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PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 OF 
 
 FOKEIGN TRAVEL. 
 
 BY 
 
 EM'LY^ 
 
 y 
 
 "A man may see how this world goes, with no eyes. 
 
 Look with thine'earsf'VKiG>y^''-'/r>\\ 
 
 x>^ t^- T 0^N\ King Lear. 
 
 Xoy. 1880/^ 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 E. CLAXTO^ & COMPAJSTY, 
 
 No. 930 Market Street. 
 1881. 
 
■,9^'J^ 
 V 
 
 THB UBRART 
 I or CONGRESS 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 
 
 ANNIE S. WOLF, 
 
 in tlie office of the Librarian of Congress. 
 
 COLLINS, PRINTER. 
 
IF IT CONTAIN 
 
 A WORTHY SENTIMENT, 
 
 AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT, AN HONORABLE AMBITION, 
 
 IT IS NOT DUE TO VANITY BORN OF FLATTERY, 
 
 BUT TO YOU, 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 WHOSE PEERLESS NATURE AND ANGEL VIRTUES 
 
 ARE MY SWEETEST MEMORIES ; 
 
 AND I TRUST, IN THOSE DARK DAYS WHICH, 
 
 AS THEY COME TO ALL LIVES, MUST COME TO MINE ALSO, 
 
 MY LOVE OP BOOKS AND DEVOTION TO MY PEN MAY PROVE 
 
 MY SOLACE AND MY STRENGTH. 
 
" I am in this eartlil7 world; where, to do harm, 
 Is often laudable : to do good, sometimes 
 Accounted dangerous folly." 
 
 Shakespere. 
 
PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 OF 
 
 FOREIGN TRAVEL. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 "Adieu, adieu ! my native shore 
 Fades o'er the waters blue ; 
 The night-winds sigh, tlie breakers roar, 
 
 And shrieks the wild seamew. 
 Yon Sun that sets upon the sea 
 
 We follow in his flight ; 
 Farewell awhile to him and thee, 
 My native Land — Good night!" 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Liverpool, February, 1878. 
 
 I ANTEDATE my first page at Liverpool, England, on 
 board the steamship ''City of Richmond," which I am offi- 
 cially assured will arrive in the Mersey Saturday evening; 
 and I sit in my cabin wondering how I shall feel when I 
 arrive in a foreign land^ and whether the journal I design 
 keeping during my stay abroad will ever be finished, and 
 if so whether it will prove pleasant reading to my friends 
 at home. For many days I have been confined to my room, 
 submitting martyrlike and resignedly to the tortures im- 
 posed on me by my turbulent enemy, "Old Nep." For 
 many nights I liave lain in my berth (which, by the way, 
 was not the most luxurious couch that ever female's tender 
 limbs rested upon), listening to the incessant heart-throbs 
 of this marvellous iron horse, trampling down the mighty 
 waves, and carrying me many thousand leagues from my 
 country and my home. As I contemplate new ambitions, 
 fresh scenes, and curious studies, the countless possible 
 calamities by which I am surrounded are forgotten. The 
 seagulls that have been tracking the course of the vessel 
 
 9 
 
14 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 since noon, resembling giant snowflakes drifted by the 
 Tvind, seem to have folded their beautiful wings in rest, 
 while the gentle waves rock them to sleep on the bosom of 
 the blue sea. These birds live from the offal of the ship, 
 but never come aboard, as the}^ are affected by sea-sickness 
 the same as human beings. 
 
 "We have had an unusually calm voyage," so my good 
 friend the stewardess saj's; the only reply I have to make 
 is, "that the sleeplessness of these 'calm' waters has 
 created in me sensations of a most unpleasant, not to say, 
 hypochondriacal character." 
 
 In these leaves I shall endeavor to avoid the safe and 
 easy habit of borrowing ideas from the guide-books, or the 
 equally seductive thievery of reflecting the impressions of 
 former travellers. I have often thought what delightful 
 sketches could have been written by those who crossed from 
 New York or Philadelphia to Liverpool in the first ocean 
 ^steamers. They got the cream of novelty, and their readers 
 were almost as much gratified as themselves; but now that 
 '*' nearly every one goes to Europe, and that many know far 
 more of other countries than of their own, and that it is the 
 fashion to say you have been "abroad," a review of rambles 
 in foreign climes must be something more than a mere copy 
 of what has been written a thousand times. Any one, 
 however, who is blessed with the usual fort^'-eight ounces 
 of that material instrument of thought, impulse, or percep- 
 tion, that reigns supreme in man, and who uses his eyes 
 and ears, can find plenty of texts to elaborate wheresoever 
 he may journey. The old, old world is forever new to such 
 minds, every fresh face is a fresh theme, and nothing is so 
 sure to quicken thought as the habits of another people. 
 These will be the books that I shall attempt to study dur- 
 ing my absence, and if I can succeed in interesting my 
 friends beyond the vast sea ever so little, my labors will be 
 the labors doubly of love and duty. 
 
 Nine days isolated from the great world ! Nine days 
 afloat upon the beautiful but treacherous sea 1 Nine days 
 of oblivion 1 
 
 ^ 'l^ 5j» JjC 3JC 
 
 No doubt Liverpool is a pleasant city in good weather, 
 but when we rode along its broad streets it was dismal and 
 wet to a degree; still, withal, it had a pious look, for it was 
 Sunday morning, and the people were on their way to 
 church. The two great lions in front of St. George's Hall, 
 and the equestrian statue of Queen Victoria, with Prince 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 15 
 
 Albert on the opposite pediment, told rae I was in England, 
 and the impression was confirmed as we entered the gloomy 
 corridor of the London and Northwestern Hotel. Every- 
 thing was rich, dark, and heavy. The coffee-room was 
 cheerless like the rest; the elaborate decorations, the silent 
 servants, the dignified lady clerk in the office, who was at 
 once bookkeeper and manager, the massive stairway, were 
 all so many natural introductions to a country that I had 
 expected to find more remarkable for strengtii and money 
 than for grace and beauty. The bad tea, the execrable 
 coffee, hard bread, cold toast, and immense muttonchop, 
 minus savor, which constituted our breakfast, were tlie ini- 
 tials to a long series of the same monotonous fare. 
 
 The almost constant absence of the sun has a depressing 
 effect. The atmosphere is not keen and cold as in America, 
 but dark and penetrating, and the universal use of bitumin- 
 ous coal gives rather a Pittsburg taste and smell to the air. 
 
 There is no Adams Express nor Western Union Transfer 
 Company in England, so we hailed a "four-wheeler" to con-' 
 vey us, in the inside, and our "traps" on the outside, to the 
 hotel. I marvel some enterprising Yankee does not come 
 here and establish one of the baggage transfer companies 
 for which our country is renowned. He would have no 
 competitors to struggle against. Now, here is an oppor- 
 tunity for one of our young men; will he take the advice 
 of a woman? 
 
 The "hansom" is an unpretentious "one-hoss sha}''," re- 
 sembling somewhat our light buggy-wagons. It has only 
 two seats, doors that close over the occupants, and it is 
 also provided with a glass window that may be lowered 
 over the face in inclement weather. The driver is perched 
 high in a little box at the back, and the reins pass ovei" the 
 top of the carriage. I wonder if this curious equipage is 
 an improvement on, or whether it is fashioned after the 
 same model of the first public carriage that the inhabitants 
 of Liverpool had the privilege of hiring of Mr. James 
 Dimoke, in the middle of the eighteenth century. In those 
 days Miss Clayton was the happy possessor of the only 
 private turnout in this city, so on the occasion of a grand 
 part}', ball, or opera, when Miss Clayton was using her 
 
 own brougham, and Mrs. ' had hired the only one at the 
 
 extensive livery stables of James Dimoke, the other ladies 
 of Liverpool were conveyed in sedan chairs. 
 
 I was surprised to find so few ladies on the street. The 
 women were almost without exception slattern and care- 
 
16 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 less, and I should have left with a wrong opinion had I 
 not had an opportiinit}' to be present at the recej^ion of 
 the chief raagistrate of Liverpool, Mr. Forwood, at the 
 ''City Hall."' Assisted by his accomplished wife, the 
 event attracted all the better classes, including the nobility 
 of the neighborhood. What must be the wealth of a coun- 
 try when the mayor of one of its cities entertains and is 
 honored like a monarch ? The City Hall was the first 
 English public building I had seen, and the saloons where 
 the Lord Mayor of this commercial town, with a popula- 
 tion of 500,6^6, received his guests, were infinitely superior 
 to the chambers in the White House, at Washington, as 
 superior, indeed, as the home of a parvenu cotton-spinner 
 is to an old feudal castle. 
 
 Mr. Forwood is a tall, elegant man, about thirty-six, 
 evidently the junior of his wife by a couple of years, who 
 is the veritable type of an English woman, — a ponderous 
 figure clad in the very softest and heaviest of Bonnet silks. 
 Her reception toilet of pale sage was bordered with knife- 
 plaiting and 7'usses, richly draped with the same material, 
 and myrtle-green velvet bands embroidered with cut crys- 
 tals of emerald, ruby, and topaz, formed the garniture. 
 The costume was completed by an exquisite bonnet of tlie 
 same shades. Mrs. Forwood is a comely but not hand- 
 some woman. She was exceedingly cordial in lier manner 
 of greeting an American, and the pleasant words she spoke 
 of my country (for she has visited the United States), 
 thrilled me with kindly emotions for my English cousins, 
 and greatl}^ tempered the odium with which I had always 
 regarded the nation that had held, and hoped to retain us 
 their vassals. 
 
 Was it not in this nation, and from this very port of 
 Liverpool, that that most infamous and inhuman source of 
 emolument, the African slave trade was opened ? As early 
 as 1766 Liverpool had already gained an unenviable no- 
 toriety in this despicable traffic — the purchase and sale of 
 human beings — the liberation of whom cost us years of 
 bloodshed, death, and desolation, in the succeeding cen- 
 tury. In a bill of lading, dated shortly after we had 
 crossed the meridian of the last century, for slaves shipped 
 to Georgia, then a portion of South Carolina, I see that 
 these poor creatures were branded with particular marks, 
 by red-hot irons, the same process used on cattle, and with 
 equal indifference. And in the year 1806-1807, when this 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. It 
 
 odious trade was abolished, 185 African slave ships sailed 
 from Liverpool carrying 49,213 slaves. 
 
 The docks are unsurpassed by any in the world ; these 
 masterful constructions stretch along the Mersey for five 
 miles on the Liverpool side, and two miles on the Birken- 
 head side, covering with dry-docks two hundred acres, 
 together with nineteen miles of quays. 
 
 An attempt at forming something like a dock in the old 
 Pool was made in 1561, as a shelter for ships in bad wea- 
 ther, by defending the entrance with massive stone piers ; 
 and for a century this harbor was sufficient for the limited 
 commerce of the period. The development of traffic 
 caused the necessity of a regular dock, and in 1*709 an act 
 was passed making the first dock at Liverpool for the se- 
 curity of all ships trading to and from this port ; it was 
 called the Custom House Dock. These were the early 
 foundations of the existing enormous system. The pres- 
 ent business wealth and importance of Liverpool is chiefly 
 owing to its magnificent docks, which are among the great- 
 est works of modern times, considering the obstacles sur- 
 mounted; unlike most docks they are built in the river 
 itself by inclosing within a sea-wall, five miles in extent, a 
 portion of the beach of the Mersey, and afterward excava- 
 ting the part thus reclaimed to a proper depth. Most of 
 these docks communicate with each other, and have sep- 
 arate entrances, so the ships may pass from one to the 
 other, without being locked out in the river, and back in 
 the dock again. 
 
 The sugar refineries and soap factories are very exten- 
 sive. What with tlie murky atmosphere, and what with 
 the soot arising from the soft coal, I doubt not but the de- 
 mand for the latter product exceeds the supply. 
 
 It was cold and inhospitable when we rode through Sef- 
 ton Park, but the hedges surrounding the homes of the 
 aristocracy within their limits were green, luxuriant, and 
 well-combed, and the silver plates, or the letters carved on 
 the massive stone portals, told not the names of the owners 
 of these mansions, but the name of each estate itself, such 
 as ''Maple Grove," "Oak Lodge," "Stanley Park," and 
 " Worcester Place." 
 
 2* 
 
18 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 "Thus, 
 Thus upon London do I lay my sword." 
 
 Jack Cade. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 
 London! Great London!! But no. Of that hereafter. 
 Eager as I am, dear, silent little friend, 3^011 who never in- 
 terrupt nor contradict me, to tell you of this bewildering 
 world of a city, 1 must relate to-night only how I came into 
 it. Were I to follow my impulses, and pour into you all 
 my first impressions, those who ma}^ peruse my pages later 
 on would exclaim : "But how was the great capital reached ? 
 Em'ly says not a word of her manner of transit from the 
 most gigantic commercial port to the political, moral, in- 
 tellectual, literar3^, artistic, and social centre of the world. 
 Did she ride, walk, fly, or make the passage in a balloon?" 
 
 I came on the "metals," to use the English word for 
 rails. We were registered for London this morning at the 
 booking-office of the London and Northwestern Station, in 
 Lime Street, Liverpool. Of course I felt a woman's curi- 
 osity about an English railway station, which I think I 
 can attribute to the effect upon my mind of Frith 's great 
 picture that hung in the British Art Section at our Centen- 
 nial Exhibition. It was admirably descriptive of the 
 scene that greeted me this morning. What a motley 
 throng! What a torrent of travel! The bright, ruddy- 
 faced schoolboy on his way to Rugby, the burly manufac- 
 turer returning to his mills in Manchester, the detective 
 and the pickpocket, tlie gambler and the priest, tlie lord 
 and the farmer, the lady and the maid, the stately dowager 
 and the hoydenisli English miss, ungainly and inelegant in 
 the extreme, with none of the grace and chic of the fair 
 American and brilliant French girl, who followed, all ming- 
 ling in the melee. How different from our depots at home! 
 Yet with all how precise and orderly ! Already I have 
 learned that I must not use the word depot. John Bull 
 does not comprehend its significance; with him it is inva- 
 riably "station." I was struck by the enormous sale of 
 papers, and the vast book-stalls; and gazed at the crowds 
 clustered around them, and then at the character of the 
 literature, and was delighted to notice that a large number 
 of American works were offered to customers. Over the 
 
or FOREiaN TRAVEL. 19 
 
 door of the first-class waiting-room I read in large letters: 
 *' For ladies only." Tliis command excludes a husband, 
 for under no circumstances whatever is a gentleman per- 
 mitted to enter the hallowed precincts. He is obliged to 
 tarry elsewhere, and join his wife, or his sister, or his 
 sweetheart on the platform. 
 
 Every station is provided with a restaurant and bar, for 
 the English are a nation of eaters and drinkers, and these 
 dining-rooms are always filled to repletion on the arrival 
 and departure of the trains; furthermore they are always 
 attended by young women. Not the imaginary pretty 
 barmaid, but pert, flashy, loudly dressed creatures. The 
 great hotel and saloon system, managed by the partnership 
 of Spiers & Pond, who are coining fabulous sums by their 
 franchises, is said to employ over five hundred girls as bar- 
 tenders. When I expressed my horror at this method, an 
 English lady told me that the most popular man in Liver- 
 pool, Mr. Samuelson, who had held the post of mayor, pre- 
 vious to Mr. Forwood, owned several hundred beer shops, 
 and had secured his election by the money and patronage 
 thus collected and organized. 
 
 When the herald for departure sounded, there was no 
 hurrying nor rush for seats, but the passengers were shown 
 to the carriages according to the class indicated on their 
 ticket. Before entering, I paused to look at this novel, at 
 least to me, conveyance, with a door on either side of each 
 compartment. Very pleasing and luxurious indeed was 
 the interior, as much so as our American drawing-room 
 cars. The upholstering was navy blue cloth, finished with 
 silk cords and button (you see, woman-like, 1 jot down the 
 details), an ominous color, and I marvelled if this hue was 
 to pervade my entire tour. As I sank into mj^ place I ob- 
 served that our carriage contained six passengers, three 
 on each sofa, face to lace. This was the extent of its 
 seating capacity, as the sofas are divided into three sec- 
 tions by projecting arms. The places thus formed are 
 spacious for one, and much space is squandered; but I 
 presume that this precaution has been adopted by the cir- 
 cumspect English, as a means of preventing the accidental 
 occurrence of travellers becoming too closely allied while 
 confined in these flying prisons. T4iere lingers in my mind 
 , recollections of a catastrophe that transpired in one of 
 these carriages, despite this preservative, which created a 
 vivacious gossip on both sides the Atlantic. 
 
 Another delectable custom of foreign travel is being 
 
20 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 locked in the carriage by the guard, and left. In such a 
 case one's sensations are far more apprehensive when left 
 in company than when left alone. Had I been a young 
 lady, I should have been agitated and ill-at-ease, but as the 
 fact stands, a married one, with Mr. " Em'ly" at my side, 
 I settled myself to scan my companions — two Americans 
 and two English. There was no shrill whistling, nor 
 blowing, nor shrieking, nor shifting trains ; no pushing 
 cars back and forth, no clanging of chains, no unexpected 
 collisions of carriages in the effort to get off — such delights 
 we have all enjoyed at home — but we moved as smoothly- 
 as if the metals had been oiled, and away we flew to 
 London, six hours distant. 
 
 For many years there was great inconvenience to travel- 
 lers, in consequence of the circuitous route they hgid to 
 make by existing lines, and from the extreme points at 
 which their city termini were situated. The companies that 
 occupy the north, northeast, and midland districts of Liv- 
 erpool, were obliged to convey all their passengers in an 
 omnibus from a station near the Brunswick Dock to the 
 southern end of the town, entailing an expensive and vexa- 
 tious transfer of baggage. Now all the annoyance of this 
 wasteful system is obviated by the construction of a station 
 in the centre of Liverpool, adjoining the Adelphi Hotel, 
 which branches from the existing line contiguous to the 
 Brunswick Dock, and is used in common by these compa- 
 nies for passengers and general traffic. 
 
 As I was fresh to the sight and to all my surroundings, 
 I began to study and compare. The morning was cold, 
 the atmosphere gloomy and dank, and I was chilly, with- 
 out the accustomed luxuries of American travel. Long 
 copper canisters, filled with hot water and placed under 
 the feet, were intended to supply the absence of fire. With 
 this accessory, one might have been comfortable enough, 
 had not the English perseveringly kept the windows low- 
 ered. Result: an ugly cold and an ill temper. There was 
 no conversation save amongst the Americans; of course 
 we were full of the strange scenes and novel situations, 
 but I could see that if John Bull did not talk he was an 
 eager and hungrj^ listener. At length silence reigned, and 
 I looked out upon the country side, by which we were fly- 
 ing at the rate of forty miles an hour. A dense veil of 
 mist hung upon the landscape. How earnestly I desired 
 the appearance of the sun to dispel all this melanchol}^ fog, 
 and by his influence glorify and irradiate the picture, for I 
 
or FOREIGN TRAVEL. 21 
 
 could discern the beauty of the section through which we 
 were passing. 
 
