Tuesday, August 2. We leave Heidelberg with regret. At the railway
station occurred our first loss of baggage. As W. was making change in
the baggage room, he missed the basket containing our books and
sundries. Unfortunately the particular word for _basket_ had just
then stepped out. "_Wo ist mein--pannier?_" exclaimed he, giving
them the French synonyme. They shook their heads. "_Wo ist
mein--basket?_" he cried, giving them English; they shook their
heads still harder. "_Wo ist mein-- --_" "Whew--w!" shrieked
the steam whistle; "Ding a-ling-ling!" went the bell, and, leaving his
question unfinished, W. ran for the cars.
In our car was an elderly couple, speaking French. The man was
evidently a quiet sort of fellow, who, by long Caudling, had
subdued--whole volcanos into dumbness within him. Little did he think
what eruption fate was preparing. II. sat opposite _his hat_,
which he had placed on the empty seat. There was a tower, or
something, coming; H. rose, turned round, and innocently took a seat
on his chapeau. Such a voice as came out of that meekness personified!
In the twinkling of an eye--for there is a peculiar sensation which a
person experiences in sitting upon, or rather into a hat; ages are
condensed into moments, and between the first yielding of the brittle
top and the final crush and jam, as between the top of a steeple and
the bottom, there is room for a life's reflection to flash through the
mind--in the twinkling of an eye H. agonizingly felt that she was
sitting on a hat, that the hat was being jammed, that it was getting
flat and flatter every second, that the meek man was howling in
French; and she was just thinking of her husband and children when she
started to her feet, and the nightmare was over. The meek man, having
howled out his French sentence, sat aghast, stroking his poor hat,
while his wife opposite was in convulsions, and we all agog. The
gentleman then asked H. if she proposed sitting where she was, saying,
very significantly, "If you do, I'll put my hat there;" suiting the
action to the word. We did not recover from this all the way to
Frankfort.
Arrived at Frankfort we drove to the Hotel de Russie. Then, after
visiting all the lions of the place, we rode to see Dannecker's
Ariadne. It is a beautiful female riding on a panther or a tiger. The
light is let in through a rosy curtain, and the flush as of life falls
upon the beautiful form. Two thoughts occurred to me; why, when we
gaze upon this form so perfect, so entirely revealed, does it not
excite any of those emotions, either of shame or of desire, which the
living reality would excite? And again; why does not the immediate
contact of feminine helplessness with the most awful brute ferocity
excite that horror which the sight of the same in real life must
awaken? Why, but because we behold under a spell in the transfigured
world of art where passion ceases, and bestial instincts are felt to
be bowed to the law of mind, and of ideal truth.