Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added
by the transcriber.
LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
May, 1876.
Vol. XVII, No. 101.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE CENTURY--ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.
V.--MINOR STRUCTURES OF THE EXHIBITION. [Illustrated]
GLIMPSES OF CONSTANTINOPLE by SHEILA HALE.
TWO PAPERS.--I. [Illustrated]
THE BALLAD OF THE BELL-TOWER by MARGARET J. PRESTON.
BERLIN AND VIENNA by JAMES MORGAN HART.
THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.
By MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."
CHAPTER XXXIII. OUR MARRIAGE.
CHAPTER XXXIV. IS THIS LOVE?
CHAPTER XXXV. DUNASTON CASTLE.
CHAPTER XXXVI. IN LETTERS OF FIRE.
ROSE-MORALS by SIDNEY LANIER.
AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS STORY by K. T. T.
THE WATCH: AN OLD MAN'S STORY by IVAN TOURGUENEFF.
TRANSLATIONS FROM HEINE by EMMA LAZARUS.
I.--CHILDE HAROLD.
II.--SPRING FESTIVAL.
LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA by LADY BARKER.
THE LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR by T. S. PERRY.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
A REMINISCENCE OF MACAULAY by E. Y.
UNVEILING KEATS'S MEDALLION by T. A. T.
GINO CAPPONI by T. A. T.
A DINNER WITH ROSSI by L. H. H.
"FOUNDERS DAY" AT RAINE'S HOSPITAL by B. M.
NOTES.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
_Books Received._
ILLUSTRATIONS
FOUNTAIN OF THE CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE UNION.
JUDGES' PAVILION.
WOMEN'S PAVILION.
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING.
OHIO BUILDING.
NEW JERSEY BUILDING.
NEW YORK BUILDING.
PENNSYLVANIA BUILDING.
PLAN OF EXHIBITION GROUNDS.
JAPANESE BUILDING.
SWEDISH SCHOOL-HOUSE.
SPANISH BUILDING.
BRITISH BUILDINGS.
GERMAN BUILDING.
HORTICULTURAL HALL--INTERIOR.
AMMALE.
TURKISH LADY.
THE SULTAN'S NEW PALACE ON THE BOSPHORUS.
MARBLE STAIRCASE, PALACE OF BESKIK-TASCH.
MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA.
INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA.
HAREM SCENE.
MOUNT PLEASANT.
LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
OF
_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.
MAY, 1876.
THE CENTURY--ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.
V.--MINOR STRUCTURES OF THE EXHIBITION.
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF THE CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE UNION.]
Compress it as you may, this globe of ours remains quite a bulky
affair. The world in little is not reducible to a microscopic point.
The nations collected to show their riches, crude and wrought, bring
with them also their wants. For the display, for its comfort and good
order, not only space, but a carefully-planned organization and a
multiplicity of appliances are needed. Separate or assembled, men
demand a home, a government, workshops, show-rooms and restaurants.
For even so paternal and, within its especial domain, autocratic
a sway as that of the Centennial Commission to provide all these
directly would be impossible. A great deal is, as in the outer world,
necessarily left to private effort, combined or individual.
Having in our last paper sketched the provision made by the management
for sheltering and properly presenting to the eye the objects on
exhibition, we shall now turn from the strictly public buildings to
the more numerous ones which surround them, and descend, so to speak,
from the Capitol to the capital.
Our circuit brought us back to the neighborhood of the principal
entrance. Standing here, facing the interval between the Main Building
and Machinery Hall, our eyes and steps are conducted from great to
greater by a group of buildings which must bear their true name of
offices, belittling as a title suggestive of clerks and counting-rooms
is to dimensions and capacity exceeding those of most churches. Right
and left a brace of these modest but sightly and habitable-looking
foot-hills to the Alps of glass accommodate the executive and staff
departments of the exposition. They bring together, besides the
central administration, the post, police, custom-house, telegraph,
etc. A front, including the connecting verandah, of five hundred feet
indicates the scale on which this transitory government is organized.
Farther back, directly opposite the entrance, but beyond the north
line of the great halls, stands the Judges' Pavilion. In this
capacious "box," a hundred and fifty-two by a hundred and fifteen
feet, the grand and petit juries of the tribunal of industry and taste
have abundant elbow--room for deliberation and discussion. The same
enlightened policy which aimed at securing the utmost independence and
the highest qualifications of knowledge and intelligence in the two
hundred men who determine the awards, recognized also the advantage
of providing for their convenience. Their sessions here can be neither
cramped nor disturbed. So far as foresight can go, there is nothing
to prevent their deciding quietly, comfortably and soundly, after mute
argument from the vast array of objects submitted to their verdict, on
the merits of each. The main hall of this building, or high court as
it may be termed, is sixty by eighty feet, and forty-three feet high.
In the rear of it is a smaller hall. A number of other chambers
and committee-rooms are appropriated to the different branches as
classified. Accommodation is afforded, besides, to purposes of a less
arid nature--fêtes, receptions, conventions, international congresses
and the like. This cosmopolitan forum might fitly have been modeled
after
the tower that builders vain,
Presumptuous, piled on Shinar's plain.
Bricks from Birs Nimroud would have been a good material for the
walks. Perhaps, order being the great end, anything savoring of
confusion was thought out of place.
[Illustration: JUDGES' PAVILION.]
Fire is an invader of peace and property, defence against whose
destructive forays is one of the first and most constant cares of
American cities, old and new, great and small. Before the foundations
of the Main Building were laid the means of meeting the foe on the
threshold were planned. The Main Building alone contains seventy-five
fire-plugs, with pressure sufficient to throw water over its
highest point. Adjacent to it on the outside are thirty-three more.
Seventy-six others protect Machinery Hall, within which are
the head-quarters of the fire service. A large outfit of steam
fire-engines, hose, trucks, ladders, extinguishers and other
appliances of the kind make up a force powerful enough, one
would think, to put out that shining light in the records of
conflagration--Constantinople. Steam is kept up night and day in the
engines, which, with their appurtenances, are manned by about two
hundred picked men. The houses for their shelter, erected at a cost
of eight thousand dollars, complete, if we except some architectural
afterthoughts in the shape of annexes, the list of the buildings
erected by the commission.
[Illustration: WOMEN'S PAVILION.]
_Place aux dames!_ First among the independent structures we must note
the Women's Pavilion. After having well earned, by raising a large
contribution to the Centennial stock, the privilege of expending
thirty-five thousand dollars of their own on a separate receptacle of
products of the female head and hand, the ladies selected for that a
sufficiently modest site and design. To the trait of modesty we
cannot say that the building has failed to add that of grace. In this
respect, however, it does not strike us as coming up to the standard
attained by some of its neighbors. The low-arched roofs give it
somewhat the appearance of a union railway-depot; and one is apt to
look for the emergence from the main entrances rather of locomotives
than of ladies. The interior, however is more light and airy in effect
than the exterior. But "pretty is that pretty does" was a favorite
maxim of the Revolutionary dames; and the remarkable energy shown by
their fair descendants, under the presidency of Mrs. E. D. Gillespie,
in carrying through this undertaking will impart to it new force. The
rule is quite in harmony with it that mere frippery should be avoided
within and without, and the purely decorative architect excluded with
Miss McFlimsey. The ground-plan is very simple, blending the cross and
the square. Nave and transept are identical in dimensions, each being
sixty-four by one hundred and ninety-two feet. The four angles
formed by their intersection are nearly filled out by as many sheds
forty-eight feet square. A cupola springs from the centre to a height
of ninety feet. An area of thirty thousand square feet strikes us as a
modest allowance for the adequate display of female industry. For the
filling of the vast cubic space between floor and roof the managers
are fain to invoke the aid of an orchestra of the sterner sex to keep
it in a state of chronic saturation with music.
[Illustration: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING.]
Reciprocity, however, obtains here. The votaries of harmony naturally
seek the patronage of woman. Her territorial empire has accordingly
far overstepped the narrow bounds we have been viewing. The Women's
Centennial Music Hall on Broad street is designed for all the musical
performances connected with the exposition save those forming part of
the opening ceremonies. This is assuming for it a large office, and we
should have expected so bold a calculation to be backed by floor-room
for more than the forty-five hundred hearers the hall is able to seat.
A garden into which it opens will accommodate an additional number,
and may suggest souvenirs of _al-fresco_ concerts to European
travelers.
Nor does the sex extend traces of its sway in this direction alone. A
garden of quite another kind, meant for blossoms other than those of
melody, and still more dependent upon woman's nurture, finds a place
in the exposition grounds near the Pavilion. Of the divers species
of _Garten_--_Blumen-, Thier-, Bier_-, etc.--rife in Vaterland, the
_Kinder_- is the latest selected for acclimation in America. If
the mothers of our land take kindly to it, it will probably become
something of an institution among us. But that is an _If_ of
portentous size. The mothers aforesaid will have first to fully
comprehend the new system. It is not safe to say with any confidence
at first sight that we rightly understand any conception of a German
philosopher; but, so far as we can make it out, the Kindergarten
appears to be based on the idea of formulating the child's physical as
thoroughly as his intellectual training, and at the same time closely
consulting his idiosyncrasy in the application of both. His natural
disposition and endowments are to be sedulously watched, and guided
or wholly repressed as the case may demand. The budding artist
is supplied with pencil, the nascent musician with trumpet or
tuning-fork, the florist with tiny hoe and trowel, and so on. The
boy is never loosed, physically or metaphysically, quite out of
leading-strings. They are made, however, so elastic as scarce to
be felt, and yet so strong as never to break. Moral suasion,
perseveringly applied, predominates over Solomon's system. It is
a very nice theory, and we may all study here, at the point of the
lecture-rod wielded by fair fingers, its merits as a specific for
giving tone to the constitution of Young America.
At the side of the Kindergarten springs a more indigenous growth--the
Women's School-house. In this reminder of early days we may freshen
our jaded memories, and wonder if, escaped from the dame's school,
we have been really manumitted from the instructing hand of women, or
ever shall be in the world, or ought to be.
Is the "New England Log-house," devoted to the contrasting of the
cuisine of this and the Revolutionary period, strictly to be assigned
to the women's ward of the great extempore city? Is its proximity to
the buildings just noticed purely accidental, or meant to imply that
cookery is as much a female art and mystery as it was a century ago?
However this may be, the erection of this temple to the viands of
other days was a capital idea, and a blessed one should it aid in the
banishment of certain popular delicacies which afflict the digestive
apparatus of to-day. This kitchen of the forest epoch is naturally
of logs, and logs in their natural condition, with the bark on.
The planking of that period is represented by clap-boards or slabs.
Garnished with ropes of onions, dried apples, linsey-woolsey garments
and similar drapery, the aspect of the walls will remind us of
Lowell's lines:
Crook-necks above the chimly hung,
While in among 'em rusted
The old Queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young
Brought hack from Concord busted.
The log-house is not by any means an abandoned feature of antiquity.
It is still a thriving American "institution" North, West and South,
only not so conspicuous in the forefront of our civilization as it
once was. It turns out yet fair women and brave men, and more than
that--if it be not treason to use terms so unrepublican--the highest
product of this world, gentlemen and gentlewomen.
[Illustration: OHIO BUILDING.]
Uncle Sam confronts the ladies from over the way, a ferocious battery
of fifty-seven-ton Rodman guns and other monsters of the same family
frowning defiance to their smiles and wiles. His traditional dread of
masked batteries may have something to do with this demonstration. He
need not fear, however. His fair neighbors and nieces have their hands
full with their own concerns, and leave him undisturbed in his stately
bachelor's hall to "illustrate the functions and administrative
faculties of the government in time of peace and its resources as a
war-power." To do this properly, he has found two acres of ground none
too much. The building, business-like and capable-looking, was erected
in a style and with a degree of economy creditable to the officers
of the board, selected from the Departments of War, Agriculture, the
Treasury, Navy, Interior and Post-Office, and from the Smithsonian
Institution. Appended to it are smaller structures for the
illustration of hospital and laboratory work--a kill-and-cure
association that is but one of the odd contradictions of war.
The sentiments prevalent in this era of perfect peace, harmony and
balance of rights forbids the suspicion of any significance in
the fact that the lordly palace of the Federal government at once
overshadows and turns its back upon the humbler tenements of the
States. A line of these, drawn up in close order, shoulder to
shoulder, is ranged, hard by, against the tall fence that encloses
the grounds. The Keystone State, as beseems her, heads the line by
the left flank. Then come, in due order, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts and
Delaware. New Jersey and Kansas stand proudly apart, officer-like, on
the opposite side of the avenue; the regimental canteen, in the shape
of the Southern Restaurant, jostling them rather too closely. Somewhat
in keeping with the over-prominence of the latter adjunct is the
militia-like aspect of the array, wonderfully irregular as are its
members in stature and style. Pennsylvania's pavilion, costing forty
thousand dollars, or half as much as the United States building, plays
the leading grenadier well; but little Delaware, not content with the
obscure post of file-closer, swells at the opposite end of the line
into dimensions of ninety by seventy-five feet, with a cupola that, if
placed at Dover, would be visible from half her territory.
[Illustration: NEW JERSEY BUILDING.]
These buildings are all of wood, with the exception of that of Ohio,
which exhibits some of the fine varieties of stone furnished by the
quarries of that State, together with some crumbling red sandstone
which ought, in our opinion, to have been left at home. All have two
floors, save the Massachusetts cottage, a quaint affair modeled after
the homes of the past. Virginia ought to have placed by its side one
of her own old country-houses, long and low, with attic windows, the
roof spreading with unbroken line over a portico the full length of
the front, and a broad-bottomed chimney on the outside of each gable.
The State of New York plays orderly sergeant, and stands in front
of Delaware. She is very fortunate in the site assigned her, at
the junction of State Avenue with several broad promenades, and her
building is not unworthy so prominent a position.
From the Empire State we step into the domain of Old England. Three
of her rural homesteads rise before us, red-tiled, many-gabled,
lattice-windowed, and telling of a kindly winter with external
chimneys that care not for the hoarding of heat. It is a bit of the
island peopled by some of the islanders. They are colonized here, from
commissioner in charge down to private, in a cheek-by-jowl fashion
that shows their ability to unbend and republicanize on occasion.
Great Britain's head-quarters are made particularly attractive, not
more by the picturesqueness of the buildings than by the extent and
completeness of her exhibit. In her preparations for neither the
French nor the Austrian exposition did she manifest a stronger
determination to be thoroughly well represented. Col. H.B. Sanford, of
the Royal Artillery, heads her commission.
Japan is a common and close neighbor to the two competitors for her
commercial good-will, England and New York. Modern Anglo-Saxondom and
old Cathay touch eaves with each other. Hemlock and British oak rub
against bamboo, and dwellings which at first sight may impress one as
chiefly chimney stand in sharp contrast with one wholly devoid of that
feature. The difference is that of nails and bolts against dovetails
and wooden pins; of light and pervious walls with heavy sun-repelling
roof against close and dense sides and roofs whose chief warfare is
with the clouds; of saw and plane that work in Mongol and Caucasian
hands in directions precisely reversed. To the carpenters of both
England and Japan our winter climate, albeit far milder than usual,
was alike astonishing. With equal readiness, though not with equal
violence to the _outer man_, the craftsmen of the two nations
accommodated themselves to the new atmospheric conditions. The
moulting process, in point of dress, through which the _Japanese_
passed was not untypical of the change the _institutions_ of
their country have been undergoing in obedience to similarly stern
requirements. It did not begin at quite so rudimental a stage of
costume as that of the porters and wrestlers presented to us on fans,
admirably adapted as that style might be to our summer temperature.
In preparing for that oscillation of the thermometer the English are
called on for another change, whereas the Orientals may meet it by
simply reverting to first principles.
[Illustration: NEW YORK BUILDING.]