 It is winter, yet the grass is green, the trees are in full leaf, 
 and the hedges strong, dark, and glossy. The little brown 
 cottages are neat, prim, and cosey; very few exist out of 
 the large towns, and those we noticed on the roadside were 
 in clusters. 
 
 Without exception, the stations were quiet and deserted. 
 At Crewe the doors were unlocked, and a fresh re-enforce- 
 ment of foot-warmers supplied. This act I hailed with 
 grateful emotions. It is a town of almost entirely modern 
 growth, and the home of numbers of the railway officials 
 of the London and Northwestern Road, who have here a 
 vast establishment for the manufacture of everything essen- 
 tial to railways. 
 
 When we reached Rugby, and I saw the train depositing 
 its burden of grammar school boys, I longed to follow, not 
 to school, but to Bilton Hall, formerly the home of the 
 celebrated English essayist, Addison. Dr. Johnson says: 
 ''Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but 
 not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his 
 days and nights to the volumes of Addison." Remember- 
 ing this, I was eager to saunter in his footprints through 
 ''Addison's Walk," a long avenue or favorite promenade 
 in his garden, hoping that I might be imbued by some en- 
 during essence of the poet's literary merits and grace. 
 
 The more frequent clusters of habitations, the faint and 
 flickering lights in the distance, that were growing clearer 
 and more definite every moment, the towering spires, the 
 volumes of smoke issuing from the numberless chimneys, 
 were all evidences of our approach to a great city. Fifteen 
 minutes more and we were in Euston Square Station, 
 London, surrounded by at least a hundred porters and 
 hackmen, all clamoring for patronage, and each one ad- 
 hering to us with as much persistency as if they expected 
 we could engage them all. I endeavored to describe the 
 depot at Liverpool. This one in London exceeds my 
 power. It is confusion worse confounded. 
 
22 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 " What, then, is to insure the pile which now towers above me 
 from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums ? The time must 
 come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so softly, shall lie 
 in rubbish beneath the feet ; when, instead of the sound of melody 
 and praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken arches, and 
 the owl hoot from the shattered tower ; when the garish sunbeam 
 shall break into these gloomy mansions of death ; and the ivy 
 twine around the fallen column ; and the foxglove hang its blos- 
 soms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus 
 man passes away ; his name perishes from record and recollection ; 
 his history is as a tale that is told, and his monument becomes a 
 ruin." — Washington Irving's Westminster Abbey. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 
 When I entered the atrium of the Westminster Palace 
 Hotel, several evenings ago, I was awed by the grandeur 
 of its architecture and appointments. The flood of light 
 from the chandeliers, and the blazing fire in the glowing 
 grates, on either side of the hall, were cheerinf^ signs of 
 comfort and luxury. But the ample stone stairway and 
 silent corridors, the floors of marble and vaulted ceilings, 
 gave to it a monastic air. I was conducted to my apart- 
 ments by a natty little English maid in a pale pink cotton 
 gown, carrying a candle that shed a ghostly glimmer.^ 
 Throwing open the door of a room that was dark and damp, 
 she bade me enter. Depositing the tallow, she was about 
 to make her exit, when I requested her to ""light the gas." 
 Gazing at me in amazement, she informed me that there 
 was no gas in the chambers. In one corner I saw a grate 
 of rather limited compass, and inquired if she could light 
 the fire? Replying in the affirmative, the young woman 
 in the pink cotton gown, in midwinter, vanished. 
 
 Left alone, I dwelt upon the stone floor, cheerless fire- 
 place, absence of gas, and tiie old-fashioned bureau, sur- 
 mounted b}'' a little toilet mirror — a counterpart of one I 
 remember in my grandmother's attic, when a child, still 
 retained by the family as a genealogical relic — and then, 
 like a meteor, it flashed upon me that I was not in America, 
 at the Continental, Piiiladelphia, or the Fifth Avenue, New 
 York, but in London. The London, that is so old, that 
 nothing certain is known of its origin ; the London that 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, who flourished in the reign of 
 Julian the Apostate, termed an ancient place, called Lon- 
 dinium; that appears as a Roman station during the sov- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 23 
 
 ereignty of Claudius; that was first fortified by Constan- 
 tine the Great, and one of the theatres where some of the 
 world's grandest scenes have been acted. Could I expect 
 modern comforts in a cit3^ that had existed previous to the 
 Christian era? I had said adieu to the Progressive Youth 
 one bright day, almost three weeks ago, and was now liv- 
 ing amidst the memories and habits of the centuries. I 
 was buried in these reflections when my attendant in the 
 summer toilet reappeared, with requisites for the fire, and 
 a copper ewer of " 'ot water," which I sadly needed, after 
 my long ride. Yery soon the flames were leaping and 
 dancing in the chimney, and a hospitable glow pervaded 
 the chamber. The one virtue of English bituminous coal is 
 the readiness with which it ignites. 
 
 It was about seven o'clock when we left the hotel, and 
 passed on our way to find our first dinner in this world and 
 wilderness of brick and mortar. Eager to see the mighty 
 hive, we directed our footsteps to the Cafe Royal, the 
 famous French restaurant, in Regent Crescent. The din 
 of the populace was like the roar of Niagara, and the whole 
 picture was a mixture of lights struggling through a humid, 
 liazy atmosphere, a vast crowd in streets slimy with mud, 
 crashing vehicles, over-dressed women, and foreign-looking 
 men. It was neither Broadway nor Broad Street. I was 
 like one of many gazing into a mighty arena where some 
 wild carnival was en force — a theatre with a background 
 of fire, and laughter, and clamorous music. But I was 
 hungry, and hurried onward to the "Cafe Royal." There 
 was magic in the words ; they breathed of Tortue Claire^ 
 Soles au vin blanc, Tete de Veau^ Vol-au- Verity and Filet de 
 hceuf au champignons. I had alread^^ tested English cook- 
 ing ad nauseam. The Cafe was filled to overflowing, and 
 for some moments we despaired of seats, till a young gen- 
 tleman, with a swallow-tail coat, white cravat, and a marked 
 foreign accent, led us through seemingly endless apart- 
 ments, filled with people packed like sardines. But order 
 came out of the chaos ; and finally anchored, I began to 
 unravel the tangled skein. There were many French and 
 Americans, some Germans, and few English. The lady 
 bookkeeper, perched behind her high desk, gave her orders 
 to the army of waiters like a true commandant. But the 
 dinner — -delicate, dainty, and delicious 1 Shall I rehearse 
 all the fresh and savory tidbits of this meal? No! That 
 would be uncharitable! Eight o'clock, and with it cigars! 
 Smoking is in order at that hour — the habit of the Latin 
 
24 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 countries; so we fled out into the street, under the stars — 
 stars ! No, into the dense floating vapor, to inliale the fog. 
 Mingling in the mass of humanity, we wandered on to Pic- 
 cadilly. Before me rose a formidable pile, one illumination 
 from turret to foundation-stone. It was the Criterion, 
 a theatre and restaurant combined; dining-rooms on every 
 floor, kitchen in the fifth story, and the theatre three stories 
 under ground. It was too late to attend the play, but as 
 my English friend who accompanied us had determined that 
 we should see all that was possible this first night in Lon- 
 don, he proposed for us to look in at the great bar-room. 
 He swung open the door, and I, ardent for novelty, fol- 
 lowed. A pandemonium indeed ! I should have liked to 
 study this medley of men ; but before I had obtained a 
 first glimpse, we were waved back by the helmeted sentinel 
 who was on guard at the entrance, with the polite, but de- 
 cided remark: "No admittance for ladies at the bar after 
 nine o'clock." Thus was I greeted on my arrival in a 
 foreign land. My husband then informed the outlying 
 picket that I was not a " lady^^ who sought admittance to 
 the bar, but only an American woman who wished to look 
 in. Here, at least, the sterner sex had it all to themselves, 
 but not so in the surging myriads outside. Where were they 
 all going ? Ah, I fear me, they were all blent in one dread 
 course, down, down, to the dark shores of sin and misery, 
 and death ! 
 
 The first sight of a great city is YGvy like the first sight 
 of the ocean : it overwhelms you. There is so much of it 
 and so little of yourself, that j'ou feel like a feather tem- 
 pest tost, and a painful sensation of loneliness, or rather 
 nothingness, crept over me, as I walked back, past the 
 house where Charles I was executed, Westminster Abbey, 
 and the House of Parlianient, all seen through a cloud of 
 blue-gray mist. For over two thousand years this tide of 
 humanity, now quite four millions of souls, has been grow- 
 ing and going, increasing and unceasing, living and dying, 
 each life valuable to its possessor and valueless to its neigh- 
 bor. With these reflections I retired to — prayers. I rested 
 superbly, and when I wakened the next morning it was still 
 dark, but my monitor warned me of the hour of nine, so I 
 rose and dressed by candlelight, for the fog seemed to have 
 gathered more densely than ever. It was becoming mo- 
 notonous. 
 
 My first sensation on entering Westminster Abbey was 
 that of a cold, cavernous, grave-like chill. The twilight 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 25 
 
 glamour was very odd. The day was so dark, that even 
 the illuminated windows were vailed, but soon my eyes 
 became accustomed to the influence of the royal sanctuary. 
 What added to the religious emotions that thronged tlirough 
 my mind, was the dead silence of the immensity, only broken 
 by the occasional intoning of the vast organ, blended with 
 human voices, rehearsing a symphony for a coming service. 
 No loud talking; the uncovered gentlemen followed the 
 ladies through the long aisles, and studied the carved effi- 
 gies of the departed heroes and statesmen, kings, queens, 
 princes and poets, or deciphered the fading inscriptions on 
 the crumbling tombs. No one can be indifferent to the 
 atmosphere of Westminster Abbey. You almost come pre- 
 pared to yield to it; and you expect much and are not dis- 
 appointed. No traveller, old or young, leaves it without 
 increased reverence for the great Englishmen of the past, 
 or without gathering information, never to be forgotten. 
 When you recollect that this old abbe}^ is situated on a spot 
 originally surrounded by the waters of the Thames, and 
 that there is a record in the old chapter-house, showing 
 that the celeln-ated Domesday Book, compiled in the time 
 of William the Norman, was kept there, you have some 
 idea of the vast antiquity of this venerable pile. I could 
 have passed da3^s instead of hours within its precincts. 
 Old as it was, it was very fresh and new to me. The dead 
 were not dead, but so many living lessons. The red and 
 golden windows, the wainscoted choir, the mosaic pave- 
 ments, the altar-piece, the screens, each a precious memento 
 of the ages, recalled mj' youthful readings, and added to 
 the fascination of the majestic temple. In fancy the royal 
 ghosts rose from their marble beds and gave to every le- 
 gend a realistic glow. Henry III ; Edward I and Queen 
 Eleanor; Edward III and Queen Philippa; Richard II and 
 Queen Anne, and glorious Harry Y of Agincourt, Crecy 
 and Poitiers ; and I can well believe how the enthusiastic 
 poet thrills with the fire of his new awakening as for the 
 first time in his life he stands before the monuments and 
 memorials of Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Addi- 
 son, Garrick, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and their contempora- 
 ries. 
 
 I stood b3^thestone laid overthegraveofCharlesDickens, 
 and I recalled the delight I had extracted from Little NeAU 
 David Copper jield^ Nicholas Nickleby^ Christmas Carol, 
 and all the other lovely creations of his myriad mind. 
 But is there no memorial to Bvron ? " No ! we are too good 
 3 
 
26 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 for that," answered an English lady at my side. Yes, they 
 are too good for that, I mused ; they reserve their idolatry 
 for profligate kings like the second Charles, and for roues 
 like the ''■first gentleman of England," Beau Brummel's 
 friend, the dissolute Prince of Wales. 
 
 LETTER lY. 
 
 "Two scraps of foundation, some fragments of lace, 
 A shower of French rosebuds to drop over the face ; 
 Fine ribbons and feathers, with crape and illusion, 
 Then mix and derange them in graceful confusion. 
 Inveigle some fairy out roaming for pleasure, 
 And buy the slight favor of taking her measure ; 
 The length and the breadth of her dear little pate, 
 And hasten a miniature frame to create ; 
 Then pour as above the bright mixture upon it. 
 And lo ! you possess such a love of a bonnet." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 
 From the earliest ages France seems to have been the 
 originator and sovereign of costumes and customs. In 
 the year 55 B.C., when Julius Csesar invaded Britain, he 
 found the inhabitants of Kent the most enlightened, and 
 Tacitus says "they were near and like the Gauls," from 
 whom they had acquired the arts of dressing^ spinning, 
 d^-eing, and weaving wool. Somewhere I have read that 
 the early Britons lived continually in 2)uris naturalibiis^ 
 but Caesar himself corrects that vulgar error when he tells 
 us that even the least civilized were clad in skins, while 
 those in the southern districts, like the Gauls, were not 
 only completely, but splendidl}' attired. That they punc- 
 tured their bodies in numerous devices of animals, flowers, 
 and leaves, stained them blue with their favorite herb, glas 
 lya^ and flung off their garments when about to rush into 
 battle, we have ample authority. Even the famous tartan 
 plaids were first woven in France, for are they not to this 
 day called ''the garb of old Gaul"? 
 
 As I strolled along Regent Street, Oxford Street, Bond 
 Street, and the Strand, I saw that these people still as- 
 sume to follow the fashions set by their neighbors across 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 21 
 
 the Channel, for all the shops were made attractive by the 
 display of Paris bonnets, Paris costumes, Paris mantles, 
 and Paris shoes and stockings, and gloves. And as I 
 looked at these beautiful goods, and then at the myriads 
 of plain, cumbrous females passing by, I marvelled who 
 the purchasers and wearers of these dainty confections 
 could be. Certainly not these heavy, stolid women, who 
 filled the streets and added to the oppression of the atmos- 
 phere. It seemed to me that some Women's Rights or 
 Goody-Goody society had just adjourned, and these women 
 with the large feet, whose size was enhanced by rough 
 leather boots, cut low around the ankle, and the broad flat 
 heels, short black dresses, and heavy cloth coats, generally 
 a straw bonnet in February, and invariabl}'- an umbrella, 
 were returning from the seance. They all appeared to have 
 been blocked out after one model. Surely these Parisian 
 morsels should revolutionize the unbroken conformation 
 of these British Yenuses. No ! Unlike all other nations, 
 the Englishwoman is never Gallicized by a French toilet; 
 and the potency of the salient points of her form Angli- 
 cizes the most ravishing French tidbits. 
 
 In Regent Crescent I noticed the most exquisite gloves, 
 combinations of two delicate shades of kid — eau de nile 
 embroidered with myrtle, and myrtle cuffs ; del bleu and 
 flesh tint; ecru and brown; pink and fawn — and I longed 
 to possess these novelties, yet I never saw a pair worn by 
 any of the ladies at entertainments. The gentlemen I note 
 in my saunters are universally more careful in their attire 
 than their sisters, being at all times well shod and well 
 gloved. This seems to be a reminiscence of the ages, for 
 gloves were A^ery generally worn in the twelfth century, 
 and prior to that period the sleeves were made long enough 
 to draw over the hand, and thus stood in lieu of the later 
 perquisite. And I mourn, as a vision of Chestnut Street 
 floats before me, thronged by my countrymen on their way 
 to the office or counting-house in unblacked boots and un- 
 gloved hands, generally thrust deeply into the recesses of 
 their pockets. 
 
 There are innumerable coiffure establishments, with 
 showy window dressings, and again I ask, by whom are 
 they patronized ? For surely the prototype from which 
 Mrs. Bull and her heifers have copied, could not have been 
 conceived by any of these artists. The hair of the London 
 female without variation is parted in the centre and 
 drawn down very closely behind the ears to the nape of 
 
28 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the neck, where it is twisted into an exceedingly small coil, 
 about the size of an ordinary lemon. No crimps, no curls, 
 V no puffs, no braids ! This austere and rigid lieaddress has 
 I the stamp of age and durability, verily: it looks as if it 
 were coeval with the Saxons and Danes. It cannot merit 
 the displeasure of the clergy, and make an occasion for 
 tiiem to declaim from the pulpit against the fashionable 
 follies of the fair sex, which was a frequent event in the 
 fourteenth and fifteentli centuries, when the coiffure of the 
 ladies was compared to horned snails, to hearts, to uni- 
 corns, and even to a gibbet, for indeed, the reticulated 
 headdress, spreading out on each side, when covered with 
 a veil, might be fairly assimilated to the cross tree of those 
 days. Later on, Addison, in the Spectator^ likens the 
 steeple "headgear" to the commode oy tower. This gothic 
 building might have been carried much higher, had it not 
 been for the zeal and determination with which tlie famous 
 monk, Thomas Conecte, fought it down ; he travelled from 
 town to town to preach against the monstrous ornament. 
 By his eloquence he so warmed and animated the women 
 against this absurdity that they threw off the commodes in 
 the middle of his sermon and made a bonfire of them. 
 While the hoi}" man was in their midst this enormity van- 
 ished, but when he had departed, it reappeared, and as 
 Monsieur Paradin says, "the women that, like snails in a 
 fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out again as 
 soon as the danger was over." From the earliest dates we 
 see that the British frizzed and arranged their hair, after 
 the style of the French, in the most elaborate fashion ; the 
 problem is, why the ungraceful severity of the present 
 reigning mode? 
 
 1 have always regarded the English lady as rather a 
 moral than an artistic creation, — a production of sherry, 
 brown s'out, roast beef and leather. She is plain and un- 
 prepossessing. I have met English girls with a profusion 
 of exquisite golden hair, but they have none of the delicate 
 flesh-tints and classic contour that generall}' accompany 
 the same sunny shade of hair at home. I cannot rhapso- 
 dize over their soul thrilling eyes, nor sylph like forms! 
 The figure is firm and ample, and speaks loudly of a robust 
 ai)petite, healthy exercise, and no tight lacing. That this 
 nation of women did fall victims to this evil in the twelfth 
 century we are sure, and in the romance of the "Lay^ of 
 Syr Launfal," written about the year 1300, Lady Triamore 
 is described as — 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 29 
 
 " Clad in purple pall, 
 With geutyll body and middle small.'''' 
 
