the eye of my spirit,
Ye sing to the ear of my soul;
Ye waken soft echoes of anthems
Which over God’s Paradise roll.
Ye bloom as ye bloomed once in Eden,
Make holy and sacred the sod;
Ye sing as you sang when in rapture
Man counted you angels of God.
By you—common things of the desert—
God’s love has this miracle wrought:
Ye fill me with exquisite gladness,
With worship which silences thought.
—_London Sunday Magazine._
* * * * *
REPUBLICS where high birth gives no right to the government of the
state, are in that respect the most happy; for the people have less
reason to envy an authority which they confer on whom they will, and
which they can again take away when they choose.—_Montesquieu._
FAILINGS.
By J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE.
We all have our _failings_, and for the most part we regard them
tenderly. They do not count as offences; scarcely are they held to be
faults. It is always a probable conjecture that an error of omission
has been unintentional; not unfrequently it seems possible it was
unavoidable. A sentiment of pity for, and even sympathy with, weakness
overpowers the sense of grievance; the voice of the inward monitor is
silenced, and the self-excused conscience sleeps. Meanwhile failings
are the worst and most mischievous, the deadliest and least curable,
of the ills to which the moral nature of man is heir. They are the
sources of evil whence spring the blackest vices of human character,
the false roots that nourish and sustain its parasites, and steal the
sap of its inner life. A failing is not merely negative; its sinister
aspect is one of positive wrong-doing, wherein some behest of the will
is disobeyed, a measure of moral power wasted, a rebel habit formed or
fostered. To compassionate failings in others is to beg the question of
fact for the sake of politeness; to look with leniency on the errors
which self would fain palliate, by assuming that they are unavoidable,
is to play the traitor to Truth, and let the enemy into the citadel;
whereas conscience is set to guard the nature of man from treachery not
less carefully than to protect it against assault.
Failings may be moral, mental, or physical, as they show themselves
in the character, the intellect, or the bodily habit and powers. It
generally happens that what strikes the observer as a failing is
compounded of errors in feeling, thought, and action combined. The
practical question is how the overt evil came into existence; or, if
happily the failing should be detected in an earlier stage of growth,
before it has betrayed its presence by ugly consequences, we may ask:
what are the mischievous forces, where are they at work, how can they
be counteracted? Why has this person the “failing” of a tendency to
excessive indulgence in drink or the gratification of some unbridled
passion; and that individual a seeming inability to recognize and
pursue the right and honest course of conduct in the presence of any
so-called “temptation” or difficulty?
Some of the most regrettable and injurious failings which disfigure
and defame the character run through families, appearing in successive
generations and seeming to be inherited. This theory of their
perpetuation is well founded; and it has been adduced as conclusive
evidence of the truth of the hypothesis that mind, and, of course,
character, is the mere outcome of matter. The force of the argument
obviously rests on the assumption that nothing more than, or outside,
matter can be transmitted from parent to child; that a particular
constitution of brain and nerve centres, a special arrangement or
combination of the elements which compose the mind-organ, may be
reproduced, and, if it is, a similarity of character will be entailed;
but as for the independent existence of mind, or spirit, that is a
pure figment of the imagination, which science will sooner or later
drive beyond the pale of credulity, and to which, even now, only a few
thinkers avowedly cling!
Let us examine this proposition at close quarters. It may be stated
thus. All we know of mind is expressed, and understood, by physical
agencies and in the formulæ of material force. Speech communicates
thought, and we think in words. The faculty of forming and employing
words is a brain function. If a particular region of the brain be
injured or diseased, the power of using language, at least in speech,
is _generally_ lost. The materialist argues from this and many similar
facts that mind is the product of matter. He fails to perceive that the
only warrantable deduction from his own data is that mind or spirit,
call it what we will, _can only express itself_ through the brain as
an instrument. As well deny the skill or independent existence of a
musician because he can not play the full score of an opera on a flute,
as infer the non-existence of a soul from the fact that man cannot
perform intellectual work without the organ of thought—the brain!
The capacity of the instrument doubtless limits the expression, but
it supplies no measure of the power or skill of the performer, except
in so far as the use he makes of the instrument may be a bad one.
This exception is of great significance, and there will be something
more to say about it presently. Meantime it is evident that, while
the range of brain-power determines the _manifestation_ of mind, it
neither measures, nor affirms, nor disproves the independent existence
of mind. The anatomist, the physiologist, and the chemist declare their
inability to discover the traces of a soul in the physical organism.
That no more proves the non-existence of a soul than the failure to
recognize more than a certain number of planets at any stage in the
history of astronomy demonstrated that there was nothing further to
find.