The delicacy of the Asiatic touch is exemplified in the wood-carving
upon the doorways and pediments of the Japanese dwelling. Arabesques
and reproductions of subjects from Nature are executed with a
clearness and precision such as we are accustomed to admire on the
lacquered-ware cabinets and bronzes of Japan. With us, wood has almost
completely disappeared as a glyptic material. The introduction of
mindless automatic machinery has starved out the chisel. Mouldings are
run out for us by the mile, like iron from the rolling-mill or tunes
from a musical-box, as cheap and as soulless. Forms innately beautiful
thus become almost hateful, because hackneyed. If all the women we
see were at once faultlessly beautiful and absolute duplicates of
each other in the minutest details of feature, complexion, dress and
figure, we should be in danger of conceiving an aversion to the sex.
So there is a certain pleasure in tracing in a carven object, even
though it be hideous, the patient, faithful, watchful work of the
human hand guided at every instant by the human eye. And this Japanese
tracery is by no means hideous. The plants and animals are well
studied from reality, and truer than the average of popular designs in
Europe a century ago, if not now. It is simple justice to add that for
workmanlike thoroughness this structure does not suffer in comparison
with those around it.
Besides this dwelling for its employés, the Japanese government has
in a more central situation, close to the Judges' Pavilion, another
building. The style of this is equally characteristic. Together, the
two structures will do what houses may toward making us acquainted
with the public and private ménage of Japan.
[Illustration: PENNSYLVANIA BUILDING.]
In the neat little Swedish School-house, of unpainted wood, that
stands next to the main Japanese building, we have another meeting of
antipodes. Northern Europe is proud to place close under the eye of
Eastern Asia a specimen of what she is doing for education. Sweden
has indeed distinguished herself by the interest she has shown in the
exposition. At the head of her commission was placed Mr. Dannfeldt,
who supervised her display at Vienna. His activity and judgment
have obviously not suffered from the lapse of three years.
This school-house is attractive for neatness and peculiarity of
construction. It was erected by Swedish carpenters. The descendants of
the hardy sea-rovers, convinced that their inherited vigor and
thrift could not be adequately illustrated by an exclusively in-doors
exhibition, sent their portable contributions in a fine steamer of
Swedish build, the largest ever sent to sea from the Venice of the
North, and not unworthy her namesake of the Adriatic. To compete in
two of its specialties with the cradle of the common school and the
steamship is a step that tells of the bold Scandinavian spirit.
The contemporaries and ancient foes of the Northmen, who overthrew the
Goths on land and checkmated the Vikings in the southern seas, have
a memorial in the beautiful Alhambra-like edifice of the Spanish
government. Spain has no architecture so distinctive as that of the
Moors, and the selection of their style for the present purpose was in
good taste. It lends itself well to this class of building, designed
especially for summer use; and many other examples of it will be found
upon the grounds. The Mohammedan arch is suited better to materials,
like wood and iron, which sustain themselves in part by cohesion, than
to stone, which depends upon gravitation alone. Although it stands
in stone in a long cordon of colonnades from the Ganges to the
Guadalquivir, the eye never quite reconciles itself to the suggestion
of untruth and feebleness in the recurved base of the arch. This
defect, however, is obtrusive only when the weight supported is great;
and the Moorish builders have generally avoided subjecting it to that
test.
[Illustration: PLAN OF EXHIBITION GROUNDS.]
Spain also has taken the liberty of widening the range of her
contributions. Soldiers, for instance, find no place in the official
classification of subjects for exhibition. She naturally thought it
worth while to show that the famous _infanteria_ of Alva, Gonsalvo,
and Cuesta "still lived." So she sends us specimens of the first, if
not just now the foremost, of all infantry. This microscopic invasion
of our soil by an armed force will be useful in reminding us of the
untiring tenacity which takes no note of time or of defeat, and which,
indifferent whether the struggle were of six, fifty, or seven hundred
years, wore down in succession the Saracens, the Flemings and the
French.
[Illustration: JAPANESE BUILDING.]
Samples in this particular walk of competition come likewise from the
battle-ground of Europe, Belgium sending a detachment of her troops
for police duty. We may add that the Centennial has brought back
the red-coats, a detachment of Royal Engineers, backed by part of
Inspector Bucket's men, doing duty in the British division.
After these first drops of the military shower one looks instinctively
for the gleam of the spiked helmet at the portals of the German
building, seated not far from that of Spain, and side by side with
that of Brazil. It does not appear, however. Possibly, Prince Bismarck
scorns to send his veterans anywhere by permission. Neither does he
indulge us, like Brazil, with the sight of an emperor, or even with
cæsarism in the dilute form of a crown prince. Such exotics do not
transplant well, even for temporary potting, in this republican soil.
It is impossible, at the same time, not to reflect what a capital card
for the treasury of the exposition would have been the catching of
some of them in full bloom, as at the openings of 1867 and 1873. A
week of Wilhelm would have caused "the soft German accent," with its
tender "hochs!" to drown all other sounds between Sandy Hook and the
Golden Gate.
Let us step over the Rhine, or rather, alas! over the Moselle, and
look up at the tricolor. It floats above a group of structures--one
for the general use of the French commission, another for the special
display of bronzes, and a third for another art-manufacture for which
France is becoming eminent--stained glass. This overflowing from her
great and closely-occupied area in Memorial Hall, hard by, indicates
the wealth of France in art. She is largely represented, moreover, in
another outlying province of the same domain--photography.
Photographic Hall, an offshoot from Memorial Hall, and lying between
it and the Main Building, is quite a solid structure, two hundred and
fifty-eight feet by one hundred and seven, with nineteen thousand
feet of wall-space. Conceding this liberally to foreign exhibitors, an
association of American photographers erected a hall of their own in
another direction, upon Belmont Avenue beyond the Judges' Pavilion.
This will serve to exhibit the art in operation under an American sun,
and enable our photographers to compare notes and processes with their
European fellows, who treat under different atmospheric conditions a
wider range of subjects. This is the largest studio the sun, in his
capacity of artist on paper, has ever set up, as the hall provided
for him by the exposition is the largest gallery he has ever filled.
Combined, they may reasonably be expected to bear some fruit in the
way of drawing from him the secret he still withholds--the addition
of color to light and shade in the fixed images of the camera. This
further step seems, when we view within the camera the image in
perfect panoply of all its hues, so very slight in comparison with
the original discovery of Daguerre, that we can hardly refer it to a
distant future.
Questions of finance naturally associate themselves with sitting for
one's portrait, even to the sun. A national bank becomes a necessity
to their readier solution, be they suggested by this or any other item
of expense. Such an institution has consequently a place in the outfit
of the Centennial. Here it stands within its own walls, under its own
roof and behind its own counter. The traditional cashier is at home in
his parlor, the traditional teller observes mankind from his rampart
of wire and glass, and the traditional clerk busy in the rear studies
over his shoulder the strange accent and the strange face. Over and
above the conveniences for exchange afforded by the bank, it
will introduce to foreigners the charms of one of our newest
inventions--the greenback. This humble but heterodox device, not
pleasant in the eyes of the old school of conservative financiers, is
yet unique and valuable as having accomplished the task of absolutely
equalizing the popular currency of so large a country as the Union.
That gap of twelve or thirteen per cent. between greenbacks and gold
is no doubt an _hiatus valde deflendus_--a gulf which has swallowed up
many an ardent and confident Curtius, and will swallow more before it
disappears; but the difference is uniform everywhere, and discounts
itself. Whatever the faults of our paper-money, it claims a prominent
place among the illustrations of the close of the century, for it is
the only currency save copper and Mr. Memminger's designs in blue
that a majority of American youth have ever seen. Should these young
inquirers wish to unearth the money of their fathers, they can find
the eagles among other medals of antiquity in the Mint department of
the United States Government Building.
[Illustration: SWEDISH SCHOOL-HOUSE.]
His fiscal affairs brought into comfortable shape, the tourist from
abroad may be desirous of seeing more of the United States than is
included in the view from the great Observatory. The landscape visible
from that point, as he will find after being wound to the top
by steam, is not flecked with buffaloes or even the smoke of the
infrequent wigwam, as the incautious reader of some Transatlantic
books of travel might expect. For the due exploration of at least a
portion of the broad territory that lies inside of the buffalo range
he needs a railway-ticket and information. These are at his command in
the "World's Ticket and Inquiry Office," the abundantly comprehensive
name of a building near the north-east corner of Machinery Hall. In a
central area sixty feet in diameter tickets to every known point are
offered to him by polyglot clerks. Here, too, a wholesome interchange
of ideas in regard to the merits of the various traveling regulations
of different countries may be expected. Baggage-checks or none,
compartment or saloon cars, ventilation or swelter in summer, freezing
or hot-water-pipes in winter, and other like differences of practice
will come under consideration with travelers in general council
assembled. Give and take will prevail between our voyagers and railway
officials and those of the Old World. Both sides may teach and learn.
Should the carriage of goods instead of persons be in question, the
American side of the materials for its discussion will be found in the
building of the Empire Transportation Company, where the economies
of system and "plant," which have for a series of years been steadily
reducing the expenses of railway-traffic until the cost of carrying
a ton one mile now falls within one cent, will be fully detailed. A
further reduction of this charge may result from the exposition if
exhibitors from Europe succeed in explaining to our engineers and
machinists how they manage to lighten their cars, and thereby avoid
carrying the excess of dead weight which contributes so much to the
annihilation of our tracks and dividends.
[Illustration: SPANISH BUILDING.]
The telegraph completes the mastery over space in the conveyance of
thought that the railway attains in that of persons and property. Its
facilities here are commensurable with its duty of placing thousands
of all countries in instantaneous communication with their homes.
Those from over-sea will find that, instead of dragging "at each
remove a lengthening chain," they are, on the exposition grounds, in
point of intercourse nearer home than they were when half a day out
from the port of embarkation, and ten days nearer than when they
approached our shores after a sail of three thousand miles. To get out
of call from the wire it is necessary to go to sea--and stay there.
Another hundred years, and even the seafarer will fail of seclusion.
Floating telegraph-offices will buoy the cable. Latitude 40° will
"call" the Equator, and warn Grand Banks that "Sargasso is passing
by." Not only will the march of Morse be _under_ the mountain-wave,
but his home will be on the deep.
[Illustration: BRITISH BUILDINGS.]
The submarine and terrestrial progress of the telegraph was in '67 and
'73 already an old story. At the Centennial it presents itself in
a new role--that of interpreter of the weather and general
storm-detector. This application of its powers is due to American
science. Indeed, the requisites for experiments were not elsewhere at
command. A vast expanse of unbroken territory comprising many climates
and belts of latitude and longitude, and penetrated throughout by the
wire under one and the same control, did not offer itself to European
investigators. These singular advantages have been well employed
by the United States Signal Service within the past five years. Its
efforts were materially aided by the antecedent researches of such men
as Espy and Maury, the latter of whom led European savants into the
recognition of correct theories of both air- and ocean-currents.
Daily observations at a hundred stations scattered over the continent,
exactly synchronized by telegraph, yielded deductions that steadily
grew more and more consistent and reliable, until at length those
particularly fickle instruments, the weather-vane, the thermometer,
the barometer and the magnetic fluid, have formed, in combination,
almost an "arm of precision." The predictions put forth in the "small
hours" each morning by the central office in Washington assume only
the modest title of "Probabilities." Some additional expenditure, with
a doubling of the number of stations, would within a few years make
that heading more of a misnomer. Meanwhile, the saving of life and
property on sea and land already effected is a solid certainty and
no mere "probability." At the station on the exposition grounds the
weather of each day, storm or shine, in most of the cities of the Old
and New Worlds will be bulletined. "Storm in Vlaenderlandt" will be as
surely announced to the Dutch stroller on Belmont Avenue as though he
were within hearing of his cathedral bell. Should such a "cautionary
signal" from beyond the ocean reach him, he may ascertain in what, if
any, danger of submergence his home stands, by stepping into one of
the branch telegraph-offices dispersed over the grounds. Or he may
satisfy all possible craving for news from that or any other quarter
in the Press Building. This metropolis of the fourth estate occupies
a romantic site on the south side of the avenue and the north bank of
the lake. Such a focus of the news and newspapers of all nations
was not paralleled at either of the preceding expositions. American
journalism will be additionally represented in the different State
buildings, where files of all the publications of each commonwealth
will be found, embracing in most cases a greater number of journals
than the entire continent boasted in 1776, and in each of the States
of Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania more than the extra-metropolitan
press of either France, Austria, Prussia or Russia can now boast.
[Illustration: GERMAN BUILDING.]
The commercial idea is so prominent in this, as in all expositions,
that it is difficult to draw the line between public and private
interest among its different features, and particularly among what
may be called its outgrowths, overflowings or addenda. Here is half
a square mile dotted with a picturesque assemblage of shops and
factories, among which everything may be found, from a soda-fountain
or a cigar-stand up to a monster brewery, all devoted at once to
the exemplification and the rendering immediately profitable of some
particular industry. In one ravine an ornate dairy, trim and Arcadian
in its appurtenances and ministers as that of Marie Antoinette and her
attendant Phillises at the Petit Trianon, offers a beverage presumably
about as genuine as that of '76, and much above the standard of
to-day. A Virginia tobacco-factory checkmates that innocent tipple
with "negrohead" and "navy twist." A bakery strikes the happy medium
between the liquid sustenance and the narcotic luxury by teaching
Cisatlantic victims of baking-powders and salæratus how to make Vienna
bread. Recurring to fluids, we find unconquered soda popping up, or
down, from innumerable fonts--how many, may be inferred from the fact
that a royalty of two dollars on each spigot is estimated to place
thirty-two thousand dollars in the strong box of the exposition. Nor
does this measure the whole tribute expected to be offered at these
dainty shrines of marble and silver. The two firms that bought the
monopoly of them pay in addition the round sum of twenty thousand
dollars. It speaks well for the condition of the temperance cause
that beer is the nearest rival of aerated water. An _octroi_ of three
dollars per barrel is estimated to yield fifty thousand dollars,
or two thousand dollars less than soda-water. Seventy-five thousand
dollars is the aggregate fee of the restaurants. Of these last-named
establishments, the French have two. The historic sign of the Trois
Frères Provençaux is assumed by a vast edifice in one of the most
conspicuous parts of the enclosure, sandwiched between the Press and
the Government. The "Sudreau" affects the fine arts and cultivates
with like intimacy the society of Memorial Hall. The German refectory,
Lauber's, a solid, beery sort of building, shows a fine bucolic
sense by choosing a hermitage in the grove between Agricultural
and Horticultural Halls. A number of others, of greater or less
pretensions, will enable the visitor to exclaim, with more or less
truth, toward the dusty evening, "Fate cannot harm me: I have dined
to-day."
"Dusty," did we say? The ceaseless sob of engines that rob the
Schuylkill daily of six millions of gallons to sprinkle over
asphaltum, gravel and greensward demands recantation of the word.
Everything has been foreseen and considered, even the dust of the
earth. George's Hill Reservoir can, on occasion, give the pumps
several days' holiday, and keep all fresh and dewy as the dawn.
Some industries meet us in the Centennial list that are not to be
detected in the United States census or any other return we are
acquainted with. What train of ideas, for example, is suggested to the
average reader by the Roll-Chair Company? The rolling-stock of this
association turns out, on inquiry, to be an in-door variety of the
conveyance wherein Mrs. Skewton was wont to take the air under the
escort of Major Bagstock. It is meant for the relief of those who wish
to see everything in the Main Building without trudging eleven miles.
Given an effective and economical motive-power, the roll-chair system
would seem to meet this want. The reader of _Dombey and Son_ will
recollect the pictorial effect, in print and etching, of the popping
up of the head of the propellent force when Mrs. S. called a halt, and
its sudden disappearance on her directing a resumption of movement.
The bobbing up and down of four hundred and fifty heads, like so
many seals, will impart a unique aspect to the vista from one of the
interior galleries of the great hall. The stipulated tax of forty
dollars on each of these vehicles will necessitate a tolerably active
undulation of polls if the company is to make both ends meet--granting
that a rotatory movement can have an end.