 In London, everything may be procured for money, ex- 
 cept taste; that is a commodity in which the bovine Johns 
 do no traffic. The Londoners, liowever much they may 
 deny it, fly over to Paris to buy modes for themselves, and 
 I can frankly sa}^, they derive no benefit from their visits. 
 A vast deal of pretension and little effect is eminently 
 characteristic of the English costume. And why is this? 
 when all that is rechef^che and effective, embraced in a 
 female outfit, is exhibited at the conspicuous bijouteries of 
 Peter Robinson and Marshall and Snellgrove, on Regent 
 and Oxford Streets ! 
 
 How odd it seems to me, to be compelled to remove my 
 bonnet, before I am permitted to occupy a first-class seat 
 at any of the theatres ! And how incongruous to see the 
 ladies at the circus in a plain cashmere dress, and their 
 hair liberally decorated with flowers. 
 
 Americans who come abroad and expect to purchase 
 goods for absolutely nothing are always disappointed. 
 There are shops in London where articles may be bought 
 at really very low figures. But, to become posted in these 
 establishments, one must live in a city for some time, or 
 possess a valuable acquaintance, who may render such a 
 service. Strangers must pay for their ignorance in what- 
 ever country they roam. 
 
 The great jewelry shops are very unlike ours. Instead 
 of adorning the windows with statuary and painting and 
 ceramics, as we do at home, they expose the greater por- 
 tion of their stock to the eye of the passer-by. And very 
 beautiful and ornate are their displays. Frequently I lin- 
 ger at the shop-windows in old Bond Street, and feast my 
 eyes upon the diamonds, pearls, and rubies, the pale-pink 
 coral, and the delicate blue turquoise, these, combined with 
 spark diamonds, enjoy a prominent position among the 
 costly ornaments of the present day. 
 
 3* 
 
30 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER y. 
 
 " No sun, no moon ! 
 
 No morn, no noon ! 
 No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day : 
 
 No sky, no earthly view ; 
 
 No distance looking blue ; 
 No road, no street, no t'other side the way. 
 No top to any steeple. 
 No recognition of familiar people ; 
 No travelling at all, no locomotion, 
 No inkling of the way, no motion ; 
 No go by land or ocean, 
 No trail, no post ; 
 No news from any foreign coast !" 
 
 Thomas Hood. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 
 The fog continues to envelop the great metropolis like 
 a pall. Dismal indeed is the aspect. It is a funeral dirge 
 in vapor; a dream of darkness; a vision of gloom; a mel- i 
 ancholy antiphonj'. The bright sun is extinguished, and 
 the stars do wander darkling in eternal space, rayless and 
 pathless, and the vicious earth swings blackening in the 
 air; morn comes and goes, and comes and brings no day^ 
 but men do not forget tlieir passions. Were it not for t"fie 
 infinite variety of diversion in London now, life would be- 
 come intolerable to the strang-er and traveller. To minister 
 to the appetites of every age, sex, condition, seems to b€L 
 tiie general study. And that such efforts are not vain, is 
 proved by the vast multitudes w4io flock hither, at all sea- 
 sons, to enjoy the great metropolis. Here the musical 
 critic, the literati, the blase pleasure-seeker, indulge their 
 propensities, and here the prodigal, the man of science, tlie 
 traveller, the inventor, gather as to a harbor and a home. 
 London is an endless encyclopaedia for the uses and im- 
 provement of mankind. 
 
 Regardless of the cloud upon the surface of the earth, 4 
 yesterday we took the underground railway to Baker 
 Street, Portman Square, to pass a couple of hours in the 
 Museum and Historical Gallery of Madame Tussaud. 
 
 Underground railways are the outgrowth of the last 
 twenty years. The facilities for travel on the surface in 
 London became insufficient, and then began the subterra- 
 nean surve3'^s. Tunnels in the earth do not require the 
 drill or the explosive; but the permanent walling and arch- 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 31 
 
 ing requisite to safet}^, are frequentlj'' more expensive than 
 blasting the solid rock. Yet in this populous hive the 
 danger to property and to person make the tunnel prefer- 
 able, regardless of cost. So they mapped the lower mun- 
 dane regions as Agassiz mapped, and searched, and sounded 
 the floors of old ocean ; and now lower London, or rather 
 invisible London, has almost as many miles of road per- 
 meating it, as the unseen arteries and fibres that permeate 
 the human frame. We procured our tickets at Westminster 
 to Baker Street Station, over two miles distant, for two 
 pence apiece. I descended a long flight of steps, and 
 found myself in a clean, well-lighted cellar. There was 
 no sepulchral air ; it was very like an}^ other depot. Long 
 platforms, thronged by busy mortals, with bright faces ; 
 bookstands, the walls illuminated with showy playbills 
 and advertisements. I saw a crimson star in the distance, 
 and then the train shot into the station like a comet. 
 There was opening and slamming of doors ; the railway 
 guards boisterouslv shriekino- the name of the station in 
 unintelligible sounds; a rush out of the incoming passen- 
 gers, and a rush in of the departing. I was pushed into 
 a carriage b}'^ an official, and again the door was slammed 
 in such a way as to lead me to believe that the guard 
 wlio made the most noise received the largest salary, and 
 that the}" were all in competition. This was my first 
 acquaintance with a railway in a tunnelled city. The door 
 was locked, and off the comet shot, to thread its way 
 through long caverns, past open spaces, where the route 
 crossed the upper streets, past other comets flying in an 
 opposite direction. Baker Street! was shouted by the 
 guard, which I never could have recognized, had not my 
 eye caught the words on a sign. Again I was pushed out 
 like a parcel. Mounting to the outer and upper atmo- 
 sphere, J found myself in a broad airy street, full of shops 
 and people, hansoms, broughams, organ-grinders, and gin- 
 palaces — a wild din of life. 
 
 A short walk brought me to the famous exhibition. 
 Madame Tussaud's gallery is Westminster Abbey in wax, 
 but it is not a sepulchre; it embraces the living as well as 
 the dead celebrities. It is neither so choice nor so chaste 
 as the great Cathedral, as we find here all the notorieties, 
 from Lydia Thompson to Jesus Christ: the ballet-dancer 
 and the tragedian, the murderer and the murdered, the 
 king and the clown. These effigies are lifelike and artistic, 
 and very often capital copies of the originals, particularly 
 
32 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the counterparts of English celebrities. But oh ! how Mad- 
 ame has blasphemed in wax, murdered in mechanism, and 
 travestied in spermaceti, the great ones of America. Hep 
 ideal of General Grant is a fair-haired boy of nineteen, that 
 of Abraham Lincoln, a black-bearded clergyman in ''swell 
 clothes." But nothing could have been more valuable than 
 the historic groups of the royal families of England, from 
 the jS'ormans down. There sits Bluebeard, Henry Tudor, 
 his six wives clustered around him, each one looking serene 
 and radiant in the sunlight of this magnanimous (?) man's 
 favor; his hand rests upon the young prince's head — the 
 future Edward YI — and sweet Anne Boleyn wears the 
 famous yellow dress in which the capricious monarch loved 
 to see her. I was ever so much interested in Madame 
 Guelph, as Her Majesty is called; her nine children and 
 four of her grandchildren are near her, with the handsome 
 and virtuous Prince Albert; slightly in the background, 
 and on the right of the Queen, is seen the man who com- 
 bines "the genius of Bolingbroke, the wit of Canning, and 
 .the eloquence of Burke" — the omnipotent Premier. 1 was 
 much impressed by the wonderful likeness of the hero of 
 Wagram, Marengo, Austerlitz, Eylau, Friedland, and by 
 the eloquent relics of his soldier, domestic, and consular 
 life. The tigures of the ill-fated Louis Napcjleon, and the 
 beautiful and queenly Eugenie are side bj^ side. They are 
 all here; from the old man. Emperor William, and Bis- 
 marck of Germany, to the sad Czar of the Russias ; from 
 the Chinese teaman to the Ameer of Afghanistan ; from the 
 white-haired Emperor of Brazil to the Viceroy of Egypt; 
 the youthful kings of Italy and Spain; and Thiers, Guizot, 
 Trochu, Gambetta, and Cassignac. 
 
 Madame Tussaud, the disciple of the art of the ancient 
 Yerrochio and Orsino, was a native of Berne, Switzerland ; 
 at an early age she was placed under the supervision of her 
 uncle, M. Curtius, who was artist to Louis XYI, and by 
 him she was instructed in the fine arts. Later she was 
 summoned to the palace as the artistic adviser of Madame 
 Elizabeth, the sister of the hapless king. Passing much 
 of her time at the Tuilleries and Yersailles, she became 
 acquainted with the nobility and genius of the French 
 court. One of her ablest works is the portrait model of 
 the celebrated wit, Yoltaire. In 1802 she bade adieu to 
 France with her valuable collection of figures, to exhibit 
 them in the principal cities of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 The ceroplastic art seems to have degenerated with the 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 33 
 
 centuries, and at present it is held in low esteem. The 
 power, skill, and ingenuity manifested in the major por- 
 tion of the Tussaud collection should impart to the art 
 some of the pristine gloiy by which it was hallowed in the 
 days of Michael Angelo, who did not deem it below his mer- 
 its to produce wax-figures. Such representations were held 
 in high repute by the early Romans, who placed to the 
 honor of their ancestors their wax-figures in the vestibules. 
 Tiiat time may not revive this usage I sincerely hope; I 
 should not fancy it cheerful to have long-departed grand- 
 mothers and grandfathers constantly hovering over our 
 portals. 
 
 Madame Tussaud was an economical genius (a rare speci- 
 men indeed), for my English guide, who had been attending 
 the museum from childhood, told me that the same figures 
 were made to serve many purposes, that the cloths and 
 faces, with slight remodelling of noted characters in one 
 decade, had been used for others in the decade previous. 
 
 It is a short ride from Baker Street to the " Dore Gallery" 
 in New Bond Street, Avhere the celebrated chef-d^oeuvre, 
 "Christ leaving the Prsetorium," is still attracting thou- 
 sands, though it has already enjoyed five long years of 
 sovereignty. I studied this picture for some time before 
 I fully appreciated the wealth and art and time expended 
 on it; it is so vast and powerful that it dazzles you, one 
 must pause until mind and eye expand sufficiently to com- 
 prehend the movement and multitude, the light and the 
 shade, the glow and the gloom of this splendid conception. 
 It possesses the vigor of Angelo without his contortions, 
 the power of Rubens without his dramatic effect, the ra- 
 diance of Tintoretto, the sweetness of Rafaelle, the melan- 
 choly of Guido, and the harmony of Van Dyke. Gustav 
 Dore, to use an old metaphor, not only mixes his colors 
 with fine oils, but with brains. 
 
 The picture illustrates one of the most pathetic incidents 
 in the early sacred drama. See! There is the sublime 
 actor in the snowj^ and seamless raiment, the crimson dew 
 of his precious blood is upon his brow, as he descends the 
 steep steps of the Prsetorium. The assemblage seem awed 
 into silence by His grief and gentle dignity, for He is '^ex- 
 ceeding sorrowful unto death." There, against the back- 
 ground of gathering gloom, and volcanic darkness, are 
 Pontius Pilate and Herod ; Judas shrinks from the re- 
 proachful gaze of his master ; a momentary flash of vivid 
 feeling crosses the face of a boy, as if struck by one of the 
 
34 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 soldiers and you imagine you hear the exclamation of pain. 
 Close by is the august but cruslied Virgin mother, but far 
 more touching was the spectacle of Magdalene; she it was 
 who claimed my tears and sympath3% True, Mary the 
 mother is l)ereft of her Soil, but to the other Mary there 
 has fallen utter misery, desolation, and solitude. She has 
 lost all, for she has lost her Saviour, who drew her from 
 the fathomless gulf of sin and death; she has lost her 
 Guardian, who led her straying feet into the golden paths 
 of virtue; she has lost her King, who protected and loved 
 her; and she has lost her God, whom she worshipped. 
 
 LETTEK YI. 
 
 " Once I was pure as the snow — but I fell ; 
 Fell, like the snow-flakes, from heaven to hell ; 
 Fell to be tramped as the tilth of the street ; 
 Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on, and beat. 
 Pleading, 
 Cursing, 
 
 Dreading to die, 
 Selling my soul to whoever would buy, 
 Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, 
 Hating the living and fearing the dead." 
 
 Beautiful Snow. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 I HAD not been a resident of this foreign city long, ere I 
 was impressed by the terrible disparity between the ex- 
 tremes of wealth and the extremes of poverty. The rich 
 are very ricli, and the poor are very poor. The rich learn 
 to rule, while the poor learn to obey. London is great in 
 its opulence, great in its mendicity, great in its virtue, and 
 great in its vice, and these extremes are frequently so 
 closely allied, as to be next-door neighbors. While in 
 Liverpool, I attempted to draw the line l)etween the dissi- 
 pations and the distresses of the poor, and I si)eedily 
 reached the conclusion that the chief cause of pauperism 
 was rum; tliat much of it issued from the excessive use of 
 gin and beer. That which originated in a custom, ulti- 
 mately became a necessity. The two-pence or three-pence 
 ■ begged on the sidewalk and invested in this vile poison, 
 if expended on bread and coarse meat, would prove the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 35 
 
 salvation of thousands of these wretched creatures. But 
 oh! what is this demon that pursues mankind? Legions 
 of fresh and health}^ recruits falling in the ranks each year 
 to be led along the dark shores of sin to the seas of death. 
 Is there nothing to stop its ravages ? It spreads its gloomy 
 wings over happy homes, it is the mother of murder, the 
 progenitor of defalcation, the parent of lies. Crime in 
 whatsoever attitude it may appear is the inevitable off- 
 spring of this defiling fiend. It devastates families and 
 pollutes the brightest mind. 
 
 It was only when I came to London that I realized the 
 force of these impressions, for it is only here that I have 
 seen the piteous and pitiful depravity of my own sex; not 
 the poor painted butterflies who flicker and fall in the fiery 
 gulf of the dazzling sin of the streets, but those who suffer 
 simply from cureless destitution, who wander apparently 
 all through the long night without shelter or food, and 
 scarcely any clothing; bleared and bloated women clamor- 
 ing for more whiskey or struggling with their imbruted 
 husbands. This direful pauperism, together with vice, has 
 led to an organization of beneficent ladies in London, 
 which, thank God, is not necessarj^ in our happ^^ country. 
 A large hall is procured amidst the very haunts of the 
 destitute and reckless classes, and during the severe and 
 dreary winter nights many noble women of exalted rank 
 remain here, to receive and reason with the poor fallen out- 
 casts who are conducted hither by friendly policemen from 
 the slums and narrow lanes. The varied emotions that 
 rend the bosoms of these frail strays as they issue from 
 the dark and dismal highways to the light, and warmth, 
 and welcome of these great parish halls, where hot coffee 
 and homely food are provided for them, have more than 
 once roused my womanly S3^mpathies. Some of them are 
 conspicuous in their tawdry finery, and generally under the 
 influence of gin — others are shoeless and hatless — locks 
 dishevelled, face and hands soiled — others shivering: 
 tlirough their threadbare clothes, and again those who 
 wear a hostile and defiant mien ; all unsexed by the fre- 
 quent contact with privation and sin. But oh! to see the 
 soothing, tender, and forgiving manner of the clergymen 
 and humane ladies, who greet the fugitives as they enter 
 from the cold and cheerless outer world. There are no 
 reproaches, no long sermons, no moralizing, but now and 
 then a touching hymn and a plaintive prayer for the 
 rescue of the wanderers, which go directly to the heart. I 
 
36 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 have seen the tears coursins^ down the rouo;ed and whited 
 cheeks of these ill-starred girls from the purlieus of the 
 music-halls and gin-palaces. 
 
 There seems to be a strange fascination in a great city 
 for these depraved beings. They prefer the filth in which 
 they exist, and would rather starve in its dens and alleys, 
 or be confined in the lowest of its prisons than emigrate to 
 other countries, or honestl}'^ toil for sustenance; and the 
 method employed 1)3^^ some of the paupers to gain this 
 living is worthj^ of a special chapter. The street Arabs 
 are simply multitudinous. Tliey are a fraternity of their 
 own, indigenous to London, without parallel in any other 
 section of the world, generally in league with the older 
 ruffians, men and w^omen, adepts in all kinds of wickedness, 
 ever read}' to face any risk or run any danger. They pour 
 down upon and besiege the foot-passengers in hordes. 
 They attach themselves to your person, and adhere with 
 the utmost tenacity. When you hail a hansom or four- 
 wheeler, in the twinkling of an e^'e you are surrounded by 
 as many evil spirits as sprang upon "old Rip" on tliat 
 eventful evening in the Catskills when he took his nap, 
 and these English manikins emanate from every corner in 
 the same mysterious manner. There is the old man, the 
 ragged girl, the dirty bo3^, and the consumptive woman 
 with the baby hidden under her scanty shawl, all eager to 
 render some service, and receive compensation. 
 
 A couple of days ago, as I was walking up Parliament 
 Street, a little boy sprang before me and proceeded to 
 throw summersaults on the pavement for quite a block, 
 and it was only when he demanded pay, that I became 
 aware that these feats of agility had been indulged for my 
 special delectation. Further on two little girls started off 
 on a waltz for m}^ amusement, and they, of course, wished 
 pennies for their pains. Now these children all belong to 
 some of the older alms-seekers, who stand on the curb 
 turning their sightless e^es, withered hands, or deformed 
 and offensive limbs into capital. There are regular com- 
 panies formed by the beggars, and each one perambulates 
 his own circuit; sometimes tiiey exchange beats in order 
 to equalize their receipts. They are numerous in St. Giles, 
 Seven-dials, King Street,' Slioreditch, and St. Paul's 
 Churchyard; there are restaurants and public houses in 
 the vicinity, and even places of amusement entirely sup- 
 ported by mendicant patrons, who congregate at these 
 resorts at night and spend considerable of their earnings(?) 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 31 
 
 in hot suppers and liquor. But even the landlord who 
 subsists from the bount}^ of such characters, does not en- 
 tertain the most exalted opinion of their moral rectitude, 
 for the forks, knives, and spoons are chained to the tables. 
 
 Another profitable source of emolument is the shoe trade. 
 These bullies or swaggerers, excite charity for shoes, by 
 appearing on the streets barefooted, their feet scarified and 
 scabby; the old shoes begged they translate into new ones 
 which they sell, and thus net a sum each day that enables 
 them to live well. 
 