Another startling item is the pop-corn privilege. A business-man of
Dayton, Ohio, finds himself justified in venturing the heavy sum of
seven thousand dollars on this very light article. Parched corn was
well known in Ohio in 1776. The Miamis and Shawnees had, however, a
monopoly of it. It composed their commissariat for a campaign against
the whites. Such is the progress of the century.
This explosive cereal does not satiate the proverbially sweet tooth
of our people. Their craving for confectionery is laid under further
contribution by the financial managers of the exposition to the
tune, for instance, of five thousand dollars for the privilege of
manufacturing chocolate and candy. Dyspepsia insists on asserting its
position among the other acquisitions of the century. The treasures of
the American bonbonnière are said to be richer and more varied than in
any other country. Paris gets up her delicacies of this kind in more
tasteful and tempting style, but our consumers care little for
such superficial vanities. They look for solid qualities in
everything--even in their lollipops.
Another description of fuel, employed for the external and not the
internal feeding of the animal machine, and quite as evanescent as
candy, claims a factory to itself. This is a French invention called
the Loiseau Compressed Fuel. To bring it to Philadelphia, the mart of
the anthracite region, would seem to be carrying coals to Newcastle.
The relation between demand and supply in fuel is happily, for the
present, on too sound a basis to leave much room for artificial
substitutes. Our anthracite deposits are circumscribed, but bid
fair to last until the virtually untouched seams of bituminous and
semibituminous coal shall be made amply accessible to every point of
consumption. We are not yet in the slightest perceptible danger of the
coal-famine that threatens Great Britain.
In regard to the accommodations provided outside of the exhibition
buildings by individual enterprise for the display of various products
and processes of manufacture, it will here suffice to say that
they notably exceed the corresponding array at any of the European
expositions. Illustrations of the social and industrial life of
different races and nations are, on the other hand, inferior to what
was seen at Vienna and Paris. Mankind and their manners are more
homogeneous within an available circle around Philadelphia than around
either of those capitals. The rude populations of the lower Danube,
the Don, the Caucasus, the Steppes, Albania, Syria, Barbary, etc.
cannot be so fully represented here. That they should be, were it
practicable, would be more to their advantage than to ours perhaps,
the probability being slight that we should deem it desirable to adopt
many of their methods. Nor will the eating and drinking of the nations
be so variously illustrated as in the cordon of restaurants that so
largely contributed to the spectacular effect at Paris. The French
genius for the dramatic was quite at home in arranging that part of
the display; and they did not allow the full effect to suffer for want
of some artificial eking out. The kibaubs, pilau and sherbet that were
served up in fine Oriental style were not in all cases prepared by
Turks, Persians and Tunisians. The materials were abundant in Paris
for these and any other outlandish dainties that might be called for.
So were costumers. There was no reason, therefore, why imitations
should not be got up capable of serving every purpose, and of giving
more amusement than the genuine dishes and divans of Islam would have
done. The negro waiters in the American saloon doubtless outnumbered
all the other representatives of the dark or semi-civilized races that
appeared in a similar character. They proved a success, their genial
bearing and ever-ready smile pleasing the mass of the guests more than
did the _triste_ and impassive Moslem. The theatrical can just as well
be done here, and _quant. suff._ of Cossacks and Turks be manufactured
to order. Then we have John and Sambo in unadulterated profusion; the
former ready at the shortest notice and for very small compensation to
indoctrinate all comers in the art of plying the chopsticks, and the
latter notoriously in his element in the kitchen and the dining-room,
and able to aid the chasse-café with a song--lord alike of the
carving-knife, the cocktail and the castanets.
Water, the simplest, most healthful and most indispensable of all
refreshments, is provided without stint and without price. Foreigners
are struck with the immense consumption of water as a beverage in this
country. They do not realize the aridity of our summer climate, which
makes it sometimes as much of a luxury here as it is in the desert. A
rill of living water, let it issue from a mossy rift in the hillside
or the mouth of a bronze lion, comes to us often like the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land. We lead fevered lives, too, and this
is the natural relief. Fountains are among the first decorations that
show themselves in public or private grounds. They give an excuse and
a foothold for sculpture, and thus open the way for high art. In the
Centennial grounds and in all the buildings upon them, of whatever
character, the fountain, in more or less pretentious style, plays its
part. Led from the bosom of a thousand hills, drawn from under the
foot of the fawn and the breast of the summer-duck, it springs up
into the midst of this hurly-burly of human toil and pleasure, the
one unartificial thing there, pure and pellucid as when hidden in its
mother rock.
It is not remarkable, then, that the most ambitious effort of
monumental art upon the exposition grounds should have taken the shape
of a fountain. The erection is due to the energy and public spirit of
the Catholic Total Abstinence Union. The site chosen is at the extreme
western end of Machinery Hall. It looks along Fountain Avenue to the
Horticultural Building. Mated thus with that fine building, it becomes
a permanent feature of the Park. The central figure is Moses--not
the horned athlete we are apt to think of when we associate the
great lawgiver with marble, but staid and stately in full drapery. He
strikes the rock of Meribah, and water exudes from its crevices into
a marble basin. Outside the circular rim of this are equidistantly
arranged the rather incongruous effigies of Archbishop Carroll, his
relative the Signer, Commodore Barry and Father Mathew. Each of
these worthies presides over a small font designed for drinking
purposes--unless that of the old sea-dog be salt. The central basin
is additionally embellished with seven medallion heads of Catholics
prominent in the Revolution, the selections being La Fayette, his
wife, De Grasse, Pulaski, Colonel S. Moylan, Thomas Fitzsimmons and
Kosciusko. The artist is Hermann Kirn, a pupil of Steinhäuser, one of
the first of the modern romantic school of German sculptors. Kirn
is understood to have enjoyed his instructor's aid in completing the
statues in the Tyrol.
Another religious body ranges itself in the cause of art by the side
of one with which it does not habitually co-operate. Dr. Witherspoon,
the only clerical Signer, is its contribution in bronze. The Geneva
gown supplies the grand lines lacking in the secular costume of
the period, and indues the patriot with the silken cocoon of the
Calvinist. The good old divine had well-cut features, which take
kindly to the chisel. The pedestal is of granite.
Of other statues we shall take another occasion to speak. The tinkle
of fountains leads us on to Horticultural Hall, where they give life
and charm to the flowers. Painted thus in water-colors, the blossoms
and leaves of the tropics glow with a freshness quite wonderful in
view of the very short time the plants have been in place and the
exposure they unavoidably encountered in reaching it. From the
interior and exterior galleries of this exquisite structure one can
look down, on one side, upon the palms of the Equator and on the other
upon the beech and the fir, which interlock their topmost sprays at
his feet. Beyond and beneath the silvery beeches railway-trains whisk
back and forth, like hares athwart the covert--the tireless locomotive
another foil to the strangers from the land of languor and repose.
[Illustration: HORTICULTURAL HALL--INTERIOR.]
The manufacture of a torrid climate on so large a scale will strike
the visitor as one of the most curious triumphs of ingenuity in the
whole exposition. Moisture is an essential only second in importance
to heat. The two must be associated to create the normal atmosphere of
most of the vegetation of the central zone. Art, in securing that end,
reverses the process of Nature. The heat here is supplied from below
and moisture from above, thus transposing the sun and the swamp. In
summer, indeed, the sun of our locality, reinforced by glass, will as
a rule furnish an ample supply of warmth. Very frequently it will be
in excess, and allow the imprisoned strangers the luxury of all the
fresh air they can crave. Our summer climate is in this way more
favorable than that of Kew, which in turn has the advantage in winter.
The inferior amount of light throughout the year and the long nights
of winter in a high latitude again operate against the English
horticulturists, and leave, altogether, a balance in our favor which
ought to make the leading American conservatory the most successful in
the world.
Standing by the marble fountain in the great hall, with its attendant
vases and statuary, the visitor will not suspect that the pavement
beneath his feet is underlaid by four miles of iron pipe four inches
in diameter and weighing nearly three hundred tons. Through this
immense arterial and venous system circulates the life-blood of
the plants, hot water being the vehicle of warmth in winter. These
invisible streams will flow when the brooks at the foot of the hill
are sealed by frost and the plash of the open-air fountains is heard
no longer.
Another current, more conspicuous and abounding--that of hurrying
human feet--will make this magnificent conservatory the centre of one
of its principal eddies. A second will be the Japanese head-quarters,
and a third Memorial Hall. The outlandish and the beautiful in Nature
and in art take chief hold of our interest. It wanders elsewhere, but
reverts to what typifies the novel and the charming. From the Mongols
and the palms it will drift to the granite portals that are flanked by
the winged Viennese horses and the colossal figures of Minerva in
the act of bridling them. Pegasus is not very worthily represented
by these bronzes. The horses, however, are the better part of the
two groups; the goddesses being too tall in proportion and heavy and
ungraceful in build. The finer things which they sentinel, in bronze,
marble or canvas, do not belong to the scope of this article. Yet we
cannot postpone to the occasion of their notice in detail a tribute
to him to whose energy and judgment we owe the filling of the Art
Building with works fit to be there. For the accomplishment of this
task the principal credit is due to John Sartain of Philadelphia,
the Nestor of American engravers. But for Mr. Sartain's efforts, the
studios of the best artists of America, especially, would have been
much less adequately represented, while the walls would have been in
danger of defacement by a flood of inferior productions. To secure the
best, and the best only, of what artists and collectors could give,
committees were appointed to inspect the offerings of the principal
cities and select works of real merit. The difficulties in the way are
appreciable only by those familiar with the diversities of feeling and
opinion which are apt to make shipwreck of art-exhibitions. They
have been overcome, and American artists have united in the practical
measures needed to ensure them as fair a position by the side of
foreign competitors as their actual merits can sustain.
It could hardly have been a recognition of carriage-making as one of
the fine arts that caused the placing of an immense receptacle for
such vehicles in so prominent a position near Memorial Hall. This
structure stands opposite the western half of the Main Building.
Combined with the annex erected for a like purpose by the Bureau of
Agriculture, which covers three acres, it would seem to afford room
for specimens of every construction ever placed on wheels since
Pharaoh's war-chariots limbered up for the Red Sea campaign. These
collections have no trifling significance as a sign of progress.
They are the product of good roads, one of the surest traces of
civilization. A century ago, a really good road was almost an unknown
thing. So recently as half so long since one of the light equipages
now so familiar to us would have been a simple impossibility. What
words of ecstasy Dr. Johnson, who pronounced the height of bliss to be
a drive over a turnpike of his day in a cranky post-chaise, would have
applied to a "spin" in one of these wagons, no imagination can guess.
Let us not boast ourselves over the sages who had the misfortune of
living too soon. It would be falling into the same blunder Macaulay
ascribed to Johnson in alleging that the philosopher thought the
Athenian populace the inferiors of Black Frank his valet, because they
could not read and Frank could. Our heads are apt to be turned by
our success in throwing together iron, timber, stone and other dead
matter. Let us remember that we are still at school, with no near
prospect of graduating. Many of our contemporary nations, to say
nothing of those who are to come after us, claim the ability to teach
us, as their being here proves. The assumption speaks from the stiff
British chimneys, the pert gables of the Swedes and the laboriously
wrought porticoes of the Japanese. This is well. It would be a bad
thing for its own future and for that of general progress could any
one people pronounce itself satisfied with what it had accomplished
and ready to set the seal to its labors.
GLIMPSES OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
TWO PAPERS.--I.
We sailed from Trieste in the Venus, one of the Austrian Lloyds, with
a very agreeable captain, who had been all over the world and spoke
English perfectly. There were very few passengers--only one lady
besides myself, and she was a bride on her way to her new home in
Constantinople. She was a very pretty young Austrian, only seventeen,
but such an old "Turk of a husband" as she had! Her mother was a
Viennese, and her father a wealthy Englishman: what could have induced
them to marry their pretty young daughter to such a man? He was a
Greek by descent, but had always lived in Constantinople. Short,
stout, cross-eyed, with a most sinister expression of countenance,
old enough to be her father, the contrast was most striking. His wife
seemed very happy, however, and remarked in a complacent tone that her
husband was _quite_ European. So he was, except that he wore a red
fez cap, which was, to say the least, not "becoming" to his "style of
beauty."
[Illustration: AMMALE.]
We had a smooth passage to Corfu, where we touched for an hour or
two. N---- and I went on shore, climbed to the old citadel, and were
rewarded with a glorious view of the island and the harbor at our
feet. We picked a large bouquet of scarlet geraniums and other flowers
which grew wild on the rocks around the old fortress, took a short
walk through the town, and returned to our boat loaded with delicious
oranges fresh from the trees. Several fine English yachts lay in
the harbor. We passed close to one, and saw on the deck three ladies
sitting under an awning with their books and work. The youngest was a
very handsome girl, in a yacht-dress of dark-blue cloth and a jaunty
sailor hat. What a charming way to spend one's winter! After our taste
of the English climate in February, I should think all who could would
spend their winters elsewhere; and what greater enjoyment than,
with bright Italian skies above, to sail over the blue waters of the
Mediterranean, running frequently into port when one felt inclined
for society and sight-seeing, or when a storm came on! for the "blue
Mediterranean" does not always smile in the sunlight, as we found to
our sorrow after leaving Corfu.
Our state-room was on the main deck, with a good-sized window
admitting plenty of light and air, and the side of the ship was not
so high but we could see over and have a fine view of the high
rocky coast we were skirting--so much pleasanter than the under-deck
state-rooms, where at best you only get a breath of fresh air and a
one-eyed glimpse out of the little port-holes in fine weather, and
none at all in a storm. Imagine, therefore, my disgust when, on
returning from our trip on shore at Corfu, I found twilight pervading
our delightful state-room, caused by an awning being stretched from
the edge of the deck overhead to the side of the ship, and under
this tent, encamped beneath my window, the lesser wives, children and
slaves of an old Turk who was returning to Constantinople with his
extensive family! His two principal wives were in state-rooms down
below, and invisible. Well, if I had lost the view from my state-room
of the grand mountainous coast of Greece, I had an opportunity of
studying one phase of Oriental manners and costume at my leisure.
There were three pale, sallow-looking women of twenty or twenty-five
years of age, with fine black eyes--their only attraction; two old
shriveled hags; four fat, comfortable, coal-black slave-women; and
several children. They had their fingernails colored yellow, and all,
black and white, wore over their faces the indispensable _yashmak_,
and over their dress the _ferraja_, or cloak, without which no Turkish
woman stirs abroad. As it was cold, they wore under their ferrajas
quilted sacques of woolen and calico coming down below the knee, and
trousers that bagged over, nearly covering their feet, which were
cased in slippers, though one of the negresses rejoiced in gorgeous
yellow boots with pointed toes. The children had their hair cut close,
and wore their warm sacques down to their feet, made of the gayest
calico I ever saw--large figures or broad stripes of red, yellow and
green. The boys were distinguished by red fez caps, and the girls wore
a colored handkerchief as a turban. They covered the deck with beds
and thick comforters, and on these they constantly sat or reclined.
When it was absolutely necessary a negress would reluctantly rise and
perform some required act of service. They had their own food, which
seemed to consist of dark-looking bread, dried fish, black coffee
and a kind of confectionery which looked like congealed soapsuds with
raisins and almonds in it. Most of their waking hours were employed in
devouring oranges and smoking cigarettes.
We had rough weather for several days, and the ship rolled a good
deal. The captain made us comfortable in a snug corner on the
officers' private deck, where, under the shelter of the bridge, we
could enjoy the view. One amusement was to watch the officer of the
deck eat his dinner seated on a hatchway just in front of the wheel,
and waited on by a most obsequious seaman. The sailor, cap under his
arm, would present a plate of something: if the officer ate it the
man would retire behind him, and with the man at the wheel watch the
disappearance of the contents. If the officer left any or refused a
dish, the sailor would go down to the kitchen for the next course,
first slipping what was left or rejected behind the wheel, and after
presenting the next course to the officer would retire and devour with
great gusto the secreted dish; the helmsman sometimes taking a sly
bite when the officer was particularly engaged.