 Vice is one of the admitted facts of this awful London, 
 even organized vice, vice in all degrees ; but then so is virtue. 
 The wealthy tradesmen and the aristocracy do many grace- 
 ful acts of charity in secret, and those who are in the habit 
 of declaiming against the luxury and extravagance of the 
 nobility, do not know what enormous sums are paid by some 
 of the latter to relieve the poor. Yet, the rule of oppres- 
 sion prevails too entirely throughout the United Kingdom 
 to make a happy and healthy community. I heard some 
 melancholy stories about the poor in Wales, in what are 
 called the nail factories, that I should have rejected as un- 
 true had not the facts been given to me by a member of the 
 House of Commons. Delicate young women work more 
 arduousl}^, than our southern negro slaves ever worked, for 
 the support of drunken husbands, whose only escape from 
 the workhouse is by the patient and uncomplaining toil of 
 their wives. Suspension of lal)or in the collieries, cotton 
 mills, brickyards, and lace factories, has produced a state 
 of affairs that baffles description. 
 
 These are some of the figures of British pauperism, as I 
 contrast them with other countries. A few j^ears ago Eng- 
 land paid $30,000,000 or $16 a head for the support of her 
 poor, while in France the cost for tlieir poor was only 
 $3,100,000, or $2.64 a head. In 1873 there were eight hun- 
 dred and fifty-five thousand six hundred arid eighty-nine 
 paupers in England, and the cost of these in 1860 was $36.25 
 apiece. In Germany, $7, and in France only $2.50. So 
 British pauperism is ever in the ascendant. Even the word 
 found its birth in England in the seventeenth or eighteenth 
 century, to describe that condition of penury where self- 
 support is not attempted, and where the basest vices are 
 bred. Pauperism dates back to the reign of Henry YIII., 
 when the breaking up of the feudal system and the dismant- 
 ling of the monasteries, threw very many people upon their 
 own endeavors for support. Extreme poverty was the con- 
 4 
 
38 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 sequence, but a law was passed to the effect, that "valient 
 beggars and idle loiterers" were to be avoided, and only the 
 old and feeble, and the halt were to receive alms, the able 
 bodied men to be put to work. But when the daughter of 
 Anne Boleyn ascended the throne the law was revolution- 
 ized, and for the first time a legal right was given to every 
 one to claim relief. Very often the condition of the pauper 
 was superior to that of the independent laborer; if the 
 wages of a parish were considered insufficient for the sup- 
 port of a family, allowances were granted, and more money 
 bestowed for the maintenance of an illegitimate than for a 
 legitimate child. Of course such laws only tended to sj^read 
 the infection of immorality and sloth. 
 
 What a contrast our blessed country forms to this dole- 
 ful state of government! There is very little native pau- 
 perism at home. All of this terrible plague that we have 
 in the United States is foreign-born, or of foreign extrac- 
 tion. We have towns and villages where not one pauper is 
 to be found. Why? It is a question readily answered. 
 The influence of liberal education, the self-respect imposed 
 by political and social privileges, the low prices of land and 
 the right of every man to become a property holder. If 
 England would follow this example of her truant offspring, 
 and educate rather than relieve her masses, the gigantic 
 evil would be greatly abated. So noble a country should 
 labor to remove this foul stain from her escutcheon. No 
 community- can be happ)^ while men are allowed to "look to 
 charitj' as a fund on which they may confidently depend." 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 *' Here is the nursery of Art, 
 Here millions gather glad to see, 
 The treasures of this mighty mart, 
 Taken from worlds long past, and yet to be." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 
 Had I come abroad previous to the grand pageant which 
 signalized the cetenary of our independence I am quite 
 sure I should have raved about all the wonderful things in 
 this whirlpool of a London. But the education I received 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 39 
 
 ill art, science, and invention, while attending that micro- 
 cosm of marvels, disciplined me to examine more soberly 
 the beautiful creations that were novelties to Americans 
 before the International Exhibition. And so these exqui- 
 site displays do not surprise me now. 
 
 Therefore, passing through the South Kensington Mu- 
 seum I was a little like the Indian who saw nothing in 
 the white man's country to stir his stolid nature. I was 
 about to add, the institution has cause to be jealous of our 
 Philadelphia Exhibition, but I will attempt no compari- 
 sons, they are always odious. Left by itself this great 
 museum would be the ne plus ultra of schools and galleries. 
 If I attempted to describe South Kensington Museum, I 
 should fail to be original. I could only walk in the foot- 
 prints of my predecessors. Thought is sure to dull and 
 dampen the ecstasy of the neophyte in a foreign country. 
 We crave to be novel, and yet how impossible wlien so 
 many older and wiser judges with all these facts in their 
 memories, devote their best energies to this old world ! 
 When I entered this repository of curiosities I was stunned 
 by the dead silence. Silence seems to be one of the char- 
 acteristics of the English — silence of motion and of 
 speech. In the vast hotels we never hear a footfall nor a 
 loud word despite the stone floors and lofty ceilings, aud 
 here I find the same quiet order. All is dumb as death! 
 Perhaps you have noticed the eloquence of unspoken soli- 
 tude at times. Some one has said "order was heaven's 
 first law," and order is always stillness, but such complete 
 noiselessness as we have here is oppressive. 
 
 There were numbers dispersed through the salons, and 
 as I watched them in the distant alcoves and sheltered re- 
 treats, thej^ grew into a multitude of men and women ; but 
 they moved rather like shadows than substances, and they 
 spoke only in whispers. They conveyed knowledge and 
 ideas to each other by signs, and pointed to the catalogues, 
 to paintings, and statues, and maps, and cases. This silent 
 lanoruas^e is contaoious, and as I studied them I uncon- 
 sciously sank into their fashion, and lost my own identity 
 in the voiceless concourse. My words were hushed, and I 
 began to converse by motions, not from choice, but the 
 spell was upon me. I soon became accustomed to and 
 rather enjoyed the speechless conversation. I speedily 
 found myself holding colloquies with the objects, antique 
 and recent. Every statue, relic, chart, fossil, and engrav- 
 ing could articulate ideas to my hungry mind. I passed 
 
40 PICTl'RES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 two daj's in this splendid academy, and feel that it ought 
 to have l)een two weeks. Shall 1 tell 3'ou of the living at 
 the side of the skeletons, or of the living before their por- 
 traits ? Shall I tell you of science, of which I know little ; 
 or shall it be politics, of which I know nothing? What 
 interested me most was the wealth of art, skill, ingenuity, 
 and novelty in snuff-boxes, fans, ceramics, and medallions. 
 
 A collection of snuff-boxes, in etuis, gold, enamel, jew- 
 elled, etc., loaned hy Mr. C. Coding, fills several large 
 cases, and I bent over these exquisite morsels until head 
 and heart reeled. The prodigality of expense, time, and 
 genius on these gewgaws is marvellous. Gems b}^ famous 
 Dutch, French, and Italian artists adorned the collection. 
 There was one of scaly gold resembling a serpent's epi- 
 dermis; the lid was eml)ellished with a matchless mosaic 
 of Yenus and Adonis upon the emerald and velvety turf, 
 at tlieir feet babbled a silvery brook, casting a spray over 
 tiny pebbles. The goddess was endeavoring to cajole the 
 cold and chaste youth, who received with utter indifference 
 the i^roffered favors of the divine coquette. There were 
 splendid enamels containing devices and legendary emblems 
 in diamonds, some of jasper, some of block-crystal, others 
 of sardonyx, and choice moss-agate. There were the pro- 
 ductions of all nations and of all ages, proclaiming how 
 for centuiies the inhalation of volatile dust was the ruling 
 fashion of society in Europe. The estimated value of this 
 array of snuff-boxes is thousands of pounds sterling. 
 
 The next cases that engaged my woman's time and at- 
 tention were those containing fans. One section was con- 
 secrated wholly' to a curious and elegant exhibition of fans, 
 mostly the compilation of one lady ; many of exquisite 
 French design; satin, tulle, gauze, parchment, and the so- 
 called chicken-skin ; and these were beautified with paint- 
 ings by such clever craftsmen as Marie Bonheur, A. Solde, 
 Edouard Moreau, and others of equal subtlety. There was 
 tlie novel Pompadour that forms a peifect oval when ex- 
 panded, and the folding fan of Catherine de Medicis ; the 
 eccentric Lombard siiapes of tiie seventeenth century, and 
 brilliant tuft fans of peacock and parrot featiiers with jew- 
 elled handles. Fans of wood and fans of ivory; fans of 
 great elegance from Rome, Greece, and Egypt, and even 
 from the fatherland of fans, China. 1 have heard it con- 
 tended that fans are a feminine appendage, and in the 
 countries where the use of fans is a national custom, the 
 salient characteristics of the natives are pre-eminently 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 41 
 
 effeminate. But I have no fair samples to offer. They are 
 as essential to a gentleman in Japan and China as his boots, 
 and I am sure the Turk contradicts any such doctrine. 
 True, he wears petticoats, but do you believe the fan and 
 farthingale could effeminate the stern, tyrannical Giaour ? 
 
 In this collection may also be classed two cases of min- 
 iatures, the property of Earl Beauchamp ; a blazoning of 
 gold and fine painting on ivory by the illustrious artists of 
 his day, likenesses of his family in a variety of gorgeous 
 costumes and head-dresses ; several of pretty Nell Gwynne 
 and Kitty Clive, and the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire. 
 The renowned Mr. Beresford Hope displays a vast amount 
 of ecclesiastical utensils, clocks, ivor^^ carvings, and ena- 
 mels ; among them a curious cross of gold, incrusted with 
 Cloisonne enamel, one of the earliest specimens made in 
 Constantinople, in the eleventh century. Beautiful samples 
 ofVitrodi J'?^^■71a, or glass lace- work; specimens of Schmelze, 
 Avanturine, Millefiore, of the colored glass of Yenice, and 
 numerous vessels of early Yenetian manufacture, having a 
 horny hue and texture. In the western arcade is the harp- 
 sichord of Handel, a curiosity in its way ; but it recalled 
 to my mind the stories I liad heard of his uncontrollable 
 temper, and I was rather surprised to see it in such excel- 
 lent repair, for the musical genius had rather a careless 
 way of disposing of tilings, as well as people, when he was 
 in a rage. Then, again, I remembered that he had never 
 loved a woman. Can a man have music in his soul, who 
 has never experienced the divine passion? Near it stands 
 a spinnet, dated 15T7, made by Annibale di Rossi, of Milan ; 
 the case was of pear-tree wood, and beautifully incrusted 
 with ivory, ebony, pearl, lapis-lazuli, malachite, and Egyp- 
 tian alabaster ; and here also was the curious little German 
 finger-organ that formed a portion of the household adorn- 
 ments of the great ecclesiastical reformer of the sixteenth 
 century, Martin Luther. But I cannot recapitulate all I 
 have enjoyed of Raphael's cartoons, and precious stones, 
 and intaglios, pearls of vast size, and various colors, the 
 historical " Mexican Sun Opal," and marvellous specimens 
 of amber, containing fish and lizards, and numerous 
 agates, bearing miraculous representations of the human 
 face. 
 
 Here the devotee of ceramic art ma3'' feast upon the con- 
 fections of the centuries. What a banquet has been spread 
 to allure him! Pottery of all nations and epoclis. First: 
 The jasper vases of Wedgwood, in black, and white, and 
 
 4* 
 
42 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 blue, and soft green, with white figures en reliefs and the 
 majolica by the same artisans, that surpasses all similar 
 wares of the present day in modelling and coloring. Then 
 Minton stoneware and Minton plaque. I cannot leave this 
 chapter before I tell you of a chaste and elegant dinner ^ 
 service I have seen of this choice porcelain, on exhibition 
 in a window near Pall Mall, opposite Haymarket. It is of 
 turquoise blue, soft, yet brilliant in tone, and adorned by 
 carefull}^ drawn swans, in shades of mellow gra3^ and white, 
 wadino- amono^ the lono- lush oriass. Attendino^ this service 
 were a pair of figures about two feet high, of the same ex- 
 quisite make and hues, roijresenting a lady and gentleman 
 of the Court of Louis XYI. Whenever I pass this cyno- 
 sure, I endeavor to distract m3' attention by an}^ object in 
 an opjiosite direction, but the magnet conquei's, and when 
 I <zaze I am enthralled ; it is so temptingly beautiful. 
 Twice I have ventured into the sanctuary to price and prey 
 npon it; and as I look and linger, two fiends tear at my 
 heart, as they did at good Launcelot Gobbo's; mine are the 
 fiends of a luxurious desire, and a scant}'' purse. The fiend 
 — desire — is at mine elbow, and tempts me, sa3nng, "take 
 it, gratify your taste." "No," says my meagre enemy on 
 my right, "take heed, honest lady, take heed ; scorn such 
 frivolities." Then courageous desire saj^s, " Rouse up, be 
 of brave and positive mind." Then, replies the slim and 
 hungry opponent, "My honest friend, you are an honest 
 woman's child; beware!" Then flattering desire says, 
 " Imagine it upon your table at home, the beaut}' enhanced, 
 when in combination with fine linen, pure crystals of spark- 
 ling wines, shining silver, laden with luscious fruits, seen 
 through the glow of colored lights; how prett}^ the little 
 French lady will be on the etagere^ when not called to the 
 dinner-table." And I am about to yield, when the other 
 voice whispers, "Caution, prudence, go yonr wa}' !" and I 
 go ! Through sheer madness, I " run away with my heels" 
 as Gobbo did. But the Minton porcelain of pale blue with 
 its white swans haunts me nevertheless. 
 
 Further on are specimens of jewelled Copeland and 
 Sevres, Henri Deux and Palissy, and many worthy adap- 
 tations from Majolica, Palissy, and Delia Robbia, produced 
 in England. 
 
 The windows of the refreshment- room of the South 
 Kensington Museum and the corridor leading to it, are 
 combinations of the most beautiful stained-glass fragments 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 43 
 
 I liave ever seen. Much of this same glass has been taken 
 from the famous windows of Saint Chapelle in Paris. 
 
 Outside, the building is not stately as our Philadelphia 
 Exhibition Hall, although a series of magnificent edifices 
 surrounded by twelve acres of ground, the cost of which 
 was $300,000. Since the erection of the first structure at 
 $*75,000, a group has been added. This section of opulent 
 London is intersected by miles of massive and forbidding 
 mansions. Within these lordly palaces there are light, and 
 w^armth, and hospitality, sweet women, and sweeter chil- 
 dren ; but the outer face is lifeless and dreary, and I soon 
 learned how few of these favored classes walk the streets. 
 They are like precious jewels closed in a casket, to be seen 
 only on special occasions. They saunter in their own 
 grounds, and when they venture beyond those limits, are 
 always in costly carriages. 
 
 LE TTER Yin. 
 
 "His faith and works, like streams that intermingle, 
 In the same channel ran ; 
 The crystal clearness of an eye kept single 
 Shamed all tlie frauds of man." 
 
 John Greenleaf Whittier. 
 
 " No dear mother ever upon me smiled — 
 
 Why is it, I wonder, that I'm nobody's child." 
 
 Philo H. Child. 
 
 London, February, 1878. 
 
 I WAS greatly interested in the accounts that floated to 
 America of Dean Stanley's welcome to General Grant, 
 when the ex-President visited Westminster Abbey shortly 
 after his arrival in London last July. How the gray old 
 cathedral was suffocatingly crowded ; how all the Ameri- 
 cans and thousands of the English were present to tender 
 kind salutations to the unostentatious hero ; and how the 
 Dean at the close of his sermon addressed the great soldier 
 directly. Such an honor was indeed a novelty ; it is the 
 dead, and not the living, who are glorified in Westminster, 
 and the venerable scholar and ecclesiast is not in the habit 
 of praising men in power. I heard him speak a few days 
 
44 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 ago, but was not near enough to catch his tones nor to 
 gather in his thoughts, and had, therefore, formed no 
 opinion of him until after my social call at his home in 
 the ancient monastery yesterda3^ 
 
 In one of the drearj'- and crumbling traverses of the 
 abbey we found a door leading to the Dean's private 
 chambers. By a huge brass knocker we made our pres- 
 ence known, which was speedily answered by a youthful 
 servant. I feared we would not be granted an audience, 
 knowing so well how heavily he is pressed by other duties, 
 from which there is no escape. The charge of the great 
 Abbey is in itself an exacting task, and then the visitors, 
 the religious bodies, and his literary exertions, are so many 
 constant claims upon his time. A member of Parliament, 
 who had for many years resided in the United States, 
 accompanied me, and, upon the presentation of his name, 
 we were graciously received. The room we first entered, 
 and where we waited during the absence of the messenger, 
 was rigidly plain; it presented a rather gloom}- aspect, and 
 here and there were placed old religious relics, including 
 aged Bibles, High-Church books, and pictures. Wiiile 
 absorbed in the contem[)lation of these curious ornaments, 
 we were summoned to tiie Dean's study. We passed 
 through many corridors, and up several spacious stair- 
 ways of polished walnut and oak. A glad, familiar sight 
 met me in the antechamber; these were Rogers's statuettes, 
 "Coming to the Parson's," and "Rip Van Winkle." I 
 knew that the Dean was partial to America, and had fre- 
 quently invited American clergy to preach from his pulpit, 
 but this manifest inclination to American art was a welcome 
 to his fireside. The study was a large square apartment, 
 liomelike and luxurious. All the appointments were rich, 
 and darli, and handsome. A vast Oriental rug covered the 
 room almost entirely, exposing only a margin of the pol- 
 ished walnut floor. Bookcases extended along the sides, 
 containing the congenial companions of the amiable church- 
 man. On the wall were some portraits of nobility and 
 clerg3^, by Kneller, Lawrence, Reynolds, etc. The mantel 
 was large, a massive carving of walnut and oak, and in 
 the grate a genial fire was leaping; in its glow stood 
 the old Dean of Westminster. My first impression was : 
 what a large hearth and what a shrunken little man! 
 His greeting was kind, but undemonstrative. He bade us 
 be seated while he remained standing, as we had found 
 him, throughout our entire visit. He is of the Cassius 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 45 
 
 tj'pe, "lean and hungry, he thinks too much," and with a 
 scholar-like air. He has very little conversation, and 
 appears to be absorbed by far-away tiioughts. He seemed 
 to wait for us to introduce subjects of discussion, and his 
 remarks were invariabl}^ polite and laconic. He made a 
 few inquiries about America, and then relapsed into utter 
 silence. When a question was directed to him he seemed 
 to rouse from his distraction in a nervous, epileptic way, 
 and after several moments' hesitancy and deliberation, as 
 if searching through his mind for an exact reply, answered 
 simply, intelligently, and deliberately. An English lady 
 had told me that no marriage was valid solemnized after 
 twelve o'clock, noon, according to the Establislied Church 
 of England. This statement seemed incredible to me in 
 view, of the fact that marriages take place at every hour of 
 the day and night in the United States. I felt quite sure 
 she was jesting with a stranger to English laws, or that she 
 had been misinformed, so I carried the case to Dean 
 Stanlej^ himself. He assured me that what my friend had 
 told me was correct. All marriages, according to the 
 canonical law of the High Church, are null and void after 
 noon, unless by special license from the Right Honorable 
 and Most Reverend Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and that is only granted in extreme cases. 
 