The Dardanelles were reached very early in the morning. The night
before I had declared my intention to go on deck at daylight and
view the Hellespont, but when I awoke and found it blowing a gale, I
concluded it would not "pay," and turned in for another nap. All that
day we were crossing the Sea of Marmora with the strong current and
wind against us, so it was dark before we reached Constantinople,
and our ship was obliged to anchor in the outer harbor till the next
morning. Seraglio Point rose just before us, and on the left the seven
towers were dimly visible in the starlight. We walked the deck and
watched the lights glimmer and stream out over the Sea of Marmora, and
listened to the incessant barking of the dogs.
Next morning, bright and early, we entered the Bosphorus, rounded
Seraglio Point and were soon anchored, with hundreds of other vessels,
at the mouth of the Golden Horn. Steam ferryboats of the English
kind were passing to and fro, and caïques flitted in and out with the
dexterity and swiftness of sea-gulls. Quite a deputation of fez caps
came on board to receive the bride and groom, and when we went ashore
they were still smoking cigarettes and sipping at what must have been
in the neighborhood of their twentieth cup of Turkish coffee. Madame
A---- was very cordial when we parted, saying she should call soon
upon me, and that I must visit her. We bade adieu to our captain with
regret. He was a very intelligent and entertaining man. The officers
of the Austrian Lloyd line ought certainly to be very capable seamen.
Educated in the government naval schools, they are obliged to serve as
mates a certain time, then command a sailing vessel for several years,
and finally pass a very strict examination before being licensed as
captains of steamers. Amongst other qualifications, every captain acts
as his own pilot in entering any port to which he may be ordered.
They sail under sealed orders, and our captain said that not until he
reached Constantinople would he know the ship's ultimate destination,
or whether he would retain command or be transferred to another
vessel. It is the policy of the company seldom to send the same
steamer or captain over the same route two successive trips. In time
of war both captains and ships are liable to naval duty. As we passed
the island of Lissa the captain pointed out the scene of a naval
engagement between the Austrians and Italians in 1866, in which he had
participated. The salary of these officers is only about a thousand
dollars a year.
[Illustration: TURKISH LADY.]
We embarked with our baggage in a caïque, which is much like an open
gondola, only lighter and narrower, and generally painted in light
colors, yellow being the favorite one, and were soon landed at the
custom-house. A franc satisfied the Turk in attendance that our
baggage was all right, and it was immediately transferred to the back
of an _ammale_, or carrier. These men take the places of horses and
carts with us. A sort of pack-saddle is fastened on their backs,
and the weights they carry are astonishing. Our ammale picked up a
medium-sized trunk as if it was a mere feather: on top of this was
put a hat-box, and with a bag in one hand he marched briskly off as
if only enjoying a morning constitutional. We made our way through
the dirty streets and narrow alleys to the Hôtel de Byzance in the
European quarter. This is a very comfortable hotel, kept in French
style, and most of the attendants speak French. Our chamber_maid_,
however, is a _man_, a most remarkable old specimen in a Turco-Greek
dress--long blue stockings and Turkish slippers, very baggy white
trousers, a blue jacket, white turban twisted around his fez cap and
a voluminous shawl about his waist. His long moustache is quite gray,
but his black eyes are keen as a hawk's, and as he moves quickly and
silently about my room, arranging and dusting, I fancy how he would
look in the same capacity in our house at home.
Our hotel stands in the Rue de Pera, the principal street of the
European quarter, and as it is narrow the lights from the shops make
it safe and agreeable to walk out in the evening. This is one of
the few streets accessible to carriages, though in some parts it is
difficult for two to pass each other. Most of the shops are French and
display Paris finery, but the most attractive are the fruit-shops with
their open fronts, so you take in their inviting contents at a glance.
Broad low counters occupy most of the floor, with a narrow passage
leading between from the street to the back part of the shop, and
counters and shelves are covered with tempting fruits and nuts. Orange
boughs with the fruit on decorate the front and ceiling of the shop,
and over all presides a venerable Turk. In the evening the shop is
lighted by a torch, which blazes and smokes and gives a still more
picturesque appearance to the proprietor and his surroundings. You
stand in the street and make your purchases, looking well to your
bargains, for the old fellow, with all his dignity, will not hesitate
to cheat a "dog of a Christian" if he can. From every dark alley as
we walked along several dogs would rush out, bark violently, and after
following us a little way slink back to their own quarter again. Each
alley and street of the city has its pack of dogs, and none venture on
the domain of their neighbors. During the day they sleep, lying about
the streets so stupid that they will hardly move; in fact, horses and
donkeys step over them, and pedestrians wisely let them alone. After
dark they prowl about, and are the only scavengers of the city,
all garbage being thrown into the streets. The dogs of Pera have
experienced, I suppose, the civilizing effects of constant contact
with Europeans, as they are not at all as fierce as those of Stamboul.
They soon learn to know the residents of their own streets and
vicinity, and bark only at strangers.
Quite a pretty English garden has been laid out in Pera, commanding
a fine view of the Bosphorus. There is a coffee-house in the centre,
with tables and chairs outside, where you can sip your coffee
and enjoy the view at the same time. The Turks make coffee quite
differently from us. The berry is carefully roasted and then reduced
to powder in a mortar. A brass cup, in shape like a dice-box with a
long handle, is filled with water and brought to a boil over a brasier
of coals: the coffee is placed in a similar brass dice-box and the
boiling water poured on it. This boils up once, and is then poured
into a delicate little china cup half the size of an after-dinner
coffee-cup, and for a saucer you have what resembles a miniature
bouquet-holder of silver or gilt filigree. If you take it in true
Turkish style, you will drink your coffee without sugar, grounds and
all; but a little sugar, minus the coffee-mud at the bottom, is much
nicer. Coffee seems to be drunk everywhere and all the time by the
Turks. The cafés are frequent, where they sit curled up on the divans
dreamily smoking and sipping their fragrant coffee or hearing stories
in the flowery style of the _Arabian Nights_. At the street corners
the coffee-vender squats before his little charcoal brasier and drives
a brisk business. If you are likely to prove a good customer at the
bazaar, you are invited to curl yourself up on the rug on the floor of
the booth, and are regaled with coffee. Do you make a call or visit
a harem, the same beverage is immediately offered. Even in the
government offices, while waiting for an interview with some grandee,
coffee is frequently passed round. Here it is particularly acceptable,
for without its sustaining qualities one could hardly survive the
slow movements of those most deliberate of all mortals, the Turkish
officials.
A few days after our arrival my friend of the steamer, Madame A----,
the pretty Austrian bride, invited me to breakfast, and sent her
husband's brother, a fine-looking young Greek, to escort me to
her house. He spoke only Greek and Italian--I neither: however, he
endeavored to beguile the way by conversing animatedly in Italian. As
he gazed up at the sun several times, inhaled with satisfaction the
exhilarating air and pointed to the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus
and the distant hills, I presumed he was dilating on the fine weather
and the glorious prospect. Not to be outdone in politeness, I smiled
a great deal and replied to the best of my ability in good square
English, to which he always assented, "Yes, oh yes!" which seemed to
be all the English he knew. Fortunately, our walk was not long, and
Madame A---- was our interpreter during the breakfast. Her husband was
absent.
[Illustration: SERAGLIO POINT. GOLDEN HORN.]
The breakfast was half German, half Turkish. Here is the bill of fare:
Oysters on the shell from the Bosphorus--the smallest variety I have
ever seen, very dark-looking, without much flavor; fried goldfish; a
sort of curry of rice and mutton, without which no Turkish meal
would be complete; cauliflower fritters seasoned with cheese; mutton
croquettes and salad; fruit, confectionery and coffee. With a young
housekeeper's pride, Madame A---- took me over her house, which was
furnished in European style, with an occasional touch of Orientalism.
In the centre of the reception-room was a low brass tripod on which
rested a covered brass dish about the size of a large punch-bowl.
In cold weather this is filled with charcoal to warm the room. "Cold
comfort," I should think, when the snow falls, as it sometimes does
in Constantinople, and the fierce, cold winds sweep down the Bosphorus
from the Black Sea and the Russian steppes. As in all the best houses
in Pera, there were bow-windows in the principal rooms of each
story. A large divan quite fills each window, and there the Greek and
Armenian ladies lean back on their cushions, smoke their cigarettes
and have a good view up and down the street. There was a pretty
music-room with cabinet piano and harp, and opening from that the
loveliest little winter garden. The bow-window was filled with plants,
and orange trees and other shrubs were arranged in large pots along
the side of the room. The wall at one end was made of rock-work, and
in the crevices were planted vines, ferns and mosses. Tiny jets of
water near the ceiling kept the top moist, and dripped and trickled
down over the rocks and plants till they reached the pebbly basin
below. The floor was paved with pebbles--white, gray, black and a
dark-red color--laid in cement in pretty patterns, and in the centre
was a fountain whose spray reached the glass roof overhead. There were
fish in the wide basin around the fountain, which was edged with a
broad border of lycopodium. A little balcony opening out of an upper
room was covered with vines, and close to the balustrade were boxes
filled with plants in full bloom.
[Illustration: THE SULTAN'S NEW PALACE ON THE BOSPHORUS.]
But the housetop was my especial admiration. It was flat, with a stone
floor and high parapet. On all four sides close to this were wide,
deep boxes where large plants and shrubs were growing luxuriantly.
Large vases filled with vines and exotics were placed at intervals
along the top of the parapet. Part of the roof was covered with a
light wooden awning, and a dumb-waiter connected with the kitchen, so
that on warm evenings dinner was easily served in the cool fresh air
of the roof. The view from here was magnificent--the Golden Horn,
Stamboul with its mosques and white minarets, and beyond the Sea of
Marmora. Where a woman's life is so much spent in the house, such a
place for air and exercise is much to be prized, but I fear my pretty
Austrian friend will sigh for the freedom of Vienna after the novelty
of the East has worn off.
[Illustration: MARBLE STAIRCASE, PALACE OF BESKIK-TASCH.]
Of course we paid a visit to Seraglio Point, whose palmy days,
however, have passed away. The great fire of 1865 burned the palace,
a large district on the Marmora, and swept around the walls of St.
Sophia, leaving the mosque unharmed, but surrounded by ruins. The
sultan never rebuilds: it is not considered lucky to do so. Indeed,
he is said to believe that if he were to stop building he would die.
Seraglio Point has been abandoned by the court, and the sultan lives
in a palace on the Bosphorus, and one of the loveliest spots on earth
is left to decay. We entered through the magnificent gate of the
Sublime Porte, passed the barracks, which are still occupied by
the soldiers, visited the arsenal and saw the wax figures of the
Janizaries and others in Turkish costume. The upper part of the
pleasure-grounds is in a neglected state, and those near the water are
entirely destroyed. In one of the buildings are the crown-jewels and a
valuable collection of other articles. There were elegant toilet sets
mounted in gold; the most exquisitely delicate china; daggers, swords
and guns of splendid workmanship and sparkling with jewels; Chinese
work and carving; golden dishes, cups and vases, and silver pitchers
thickly encrusted with precious stones; horse trappings and velvet
hangings worked stiff with pearls, gold and silver thread, bits
of coral, and jewels; three emeralds as large as small hen's eggs,
forming the handle of a dirk; and in a large glass case magnificent
ornaments for the turban. There must have been thousands of diamonds
in these head-pieces, besides some of the largest pearls I have ever
seen; a ruby three-quarters of an inch square; four emeralds nearly
two inches long; and a great variety of all kinds of precious stones.
The handle and sheath of one sword were entirely covered with diamonds
and rubies. There were rings and clasps, and antique bowls filled
with uncut stones, particularly emeralds. It recalled the tales of the
_Arabian Nights_. The collection is poorly arranged, and the jewels
dusty, so that you cannot examine closely or judge very well of the
quality. Those I have mentioned interested me most, but there were
many elegant articles of European manufacture which had been presented
to the sultan by various monarchs. Near the treasury is a very
handsome pavilion, built of white marble, one story high, with fine
large plate-glass windows. A broad hall runs through the centre,
with parlors on each side. The walls were frescoed, and on the
handsomely-inlaid and highly-polished floors were beautiful rugs. The
divans were gilt and heavy silk damask--one room crimson, one blue and
another a delicate buff. A few large vases and several inlaid Japanese
cabinets completed the furniture: the Koran does not allow pictures
or statuary. The view from the windows, and especially from the marble
terrace in front, is one of the finest I have ever seen. The pavilion
stands on the highest part of Seraglio Point, two hundred feet above
the water: below it are the ruins of the palace, and the gardens
running down to the shore. Just before you the Bosphorus empties
into the Marmora; in a deep bay on the Asiatic shore opposite are the
islands of Prinkipo, Prote and several others; and on the mainland the
view is bounded by the snow-capped mountains of Olympus. On the
right is the Sea of Marmora. To the left, as far as you can see, the
Bosphorus stretches away toward the Black Sea, its shores dotted with
towns, cemeteries and palaces; on the extreme left the Golden Horn
winds between the cities of Stamboul and Pera; while behind you is St.
Sophia and the city of Stamboul. It is a magnificent view, never to
be forgotten. There are several other pavilions near the one just
described. A small one in the Chinese style, with piazza around it has
the outer wall covered with blue and white tiles, and inside blinds
inlaid with mother of pearl. The floor was matted, and the divans
were of white silk embroidered with gilt thread and crimson and green
floss. A third pavilion was a library.
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA.]
From the Seraglio we drove to St. Sophia. Stamboul can boast of one
fine street, and a few others that are wide enough for carriages. When
the government desires to widen a street a convenient fire generally
occurs. At the time they proposed to enlarge this, the principal
street, it is said the fire broke out simultaneously at many points
along the line. As the houses are generally of wood, they burn
quickly, and a fire is not easily extinguished by their inefficient
fire department. Then the government seizes the necessary ground and
widens the street, the owners never receiving any indemnification for
their losses. I need not attempt a minute description of St. Sophia.
We took the precaution to carry over-shoes, which we put on at the
door, instead of being obliged to take off our boots and put on
slippers. A firman from the sultan admitted us without difficulty.
We admired the one hundred and seventy columns of marble, granite and
porphyry, many of which were taken from ancient temples, and gazed up
at the lofty dome where the four Christian seraphim executed in mosaic
still remain, though the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
faith are inscribed underneath them. Behind where the high altar
once stood may still be faintly discerned the figure of our Saviour.
Several little Turks were studying their Korans, and sometimes
whispering and playing much like school-boys at home.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA.]
The mosques of Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan Achmed and Mohammed
II. were visited, but next to St. Sophia the mosque which interested
me most was one to which we could not gain admittance--a mosque some
distance up the Golden Horn, where the sultan is crowned and where
the friend of Mohammed and mother of a former sultan are buried. It is
considered so very sacred that Christian feet are not allowed to enter
even the outer court. As I looked through the grated gate a stout
negress passed me and went in. The women go to the mosques at
different hours from the men.
Not far from here is a remarkable well which enables a fortune-teller
to read the fates of those who consult her. Mr. R----, who has lived
for thirty years in Constantinople and speaks Turkish and Arabic as
fluently as his own language, told me he was once walking with an
effendi to whom he had some months before lent a very valuable Arabic
book. He did not like to ask to have it returned, and was wondering
how he should introduce the subject when they reached the well. Half
from curiosity and half for amusement, he proposed that they should
see what the well would reveal to them. The oracle was a wild-looking,
very old Nubian woman, and directing Mr. R---- to look steadily down
into the well, she gazed earnestly into his eyes to read the fate
there reflected. After some minutes she said, "What you are thinking
of is lost: it has passed from the one to whom you gave it, and will
be seen no more." The effendi asked what the oracle had said, and when
Mr. R---- told him he had been thinking of his book, and repeated what
the Nubian had uttered, the effendi confessed that he had lent the
book to a dervish and feared it was indeed lost. It was a lucky hit of
the old darkey's, at any rate.