 Arthur Penrhyn Stanlc}^ is a son of the late Bishop 
 Edward, and nephew of the first Baron Stanlej' of Alderly, 
 where the Dean was born December 13, 1815. He w^as a 
 favorite pupil of the eminent English historian. Dr. Thomas 
 Arnold, wiiile the latter was head master at Rugby School. 
 When he was only nineteen he gained a scholarship at Baliol 
 College, Oxford, and at twenty -two he gained the Newdi- 
 gate prize for his English poem, "The Gypsies." After 
 many years of admirable official migration, when he was 
 fort^'-seven, he married Lady Augusta Bruce, daughter of 
 Lord Elgin ; slie was the Queen's most intimate friend, and 
 acted as one of her ladies-in-waiting until her death in 
 1876. The Dean is still very near to her Majesty, although 
 not a member of the Tory party. He holds a powerful 
 hand in public affairs, and is much beloved by the English. 
 On the Sabbath I heard him speak I noticed many ladies 
 sending messages and cards to his apartments after he had 
 retired. 
 
 Accustomed to hear of extravagant salaries to clergy- 
 men at home, I made some inquiry of one of the chapter 
 clerks at Westminster, and learned, that while Dean Stanley 
 
46 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 receives only £-2000, or $10,000 a year, Archbishop Tait, 
 the Primate of all England, is paid $75,000; the Archbishop 
 of York, $f)0,000; the Bishop of London, $50,000; the 
 Bishop of Durham, $40,000; the Bishop of Winchester, 
 $35,000; and the Bishop of Bangor, $21,000. There are 
 twenty-six other bishops whose salaries are from twenty to 
 twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, and all this great 
 aristocracy supported by still other bishops, deans, deacons, 
 and archdeacons, secretaries, clerks, and innumerable minor 
 dignitaries, some of whom are paid as high as fifteen, ten, 
 and five thousand dollars each, for attending to their relig- 
 ious duties. Of course, this great establishment is a puzzling 
 problem to an American woman, but in contrast with our 
 republican system in America, it seems a monstrous out- 
 lay of money when added to other expenses, to pay for the 
 Established Church. 
 
 I had heard much of the singularly fresh and brilliant 
 style of Canon Farrar, one of the Dean's assistants, and 
 desired to see the new celebrity. Last evening he spoke in 
 the Church of St. Andrew's, corner of St. Andrew's Street, 
 Holborn Viaduct, and I am obliged to confess T was dis- 
 appointed, alike in his thoughts and diction. His text, 
 " Modern Martyrs," vvas one capable of marvellous elabo- 
 ration, yet he seemed to fail in its treatment. His manner 
 is somewhat graceful, but he lacks fire. He has a soft 
 dulcet English voice, but it has none of the clear and elec- 
 tric American ring. Much of his seiinon was inaudible, 
 although the church was filled. The English make a demi- 
 god of a clergyman who is not comparable to numbers of 
 our ministers who really enjo}^ no special celebrity, barring 
 the Reverend Beecher, for whom I entertain the utmost 
 admiration, not as a divine creation, but as an orator, a 
 statesman, a philosopher, and a thinker ; it is the subtle 
 eloquence in which he clothes his ideas, that thrilled my 
 whole being when I first listened to him. 
 
 Last Sunday I attended holy service in the chapel at- 
 tached to the Foundling Hospital in Guilford Street, 
 Bloomsbur}'^ Square. It is one of the objects that never 
 fail to interest the stranger, and is as full of novelty to the 
 Englishman, for the very natural reason, that it has been 
 the depository for armies of anonymous English children. 
 And 1 enjoyed it for the other reason, that I had ever felt 
 anxious to see how such institutions are managed. Until 
 after I had made this visit and became interested in these 
 homes for the little unfortunates, I had formed no concep- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 47 
 
 tion of the statistics of these European establishments. 
 The foundling hospital in Rome has the capacity of retain- 
 ing 3000 little ones, and one in Naples receives 1900 
 annually at the turning-box at the door ; every foundling 
 has a number fastened about its neck to aid its future recog- 
 nition. The hospital in Florence grants to the girls a dowry 
 of 235 francs on the event of their marriage, and from 1855 
 to 1865, 1403 girls received this reward. From 1863 to 
 1866, the Italian hospital received 33,222 children. Eighty- 
 three of these institutions exist in Italy alone. The statis- 
 tics of the Russian system are appalling. In the year 1864, 
 there were 6181 foundlings in the St. Petersburg institu- 
 tion, and from 1862 to 1864, 35,38Y were admitted to the 
 one in Moscow. Those of Vienna received 54,4*78 infants, 
 from 1863 to 1868. Both ancient Greece and Rome were 
 furnished with these establishments, and in Athens the 
 forsaken children were exposed in a pillar placed in the 
 public market. 
 
 Old Captain Coram, founder of the London Foundling 
 Asylum, was a seafaring man who, several centuries ago, 
 donated to the city fifty-six acres, which has now so in- 
 creased in value, as to be covered by great squares and 
 flower-gardens, and handsome houses ; and thus this hos- 
 pital stands in one of the most beautiful districts of the 
 gra}'' metropolis. Over 500 outcasts, girls and boys, from 
 mere infancy to the age of fifteen years, joined in the service 
 of the churcii, and I afterwards saw them at their dinners 
 in the long well lighted hall. The children must all be ille- 
 gitimate, and the mother is not permitted to visit her little 
 one after placing it here, unless she mingles in the throng 
 of visitors on Sunday. After it has received the pre- 
 scribed amount of education and is about to be apprenticed 
 out, then she has a right to claim it. In the building are 
 preserved cases of trinkets, cards and other mementos found 
 on the waifs, as thej^are deix)sited with the keeper. Nothing 
 could have been more beautiful than the day I visited this 
 imposing spectacle. Some of Hogarth's most valuable pro- 
 ductions, who was a great benefactor to this charity, adorn 
 the walls, and several fine statues are preserved in memory 
 of Captain Coram and his worthy successors. 
 
48 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 Await alike the inevitable hour: — 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 
 
 Gray. 
 
 "Among mankind we are all born alike 
 Of father and mother. None excels 
 Another in his nature, but the fate 
 Of evil chance holds some of us, and some 
 Good fortune favors, and necessity 
 Holds some in bondage." 
 
 Sophocles. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 I HAVE ever regarded the study of heraldry the height of 
 folly, and while many of my friends love to dilate on the 
 subject, 1 prefer to study something more useful. 1 never 
 had any time to give to that prodigious mass of conceit, 
 " Burke's Peerage." What has an American lady to do with 
 armorial bearings, descents, precedence, ceremonies, and 
 processions? Unlike some Pinchbeck patrician sisters, I 
 never had the slightest inclination to purchase from my 
 stationer a counterfeit crest, nor to shield my shortcomings 
 by a blazonry of borrowed dignity or genealogy. The am- 
 bition of every American should be to merit a title of real 
 nobility, then may he proudly wear it. 
 
 I passed yesterday morning in the Herald's College, 
 Benet's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and became interested so 
 much in the science as to feel authorized to disprov^e the 
 axiom of the men, that women are always attracted by 
 gewgaws, and I reproach ray sex for being too ready to 
 yield to the accusation. I hope those who may visit the 
 College of Arms and converse with Mr. Stephen L Tucker, 
 the Rouge Croix pursuivant, will not freely give way here- 
 after. This institution is a huge monument of the vanity 
 of men. Not that my sex are not fond of the signs of blue 
 blood and ancient ancestry, but it is invariably the male 
 who originates and carries these empty honors; the female 
 is only the reflection of the lords of creation, save indeed, 
 when she is mistress, like Queen Victoria. Yet I learned 
 from one of the friends of tlie Lord Chamberlain, that even 
 Her Majesty obeys the mandates of her ministers in her 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 49 
 
 rules of court and in the choice of the ladies of her house- 
 hold. 
 
 While Mr. Tucker was showing ns tlirough this recepta- 
 cle of the parchraented and veliumed title-deeds of the 
 British nobilit3'^, he related some amusing stories of the 
 numberless communications tiiey receive from persons 
 craving information as to their relationship with the old 
 families. Frequently Americans are sure a vast fortune is 
 soon to be theirs on account of their claimed connection 
 with one of these ancient houses, and there are also num- 
 bers of such expectants in England. The Herald's College 
 is often pestered by these waiters upon fortune, who some- 
 times lose their wits in the wild search for riches that never 
 come. In America we have no sucli institution as the 
 " Herald's College," and yet many of our people are con- 
 stantly sighing for borrowed robes. Neither have I any 
 respect for those who would den}' their ancestors, forget- 
 ting, like the ostrich that hides its head as the storm ap- 
 pr.oaches, tliat what they hope to conceal is only made more 
 public by their struggles. And those who exist in and on 
 their grandparents, are still more worthy of contempt, for 
 they are brave in feathers not their own ; to me it seems 
 equally absurd to blush for, or to boastof one's forefathers. 
 Still the "Herald's rollege" was interesting and novel, for 
 here I saw for the first time the value of mere titles and 
 tassels. The apparent fact is that virtue and worth are too 
 rarel}^ recognized. The original merit may be virtue, worth, 
 bravery, benevolence, but the sin and shame of the whole 
 system is, that the most worthless inherits the most worthy, 
 and, far worse, the vices of the last heir are always con- 
 doned by the glorious deeds of his progenitor a thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 Mr. Tucker, sensible and practical as he is, showed us 
 tlie collective autographs, rolls, missals, and archives of 
 the great English houses for many centuries, but did not 
 make an argument for tliem. These reminiscences at first 
 aroused my pity, such pit}' as I iiad often felt for a dear 
 friend who was making a dunce of himself, till I saw how 
 all the English bow down before these relics, how they 
 worship a lord or a lady, a duke or a duchess, and how 
 (naturally enough) the be-praised families accept the adu- 
 lation, as if they had earned it. So it was not for me to 
 attempt a reformation, nor to condemn the English nobility 
 if the}' become fools like their parasites. 
 
 The "Herald's College" was founded by Richard III. in 
 5 
 
50 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 1484. The chief is the Diike of Norfolk, one of the leading 
 Catholic peers, and the office is an heirloom of his house. 
 There are three kings of arms, six heralds, and four pur- 
 suivants. These officers attend on court occasions in 
 royal costume. The scarlet coat embroidered with gold, 
 and gold buttons, cocked hat, and pantaloons with broad 
 gold stripe, and a small sword, gave to handsome Stephen 
 I. Tucker the appearance of a masonic knight. It was a 
 sort of theatrical uniform, or holiday fancy-dress, and as I 
 write I feel quite sure my gracious friend will charge my 
 criticism to m}' democratic rearing. I presume I was ob- 
 tuse, but it was a long time before I could comprehend 
 tliat the objects of the " Herald's College" were to preserve 
 all the pedigrees of the British nobility and gentry", the 
 records of royal coronations, marriages, christenings, fune- 
 rals, visits of kings and princes, also official reports of 
 cavalcades, processions, tournaments, and combats. The 
 royal funerals alone fill sixty-five folio volumes. The im- 
 mense libraries are crowded with books, portraits, and en- 
 gravings, to preserve veneration for rank among the people. 
 These documents and records are very often necessary to 
 settle questions of title to lands, but the general object is 
 to keep alive respect for aristocratic forms. I was much 
 impressed b\' this regard for old customs. At home almost 
 ever}^ famih' has peculiar habits, generally hard enough to 
 explain to strangers, or to justify to ourselves, and this is 
 the case in London. I was shown an account of Sir Ger- 
 vase Clifton, who had been a widower six times; also a 
 volume, the work of a monk of the 14th century, "The 
 Pedigree from Adam to the Saxon Kings." He tells us 
 alter "Adam had lived 930 years he died of the gout." 
 Lad}^ Juliana Berners sa3's that "Adam was a gentleman," 
 and in one sense she does not transcend the bounds of 
 reason. But when John Guillim, the rouge croix pursui- 
 vant of the 17th century, ascribes coat-armor to the tribes 
 of Israel, I think he has allowed his imagination rather 
 free play. Mr. Tucker's ancestor and namesake, Stephen 
 Tucker, was licensed by Henry YIII., July 2, 1519, " to 
 use and wear his bonnet upon his head, as well in our pre- 
 sence as elsewhere, at his liberties." The great mass of 
 books, papers, and vellums, wei'e kept in perfect order, and 
 as they relate to thousands, and are frequently consulted, 
 their preservation requires a prodigious outlay of money. 
 The Queen appoints all the heralds, and their homes are in 
 the college. Mr. Tucker presented us to his charming 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 51 
 
 family, and when I left I felt that the winter day had been 
 profitably passed, though I was unsatisfied; having tasted 
 of this enigmatical science, I hungered for still further 
 knowledge. 
 
 The mysteries of coats-of-arms are indeed curious. The 
 precious stones, topaz, pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, 
 amethysts, and diamonds, are in constant use, each em- 
 blematic ; also the colors, red, yellow, blue, white, orange, 
 purple, and black; and the planets, sun, moon, stars, Jupi- 
 ter, Venus, Mercury, and Saturn. How soon we learn that 
 the precious stones are for nobility, the planets for princes, 
 the various colors for higher or lower degrees; which is 
 the dexter and which the sinister side of the field; and 
 thus we are able to read the hieroglyphics of heraldic bear- 
 ings by the effigies of men, women, and children, beasts, 
 fruits, and flowers. Lions gardant, saliant, couchant, dor- 
 mant, and passant, seem to haA^e been one of the earliest 
 charges ; we see them on the shields of the great houses of 
 Northumberland, Cadogan, North, Westminster, Fitzham- 
 mond. The meaning of such charges as fleur-de-lis, clarion, 
 and the fylfot is obscure; they are, therefore, called doubt- 
 ful. Learned scholars do not hesitate to devote themselves 
 to this study, as if it had a visible use other than to keep 
 alive form, degree, obedience, and reverence among men. 
 The struggle for precedence amused me. Every rank has 
 its place, and none dares to precede his superiors. Ridicu- 
 lous anecdotes are afloat of the disputes of men, but the 
 gossips say that ladies are far more severe and particular, 
 especially those of ancient family. Serious dissensions 
 occur, and the royal households are not exceptions to 
 bursts of feminine temper. The Queen, Princess of Wales, 
 princesses, duchesses, the wives of kings, or brothers of 
 the Queen, daughters of the Queen, come first, and then 
 the other grades of nobility, down to the wives of clergy- 
 men, and lawyers, and burgesses; but there is no place 
 for the consorts of tradesmen or mechanics, and those of 
 scientists, artists, and scholars are excluded. The clergy 
 and lawyers come last on the roster. 
 
 The titled families take not only the precedence, but 
 absorb most of the offices and attentions of the court. An 
 American now and then engineers herself into the charmed 
 circle, but it is paid for by much intrigue and humiliation; 
 and after her object is accomplished, she is discussed and 
 cauA'^assed disparagingly by the British sisterhood. 
 
 Since I have been in London, incidents have come to 
 
52 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 rny knowledoe by which I am taught social caste is as 
 strong in England as it ever was; and I am sorry to add 
 that those who cannot boast a coat-of-arms of their own, 
 nor a long lineage, are generally too anxious to enjoj^ the 
 patronage of their more fortunate fellow-creatures. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 "Home of the Grosvenor's high-born race, 
 
 Home of their beautiful and brave, 
 Alike their birth — and burial-place, 
 
 Their cradle and their grave ! 
 Still sternly o'er the castle -gate 
 Tlieir house's Lion stands in state. 
 
 As in Ills proud, departed hours, 
 And warriors frown in stone on high, 
 And feudal banners ' flout the sky,' 
 
 Above his princely towers." 
 
 Fitz-Green Halleck, amended. 
 
 " A world of busy workers, "who nobly toil 
 The greater world to clothe and charm. 
 Men who take vast wealth from sky and soil. 
 Coin gems for ornaments, and guns to harm. 
 Such is this glowing City — such this home 
 Of modern art, a new and dazzling Rome, 
 Where labor rules supremest king. 
 And bright inventions choicest offerings bring." 
 
 Anonymous, 
 
 Birmingham, March, 1878. 
 
 It was a da3M'eryIike onr Indian summer as we strolled 
 through the famous town of Chester, in Cheshire ; passing- 
 through the old cit}^ gates, lingering in our walk upon the 
 original Roman walls, and upon the antique and tottering 
 bridges that span the Dee, and pausing to feast our eyes 
 upon the exquisite specimens of pottery in the shops hidden 
 under the vowh^ as tliey aie called here — roofed galleries ex- 
 tending along the sidewalk, where pedestrians may siiop, 
 protected from the rain when the weather is inclement. 
 I enjoyed these novelties under the kind guideship of 
 General Lucius Fairchild, American Consul at Liverpool. 
 He lives so near the ancient seat, and lias so many friends 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 53 
 
 in the vicinity, that, as well as having the pleasure of his 
 genial society we garnered much information from his in- 
 telligent descriptions of the interesting and picturesque 
 country around us. 
 
 Chester has become almost an American town; not in 
 its inhabitants nor its customs, but because it is largely ^ 
 visited by our country people, and is also the central point 
 for an immense amount of English traffic and travel. A -^ 
 flood of overpowering historical recollections enveloped me 
 as I paused to think and gaze upon the busy town upon 
 the high road between London and Ireland ; it is the very 
 spot upon which to draw comparisons between the old, old 
 times and the new ones. The Romans were here with the 
 twentieth legion in A. D. 60, and many descriptions of 
 ancient relics are found at this day, speaking loudly of the 
 early possessors. Old as Chester is, it is very clean and 
 very much improved, although there is a visible effort to 
 hold on to the vestiges of the original Roman occupation. 
 Here, indeed, was the archetype of the man\' pictures I 
 had seen of English towns. The narrow lanes, low, red- 
 tiled roofs, spotless dimity curtains stretched across the 
 lower window panes, rows of earthen flower-pots and little 
 green plants, gave to it a provincial air. 
 