An opportunity came at last to gratify a long-cherished wish by
visiting a harem. Madame L----, a French lady who has lived here
many years, visits in the harems of several pashas, and invited me
to accompany her. I donned the best my trunk afforded, and at eleven
o'clock we set out, each in a sedan chair. I had often wondered why
the ladies I saw riding in them sat so straight and looked so stiff,
but I wondered no longer when the stout Cretans stepped into the
shafts, one before and the other behind, and started off. The motion
is a peculiar shake, as if you went two steps forward and one back. It
struck me as so ludicrous, my sitting bolt upright like a doll in my
little house, that I drew the curtains and had a good laugh at my
own expense. Half an hour's ride brought us to the pasha's house in
Stamboul--a large wooden building with closely-latticed windows. We
were received at the door by a tall Ethiopian, who conducted us across
a court to the harem. Here a slave took our wraps, and we passed into
a little reception-room. A heavy rug of bright colors covered the
centre of the floor, and the only furniture was the divans around the
sides. The pasha's two wives, having been apprised of our intended
visit, were waiting to receive us. Madame L---- was an old friend and
warmly welcomed, and as she spoke Turkish the conversation was brisk.
She presented me, and we all curled ourselves up on the divans.
Servants brought tobacco in little embroidered bags and small sheets
of rice paper, and rolling up some cigarettes, soon all were
smoking. The pasha is an "old-style" Turk, and frowns on all European
innovations, and his large household is conducted on the old-fashioned
principles of his forefathers. His two wives were young and very
attractive women. One, with a pale clear complexion, dark hair and
eyes, quite came up to my idea of an Oriental beauty. Not content,
however, with her good looks, she had her eyebrows darkened, while a
delicate black line under her eyes and a little well-applied rouge
and powder (I regret to confess) made her at a little distance a still
more brilliant beauty. I doubt if any women understand the use of
cosmetics as well as these harem ladies. Her dress was a bright-cherry
silk, the waist cut low in front, the skirt reaching to her knees.
Trousers of the same and slippers to match completed her costume. The
other wife was equally attractive, with lovely blue eyes and soft wavy
hair. She was dressed in a white Brousa silk waist, richly embroidered
with crimson and gold braid, blue silk skirt, white trousers and
yellow slippers. They both had on a great deal of jewelry. Several
sets, I should think, were disposed about their persons with great
effect, though not in what we should consider very good taste. Being
only able to wear one pair of earrings, they had the extra pairs
fastened to their braids, which were elaborately arranged about their
heads and hung down behind. There were half a dozen slaves in the
room, who when not waiting on their mistresses squatted on the floor,
smoked, and listened to the conversation. Coffee was brought almost
immediately, the cups of lovely blue and white china in pretty silver
holders on a tray of gilt filigree.
After sitting here a while exchanging the compliments of the day, we
passed to the next room, a large saloon with windows and door opening
into the court. Here a fountain threw up a sparkling jet of water,
and several trees and flowering shrubs, with a profusion of ivy on the
walls, made it a very attractive place. The child of the eldest wife,
a bright-eyed little boy, was floating chips in the basin of the
fountain, laughing and clapping his hands when the falling water upset
them or wet his face. The floor was covered with large handsome rugs,
and around the sides of the room were luxurious divans: little
other furniture seems necessary in a Turkish house. We followed our
hostesses' example and seated ourselves on the divans, though not, as
they did, with our feet under us, and refreshments were served on a
large gilt salver, in the middle of which was a handsome covered dish
of Bohemian glass filled with sweetmeats, with vases on each side to
match, one holding queer-shaped little spoons with golden bowls. There
were also four glasses of water and four minute glasses of pale yellow
cordial. Fortunately, the tray was passed first to Madame L----; so
I watched her movements and learned what to do. She took a spoon from
one vase, dipped it in the sweetmeats, and after eating placed her
spoon in the empty vase. Then she took some water and drank a glass of
cordial. So we each did (it is polite to taste but once), and placed
the soiled spoon in the vase for that purpose. I did not need to
be told that the sweetmeats were rose-leaves, for the flavor was
perfectly preserved.
Madame L---- kindly repeated most of the conversation, which, on their
sides, was chiefly composed of questions concerning Madame L----'s
family: Was her husband as kind as ever? had he made her any presents
lately? Was I married? what was my husband's personal appearance?
did I love him? how old was I? where from? and where going? These and
similar questions, which are considered perfectly polite and proper,
they ask with the curiosity of children.
[Illustration: HAREM SCENE.]
Then we were invited into a third room, where we were served with
violet sherbet, cake and Turkish paste. After partaking of these the
ladies sent for their jewel-boxes and displayed their treasures, which
consisted of pins, earrings, necklaces, head and belt ornaments--some
very handsome, and all composed of precious stones of more or less
value, for a Turkish woman does not value an ornament that is not set
with precious stones. This was an agreeable change from the former
conversation, and when we had admired their jewels breakfast was
served. The servants brought a scarlet rug of soft shaggy stuff, which
was spread on the floor: a low round brass table, two feet high and
three feet in diameter, was placed in the centre of this rug, and we
four ladies seated ourselves around the table _à la Turque_. A servant
brought a brass basin, which was like an immense wash-bowl with a
cullender in it turned upside down: we washed our hands over this,
water being poured over them from a large coffee-pot (I should call
it) with an unusually long nose, and wiped our hands on handsome
towels embroidered at the ends with gold thread. A dish of fried fish
was placed on the table for the first course: each helped herself to
one, laying it on the table before her (we had no plates, knives or
forks), picking it to pieces and eating it with her fingers. When this
was ended the debris was thrown on the platter and removed, the table
wiped off, and a dish of rice and mutton brought: for this we had
spoons, but all ate from the dish. Then came an immense cauliflower
covered thick with strange-tasting cheese, and the Turkish ladies used
their thumbs and first two fingers in conveying it to their mouths.
I am very fond of cauliflower, but this was not inviting. The next
course was onions cooked in oil: I had to be excused from this also:
the sight of their dripping fingers was enough. Then we washed our
hands and ate oranges; washed again, and lighting fresh cigarettes
(they had smoked nearly all day), retired to our divans; sipped coffee
and listened to an old negress (the story-teller of the harem), who,
squatted before us, related marvelous stories in Eastern style. More
sweetmeats and confectionery were passed with coffee, and our visit
ended. A European woman could not support such a life--at home perfect
inactivity, eating, smoking, gossiping, an occasional visit to or
from a friend, a trip to the bazaar, and a drive--if they possess a
carriage--or a row in a caïque to the Sweet Waters on Sunday. This is
the life of a Turkish woman of rank.
A note from Madame B---- one morning informed me that the mother and
wives of a rich Turkish merchant were coming to visit her, and invited
me to be present. I reached her house about eleven, but the Turkish
ladies were before me. The appearance of a servant in the hall with
her arms full of yashmaks and ferrajas and several pairs of pattens
apprised me that I was too late to see their street-dresses. In the
reception-room were Madame B----, a lady who acted as interpreter, and
the three Turkish ladies. They were uncontaminated by European customs
or Paris finery. The mother was exceedingly ugly, as are most Turkish
women over forty. A pair of high red morocco boots encased her feet,
which were guiltless of stockings. White, full trousers were gathered
close at the knee and fell over nearly to her ankles. Her dress was
a short purple velvet skirt embroidered round the bottom and up the
front with gilt braid in a showy vine pattern; the same embroidery on
her black silk jacket, which was open in front, but without any lace;
and around her neck was a magnificent string of pearls. Her hair (what
there was of it) was drawn back from her face, braided, and the end of
the little "pig tail" fastened to her head with a diamond pin composed
of four fine diamonds in a clumsy gold setting. Long, pale amber
ear-drops completed her adornments, and she flourished--yes, she
really did--a large red and yellow bandana! The younger of the two
wives was quite pretty. She had brilliant black eyes, good features,
and was very attractive in her gay dress. She wore pink slippers, a
heavy sky-blue silk skirt with trousers to match, and a yellow velvet
sacque open in front, displaying a lace chemisette and a handsome
turquoise necklace. Large gold hoops pulled her pretty ears quite out
of shape, and her long black hair was braided in broad plaits and tied
with a gilt ribbon, which was also wound about her head several times.
Altogether, she was quite gorgeous, and rather threw the other wife
into the shade. Wife No. 2 was arrayed in a dark-green velvet skirt
and a pink silk jacket trimmed with silver braid. She had a garnet
necklace and pretty earrings of small pearls and diamonds. Not to be
outdone by her mother-in-law on the _mouchoir_ question, she displayed
a white muslin handkerchief thickly embroidered with gold thread--more
ornamental than useful.
They were all curled up on divans sipping coffee and smoking
cigarettes when I entered. Madame B---- presented me, and they
received me very graciously, asked my age, examined my clothes and
inquired if I had any jewels at home. I wore none, and suppose my
black silk walking-suit did not impress them greatly. Dress is of the
first importance in their eyes, and that and their husbands are the
chief topics of interest when they visit each other. Conversation was
not brisk, as the necessity of an interpreter is not favorable for
a rapid exchange of ideas. After sitting in this room for an hour,
Madame B---- informed me that Turkish etiquette required that she
should now invite her guests into another room and offer other
refreshments, then, after sitting there a while, to still another, and
so on through the whole suite of apartments, refreshments (generally
coffee, sweetmeats or sherbet) with cigarettes being offered in each.
As they would probably remain till four or five in the afternoon, I
excused myself, and reached the hotel in time to join a party going
to the bazaar, thankful that I did not reside in Constantinople, and
wondering how long Madame B---- would survive if she had to endure
such visits frequently.
We started for our first visit to the bazaar, crossing the Golden Horn
to Stamboul by the old bridge, which has sunk so in places that you
feel as if a _ground-swell_ had been somehow consolidated and was
doing service as a bridge; up through the narrow streets of Stamboul,
now standing aside to let a string of donkeys pass loaded with large
stones fastened by ropes to their pack-saddles, or stepping into a
doorway to let a dozen small horses go by with their loads of boards,
three or four planks being strapped on each side, one end sticking
out in front higher than their heads, and the other dragging on the
ground, scraping along and raising such a dust you are not at all sure
some neighboring lumber-yard has not taken it into its head to walk
off bodily. Fruit-venders scream their wares, Turkish officers on
magnificent Arab horses prance by, and the crowd of strange and
picturesque costumes bewilders you; and through all the noise and
confusion glide the silent, veiled women. One almost doubts one's own
identity. I was suddenly recalled to _my_ senses, however, by a
gentle thump on the elbow, and turning beheld the head of a diminutive
donkey. I supposed it to be a donkey: the head, tail and feet, which
were all I could see of it, led me to believe it was one of those
much-abused animals. The rest of its body was lost to sight in the
voluminous robes of a corpulent Turk; and, as if he were not load
enough for one donkey, behind him sat a small boy holding his "baba's"
robe very tight lest he should slide off over the donkey's tail. I
looked around for Bergh or some member of a humane society, but no one
except ourselves seemed to see anything unusual. I thought if I were a
Hindu and believed in the transmigration of souls, I would pray that,
whatever shape my spirit took when it left its present form, it might
not enter that of a much-abused and long-suffering donkey.
The bazaar! How shall I describe what so many travelers have
made familiar? Some one has called it "a monstrous hive of little
shops--thousands under one roof;" and so it is. Each street is devoted
to a peculiar kind of merchandise. It would take more than one letter
to tell all the beautiful things we saw--cashmere shawls, Brousa
silks, delicate gauzes, elegantly-embroidered jackets, dresses,
tablecloths, cushions, etc., of all textures and the most fashionable
Turkish styles. We looked at antiquities, saw superb precious stones,
the finest of them unset, admired the display of saddles and bridles
and the array of boots and slippers in all colors of morocco. A
Turkish woman never rushes round as we did from one shop to another,
but if she wishes to buy anything--a shawl, for instance--she sits
comfortably down on a rug, selects the one she likes best, and
spends the rest of the day bargaining for it; during which time many
cigarettes are smoked by both customer and merchant, much coffee
drunk, long intervals spent in profound reflection on the subject,
and at last the shawl is purchased for a tenth perhaps of the original
price asked, and they part, each well pleased. It takes several visits
to see the bazaar satisfactorily, and we felt as we left it that we
had but made a beginning.
SHEILA HALE.
THE BALLAD OF THE BELL-TOWER.
"Five years ago I vowed to Heaven upon my falchion blade
To build the tower; and to this hour my vow hath not been paid.
"When from the eagle's nest I snatched my falcon-hearted dove,
And in my breast shaped her a nest, safe and warm-lined with love,
"Not all the bells in Christendom, if rung with fervent might,
That happy day in janglings gay had told my joy aright.
"As up the aisle my bride I led in that triumphant hour,
I ached to hear some wedding-cheer clash from the minster tower.
"Nor chime nor tower the minster had; so in my soul I sware,
Come loss, come let, that I would set church-bells a-ringing there
"Before a twelvemonth. But ye know what forays lamed the land,
How seasons went, and wealth was spent, and all were weak of hand.
"And then the yearly harvest failed ('twas when my boy was born);
But could I build while vassals filled my ears with cries for corn?
"Thereafter happed the heaviest woe, and none could help or save;
Nor was there bell to toll a knell above my Hertha's grave.
"Ah, had I held my vow supreme all hinderance to control,
Maybe these woes--God knows! God knows!--had never crushed my soul.
"Ev'n now ye beg that I give o'er: ye say the scant supply
Of water fails in lowland vales, and mountain-springs are dry.
"'Here be the quarried stones' (ye grant), 'skilled craftsmen
come at call;
But with no more of water-store how _can_ we build the wall?'
"Nay, listen: Last year's vintage crowds our cellars, tun on tun:
With wealth of wine for yours and mine, dare the work go undone?
"Quick! bring them forth, these mighty butts: let none be elsewhere sold,
And I will pay this very day their utmost worth in gold,
"That so the mortar that cements each stone within the shrine,
For her dear sake whom God did take, may all be mixed with wine."
* * * * *
'Twas thus the baron built his tower; and, as the story tells,
A fragrance rare bewitched the air whene'er they rang the bells.
A merrier music tinkled down when harvest-days were long:
They seemed to chime at vintage-time a catch of vintage-song;
And when the vats were foamed with must, if any loitered near
The minster tower at vesper hour, above him he would hear
Tinglings, as of subsiding trills, athwart the purple gloom,
And every draught of air he quaffed would taste of vineyard bloom.
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
BERLIN AND VIENNA.
The pre-eminence of London and Paris in the European world is
unquestioned, and, so far as we can foresee, permanent. Although
England is withdrawing herself more and more from the affairs of
the Continent, and becoming a purely insular and quasi-Oriental
power--although France has lost the lead in war and politics, and does
not seem likely to regain it--yet the capitals of these two countries
hold their own. In the accumulation of wealth and population, in
science, letters and the arts, London and Paris seem to be out of
reach of competition. Other cities grow, and grow rapidly, but do
not gain upon them. Even Berlin and Vienna, which have become so
conspicuous of late years, will remain what they are--local centres
rather than world-centres. The most zealous friend of German and
Austrian progress can scarcely claim for Berlin and Vienna, as cities,
more than secondary interest. Nevertheless, these minor capitals are
not to be overlooked, especially at the present conjuncture. One of
them is the residence of the most powerful dynasty in Europe: the
other is the base of an aggressive movement which tends to free at
last the lower Danube from Mohammedanism. If, as is possible, the
courts of Berlin and Vienna should decide to act in concert, if the
surplus vitality and population of the German empire, instead of
finding its outlet in the Western hemisphere, should be reversed
and made to flow to the south-east, we should witness a strange
recuscitation of the past. We should behold the Germanic race,
after two thousand years of vicissitude, of migration, conquest,
subordination and triumph, reverting to its early home, reoccupying
the lands from which it started to overthrow Rome. The Eastern
question, as it is called, forces itself once more upon the attention
of Christendom, and craves an answer. Twenty years ago it was deferred
by the interference of France and England. France is now _hors de
combat_, and England has better work elsewhere. Berlin, Vienna and St.