 The books that have been written about this one town 
 would fill a respectable library, especially those by Amer- 
 icans. I will not loiter upon the old, footbeaten path, but 
 try to preserve some idea of the famous Eaton Hall, the 
 magnificent estate of the Marquis of Westminster, the 
 richest peer in England, the owner of a large portion of 
 the great murky metropolis, whose income is simply incal- 
 culable. The ancestor of this Norman lord was the Earl 
 Hugh Lupus, the nephew and favorite of the Norman con- 
 queror, who, like many of those ancient chiefs, after living 
 til rough years of vice, expiated his sins by constructing 
 the Abbey of St. Warburg, from which the old cathedral, 
 within a few years splendidly improved, may claim its 
 origin. 
 
 The fair and opulent demesne on which Eaton Hall 
 stands, is over sixteen miles in length, and some seven miles 
 broad, nearly as vast as the entire city of Philadelphia, 
 Fairmount Park inclusive, and this is not all ; the mighty 
 Marquis of Grosvenor, or Westminster, is the happy pos- 
 sessor„of a large part of the city of Chester. W^e drove, 
 in our little English wagonette, out to this historic domain, ' 
 about three miles from this still more historic town. As 
 
 5* 
 
 # 
 
54 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 we approached, the great iron gate supported b}'^ the stone 
 portals of the outer lodge, was swung back upon its creak- 
 ing, rusty hinges, by the keeper's daughter, a little ruddy- 
 faced English girl in a crimson dress, who dropped us a 
 courtes}'^, and cast upon us a coy glance from under iier 
 lashes, that meant pennies. We drove for miles through 
 
 Yj long avenues, skirted by huge oaks and firs. Although 
 much of the grounds are under cultivation, there are vast 
 sections devoted to tiie ornamental, and to large herds of 
 deer, — that were grazing by thousands, — not for human 
 consumption, but simply for the sport of the noble Marquis 
 and his titled guests. We obtained a glimpse of the costly 
 castle ; of the hall 450 feet long, in which the Marquis re- 
 sides when at home, of a floor 40 feet square, that cost 
 $8000, of the great corridor extending 500 feet, of the spa- 
 cious drawing-room, with the ceiling of heraldic shields, 
 and honeycombed in tracery of cream color and gold, the 
 walls rich in their treasures of art, by Rubens and West, 
 of the still more spacious library, with its colonnades of 
 pillars on either side, and heavy gothic windows, and oaken 
 shelves, overladen with the rarest books. The grand 
 stairway is a prodigy ; two colored marble Eg3q:)tian stat- 
 ues stand on either hand as you ascend the long flight of 
 steps, which run from the centre right and left to the second 
 gallery, and thence to the private apartments on the higher 
 story. Land and sea have been ransacked for gems to 
 adorn this luxurious pile. Here are inclosed precious 
 articles of viiHu^ paintings, statuary, mosaics, and frescoes. 
 During the hunting season this nobleman entertains many 
 hundred guests, and his tenantry alone are from five to 
 seven hundred. The whole edifice, exclusive of stables 
 and out-buildings, covers a space of 700 feet in front. 
 
 A 1600 guineas were expended upon the pavement of the 
 main floor. 
 
 Tapestries, damasks, shields, vases, chandeliers, and 
 a world of precious treasures of art, have been purchased 
 and placed in the interior,-vvhile outside you are enchanted 
 with fountains, vistas, Italian gardens, long walks, and 
 endless arrangements for the enjoyment of those who pre- 
 fer the chase, or the drive, or the pleasures of the angler. 
 Apart from the historic pieces, and portraits, and old 
 armor, is a choice collection of racing pictures, illustrative 
 of the fabulous sums of money that have been squandered 
 on blooded horses by the luxurious Grosvenors. The por- 
 traits of the animals belonging to this family for more than 
 
0|' FOREIGN TRAVEL. 55 
 
 a hundred years occupy a prominent place in tbe house- 
 hold. This house of Westminster, or Grosvenor, has been 
 collecting wealtii and adding to all its territory since the 
 Norman invasion. I was enraptured by the gardens and 
 conservatories, which, though it was early spring, were 
 filled with every variety of exotic shrub and flower, in- 
 cluding exquisite pieces of native growth, making alto- 
 gether a bewildering multitude of color and a weight of 
 odor thot recalled the simile of the poet when he speaks of 
 the rose dying of aromatic pain. 
 
 As I entered the central avenue, I was greeted by a 
 vision of entrancing beauty. The floral-fretted walls ex- 
 tended and gradually contracted in the far perspective ; 
 from the lofty and vaulted glass roof hung the delicate 
 sprays of a vine bearing tiny crimson stars that had clus- 
 tered and wreathed their tendrils into a network and fringe 
 overhead. Far, far down this gallery, the eff"ect was that 
 of a cloud of sea-foam in mid-air, tinged by the lurid glow 
 of the sinking sun. It was a poem of radiance and per- 
 fume from the breath of heaven. Then there were the 
 scarlet and pink and white lilies, the sweet modest violets, 
 the cold chaste bridal-wreaths, the lusty velvet roses, and 
 the bronzed and glossy margins of box; and you may be 
 quite sure I did not quit this Eden till I had secured fra- 
 grant trophies of my memorable visit. 
 
 The old racecourse, where the Chester cup is annually 
 run for, has a history of its own, and there is no finer 
 English scene than the struggle for this cup in May. In 
 1540 a custom began, by which a silver bell, costing 3s. 6c?., 
 was annually given by the saddler's company "to him who 
 shall run the best on horseback." This arrangement was 
 subsequently changed, and it was decreed tliat that "horse 
 which with speed did overrun the rest, had the best cup 
 then presently delivered, and that horse which came sec- 
 ond, next the first, before the rest, had the second cup then 
 also delivered." 
 
 Cheshire, in which Chester is placed, is perhaps the rich- 
 est county in England in old houses; many of the churches 
 are very beautiful, and it is noted for the number of its 
 aristocracy and wealthy proprietors ; but among its old 
 estates you will find few, indeed none, as extensive as 
 Eaton Hall. The country is so gridironed with railroads, 
 that with its limited territory you pass from one place to 
 another without the slightest difficulty. So bidding adieu 
 to our friend. General Fairchild, we passed into Warwick- 
 
56 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 shire, and found ourselves at The Great Western Hotel, 
 Birmingham, a few hours after leaving Chester. Warwick- 
 shire is one of the wealthiest territories in the world, and 
 Birmingham the largest manufacturing town in England, 
 and is claimed without an equal in any other country. 
 Far different from Liverpool, brighter, cleaner, and more 
 intelligent, it is called "the toy-shop of Europe," from the 
 number and varietj' of its manufactures. I had no time 
 to stop to examine the churches and sliops, theatres and 
 cemeteries, and so hired a hack and a guide, and made a 
 rather close survey of the manufactories, all of them very 
 curious and interesting to me. It is the great headquar- 
 ters of buttons; buttons of brass, copper, cloth, shell, bone, 
 wood, and porcelain. The gilt buttons for militar}' and 
 other uniforms employ thousands of persons ; millions of 
 cloth buttons are sold annually, also linen buttons, hooks 
 and eyes, and pearl and bone buttons. Swords and guns 
 and pistols are made in immense quantities in Birmingham. 
 The gold and silver plate in jewelry trade is very large. 
 30,000 wedding rings annually pass through the assay 
 office. 70 ounces of gold leaf are used every week, and 
 150,000 ounces of silver are used annually. I was com- 
 pletely astounded by the manufacture of brasses and 
 bronzes. The Birmingham workers in iron are renowned 
 all over the world. The glass manufacturers, and the 
 manufacturers of steel pens are also very interesting; they 
 claim that Birmingham supplies the world with pens. 
 
 We drove through Aston Park, b^^ the sweet waters of 
 the Rea, along the eastern slopes of the undulating hills of 
 red sandstone, and into the suburbs as far as Stafford and 
 Worcester. The new court of assizes, that is in course of 
 erection, is quite as large and as handsome a building as 
 our new post-office promises to be; the town cannot claim 
 half the population of Philadelphia, including that portion 
 beyond city limits. 
 
 Opposite m^^ window is one of the beautiful arcades or 
 galleries of shops that one finds all over Eumpe ; and after 
 the lamps were lighted I sauntered through it to note the 
 diversity of fancy articles of native manufacture that em- 
 bellished the windows. A pleasant place to pass half an 
 hour; a clean walk, a glass roof, brilliant goods displayed, 
 and it seemed to be a general rendezvous for luxurious 
 idlers. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 51 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 *'Tbon soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream. 
 Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream ; 
 The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 
 For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head." 
 
 Garrick. 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon, March, 1878. ' 
 
 A RIDE of about half an hour on the rails brought us into 
 this quaint old town of the myriad-minded poet. The 
 atmosphere was salubrious and hazy when we quitted 
 Birmingham, and the blue glamour of the long English 
 twiliohts was weavino; itself around the horizon. Of the 
 beautiful section of Warwickshire through which our route 
 lay, I saw little; the glimpses I caught of the rich farms, 
 luxuriant valley's, and gentle-flowing streams, were not sat- 
 isfactory through the obscuring mists. When we drew up 
 in the little station in Stratford-on-Avon, only twenty -six 
 miles distant, we were greeted by "an eager and a nipping 
 air" and a driving shower of hail. A rickety omnibus con- 
 veyed us to the Shakespeare House, where the chambers 
 are designated by titles from the immortal plays, one over 
 each door. As you enter the hall there are tables and 
 escritoires of the heavy English style, a bust of Shake- 
 speare, and memorial engravings. Over the dining-room I 
 noticed the appropriate quotation, "may good digestion 
 wait on appetite." I was assigned the apartment bearing 
 the inscription, "Midsummer Night's Dream." I could 
 attach no point to this motto on which to hang a vision. I 
 onl}' knew that it was a large room containing three beds, 
 the walls in a state of utter dilapidation, and the windows, 
 illy fitted to their frames, were shaken all through tlie night 
 by the wind, while the hail pattered violently against the 
 glass. These circumstances did not inspire the delightful 
 sensations suggested by the title. The bridal-chamber is 
 labelled "Love's Labor's Lost," the same that had been 
 occupied by Olive Logan several months ago when she 
 passed through Stratford. Has this most incongruous pre- 
 fix been inadvertently placed here, or is it the work of some 
 melancholy pessimist ? 
 
 On the second floor of this little hotel are some valuable 
 old paintings by Rembrandt, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and 
 early artists of equal celebrity; and the original sign-board 
 of the inn, bearing a dim and defaced effigy of Shakespeare 
 
58 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 The proprietor's wife, an Englishwoman of considerable 
 education, was excessively hospitable, and after chatting 
 about her collection of pictures, the ancient house, and the 
 strange maxims that arrest your gaze at every step, she 
 spoke of my obvious state of poor health, and offered her 
 tender care and an alleviation, if not a remedy, for my suf- 
 ferings while 1 remained her giiest. She left me, and a 
 quarter of an hour afterward a maid appeared with a bowl 
 of what I supposed to be farina gruel and a small vial of a 
 brownish hue, of which she cautioned me, to let the dose 
 be meagre; this warning might have been omitted, as there 
 was but one remaining drop; still the w^ords created un- 
 pleasant suspicions in my husband's mind, who endeavored 
 to dissuade my imbibing the ominous potion. Despite 
 the entreaties, I took it ; I felt that m}'' sands of life were 
 rapidly drifting out into the great ocean of eternity ; the 
 ruthless winds were shifting the leaves of my brief book 
 of life, to the page where only one word, finis^ was written ; 
 and so the offered sympathy I accepted ; but let my expe- 
 rience serve as a watchword to my American sisters ; the 
 following evening I found my landlady's pap and charity 
 put in the bill, after I had praised her as a model ! Beware 
 of the sympathetic English proprietress; this is the second 
 one who has charged for benevolence. " The best in this 
 kind are but shadows ; and the w^orst are no worse, if ima- 
 gination amend them." 
 
 M}'^ first visit was not to the house where he who became 
 Lord Paramount in English literature opened his eyes upon 
 Ihe light of this world, but to New Place, the home of his 
 ripened genius and industry, where he waited the too early 
 summons of the grim and bribeless reaper. Of his ancient 
 sanctum there remain only a few foundation stones. But 
 here lived and labored the poet ; here were his garden, his 
 favorite mulberry tree, his shady walks, and his lawn and 
 orchard stretching down to the margin of the silvery Avon. 
 The morning succeeding the hailstorm was dismal and wet, 
 but the turf in the Shakspeare garden was fresh and green, 
 and the gravel-paths firm beneath our feet. These gardens 
 are cultivated and embellished with beautiful flowers, and 
 in the summer season are open for public enjoyment. By 
 special arrangement they may be procured for picnics and 
 other occasions of merr3^-making. 
 
 In the house attached to New Place, where resides the 
 ancient and interesting warden of the illustrious poet's 
 devastated home, are many silent but eloquent relics of his 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 59 
 
 life and surroundings ; a rude clay cast of the " bard of 
 Avon," and a portrait, as also portraits of the noble line 
 of Cloptons and Coombes, whose fair daughter, if my 
 memory rightly serves me, was consigned to a living tomb, 
 and the fact is generally believed to have been the incentive 
 to the melancholy tragedy, " Romeo and Juliet." 
 
 We approached Trinity Chapel through a path skirted 
 by tall limes, whose interlacing branches form a shelter 
 overhead, where the cold glimmer of white tombstones is 
 faintly seen through the rank grass, where the sweetly 
 flowing Avon winds like a silken ribbon about the base of 
 the crumbling and ivy-crowned house of God, whose gentle 
 murmur is a dulcet accompaniment to the whistling of the 
 wind among the almost leafless branches. As we waited 
 for the sexton, I noticed a sad-faced woman and child 
 planting flowers around a little grave that had been newly 
 made, and then we passed from the yet untrodden earth of 
 a spring-time burial, into the centuried sanctuary of the 
 immortal dust. 
 
 On the left side of the chancel, as you face the altar, is 
 the grave bearing the well-known- inscription : — 
 
 Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare, 
 To digg the dust encloased liere ; 
 Bleste be y® man y*- spares these stones, 
 And curst be he y* moves my bones. 
 
 Printed fac-similes of these characteristic lines of the 
 " poet of the world" are for sale at a shilling each; but by 
 ottering a bribe of another shilling, I became the possessor 
 of the identical one upon the tomb. From the entablature 
 just above, the florid and bedizened effigy of sweet Wil- 
 liam, in scarlet doublet and sleeveless black gown, looked 
 down upon the sacrilegious barter over his dry and Whited 
 bones. And then we were requested to contribute to the 
 beautiful new memorial window that is [)laced very near 
 Shakespeare's tomb, and is paid for from American bounty; 
 it is of exquisite stained glass, and represents the " seven 
 ages," applied to the Bible ; four of the panels are already 
 completed. After lingering in the aisles and naves of the 
 old Gothic structure, we turned to the birthplace of the 
 modest wool-comber's poet child. Here everything is red- 
 olent of Shakespeare, and the phantom that I had enter- 
 tained of Shakes[)eare being made of diff"erent cla}^, and 
 cast in a diff'erent mould from the rest of humankind, rap- 
 idly faded. He had lived so long ago, I so far awny from 
 
60 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 all that proved his existence, his writings so peerless, his 
 imagination so wild and creative, that 1 had sometimes be- 
 lieved him a tradition, always divine, but never a myth. I 
 delight to find him human, approachable, and lovable. The 
 old fireplace, the decayed wails, ceilings, and floors, the 
 low-gabled tenement, and the ten treacherous steps that 
 ascend from the kitchen to the chamber where he was born, 
 all seem hallowed by the " great heir of fame," and then 
 I remember that this same house served afterward as a 
 butcher-shop and a tavern, impregnated with the odor of 
 beer, bad gin, coarse meat, and greasy bacon ; ah! verily, 
 "to what base uses may we not return, Horatio?" 
 
 The walls of the chamber are blackened by thousands of 
 pencilled names, and Scott and Byron are easily read upon 
 the glass window panes. There remain the chairs, the sig- 
 net ring, the first copy of some of his plays, and even a 
 letter from Richard Quincey, written in 1598, for tlie pur- 
 pose of borrowing from the poet thirty pounds, but not one 
 line in the hand of Shakespeare. The little garden attaciied 
 to the " birthplace" is filled with the flowers so often men- 
 tioned in his dramas, and as tiie old lady who conducted 
 us over the poetical ground handed them to me, she re- 
 peated the lines of poor Ophelia, and those that run, " I 
 know a bank whereon the wild tiiyme blows," etc. I found 
 Mr. J. 0. Halliwell Philips not only the god of her idol- 
 ati-y, but the presiding genius of all Stratford-onAvon ; it 
 must be remembered that he purchased over ten years ago 
 ''New Place," and presented it to the Crown, after putting 
 it in splendid order. Occasionally he visits the ancient 
 village, and must be, from all accounts, a regular brother 
 Cheeryble, judging by the ecstasies of the woman janitor of 
 the " l3irth place." Every one about Stratford, with the ex- 
 ception of the great families, makes a living out of Shake- 
 speare ; were it not for the constant stream of tourists, 
 mainly Americans, the old houses and haunts of the idol 
 William, the shops, taverns, and churches, would have a 
 dismal ex})erience. Everything is placed under a rigid 
 system of contribution. The charges are not great, but the 
 s^^stem is consistently^ and steadily maintained. 
 
 The great staple product of the vicinage is beer ; indeed, 
 the whole neighborhood cultivates the juice of the liop, just 
 as all classes drink the tempting brew. The memorial the- 
 atre, which seems to have originated from the fund started 
 by David Garrick, one hundred and ten years ago, to con- 
 struct a statue to Shakespeare, is in rapid course of erec- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 61 
 
 tion, and vvheii completed, will be one of tlie finest in the 
 kingdom. It is entirely too large, however, for the town, 
 which has a population of not more than 4000. Only on 
 rare occasions can it ever be put to profitable use. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 *' He was not of an age, but for all time, 
 And all the muses still were in their prime, 
 When like Apollo he came for to charm 
 Our ears, or like a Mercury to harm." 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 Warwick, England, March, 1878. 
 
 The charm of English life is a residence or sojourn in 
 the country during the spring and summer, but as my 
 programme carries me on the Continent for the opening 
 of the Paris Exposition, I am obliged to improve an Eng- 
 lish winter as best I can. The country side of England is 
 always lovely, even in March, and the climate is much less 
 dismal and inhospitable than that of London. 
 
 Warwickshire, the county in which Stratford is placed, 
 has been, from its central situation and physical periphery, 
 called the heart of England. It is a little world by itself; 
 a world of wealth in mineral and agricultural products, 
 a world of learning, of aristocracy, of poetry, romance, 
 history, ancient records, and modern progress. The rail- 
 way radiates all through the section at exceedingly low 
 fares, cab hire is reasonable, and the distances between 
 the various show places, village inns, cities, and towns, in 
 this particular count}^, are so short, that many travellers, 
 when the weather is fine, prefer to walk. A week might 
 be spent in Stratford and its vicinity, and you would reap 
 a golden harvest of pleasure and information. 
 
 While at the Shakespeare house I heard of many of my 
 country people who come there in June or July, and loiter 
 around the place sanctified by the great master, his pre- 
 decessors, and followers; interesting in their Roman re- 
 mains and attractive in recent ancestral homes. The river 
 Avon flows through Warwickshire on its way to the Severn ; 
 it beautifies and freshens the borders of lovely English 
 6 
 
62 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 abodes, passes smiling, thrifty hamlets, sombre castles, 
 irrigates rich farm lands, murmurs at the poet's grave, 
 and coils around the old county-towns with their venerable 
 cliurches and towers. 
 
 Alcester, seven and a half miles from Stratford, a small 
 market town, the seat of a Roman encampment, as proved 
 by the discovery of ancient bricks, coins, and urns of 
 human bones, is now a modern factory of needles. Alces- 
 ter is at the confluence of the streams Arrow and Alne, 
 a short distance irom the ancient castles of the Beau- 
 champs and Grevilles, two miles from Coughton Manor, 
 the home of the ancient family of Tiirockmorton since the 
 reign of Henry lY. The same little town is bordered, 
 equally distant, on the southwest by Ragley Paik, the 
 patrician estate of the Marquis of Hertford, with its castle, 
 })ark, lakes, and peerless gardens. Charlecote, four miles 
 from Stratford, indissolubl}- associated with Shakespeare, 
 is the ancient family seat of the Lucj^s, whose ancestor. 
 Sir Thomas Lucy, is said to have bitterly persecuted 
 Shakespeare, because the latter, on several occasions, made 
 free with the Knight's deer, which favor (?) the poet re- 
 turned by attaching immortal and merciless ridicule to 
 him as Justice Shalloio. The old homestead is of brick in 
 the Elizabethan style, the great hall wainscoted in oak, 
 containing marvels of ancient and richly carved fuiniture, 
 and many valuable paintings. Cliarlecote Church, near by, 
 was rebuilt by the same family. The Cloptons and Combes, 
 families contemporary with Shakespeare, had their estate 
 on the Avon, so that the entire vicinage is dotted with 
 noble castles and opulent homes. 
 
 Shottery, where Shakespeare wooed — or rather was 
 wooed by Anne Hathawa}^, is only a mile from his birth- 
 place. There is nothing here to aw^aken pleasant recollec- 
 tions, and I was rather glad that some doubts were thrown 
 upon its authenticity. P]ven the relics purchased from 
 here by Garrick, as sanctified by confederacy with the 
 great poet, were most probably the constructive frauds of 
 an enterprising auctioneer or collector. 
 
 My visit to Stratford left a sad impression. It is odd 
 indeed that there remains nothing satisfactory of Shakes- 
 peare's ways of life, either in London, or at his village 
 home. There was quite too much surmise and speculation. 
 The most living things about him are his plays, and even 
 these are doubted b}^ some and openly conceded to others. 
 For so great a mind, it is painful how little has been left 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 68 
 
 by himself or found by antiquarians ! Dwelling upon these 
 facts, like thousands of others who have preceded me, I 
 was cheered by the following lines, that I copied from the 
 crumbling walls of Shakespeare's house, written by sweet 
 Washington Irving in 1821 — fifty-eight years ago. It is 
 the most solacing excuse for Shakespeare's anonymous 
 character I have seen: — 
 
 **0f mighty Shakespeare's birth the room we see, 
 That where he died in vain to find we try ; 
 Useless the search — for all immortal he, — 
 And those who are immortal never die." 
 
 When we left Stratford the annual cattle fair was at its 
 height, and as we passed through the picturesque valley 
 of the Avon, we saw vast herds of choice grades in pad- 
 docks for exhibition. There were the short-horned Durham 
 breed, the Herefords, that are valuable as working oxen, 
 the Devon s, famed for their beaut^'^, the Ayrshires prized 
 for the quantity of milk they yield, and the Alderneys 
 whose EXTRACT is world renowned for richness. I have 
 good reason never to forget the latter breed, and when my 
 experience recurs to ray mind I do not contemplate this 
 particular stock with much satisfaction. Several weeks 
 ago my London physician advised me to drink English 
 stout, ciiampagne or cream. The first was less palatable 
 tlian any drug he could have prescribed, the second too 
 costly, and as I was forbidden still wines I was reduced to 
 the remaining expedient, so I ordered the commissioner at 
 the Westminster to have Alderney cream served to me 
 every morning. Nothing could have been finer, so that it 
 is not the quality of which I complain but the price ; when 
 I received the account I discovered that I had been build- 
 ing up my health upon a foundation of cream at two dollars 
 a quart ! Now, do not look aghast as I did. I endeavored 
 to persuade mj'self tliat I had forgotten my table of Eng- 
 lish mone}', or that my entire bill amounted to eight shil- 
 lings. I rang for the commissioner and advised with him. 
 He assured me the bill was correct and seemed to be sur- 
 prised that cream had declined to eight shillings, the usual 
 price being ten ! I had always heard the capabilities of 
 the Alderney highly spoken of and for the first time I 
 realized how high they were. 
 
 What a beautiful spot is Warwick ! These sweet Eng- 
 lish towns are much more attractive than wild, 'wildering 
 London. Here one has such a supreme sense of rest, away 
 from the gloom and clamor of ponderous houses and noisy 
 
64 PICrURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 streets, away from the vast palaces where great questions 
 of state are discussed, away from that ceaseless whirlpool 
 of trade. 
 
 After we had deposited our luggage and engaged rooms 
 at the Warwick Arms we strolled out through the streets 
 of the town. I noticed cleanly highways, beautiful resi- 
 dences, extensive shops, and then wandered toward the 
 eminence on which the castle stands, lingered upon the 
 new stone bridge that girds the same beautiful Avon ever 
 in our wake wheresoever we may turn. The picture was 
 one of unrivalled beauty. The sky Avas pale blue, flecked 
 with filmy clouds, and the sun just sinking behind the 
 western hills, shed a rosy glow through the haz}'^ atmos- 
 phere. It was much such an afternoon as we frequently 
 have at home in earl)- spring. The luxurious shrubbery in 
 the vast park bent low to rest on the gentle waters they 
 bordered. Shakespeare must have been referring to this 
 sweet river when he said : 
 
 "The current, that with gentle murmur glided 
 
 Thou knoAv'st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage ; 
 
 But when his fair course is not hindered, 
 
 He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones, 
 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage ; 
 
 And so, by many winding nooks he strays, 
 
 With willing sport to the wild ocean." 
 
 The ancient willows droop to kiss the ripples as they 
 pass, and others like them in Denmark are undoubtedly 
 alluded to by Queen Gertrude, in the passage where she tells 
 Laertes of his fair sister's death, beginning: 
 
 *' There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook, 
 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream." 
 
 On the odorous English road, the rustic lads and lassies 
 doffed their hats and dropped us courtesies, as they came 
 to or from their country homes in the neighboring shires 
 of Stafford, Leicester, or Worcester; from the hills of 
 Fenny Compton, the valley of the Stour, or the Dale of the 
 Red Horse; from the Northwest, near the red marl and 
 sandstone mounds, and from the vicinity of Morton Hill 
 and Dunsmore Heath; some trudging their way on foot, 
 while those from a greater distance rode in their cosey 
 wagonettes. Then we sauntered through the obscure lanes 
 at the rear of the castle walls, where ruddy-faced bahies 
 played in the mire, with the poultry, and where low- 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 65 
 
 thatched cottages were as clean and orderly as the splendid 
 palaces across the river; and as I retraced my steps to the 
 quiet little hotel in the town, I marvelled if I should enjoy 
 the interior of the home of the mediap.val Earls of Warwick, 
 as much as I had my afternoon ramble on the country side. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 "Old castles ou the cliffs arise, 
 Proudly toM^ering in the skies ; 
 Rushing from the woods, the spires 
 Seem from hence ascending fires ; 
 Half his beams Apollo sheds 
 On the yellow mountain -heads 
 Gilds the fleeces of the flocks, 
 And glitters on the broken rocks," 
 
 John Dyer. 
 
 Warwick, England, March, 1878. 
 
 My first work this morning was to visit Warwick Castle, 
 which I was as anxious to see as all who have preceded 
 me. Had a register been kept of these thousands it would 
 have been as curious as any in history. So we rang the 
 bell at the great iron gate, which was swung back by the 
 old janitress, who acts as a sort of lady abbess, or as I 
 have heard her called "jailoress" of the old pile. She 
 looked like one of the weird sisters who met Macbeth 
 upon the heath to tell him of his future greatness, and 
 as we entered the stone-canopied avenue, we were greeted 
 by a ruddy young English girl at the door of the porter's 
 lodge whom the old witch presented as her "servant- 
 gal." This woman who must be at least eighty, told 
 us that she had been retained by the Neville family since 
 childhood; and for ever so many years she has day after 
 day repeated the stories of Guy of Warwick, and sounded 
 the vast metal porridge-pot with the flesh-fork in which 
 the smoking stew was prepared for liim and his warriors, 
 and from which his successors have drunk their drauofht 
 through the centuries. It is now used as a punch-bowl 
 with a capacity for 102 gallons, and on the occasion of 
 the coming of age of the present earl, the antiquated Hecate 
 saw it "thrice filled and emptied." The armor^ consisting 
 
 6* 
 
66 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of helmet, shield, sword, and breastplate of this legendary 
 Gny, are preserved here and weigh 111 pounds. Among 
 other relics are trophies of his exploits on Dunsmore 
 Heath. Our historian told us of the vast number of 
 Americans who track hitherward en 7'oute to London ; "Ah 
 yes," she said, "I have been her^ many a \^ear; they never 
 fail us, and they are the most liberal of all my visitors." 
 This sly hint of the shrewd old crone I very well compre- 
 hended, but I had the sliilling ready and as she spoke I 
 almost felt as if I stood in the presence of one of the old 
 dependents of tiie "king-maker." 
 
 We reached the castle by a cavernous path hewn through 
 the solid rock, by a long ascent, and heard the dull crush 
 of the sodden gravel beneath our feet in this novel vault- 
 like tunnel. At the terminus of the wonderful granite for- 
 mation our path lay between a colonnade of tall and ven- 
 erable trees whose interlacing branches were heavy with 
 nature's tear-drops, and the weeping willows and sweeping 
 cedars made mournful music on the cloudy morning. As 
 1 advanced my thoughts reverted to the long ago, when 
 came hither the lords and ladies of dead kings to visit 
 their opulent and half-royal entertainer, who gladly con- 
 sented to bankrupt himself to gratify his sovereign. In 
 my mind's eye I saw again the cavalcades of knights and 
 kings and queens, radiant in powdered curls, golden lace, 
 crimson plush, and ermine, treading the paths I now trod, 
 coming from the surrounding country and from great Lon- 
 don town ever so many centuries ago. They came to visit 
 my lord and lad}^, holding high revel in yonder gra3'^ mon- 
 astic towers which burst upon my vision as I reached the 
 plateau on which the glorious monument stands. How 
 supremely beautiful and lovely ! The air was mild, and 
 the sward smooth and green. My eyes have become accus- 
 tomed to these English landscape scenes, that seem repro- 
 duced in India ink, and partially obliterated by having had 
 a moist sponge passed over them. I now appreciate their 
 artistic points, but at first they formed a dismal contrafef 
 to our intensely clear and brilliant American pictures. 
 
 All was silent as the grave, for the great people were 
 away off in London, and their palace was left in charge 
 of the servants and seneschals. We ascended a long 
 flight of steps on our left and passed into a marble ves- 
 tibule overarched by a Gothic canopy ; but we had to 
 tarry for no one is in a hurry here; all classes take their 
 time, the servants are slow, the peers are slower, and all 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 6t 
 
 is slow except the telegrnpli and steam, and they wait for 
 no man, ''nor woman neither." Then the door was opened 
 unto us, and I found myself in the halls where eaiis had 
 been born and bred since the dtiys of William the Con- 
 queror. To the riglit lay the grand baronial hall with its 
 richly carved and gilded roof of Gothic architecture, its 
 Venetian marble floor, and antique wainscoting ; on the 
 east wall were hung the armor, swords, and matchlocks of 
 a long line of baronets. Many of these treasures remain 
 as trophies of victory, wrested in battle from their van- 
 quished foe in the days of Edward I, II, the campaigns 
 of the Black Prince, the reigns of Henry YI, Edward lY, 
 and subsequent ages. On the opposite wall were long win- 
 dows set in deep embrasures, and equally distant between 
 each of these were the effigies of the former lords of this 
 fair demesne clad in armor and mounted upon their favorite 
 chargers. From this point I viewed the situation of the 
 liill. Towers were all around us; the castle, the cathedral, 
 the donjon-keep, and the high walls made the level at the 
 head of the stony walk a sort of inclosure. Looking down 
 upon the Avon, a hundred feet below, we saw it softly and 
 silently lapping the base of the mighty rock, the founda- 
 tion of this stronghold of "ancient and chivalrous splen- 
 dor." 
 
 To add to the romantic and unequalled scene is the 
 densely wooded portion of the park, which has been allow- 
 ed to go unkempt and uncombed ; also the dilapidated 
 remains of an ancient bridge; and farther up, the beautiful 
 stream is crossed by a new stone structure with pictu- 
 resque adornments; the plains of the Eeldon and the wood- 
 land of the Arden may be seen, and in the far distance 
 above all, and beyond all, are the mist-capped heights of 
 Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. As I waited in this 
 hall historical memories deluged my brain — memories that 
 seemed to waken into life in the midst of the blazoned ar- 
 morial bearings and heraldic devices of this noble house. 
 And as I pondered in this atmosphere of ancient glory, our 
 cicerone^ the palace guide, appeared. He was a faded, 
 blase, drowsy, rheumatic English servant, who received us 
 with a supreme sense of indifference that proved his call- 
 ing. We followed him into the great hall, and banqueting 
 hall, where everything was gorgeous, lordly, and artistic, 
 but, unhappil}^, very new, for, of course, the necessary 
 repairs have been made since the disastrous fire in 18Y1. 
 But in the state-bedroom, known as the "Queen Anne 
 
68 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Chamber," the magnificent appointments remain in their 
 original state ; here all the furniture has the rigid straight- 
 ness of that period. The bed of crimson velvet is the same 
 occupied by Queen Elizabeth when she visited Warwick. 
 The chairs, square and antique, were upholstered in crimson 
 velvet, enriched by an arabesque pattern in applique of sea- 
 green and white satin, stitched with golden thread ; doubt- 
 less the handiwork of royal fingers long since crumbled to 
 dust. In this room are the world-renowned tapestries, pic- 
 turing the gardens of Versailles, the pleasures of seeing 
 these in nature I have daily in contemplation. To desig- 
 nate individually the treasures of art in oil, marble, buhl, 
 marquetrie, parquetrie, mosaic, bronze, and porcelain, scat- 
 tered through the gilt drawing-room, cedar drawing-room, 
 red drawing-room. Milady's Boudoir, and the Chapel Pas- 
 sage, I should be minute and tiresome. Here the artists 
 of all decades and countries are represented by glorious 
 monuments of their genius and assiduity; Salvator Rosa, 
 Teniers, Gerard Dow, Vandervelde, Vandyke, Rubens, Van 
 Mieris, Paolo Veronese, Zucchero, Lely, Murillo, and even 
 Raffaelle are here. Our rheumatic friend pointed to pic- 
 tures, statuary, old arms, and relics of special interest, 
 signed us to windows to view the splendid outside combi- 
 nations of sky, water, and foliage, and now and then mum- 
 bled a sort of idiotic catalogue of the surrounding history. 
 The display of fire arms excited my interest, for I saw that 
 the pistols three or four centuries ago were made very 
 nearly after the model now so prevalent in America, and 
 which we claim as our invention. I thank the present Earl 
 of Warwick for the apparent care of this treasure-house of 
 English history, and will not complain of the sullen con- 
 duct of his gouty subordinate. I enjoyed to the fullest 
 extent all I came to see ; a splenetic attendant could not 
 prevent that. I had m}^ shillings ready to preserve us from 
 his malediction, and retired into the garden to stroll by the 
 ancient moat, through the charming pleasure-grounds and 
 winding paths, bordered by the stately cedars of Lebanon. 
 And the old gardener in the meanwhile told us of the kind- 
 ness of the present Earl to his servants, and catalogued in 
 chronological order his issue. We paid the old fellow a 
 shilling for his courteous replies to our questions, and then 
 he insisted we should enter the greenhouse to see the famous 
 vase, nearly seven feet high, and twenty-one in circumfer- 
 ence, with quaint handles of twisted snakes ; a magnificent 
 piece of Grecian art, carven from one solid block of purel}' 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 69 
 
 white marble. It was found at the bottom of a lake in 
 the Emperor Adrian's villa, at Tivoli, one of the exquisite 
 suburban palaces of Rome, and was purchased by the an- 
 cestor of the present Earl, from Sir William Hamilton, 
 ambassador at Naples in the last century. Of course I had 
 the curiosity just to peep into the dungeon beneath Caesar's 
 Tower, where the names, devices, and sentences in English 
 and French, cut into the walls, were a sad reminder what 
 the wretched captives who pined within these charnel-houses 
 did to beguile the weary hours. And then I attempted 
 to mount the summit of Guy's Tower, where the guide 
 assured me I could obtain the finest possible ^ iew of the 
 surrounding counties for many miles; but when I had less 
 than half accomplished my tedious task, I abnndoned it, 
 and was obliged to rest before I retraced my steps over the 
 steep and rickety stair. No doubt it would have been a 
 creditable feat to have completed the ascent, but I never 
 aspired to glory of that description. After doing this 
 proud offspring of the ages, I returned to my little boudoir 
 in the Warwick Arms, where I write to you, the eyes of 
 Lord Leigh, another of the grand moguls of the vicinage, 
 peering down upon me from the opposite wall. Within an 
 hour I am going to bid adieu to the native town of the eru- 
 dite scholars, Walter, of Coventry, and John Rous, and 
 post across this enchanting section of England to the other 
 historical and romantic points in opulent Warwickshire. 
 
 LETTER XI Y. 
 
 " With Leicester, Lord of Kenilworlh, in mournful robes, was seen 
 The gifted, great Elizabeth, high England's matchless queen. 
 Tressilian's wild and manly glance, and Varny's darker gaze, 
 Sought Amy Robsart's brilliant form, too fair for earthly praise." 
 