Petersburg have the decision in their hands. It would be a waste of
time to speculate upon coming events. Even the negotiations plying to
and fro at this moment are veiled in the strictest secrecy. Possibly
no one of the trio, Bismarck, Andrassy and Gortschakoff, dares to look
beyond the hour. The question may be deferred again, but it must be
decided some day upon a lasting basis. Stripped of unessentials, it
is a question of race-supremacy. The downfall of European Turkey being
conceded as a foregone conclusion, which of the two races, the Slavic
or the Germanic, is to oversee and carry out the reconstruction of the
region of the lower Danube? Is Russia, already so immense, to place
herself at the head of Panslavism and extend her borders to the
Dardanelles? Or is Austria, backed by North Germany and aided by
the Hungarians and the Roumanians, to resume her mediæval office as
_marchia orientalis_ and complete the mission for which she was called
into being by Charlemagne? A question which even the most prophetic of
politicians would hesitate to answer. Yet, in any case, it is possible
that Vienna and Berlin may become the centres of a great Pangermanic
reflux not unlike the efflux that swept over Northern Gaul and England
in the fifth century. In view of such a possibility it behooves us to
study these two capitals more closely--to consider their origin and
growth, their influence and their civic character.
Their history exhibits in many respects a marked parallelism. Each was
founded as a frontier-city, as the outpost of aggressive civilization.
Each has shared to the full the vicissitudes of the dynasty to which
it was attached. Each has ended in becoming the centre and capital of
an extensive empire. On the other hand, the differences between them
are no less significant. Vienna is the older of the two. It can claim,
in fact, a faint reflex of the glory of the old Roman world, for it
was founded as a _castrum_ and military colony by Vespasian in
the first century of our era. This ancient _Vindobona_ was the
head-quarters of the thirteenth legion, which was replaced in the next
century by the more famous tenth, the _pia fidelis_. Until the fifth
century, Vindobona and the neighboring Carnuntum (not far from the
modern Pressburg) were the seats of Roman power along the middle
Danube. But when the empire fell, they fell with it. For centuries all
traces of Vienna are lost. The valley of the Danube was the highway
for Goth and Slave, Avar and Hun, who trampled down and ruined as
they advanced or receded. Not until the Carolingian era do we find
indications of a more stable order of things. The great Carl, having
consolidated all the resources of Western Europe under his autocratic
will, having crushed the Saracens and subdued the Saxons and
Bavarians, resolved to make the Danube as well as the Rhine his own.
The idea was stamped with genius, as all his ideas were, and the
execution was masterly. The Frankish _leudes_, with their Saxon and
Bavarian auxiliaries, routed the Avars in battle after battle, and
drove them back beyond the Raab and the Theiss. The "eastern marches"
became, and have remained to this day, the bulwark of Christendom.
Carl's successors in Germany, the Saxon and Franconian emperors,
continued the work. In the year 996 we find the word Ostar-rîch
(_OEsterreich_) appearing for the first time. From 976 to 1246 the
duchies were in the possession of the Babenberg family. In 1276
they were annexed by Rudolph of Habsburg. Ever since then they have
constituted the central possession of the house of which he was the
founder.
Prior to the middle of the twelfth century Vienna appears to have been
a town of little importance. In fact, the precise time when the
name _Wien_ first occurs is in dispute. Giesebrecht discovered it
in documents purporting to date from the beginning of the eleventh
century, but the genuineness of the documents is doubted by
most historians. The town is mentioned several times in the
_Nibelungenlied_, and described as existing in the times of Etzel
(Attila, king of the Huns). But this is undoubtedly the invention of
popular fancy. The _Nibelungenlied_ was put into its present shape
between the middle and the end of the twelfth century. The poet has
changed more than one feature of the original saga, has blended, not
unskillfully, primitive Teutonic myth with historic personages and
events of the early Middle Ages, and has interpolated sayings and
traditions of his own times. The Viennese of the twelfth century
sought, with pardonable vanity, to invest their town with the
sacredness of antiquity. But we can scarcely allow their claims. On
the contrary, we must deny all continuity between the Vindobona of
the fourth and the Wien of the twelfth century. The Roman castrum
disappeared, the Babenberg capital appeared, but between the two there
is an unexplored gulf. Yet this incipient Vienna, although only
the capital of a ducal family that had a hard fight at times for
existence, holds an honorable position in the annals of German
literature. The Babenberg dukes were generous patrons of the Muses.
Their court was frequented by minnesingers and knights-errant.
Their praises were sung by Walther von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von
Lichtenstein and others. Walther, in his ode to Duke Leopold, has
almost anticipated Shakespeare, when he sings--
His largess, like the gentle rain,
Refresheth land and folk.
Vienna and the memorable Wartburg in Thuringia were the acknowledged
centres of taste and good breeding. They were the courts of last
resort in all questions of style, grammar and versification.
It will not be necessary to follow the growth of Vienna in detail
during the last six hundred years. The dangers to which the city was
exposed from time to time were formidable. They came chiefly from two
quarters--from Bohemia and from Hungaro-Turkey. Charles IV. and Wenzel
favored the Bohemians at the expense of the Germans, and preferred
Prague to Vienna as a residence. The Czechish nation increased rapidly
in wealth and culture until, having embraced the doctrines of Huss, it
felt itself strong enough to assert a quasi-independence. The Hussite
wars which ensued in the fifteenth century ended in the downfall of
Bohemia. But the Austrian duchies, and even Bavaria and Saxony,
did not escape without cruel injuries. More than once the fanatic
Taborites laid the land waste up to the gates of Vienna. The
Reformation, a century later, did not take deep root in Austria. At
best it was only tolerated, and the Jesuit reaction, encouraged by
Rudolph II. and Matthias, made short work of it. The Thirty Years' war
gave Ferdinand II. an opportunity of restoring Bohemia to the Roman
Catholic communion. The victory of the White Hill (1620) prostrated
Bohemia at his feet: the Hussite preachers were executed or banished,
the estates of the nobility who had taken part in the rebellion were
confiscated, and the Catholic worship reinstated by force of arms. So
thoroughly was the work done that Bohemia at the present day is, next
to the Tyrol, the stronghold of Catholicism. But Ferdinand's success,
complete to outward appearance, was in reality a blunder. The Czechish
and the German nationalities were permanently estranged, and the
former, despoiled, degraded, incapacitated for joining the work of
reform upon which the latter has finally entered, now constitutes
an obstacle to progress. While the Austrian duchies are at present
extremely liberal in their religious and political tendencies, Bohemia
and Polish Galicia are confederated with the Tyrol in opposing every
measure that savors of liberalism. Bohemia has been surnamed the
Ireland of the Austrian crown.
The union of Hungary with the house of Habsburg has always been
personal rather than constitutional. The Hungarians claimed
independence in all municipal and purely administrative matters.
Moreover, during the Thirty Years' war, and even later, a large
portion of the land was in possession of the Turks and their allies,
the Transylvanians, with whom the Hungarians were in sympathy. The
first great siege of Vienna by the Turks was in 1529--the last, and
by far the most formidable, in 1683. The city escaped only through
the timely assistance of the Poles under Sobieski. Ten years later the
tide had changed. The Austrian armies, led by Prince Eugene, defeated
the Turks in a succession of decisive battles, and put an end for ever
to danger from that quarter. Hungary and Transylvania became permanent
Austrian possessions.
Amid such alternations of fortune the growth of Vienna was necessarily
slow. In 1714, after six centuries of existence, its population
amounted to only 130,000. The city retained all the characteristics
of a fortress and frontier-post. The old part, or core, now called
the "inner town," was a compact body of houses surrounded by massive
fortification-walls and a deep moat. Outside of this was a _rayon_ or
clear space six hundred feet in width, separating the city from
the suburbs. These suburbs, Leopoldstadt, Mariahilf, etc., now
incorporated with the inner city in one municipal government,
were then small detached villages. From time to time the rayon was
encroached upon by enterprising builders, with the connivance of the
emperor or the garrison commander. The disastrous wars with France
at the end of the last century and beginning of the present were in
reality a gain to Vienna. Napoleon's bombardment and capture of the
city in 1809, before the battle of Wagram, demonstrated conclusively
that the fortifications were unable to withstand modern artillery.
Accordingly, after the general European peace had been established
by the Congress of Vienna, the city was declared officially by the
emperor to be no longer a fortification. But the walls and ditch, so
far as they had not been injured by the French, were still suffered
to remain: they were substantially intact as late as 1848, and were
strong enough to enable the revolutionists who had possession of
the city to hold it for forty-eight hours against the army of Prince
Windischgrätz.
The final reconstruction of the city was not begun in earnest until
1857, and occupied ten years or more. The walls were leveled to
the ground, the moat was filled in, a broad girdle-street (the
Ringstrasse) laid out to encircle the inner city, and the adjacent
ground on either side was converted into building-lots. In this brief
space of time Vienna was changed from a quasi-mediæval town to a
modern capital of the most pronounced type. The Ringstrasse became a
promenade like that of the old Paris boulevards, but broader, grander
and lined with palatial edifices no whit inferior to the French. The
metamorphosis is so startling that a tourist revisiting the city after
an absence of twenty years would have difficulty in persuading himself
that he was indeed in the residence of Maria Theresa, Joseph II. and
Metternich. No American city can exhibit a like change in the same
time. Our cities, although expanding incessantly, have preserved their
original features. Even new Chicago, springing from the ashes of
the old, has not departed from the former ground-plan and style of
building. And no American city can point to a succession of buildings
like the Franz Joseph Barracks, the Cur Salon with its charming park,
the Grand Hôtel and the Hôtel Impérial, the Opera-house, the Votive
Church, the new Stock Exchange, and the Rudolf Barracks. When the
projected House of Deputies, the City Hall, and the University
building are completed, the Ring street will deserve to stand by the
side of the Rue de Rivoli and the Champs Élysées. The quondam suburbs
(_Vorstädte_), eight in number, are now one with the city proper.
Encircling them is the _mur d' octroi_, or barrier where municipal
tolls are levied upon articles of food and drink. Outside of this
barrier, again, are the suburbs of the future, the _Vororte_, such
as Favoriten, Fünfhaus, Hernals, etc. The growth of the population
is rapid and steady. In 1714 it was 130,000, in 1772 only 193,000.
A century later, in 1869, it had risen to 811,000 (including the
Vororte); at the present day it can scarcely fall short of 1,000,000.
Not in population and adornment alone has Vienna progressed. Much has
been done, or at least projected, for the comfort and health of the
residents and for the increase of trade. The entire city has been
repaved with Belgian pavement, the houses renumbered after the
Anglo-American fashion. The railroads centring in the city are
numerous, and the stations almost luxurious in their appointments. But
the two chief enterprises are the Semmering aqueduct and the Danube
Regulation. The former, begun in 1869 and completed in 1873, would do
honor to any city. It is about fifty miles in length, and has a much
greater capacity than the Croton aqueduct. The pure, cold Alpine water
brought from two celebrated springs near the Semmering Pass, flows
into the distributing reservoir on the South Hill, near the Belvedere
Palace, at an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet above the city.
The pressure is great enough to throw a jet nearly one hundred
feet high from the fountain in the Schwarzenberg Square. The Danube
Regulation, as its name implies, is an attempt to improve the
navigation of the river. The Danube, which in this part of its course
has a general flow from north-west to south-east, approaches within
a few miles of Vienna. Here, at Nussdorf, it breaks into two or three
shallow and tortuous channels, which meander directly away from the
city, as if in sheer willfulness, and reunite at the Lobau, as far
below the city as Nussdorf is above it. The "regulation" consists in
a new artificial channel, cut in a straight line from Nussdorf to
the Lobau. In length it is about nine miles, in breadth about twelve
hundred feet: the average depth of water will be not less than ten
feet. It was begun in 1869 and finished in April, 1875. This new
channel, which passes the Leopoldstadt suburb a short distance outside
the late exhibition grounds, will render unnecessary the transshipment
of goods and passengers at Nussdorf and the Lobau respectively, and
will also, it is hoped, prevent the inundations by which the low
region to the north of the river has been so often ravaged.
Berlin is inferior to Vienna in antiquity and in variety of incident
and association. The capital of the present German empire consisted
originally of two small rival towns, or rather villages, standing
almost side by side on opposite banks of the Spree. The elder, Cöln,
was incorporated as a municipality in 1232: the other, Berlin,
is mentioned for the first time in 1244. Both names are of Vendic
(Slavic) origin, and designated villages of the hunting and fishing
Vends, who were dispossessed by German colonists.
Cöln-Berlin, the marches of Brandenburg, East and West Prussia--in
fact, all the now Germanized lands to the east of the Elbe--owe their
Teutonic character to a great reflux, a reconquest so to speak, which
is barely mentioned in the usual textbooks of German history, yet
which is one of the most noteworthy phenomena in the development of
modern Europe. At the beginning of the fourth century German tribes
(German in the widest sense of the term) occupied the broad expanse
from the Rhine to the Dwina and the head-waters of the Dnieper. A
century later they had receded as far as the Vistula. Still another
century later, about 500, the German linguistic domain was bounded on
the east by the Ens, the Bohemian Hills, the upper Main, the Saal and
the Elbe. The downfall of the Thuringian kingdom was the occasion of
Slavic encroachments even on the left bank of the Elbe between Stendal
and Lüneburg. This German recession, which boded the Slavization not
only of Eastern but also of Central Europe, was due to various causes,
many of which are veiled in the impenetrable darkness which still
hangs over the early Middle Ages. The chief causes were undoubtedly
the Germanic migration over the Roman world and the settlement of the
Franks in Northern Gaul and the Saxons in England.
But with the Carolingian dynasty came a new era. Charles Martel,
Pepin and Charlemagne aspired to universal monarchy. Not content with
France, Northern Spain, Italy and Germany proper, Charlemagne, as we
have already seen, recaptured the middle Danube. His successors in
Germany, the Saxon, Franconian and Swabian emperors, continued the
impulse, but gave it in the main a different direction. Instead
of moving toward the south-east, where they would have encountered
stubborn opposition from the already compact Hungarian nationality,
they chose for their field of colonization (or recolonization) the
east and north-east. Throughout the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries we observe a strong and unremitting tide
of German peasants, burghers and knights flowing through and over
Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Silesia, the Prussian duchies,
and even into Lithuania, Curland, Livonia and Esthonia. We have here
an explanation of the want of interest taken by the Germans in the
Crusades. While the kings of England and France, the barons and counts
of Brabant and Italy, were wasting their substance and the blood of
their subjects in hopeless attempts to overthrow Mohammedanism on its
own ground, the Germans were laying the foundations--unconsciously, it
is true--of a new empire. The lands wrested from the Slaves were to
be the kingdom of Frederick the Great. The work was done thoroughly,
almost as thoroughly as the Saxon conquest of Britain. The Obotrites,
Wiltzi, Ukern, Prussians, Serbs and Vends were annihilated or
absorbed. The only traces of their existence now to be found are the
scattered remnants of dialects spoken in remote villages or small
districts, and the countless names of towns bequeathed by them
to their conquerors. These names are often recognizable by the
terminations _in_ and _itz_. The most conspicuous factor in this labor
of colonization was the Teutonic order of chivalry, transferred to
the Baltic from Palestine. Königsberg, Dantzic, Memel, Thorn and Revel
were the centres or the advanced posts of the movement. At the end
of the reign of the grand master Winrich von Kniprode (1382) the
Germanization of the region between the Elbe and the Niemen--the
Polish province of Posen perhaps excepted--may be regarded, for all
practical purposes, as finished. The acquisition of Brandenburg by the
Hohenzollerns only solidified the conquest and guaranteed its future.
It is safe to assume that even a large share, perhaps the greater
share, of Poland itself would have been overrun in like manner but for
the Hussite wars and the Thirty Years' war. The unfortunate Peace
of Thorn (1466), whereby the lands of the Teutonic order and of the
Brethren of the Sword became--in name at least--fiefs of the Polish
crown, was due to internal dissensions among the German colonists and
also to the distractions in Bohemia.
This apparent digression was necessary to a right understanding of the
character of Berlin and its neighborhood in comparison with Vienna.
Berlin was at the start a frontier post, but, unlike Vienna, it soon
ceased to be one. Colonization and conquest left it far to the rear as
an unimportant and thoroughly German town. The border-land of language
and race was advanced from the Spree to the Niemen and Vistula. The
language of these north-eastern districts is worthy of note. The
knights of the Teutonic order were chiefly from South Germany, the
inferior colonists from Low Germany of the Elbe, Weser and Rhine.
Hence the necessity for a _lingua communis_, a mode of expression that
should adapt itself to the needs of a mixed population. The dialect
which proved itself most available was one which stood midway between
High (South) and Low (North) German, and which itself might almost
be called a linguistic compromise--namely, the Thuringian, and more
especially in its Meissen form. This "Middle German,"[1] as it was
styled, became the official language of Prussia, Silesia and the
Baltic provinces. All very marked dialectic peculiarities were
discarded one by one, until the residuum became a very homogeneous,
uniform and correct mode of conventional speech. It will not surprise
us, then, to perceive that the Curlanders, Livonians and Prussians (of
the duchies) speak at the present day a more elegant German than the
Berlinese, whose vernacular is strongly tinged with _Plattdeutsch_
forms from the lower Elbe. A similar phenomenon is to be observed in
our own country. We Americans, taken as a nation, speak a more correct
English--i.e., an English freer from dialectic peculiarities--than the
English themselves. We have but one conventional form of expression
from Maine to California, and whatever lies outside of this may be bad
grammar or slang, but is certainly not dialect.
[Footnote 1: The word "Middle" is used here as a geographical term.
German philologists arrange the dialects into two main groups--High
(South) and Low (North), and prefix to each the terms Old, _Middle_
and New to distinguish epochs in the growth of each. According to this
nomenclature, Old = Early, _Middle_ = Late-Mediæval, New = Modern.
The word _Middle_ is unfortunate, as it may designate either age or
locality. It designates both locality and age in the text above--i.e.,
the late-mediæval form of Middle Germany. In full, it should be
"Middle-Middle." The Meissen dialect, it may be added, was the one
adopted by Luther, and is the basis of all modern book-German. (See
Rückert's _Gesch. der neuhochd. Sprache_, pp. 168-178.)]
The most important event in the history of the twin municipalities,
Cöln-Berlin, was a change of dynasty. In 1415-18, Frederick of
Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, was invested with the margravate
of Brandenburg and the electoral dignity. The Hohenzollerns, a few
exceptions aside, have been a thrifty, energetic and successful
family. Slowly, but with the precision of destiny, their motto, "From
rock to sea"--once apparently an idle boast--has realized itself to
the full, until they now stand foremost in Europe. It would pertain
rather to a history of the Prussian monarchy than to a sketch like
the present to trace, even in outline, the steps by which Brandenburg
annexed one after another the Prussian duchies of the Teutonic order,
Pomerania, Silesia, the province of Saxony, Westphalia, and in our own
days Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. So far as Berlin is concerned, it will
suffice to state that its history is not rich in episode or in marked
characters. It long remained the obscure capital of a dynasty which
the Guelfs and Habsburgs were pleased to look down upon as parvenu.
During the Thirty Years' war, in which Brandenburg played such a
pitiable part, Berlin was on the verge of extinction. By 1640 its
population had been reduced to 6000. Even the great elector, passing
his life in warfare, could do but little for his capital. His
successor, Frederick I., the first _king_ of the Prussians, was
more fortunate. To him the city is indebted for most of its present
features. He was the originator of the Friederichsstadt, the
Friederichsstrasse, the Dorotheenstadt,[2] the continuation of the
Linden to the Thiergarten, the arsenal, and the final shaping of the
old castle. In 1712 the population was 61,000. The wars of Frederick
the Great, brought to a triumphal issue, made Berlin more and more a
centre of trade and industry. To all who could look beyond the clouds
of political controversy and prejudice it was evident that Berlin was
destined to become the leading city of North Germany and the worthy
rival of Vienna. Even the humiliation of Jena and the subsequent
occupation by Napoleon were only transitory. Berlin, not being a
fortified city, was spared at least the misery of a siege. After the
downfall of Napoleon, Prussia and its capital resumed their mission of
absorption and expansion. The "Customs Union" accelerated the pace. In
1862 the population was 480,000; in 1867, 702,437; in 1871, 826,341.
At present it is in excess of Vienna. The Austrian and French wars
have given to its growth an almost feverish impulse.
[Footnote 2: The Friederichsstadt and Dorotheenstadt are those parts
of the town with which the tourist is most familiar as places of
residence and shopping; Cöln is the island on which stand the castle
and the two museums; Old Berlin is the part beyond the Spree.]
A comparison of Berlin and Vienna in their present state will suggest
many reflections. We have seen that they resemble each other in
origin, rate of growth and actual size. In their composition, however,
they differ widely. The population of Berlin is homogeneous, devotedly
attached to the Hohenzollern dynasty, enterprising in trade and
manufactures, thrifty and economical. It spends far less than it
earns. For upward of half a century it has been subjected to the most
careful military and scientific training. Moreover, Berlin is the
geographical and political centre of a thoroughly homogeneous realm.
We cannot afford to encourage any delusions on this point. It has
become of late the fashion among certain French writers and their
imitators to sneer at the Prussians as semi-Slaves, to call them
Borussians, and contrast them with the so-called Germans proper of
Bavaria, Swabia and the Rhine; whereas the fact of ethnography is that
the Prussians are an amalgamation of the best--that is, the hardiest
and most enterprising--elements of all the German districts. The
purest blood and the most active brains of the old empire left their
homes on the Main and the Weser to colonize and conquer under the
leadership of the Teutonic order. The few drops of Slavic blood are
nothing in comparison. Slavic names of towns and villages do not prove
Slavic descent; else, by like reasoning, we should have to pronounce
"France" and "French" words implying German blood, and "Normandy" an
expression for Norse lineage. So far from being composite, Berlin is
ultra German. It is more national, in this sense, than Dresden, where
the Saxon court was for generations Polish in tastes and sympathies,
and where English and American residents constitute at this day
a perceptible element; more so than Bremen and Hamburg, which are
entrepôts for foreign commerce; more so than Frankfort, with its
French affiliations. The few Polish noblemen and workmen from Posen
only serve to relieve the otherwise monotonous German type of the
city. The French culture assumed by Frederick the Great and his
contemporaries was a mere surface varnish, a passing fashion that left
the underlying structure intact. Furthermore, Berlin is profoundly
Protestant. The Reformation was accepted here with enthusiasm, and its
adoption was more of a folk-movement than elsewhere, Thuringia alone
excepted. By virtue of its Protestantism, then, Berlin is accessible
to liberal ideas and capable of placing itself in the van of progress
without breaking abruptly with the past. Its liberalism, unlike that
of Catholic Paris, does not lead to radicalism or communism. Finally,
it is to be borne in mind that Berlin, having become the official
capital, must of necessity attract more and more the ablest men
from all quarters of the empire--the members of the imperial Diet,
politicians, lobbyists, bankers, speculators and their satellites.
Along with the good, it is true, comes much of the bad. Berlin is
unquestionably the present goal for needy and unscrupulous adventurers
of the worst sort. Not a few pessimists, native and foreign, have
made the fact a text for dismal prognostications of the city's future
degeneracy. Yet this is taking a shortsighted and unjust view of
things. The great mass of the population is still sound to the core.
The unsettled state of monetary and social relations cannot but be
transitory, and compulsory education and military service cannot but
operate in the future as they have done in the past. So long as the
_garde-corps_ remains what it is, the flower of the army, it will be
idle to speak of the degeneracy of Berlin. We must not forget that
only five years ago, at Mars la Tour, Brandenburg and Berlin regiments
fought the most remarkable battle, in many respects, of modern times.
On almost all the points above indicated Vienna is the direct opposite
of Berlin. It is not homogeneous in itself, neither is it the
centre of a homogeneous empire; its population is not thrifty nor
enterprising; it is Catholic, and not Protestant. The Hohenzollerns
have achieved their success by hard fighting. With the exception of
the original marches of Brandenburg there is scarcely a district in
the kingdom of Prussia that has not been wrested from some enemy
and held as the spoils of war. This policy of forcible annexation
or robbery, as the historian may be pleased to call it--while
inconsistent with principles of equity, has had nevertheless its
marked advantages. Perceiving that the sword alone could keep what the
sword had won, the Hohenzollerns have ever striven to identify their
dynastic interests with the well-being of their people, to make their
régime one of order and improvement, to repress the power of the
nobility without crushing its spirit, to adjust a satisfactory
compromise between centralization and local independence, and to stamp
their own uncompromising spirit upon each individual subject. Hence
their success in creating a nation out of provinces. Every Prussian
has always felt that he was a member of one indissoluble commonwealth.
The Habsburgs, on the contrary, have grown great through marriage.
Their policy is aptly expressed in the oft-quoted phrase, _Bella
gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube_. Regarding their sway as a matter
of hereditary succession and divine right, they have been content
to let each province or kingdom remain as it was when acquired,
an isolated Crown dependency. They have not put forth serious and
persistent efforts to weld the Tyrol, the Austrian duchies, Bohemia,
Galicia, much less Hungary, in one compact realm. They have done
even worse. They have committed repeatedly a blunder which the
Hohenzollerns, even in their darkest days, never so much as dreamed
of--namely, the blunder of hounding down one province or race by means
of another. They have used the Germans to crush the Bohemians, the
Poles to thwart the Germans, the Hungarians to check all the others,
and the Croats to defeat the Hungarians. From this has resulted a
deplorable conflict of races. The present emperor, Francis Joseph,
appears to the eye of the close observer a man bent beneath the
hopeless task of reconciliation. He is called upon to bear the
accumulated evils of centuries of misrule.
Vienna is a faithful reflex in miniature of Austria in general. The
heedless or untrained tourist, misled by names and language and the
outward forms of intercourse, may pronounce the city a most delightful
German capital: he may congratulate himself upon the opportunity it
gives him of reviving his reminiscences of the old German emperors and
contrasting their times with the present. But the tourist, were he
to go beneath the surface, would discover that he is treading
upon peculiar ground. We have only to scratch the Viennese to find
something that is not German. We shall discover beneath the surface
Hungarian, or Slavic, or Italian blood. A very large portion of the
population, perhaps even the greater portion, speaks two, three or
four languages with equal facility. New York excepted, no great city
will compare with Vienna for medley of speech and race. The truth is,
that the city still retains its early character as a frontier-post,
or, to speak more correctly, it is the focus where the currents from
North-eastern Italy, South-eastern Germany, Bohemia, Galicia and
Hungary converge without thoroughly intermingling. The conventional
German used by the middle and lower classes is interspersed with
terms borrowed from the other languages, with dialectic idioms,
provincialisms and peculiarities of pronunciation that cause it to
sound like an unfamiliar tongue.
In outward appearance the city is not less diversified than in
population. The gay bustle of the streets, the incessant roll of
fiacres, the style of dress, the crowded cafés remind one more
of Paris than of Germany. The cuisine and ways of living and the
architecture here and there have borrowed freely from Italy and
France. A certain fondness for gorgeous coloring and profuse
ornamentation is due to Hungarian influence. The bulbous cupolas
surmounted with sharply tapering spires, irreverently nicknamed
_Zwiebel-Thürme_ ("onion-towers"), are evidently stragglers from
Byzantium, and contrast sharply with the rich Gothic of St. Stephen's
and the new Votive Church. By the side of Vienna, Berlin is painfully
monotonous. Few of the public buildings can be called handsome, or
even picturesque. The plaster used for the outer coating of the houses
is apt to discolor or flake off, so that the general aspect is that
of premature age. Worthy of note is the new city hall, a successful
effort to make an imposing and elegant structure of brick. In the
neighborhood of the Thiergarten the private residences evince taste
and refinement. Taken all in all, Berlin has not yet shaken off its
provincialism, and is far behind Vienna in drainage, water-supply
and paving. The Berlinese have much to do and undo before they can
rightfully call their city a _Weltstadt_.
In the matter of economy, at least, they are worthy of all praise.
No other community spends less in proportion to its income. From the
emperor down, each person seems to count his pence. This self-denial,
which borders at times on parsimony, is the result of training and
circumstances. The soil in the eastern part of the kingdom, and
especially around Berlin, is not fertile. It yields its crops only to
the most careful tillage. Moreover, prolonged struggles for political
existence and supremacy, with the necessity of being on the watch for
sudden wars and formidable invasions, have sharpened the wits of the
Berlinese and taught them the advisability of laying by for a rainy
day. The Viennese, on the contrary, live rather for the passing hour.
Austria is favored with an agreeable climate and an extremely fertile
soil. The immediate vicinity of Vienna is highly picturesque and
invites to merrymaking excursions, while life in the city is a hunt
after pleasure. The court and the nobility, once proverbial for
wealth, set an example of profuse expenditure which is followed by the
middle and even the lower classes.
Were it possible, by passing a magic wand over the Austrian duchies
and Vienna, to transform them into a Brandenburg or a Silesia, the
Eastern question would be much simplified. The entire valley of the
lower Danube, Hungary not excepted, suffers from a want of laborers.
Agriculture, mining and manufactures are in a primitive state unworthy
of the Middle Ages. The exhibition from Roumania at Vienna in 1873,
although arrayed tastefully, was a lamentable confession of poverty
and backwardness. Even Hungary, anxious to display her autonomy to
the best advantage, could show little more than the beginnings of
a change. The actual condition of the lower Danube is a reproach to
European civilization. Everything seems to be lacking--good roads and
tolerable houses, kitchen and farming utensils, workshops of the most
rudimentary sort, clothing, popular education, the first conceptions
of science. Germany is the only source from which to expect assistance
in the spread of material comfort and spiritual enlightenment, for
Germany alone has population and education to spare. Yet that part
of Germany which is nearest at hand is not adequate of itself to
the task. The Austrians have not such a preponderancy of numbers
and influence within their own borders as would qualify them for
conducting successfully a great movement of colonization. Besides, it
must be admitted, with all due respect to the many good qualities of
the Austrians, that colonists should be of "sterner stuff"--should
have more self-denial, greater capacity for work and more talent
for self-government. In these particulars the North Germans are
unquestionably superior. The improved condition of Roumania (Moldavia
and Wallachia) under Prince Charles of Hohenzollern teaches us what
may be accomplished by an energetic administration. During the past
ten years the army has been drilled and equipped after the Prussian
fashion, the finances placed on a tolerable footing, and practical
independence of Turkey asserted. At the Vienna exhibition Roumania was
the only one of the nominally-vassal states that did not display
the star and crescent. Were the prince unrestrained by respect for
Austrian and Prussian diplomacy, and free to lead his well-disciplined
army of fifty thousand men into the field, he would give the signal
for a general uprising in Bosnia and Servia, and thus probably succeed
in severing all the Christian provinces from the Porte.
In one essential feature the Germanization of Prussia in the Middle
Ages differed necessarily from any like movement now possible along
the Danube. The Vends, Serbs and other Slaves were heathens, and their
overthrow and extermination was a crusade as well as a conquest. The
Church consecrated the sword, the monk labored side by side with the
knight. Such is not the case in the Danube Valley. Whatever value
we may set upon the Christianity of the Slovenes, Herzegovinians,
Bulgarians and Roumanians, we certainly cannot call them heathens.
They belong to the Roman Catholic, to the Greek, or to the Greek
United Church, although their worship and religious conceptions are
strongly tinged with reminiscences of Slavic paganism. Neither is a
conquest, in the military sense, possible. Public opinion in Europe
has learned to look with abhorrence on such violent measures, not to
speak of the mutual jealousies of Austria, Russia and Germany. The
question is rather one of peaceful colonization, of the introduction
of Germans in large numbers, and the gradual adoption of Western
improvements. Without some strong influx of the sort the mere
separation of the Danubian principalities from Turkey would be only a
halfway measure. It would put an end to the outrageous tyranny of the
Turkish governors, but it would not ensure industrial and intellectual
progress. And if Germany does not undertake the work, where else is
aid to be looked for? We see what the Germans have done for us in the
valleys of the upper Ohio and Mississippi. We have only to imagine a
like stream of population rolling for twenty years along the Danube.
Some of the conditions there are even more favorable than they have
been with us. The German colonist in America has been confronted from
the start by a civilization fully equal to his own. In the Danubian
principalities he would rise at once to a position of superiority.
The cessation of German immigration would be undoubtedly a loss to
America, but its diversion to the south-east would be a great gain
to Europe. It would settle, perhaps, for ever, the grave question
of race-supremacy--it would enable Austria to become a really German
power, and Vienna a really German city. Last, but not least, it would
reclaim from Mohammedanism and barbarism lands that were lost to
Christian culture only five centuries ago in a moment of shameful
weakness.
JAMES MORGAN HART.
THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.
BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
OUR MARRIAGE.
Not the youngest or prettiest bride could have excited more interest
on her launch into the unknown shoals and quicksands of matrimony than
did many-fleshed, mature and freckled Josephine on the achievement of
her long-desired union with the twice-told widower. A marriage of one
of their own set was a rare event altogether to the North Astonians,
and the marriage of one of the Hill girls was above all a circumstance
that touched the heart of the place as nothing else could touch
it--one which even Carry Fairbairn on the day of her triumph over
willow-wearing and that faithless Frank had not come near. It was "our
marriage" and "our bride," and each member of the community took
a personal interest in the proceedings, and felt implicated in the
subsequent failure or success of the venture.
Of course they all confessed that it was a bold thing for Miss
Josephine to be the third wife of a man--some of the more prudish
pursed their lips and said they wondered how she could, and they
wondered yet more how Mrs. Harrowby ever allowed it, and why, if Mr.
Dundas must marry again (but they thought he might be quiet now), he
had not taken a stranger, instead of one who had been mixed up as it
were with his other wives--but seeing that her day was passed, the
majority, as has been said, held that she was in the right to take
what she could get, and to marry even as a third wife was better than
not to marry at all. And then the neighborhood knew Sebastian Dundas,
and knew that although he had been foolish and unfortunate in his
former affairs, there was no harm in him. If his second wife had died
mysteriously, North Aston was generous enough not to suppose that he
had poisoned her; and who could wonder at that dreadful Pepita having
a stroke, sitting in the sun as she did on such a hot day, and so fat
as she was? So that Mr. Dundas was exonerated from the suspicion
of murder in either case, if credited with an amount of folly and
misfortune next thing to criminal; and "our marriage" was received
with approbation, the families sending tribute and going to the church
as the duty they owed a Harrowby, and to show Sebastian that they
considered he had done wisely at last, and chosen as was fitting.
There was a little mild waggery about the future name of Ford
House, and the bolder spirits offered shilling bets that it would be
rechristened "Josephine Lodge" before the year was out. But save this
not very scorching satire, which also was not too well received by
the majority, as savoring of irreverence to consecrated powers, the
country looked on in supreme good-humor, and the day came in its
course, finding as much social serenity as it brought summer sunshine.
It was a pretty wedding, and everybody said that everybody looked very
nice; which is always comforting to those whose souls are stitched up
in their flounces, and whose happiness and self-respect rise or
fall according to the becomingness of their attire. The village
school-children lining the churchwalk strewed flowers for the bride's
material and symbolic path. Dressed in a mixture of white, scarlet
and blue, they made a brilliant show of color, and gave a curious
suggestion of so many tricolored flags set up along the path; but they
added to the general gayety of the scene, and they themselves thought
Miss Josephine's wedding surely as grand as the queen's.
There were five bridesmaids, including little Fina, whom kindly
Josephine had specially desired should bear her part in the pageant
which was to give her a mother and a friend. The remaining four
were the two Misses Harrowby, Adelaide Birkett, as her long-time
confidante, and that other step-daughter, more legitimate if less
satisfactory than Fina--Leam.
The first three of these four elder maids came naturally and of
course: the last was the difficulty. When first asked, Learn had
refused positively--for her quite vehemently--to have hand or part in
the wedding. It brought back too vividly the sin and the sorrow of the
former time; and she despised her father's inconstancy of heart too
much to care to assist at a service which was to her the service of
folly and wickedness in one.
She said, "No, no: I will not come. I, bridesmaid at papa's wedding!
bridesmaid to his third wife! No, I will not!" And she said it with
an insistance, an emphasis, that seemed immovable, and all the more so
because it was natural.
But Josephine pleaded with her so warmly--she was evidently so much in
earnest in her wish, she meant to be so good and kind to the girl,
to lift her from the shadows and place her in the sunshine of
happiness--that Leam was at last touched deeply enough to give way.
She had come now to recognize that fidelity to be faithful need not
be churlish; and perhaps she was influenced by Josephine's final
argument. For when she had said "No, I cannot come to the wedding,"
for about the fourth time, Josephine shot her last bolt in these
words: "Oh, dear Leam, do come. I am sure Edgar will be hurt and
displeased if you are not one of my bridesmaids. He will think you do
not like the connection, and you know what a proud man he is: he will
be so vexed with me."
On which Leam said gravely, "I would not like to hurt or displease
Major Harrowby; and I do not like or dislike the connection;" adding,
after a pause, and putting on her little royal manner, "I will come."
Josephine's honest heart swelled with the humble gratitude of the
self-abased. "Good Leam! dear girl!" she cried, kissing her with
tearful eyes and wet lips--poor Learn! who hated to be kissed, and who
had by no means intended that her grave caress on the day of betrothal
should be taken as a precedent and acted on unreservedly. And after
she had kissed her frequently she thanked her again effusively, as if
she had received some signal grace that could hardly be repaid.
Her excess chilled Leam of course, but she held to her promise; and
Josephine augured all manner of happy eventualities from the fact
that her future step-daughter had yielded so sweetly on the first
difference of desire between them, and had let herself be kissed with
becoming patience. It was a good omen for the beginning of things; and
all brides are superstitious--Josephine perhaps more so than most, in
that she was more loving and more in love than most.
Yes, it was a pretty wedding, as they all said. The bride in the
regulation white and pearls looked, if not girlish, yet comely and
suitable to the bridegroom with his gray hair and sunburnt skin. The
two senior maids had stipulated for a preponderance of warm rose-color
in the costumes, which suited every one. It threw a flush on their
faded elderliness which was not amiss, and did the best for them
that could be done in the circumstances; it brought out into lovely
contrast, the contrast of harmonies, Adelaide Birkett's delicate
complexion, fair flaxen braids and light-blue eyes; it burnt like
flame in Leam's dark hair, and made her large transcendent eyes glow
as if with fire; while the little one looked like a rose, the white
and crimson petals of which enclosed a laughing golden-headed fairy.
It was admirable all through, and did credit to the generalizing
powers of the Hill, which had thus contrived to harmonize the three
stages of womanhood and to offend none. Even Frank's fastidious taste
was satisfied. So was Mrs. Frank's, who knew how things ought to be
done. And as she was the rather elderly if very wealthy daughter of a
baronet, who considered that she had married decidedly beneath herself
in taking Frank Harrowby, the untitled young barrister not even yet in
silk, she had come down to the Hill prepared to criticise sharply;
so that her approbation carried weight and ensured a large amount
of satisfaction. Edgar, however, who was not so fastidious as his
brother, thought the whole thing a failure and that no one looked even
tolerable.
As he had his duty to do by his sister, being the father who gave her
away, he was fully occupied; but his eyes wandered more than once to
the younger two of the bridesmaids proper--those two irreconcilables
joined for the first time in a show of sisterhood and likeness--and
whom he examined and compared as so often before, with the same
inability to decide which.
He paid little or no attention to either. He might have been a
gray-headed old sage for the marvelous reticence of his demeanor,
devoting himself to his duties and the dowagers with a persistency
of good-breeding, to say the least of it, admirable. At the
breakfast-table he was naturally separated from both these fair
disturbers of his lordly peace, Leam having been told off to Alick,
and Adelaide handed over to Frank's fraternal care, with Mrs. Frank,
who claimed more than a fee-simple in her husband, watching them
jealously and interrupting them often.
That wind which never blows so ill that it brings no good to any one
had brought joy to Alick in this apportionment of partners, if the
sadness of boredom to poor Leam. The natural excitement of a wedding,
which stirs the coldest, had touched even the chastened pulses of the
pale, gaunt curate, and he caught himself more than once wondering if
he could ever win the young queen of his boyish fancy to return
the deep love of his manhood--love which was so true, so strong, so
illimitable, it seemed as if it must by the very nature of things
compel its answer.
That answer was evidently not in the course of preparation to-day, for
Leam had never been more laconic or more candidly disdainful than she
was now; and what sweetness the pomegranate flower might hold in its
heart was certainly not shaken abroad on the surrounding world.
She answered when she was spoken to, because even Leam felt the
constraining influences of society, but her eyes, like her manner,
said plainly enough, "You tire me: you are stupid."
Not that either her eyes or her manner repelled her uncomfortable
adorer. Alick was used to her disdain, and even liked it as her way,
as he would have liked anything else that had been her way. He was
content to be her footstool if it was her pleasure to put her foot
on him, and he would have knotted any thong of any lash that she had
chosen to use. Whatever gave her pleasure rejoiced him, and he had no
desire for himself that might be against her wishes. Nevertheless,
he yearned at times, when self would dominate obedience, that those
wishes of hers should coincide with his desires, and that before the
end came he might win her to return his love.
But what can be hoped from a girl, not a coquette, who is besieged
on the one side by an awkward and ungainly admirer, when directly
opposite to her is the handsome hero for whose love her secret heart,
unknown to herself, is crying, and who has withdrawn himself for
the time from smiles and benevolence? Leam somehow felt as if every
compliment paid to her by Alick was an offence to Edgar; and she
repelled him, blushing, writhing, uncomfortable, but adoring, with
a coldness that nothing could warm, a stony immobility that nothing
could soften, because it was the coldness of fidelity and the
immobility of love.
Edgar saw it all. It put him somewhat in better humor with himself,
but made him indignant with the Reverend Alexander, as he generally
called Alick when he spoke of him wishing to suggest disrespect. He
held him as a poacher beating up his preserves; and the gentlemen
of England have scant mercy for poachers, conscious or unconscious.
Meanwhile, nothing could be more delightfully smooth and successful
than the whole thing was on the outside. The women looked nice, the
men were gallant, the mature but comely bride was so happy that
she seemed to radiate happiness on all around her, and the elderly
bridegroom was marvelously vitalized for a man whose heart was broken,
and only at the best riveted. Edgar performed his duties, as has been
said, with heroic constancy; Mrs. Harrowby did not weep nor bemoan
herself as a victim because one of her daughters had at last left the
maternal wing for a penthouse of her own; Adelaide talked to Frank
with graceful discretion, mindful of his owner watching her property
jealously from the other side of the way; Leam was--Leam in her more
reserved mood if Alick was too manifestly adoring; and the families
admitted acted like a well-trained chorus, and carried on the main
thread to lower levels without a break. So time and events went
on till the moment came for that fearful infliction--the
wedding-breakfast toast prefaced by the wedding-breakfast speech.
This naturally fell to the lot of Mr. Birkett to propose and deliver,
and after a concerted signaling with Edgar he rose to his feet and
began his oration. He proposed "the health of the fair bride and her
gallant groom," both of whom, after the manner of such speeches, he
credited with all the virtues under heaven, and of whom each was the
sole proper complement of the other to be found within the four seas.
He was so far generous in that he did not allude to that fascinating
second whom Mr. Dundas had taken to his bosom nearly five years ago
now, and whose tragical death had cut him to the heart almost as much
as it had wounded Sebastian. At one time natural masculine malice had
made him compose a stinging little allusion that should carry poison,
as some flowers do, sheathed and sugared; but the gentleman's better
taste prevailed, and for Josephine's sake he brushed away the gloomy
shadow of the grave which he had thrown for his own satisfaction over
the orange-blossoms. He rose to the joyous height of the occasion, and
his speech was a splendid success and gave satisfaction to every one
alike. But what he did say was, that he supposed the master of the
Hill would soon be following the example of his brother-in-law, and
cause the place to be glad in the presence of a young Mrs. Harrowby,
who would do well if she had half the virtues of the lady who had so
long held the place of mistress there. And when he said this he looked
at Edgar with a paternal kind of roguishness that really sat very well
on his handsome old face, and that every one took to mean Adelaide.
Edgar laughed and showed his square white teeth while the rector
spoke, blushing like a girl, but in all save that strange, unusual
flush he bore himself as if it was a good joke of Mr. Birkett's own
imagining, and one with which he had personally nothing to do. More
than one pair of eyes watched to see if he would look at Adelaide as
the thong for the rector's buckle; and Adelaide watched on her own
account to see if he would look at Leam or at her. But Edgar kept his
eyes discreetly guided, and no one caught a wandering glance anywhere:
he merely laughed and put it by as a good joke, looking as if he had
devoted himself to celibacy for life, and that the Hill would never
receive another mistress than the one whom it had now.
"I wonder if the rector means Miss Birkett?" blundered Alick as his
commentary in a low voice to Leam.
Leam turned pale: then with an effort she answered coldly, "Why wonder
at what you cannot know? It is foolish."
And Alick was comforted, because if she had rebuked she had at the
least spoken to him.
The breakfast soon after this came to an end, and in due time the
guests were all assembled in the drawing-room, waiting for the
departure of the newly-married pair. Here Edgar might have made
some amends to the two bridesmaids whom he had neglected with such
impartiality of coldness, such an equal division of doubt, but he did
not. He still avoided both as if each had offended him, and made them
feel that he was displeased and had intentionally overlooked them.
Each girl bore his neglect in a manner characteristic of herself.
Adelaide showed nothing, unless indeed it was that her voice was
smoother and her speech sharper than usual, while her smiles were
more frequent if less real. But then it was heroic in her to speak
and smile at all when she was verily in torture. Nothing short of
the worship due to the great god Society could have made her control
herself so admirably; but Adelaide was a faithful worshiper of the
divine life of conventionality, and she had her reward. Leam showed
nothing, at least nothing directly overt. Perhaps her demeanor
was stiller, her laconism curter, her distaste to uninteresting
companionship and current small-talk more profound, than usual; but
no one seemed to see the deeper tinge of her ordinary color, and she
passed muster, for her creditably. In her heart she thought it all
weariness of the flesh and spirit alike, and wished that people would
marry without a wedding if they must marry at all.
She had not the slightest idea why she felt so miserable when every
one else was so full of the silliest laughter. It never occurred to
her that it was because Edgar had not spoken to her; but once she
confessed to herself that she wished she was away out of all this,
riding through the green lanes, with Major Harrowby riding fast to
join her. Even if her chestnut should prance and dance and make her
feel uncomfortable about the pommel and the reins, it would be better
than this. A heavy meal of meat and wine, and that horrible cake in
the middle of the day, were stupid, thought ascetic Leam. She had
never felt anything so dreary before. How glad she would be when her
father and Josephine went away, and she might go back to Ford House
and be alone! As for the evening, she did not know that she would show
herself then at all. There was to be a ball, and though it would be
pleasant to dance, she felt so dull and wretched now she half thought
she would send an excuse. But perhaps Major Harrowby would be more at
liberty in the evening than he was now, and would find it possible to
dance with her, at least once. He danced so well! Indeed, he was the
only partner whom she cared to have, and she hoped therefore that he
would dance with her if she came.
And thinking this, she resolved in her own mind that she would
come, and unconsciously raised her eyes to Edgar with a look of such
intensity, and as it seemed to him such reproach, that it startled him
as much as if she had called him by his name and asked him sadly, Why?