 Crarles Swain. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 Back again in old London, under the shadow of West- 
 minster Abbe3\ within sight of Westminster Hall ; the 
 darkly-flowing Thames to my left, with the dense veil of 
 black fog that London may indeed call its own, hanging 
 low over the city, and Big Ben's deep-mouthed voice bid- 
 ding me an honest welcome ! 
 
to PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Yesterday morning after completing a bargain with the 
 Jehu of the Warwick Arms, to drive ns to Leamington, 
 about ten miles distant, for the sum of fourteen shillings, 
 which I considered excessively reasonable, remembering 
 our American tariff, anotiier enterprising cabby offered to 
 do the same work for ten shillings. Of course, I was some- 
 what provoked, not alone on account of the four shillings, 
 but I felt the trick of the first sharper like an insult to mj'' 
 intelligence. I could not repudiate my promise, however, 
 to the former, but endeavored to reduce him to the price of 
 his rival, without effect; he said his rival did not know his 
 business, that he could give us no history of the country 
 through wliich our route la}' ; " but I, madam, am acquainted 
 with ever}'^ rood of the ground, and can relate all the hin- 
 teresting hanecdotes." The last persuasive promise settled 
 the matter; wdio would forego the benefit of such a store 
 of knowledge for the paltry sum of four shillings? As we 
 turned our backs upon the home wliere Richard Neville, 
 the frank and hospitable '^ king-maker" had lived and gov- 
 erned, I found the conveyance comfortable, and the driver 
 reasonably intelligent, as he drove over the broad smooth 
 English roads and past the comfortable English homes, 
 pointing out tlie great estates and naming their titled own- 
 ers. He had opened his budget and I allowed him to prattle 
 on. He related the story of Ethelfleda, Alfred's daughter, 
 who fortified and contributed to the prosperity of Warwick; 
 he repeated pages of Dugdale's narratives, and of the Ro- 
 man occupation, but he evinced special delight in dwelling 
 upon the glories of the " king-maker;" how his bravery had 
 attached to his interests the military; how his gifts and 
 friendship were alvva3's regarded as genuine; how the peo- 
 ple in general, and particularly his retainers, were more de- 
 voted to his iron will, than to tiie English law ; and by his 
 fulness of soul how he had conquered all men^s affections. 
 Our rural communicant said notliing of the ancient Earl's 
 conquests over female hearts ; I presume that he left to 
 conjecture. 
 
 It is March, and although there is no snow on the ground, 
 nor ice in the streams, there is sufficient chill in the air to 
 cause me to draw my fur cloak around me; but this was a 
 secondary discomfort in the midst of these storied scenes. 
 Oh ! for the bright winter skies of my own dear home just 
 now — nothing could be more cheering tlian to ride through 
 this lovely country in our incomparable weather. Art and 
 nature combine to make rural England a small realm of 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 71 
 
 loveliness, and, notwithstanding there are many gloomy 
 days between December and April, still the best English 
 homes are abodes of almost royal luxury, and when spring 
 and summer follow, that which has been done by wealth to 
 beautify the roads and the fields, and the entire country, 
 makes the scene one of indescribable splendor! Yes, it 
 deserves just this one word splendor. 
 
 A very short ride of a mile brought us to Guy's Cliff, 
 familiar to all of us as the chosen home and tomb of the 
 fabled hero who slew the giant Colbrand, and whom the 
 early metrical romances make a champion against the Danes. 
 Now this point presented to Jehu a rare opportunity to 
 paint a poetic picture of the famous old legend, and lie 
 proceeded to "borate." The cave where lived and died the 
 said Guy, was scooped with his own hands from the rock. 
 It is treason to harbor a doubt of the fact ; for the legend 
 tells us: — 
 
 " There with my hands I hewed a house 
 Out of a craggy rock of stone ; 
 And lived like a palmer poor, 
 Within that cave myself alone." 
 
 I am rather incredulous as to the last line of this poetical 
 autobiograph}^; the old story tells us that the fair Phillis 
 would hie hither to bestow alms upon the solitary man, 
 and receive in return his saintly counsel (?). Phillis never 
 recognized in the hermit her husband, whom she believed to 
 have long since died, or to be a captive in the Holy Land. 
 Phillis, unlike Juliet, was not easily won; she did not tell 
 Guy, at their first interview, to deny his father and refuse 
 his name, and for that name which was no part of him to 
 take all herself; nor did she exclaim, "In truth, I am too 
 fond," and then ask "Dost thou love me?" and before 
 Guy could reply, answered her own question by "I know 
 thou wilt say — Ay ;" and clinched the contract by adding, 
 "And I will take thy word." And then implored him to 
 swear fidelity by something more constant than the moon. 
 Oh no! Phillis lived in more provincial da^'s, and bore a 
 greater resemblance to Penelope, who was so loath to make 
 a final decision. Guy's sweetheart was a perverse young- 
 lady, who frowned, and said him nay; who required deeds 
 of high intrepidity from her suitor before she yielded her 
 affection and liberty; all of which he wrought for the 
 love of this woman, for he was in the very summer of the 
 tender passions; and then after years — oh ye gods pity 
 us ! — true to his sex he resrretted that he had caused so 
 
Y2 PICTURES AND PO»TRAITS 
 
 much mischief and bloodshed for the sake of one in this 
 world of women, and he betook him to a life of penance in 
 a stony abode from sheer remorse. Tradition tells us that 
 he did not disclose to her his identity till he was dying, 
 but I have a sly notion that these two understood each 
 other all along. The spot is one of surpassing beauty, and 
 if Phillis retained any of the powerful witchery of her 
 3-outh, that goaded Guy to his valiant exploits, he did not 
 suffer the many privations during his hermitage, attending 
 a life of asceticism. 
 
 Here was another of those exquisite rural English pic- 
 tures. The verdure was soft and green, the river gentle, 
 except where it had been dammed (mechanically), and then 
 it impetuously foamed and raged, to help the evolutions of 
 the old mill ; the rocks were moss-grown and ivy-wreathed, 
 and the rustic foot-bridge across the Avon in a rapid state 
 of decay. The mansion is quite modern, and the residence 
 of the Hon. Mrs. Percy, who was "at home;" at such times 
 it is never shown to visitors ; but after enjoying the 
 fresh fields, the paths trod by the chantry-priests of other 
 days, the groves of stalely elms, the avenues overshaded 
 by firs, we remounted our little chaise and proceeded on 
 our way over the Kenilworth road. Not far beyond the 
 Cliff, and on the opposite side of the highway is Blacklow 
 Hill, the scene of the execution of Piers Gaveston, Earl of 
 Cornwall, the favorite of Edward II, and the hated enem}'- 
 of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Gaveston had 
 stigmatized Warwick as " the black hound of Arden," and 
 when the latter attacked Deddington Castle, where Gaves- 
 ton was lodged for safety, he was at once captured and 
 taken to Warwick Castle, and thence to the wooded eleva- 
 tion scarcel}'^ more than a mile distant, where he paid for 
 his spite with his head. This place of execution was alone 
 marked by an inscription on the rock, now quite obliter- 
 ated, until Mr. Greatheed, the father of Mrs. Percy, present 
 owner of Guy's Cliff, erected a stone cross to the honor of 
 " the minion of a hateful king." 
 
 There had been a hunt at one of the great manors in the 
 neighborhood, and as we wended our way toward Kenil- 
 worth we had a fair view of a flock of natty English 
 lordlings in red jackets and jockey caps skimming across 
 the country on their spirited coursers, followed by their 
 grooms. As we entered the town I was impressed by the 
 modern appearance of its architecture. The buildings are 
 all humble and comfortable, and reminded me very much 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. "ZS 
 
 of the outskirts of the little town of Freehold, in Mon- 
 mouth County, New Jersey. When we reached the Castle 
 of Kenilworth there was a heavy shower driving upon 
 us. You who have been in England can appreciate the 
 delight of these unexpected and penetrating downpours. 
 Meanwhile we paused in a veritable little country tavern 
 opposite. Pray do not be shocked at our haven of rest, 
 for there was no more aristocratic inn available, and you 
 know "drowning men catch at straws," but we improved 
 on that by taking a "hot Scotch" without the straw. The 
 sky was clearing as rapidly as it had clouded, and I went 
 out to get my shilling's worth of the magnificent ruin. 
 The gate-house is the only habitable portion of the build- 
 ing, which is occupied by the keeper, who wore the garb of 
 those in the employ of ro^^alty, and Ids daughter who sold 
 photographs of the gray old towers reft of all their former 
 glory. I made my way over the grass-grown path by a 
 o-entle ascent to the eminence where all that remains of the 
 castle are found. Immediately beneath me lay a wide and 
 undulating expanse of greensward, luxurious pines, minia- 
 ture lakes, drained moat, and precipitous ravines; to the 
 east was the church spire and the debiHs of the Augustine 
 Monastery, covered hy a veil of mist, and at my right the 
 unroofed and dilapidated halls, where we can read tales of 
 history and romance, love and hate, crime, misery, strata- 
 gem, and prodigality, from the days of Geoffroi de Clinton 
 to those of Robert Dudley and Cromwell's commissioner. 
 Is it necessary for me to repeat the memories that floated 
 back through three hundred years as I stood in the shelter 
 of this crumbling and skeleton structure? The rivalries 
 of Sussex and Leicester, the wrongs and sorrows of Amy 
 Robsart, the villanies of Yarny and Lambourne, the con- 
 stancy of Tressilian, and the splendid pageant of the Yir- 
 gin Queen. Ah! surely poor Amy, you were an outcast 
 and prisoner, while your husband, the parasite and favorite 
 of royalty, had a queen for his guest! And as I turned 
 toward the Donjon keep nature seemed to mourn and weep 
 for the foul murder of the beautiful girl three centuries 
 ago. 
 
 Our path to Leamington was broad and level ; something 
 smoother than an ordinary turnpike, more like cement, per- 
 haps a macadamized road, and when we entered the fashion- 
 able English spa I felt as if I had been translated to my 
 native land, so modern is this sweet town upon the Learn. 
 It impressed me as very much like our beautiful Williams- 
 7 
 
Y4 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 port, in Lycoming Count}', Pennsylvania. Leamington 
 Priors is the outgrowth of the last forty years, its cause of 
 prosperity, being attributed to the medicinal qualities of 
 its mineral waters. In 1784 a saline spring was discovered 
 by one Benjamin Satchwell, a village shoemaker, and to 
 him may the now flourishing resort offer all thanks for its 
 rise and affluence. Here we took the train for London, 
 ninety-seven miles distant, where we arrived about nine p.m. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 " I waited for the train at Coventry ; 
 I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, 
 To watch the three tall spires ; aud there I shaped 
 The city's ancient legend into this : — " 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 I REGRET that I did not stop over long enough at Kenil- 
 worth to run across the country to the ancient city of 
 Coventr}^, only five miles off. It is chiefly attractive by 
 the story of the lady Grodiva, woven into immortal verse 
 by the British poet-laureate, Alfred Tennyson, But I was 
 not idle, having collected a good deal of information from 
 several kind people whom I met at the little country inn 
 near Kenilworth, and afterwards in the station where we 
 were obliged to wait a long time before leaving Leaming- 
 ton for London. Indeed, apart from the beautiful countess 
 herself, Coventry and the surrounding country are very 
 full of liistory, ancient, monastic, literary, and scientific. 
 The town has over 41,000 inhabitants, and the manufac- 
 ture of ribbons, silk, and watches so considerable, as to 
 give employment to five or six thousand men, and almost 
 as many women and children; and then there is a large 
 additional population engaged in the same work in the 
 neighboring parish of Foleshill. I specially regretted not 
 having seen what the people in Leamington talk so much 
 about, St. Mary's Hall, a splendid and remarkable edifice, 
 ])uilt in 1450, and at present in an admirable state of pres- 
 ervation. It is the headquarters of one of the old British 
 guilds, and is regarded as one of the most magnificent 
 specimens of ancient domestic architecture in the United 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. TS 
 
 Kingdom. Here, and all over this part of England, the 
 name of Lady Godiva is celebrated and preserved as the 
 worshipped saint of the common people. The story is a 
 beautiful one, and I sat and listened for quite an hour as I 
 heard it related by an old village gossip, who tells it for 
 the purpose of securing a few shillings from the passing 
 stranger. 
 
 In 1043 the fifth Earl of Mercia and his lady, Godiva, 
 founded and richly endowed a Benedictine monastery on 
 the ruins of a nunnery, destroyed in 1016 by Canute, the 
 Dane. The old legends tell us this monastery was un- 
 speakably grand, a perfect casket, in fact, of gold and sil- 
 ver. Leofric and his countess were both buried in the 
 porch of this priory. Now, whether this Ladj^ Godiva is 
 the same immortalized by Tennyson my informant was 
 unable to say, but the accepted authority of the district, 
 Sir William Dugdale, who was a devout believer in the ro- 
 mance, gives the following account of it: "The Countess 
 Godiva, bearing an extraordinary affection to this place, 
 often and earnestly besought her husband that for the love 
 of God and the Blessed Virgin he would free it from that 
 grievous servitude whereunto it was subject; but he, re- 
 buking her for importuning him in a manner so inconsis- 
 tent with his profit, commanded that she should thence- 
 forward forbear to move therein; yet she, out of her wom- 
 anish pertinacity, continued to solicit him, insomuch that 
 he told her if she would ride on horseback naked, from one 
 end of the town to the other, in sight of all the people, he 
 would grant her request. Whereunto she returned, " But 
 will you give me leave to do so?" and he replying "Yes," 
 the noble lady upon an appointed day got on horseback 
 naked, with her hair loose, so that it covered all her body 
 but her legs ; and thus performing her journey, she re- 
 turned with joy to her husband, who thereupon granted to 
 the inhabitants a charter of freedom." . . . The residents 
 of the town, grateful to their beautiful sovereign for the 
 delicate task she had accepted to secure their civil fran- 
 chises, with one accord withdrew from the highways and 
 windows in order that as little pain as possible should be 
 inflicted upon their royal Eve; but one Tom, by profession 
 a tailor, yielded to the rai*e temptation, and for his lack of 
 moral valor, had his ej^es shrivelled into darkness in his 
 head. There is a grotesque picture of the count and 
 countess set up in Trinity Church; he holds a scroll in his 
 hand bearing these words :— 
 
t6 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 *'3, Ceuriche, for £oue of tliee, 
 SDoe make Coocntre (Eol-frce." 
 
 The Lady Godiva pageant that was instituted in the reign 
 of the indolent voluptuary, Charles II, has not taken place 
 within the last thirty years, and may confidently be num- 
 bered among the jubilees of the past. In its days of youth 
 and prosperity, the festival was one of unprecedented splen- 
 dor, and was always dignified b}^ the presence of the muni- 
 cipal authorities. Of course, the spectacle of St. George on 
 horseback, and her uncovered ladyship, was the principal 
 attraction of the saturnalian revel. The mayor, aldermen, 
 and sheriffs, ancient orders and beneficial societies, with 
 their streamers, decorations, and bands of music, presented 
 a fantastic and bizarre sight. 
 
 Out of many of tliese old places, the haunts of tradition- 
 ary heroes, martyrs, and saints, imagination creates some 
 of its wildest and sweetest fancies. Within a circle of ten 
 or twent}^ miles, I find material for a succession of dramas, 
 each with a basis of fact, which time turns into fable, or 
 mystifies into doubt. Shakespeare himself, the sublimest 
 wonder of all, grows more sacred and more spirituelle as 
 the ages go on, while Guy of Warwick, and Richard Neville 
 the groat "king-maker," and gentle Amy Robsart, and now 
 the fair-haired Godiva, become more and more legendary 
 with the centuries. 1 like it better so. We are too young 
 in America to have such advantages, and hence the scarcity 
 of our great authors, in comparison with the rich treasures 
 dug out of those ancient mines, and coined into such golden 
 music. There is not an old English house that has not a 
 hoard of precious memories. Even the fireside gossip makes 
 material for future poets and historians, and there is not 
 an old church from the Mersey to the Tweed, from the Irish 
 coast to DoA'er, that is not the storehouse of gho?5tly remi- 
 niscences. 
 
 All over England the early example of London in regard 
 to ancient charities is imitated, and everywhere in the town 
 of Coventry the goodness of the Lady Godiva in relieving 
 the poor is perpetuated in the rude art of the time. Ford's 
 Hospital, founded in 1529, by William Ford, a merchant, 
 for the reception of aged females, has grown in dignity with 
 the years, and has been increased by donations from other 
 parties; there are twenty old women in this beautiful 
 building, who receive 38. 6tZ. per week and coals, and twenty- 
 five other women, called out-of-door recipients, who receive 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 1*7 
 
 the same amount of money and a ton of coal eacli year. 
 Then there is Babhike Hospital, founded in 1806, 1)3'^ Tho- 
 mas Bond, for ten poor men ; but subsequent gifts have so 
 augmented its funds, that it now receives over forty persons. 
 Theri there is a superb school for boys, founded by Thomas 
 Wheatly, 'Mayor of Coventry, in 1560; the revenues are 
 $4500 per annum. Then there is St. Jolin's Hospital and 
 free school, founded in 1155, for the sick and poor, and for 
 a free school with an annual income of $5000. There are 
 several other schools and hospitals liberally endowed cen- 
 turies ago, which, in the progress of time have largely 
 increased by additional bequests and enhancements of land, 
 from wliich you will perceive how very rich is every part 
 of England. There is hardly a shire or parish in which 
 you will not find one or more endowments, as they are 
 called, for religious, charitable, and educational purposes; 
 most of them beginning ever so long ago, from a very small 
 provision and gathering in value with the growth of the 
 population, and the importance of the real estate set apart 
 by the old-time philanthropists. England is deeply afflicted 
 by the growing curse of pauperism, and the equally dan- 
 gerous element, millions of discontented laborers, but these 
 charitable preparations against ignorance and misfortune, 
 show not only the great care of the generous leaders of 
 society, but also the great opulence of the kingdom itself. 
 
 As I sit in my little room in this cathedral of a hotel, 
 pondering over my sweet swift visit to Chester, Birming- 
 ham, Stratford, Warwick, Kenilworth, Leamington, and my 
 flash back to this great, grim, gray capital, I wonder if I 
 shall ever see it all again. How many people cross the 
 ocean from our country to these old places witli their minds, 
 if not tlieir eyes shut. They rush through England, Ire- 
 land, Scotland, across the Continent, even into the Holy 
 Land, and perhaps away off to India, Asia, and Africa, and 
 are back again in the twinkling of an eye, as it were ; and 
 for what? I fear only to boast to those who have been less 
 fortunate. Ah, me ! how I commiserate such people. For 
 myself, I am never tired learning from this mighty volume. 
 Experience. It teaches me how small I am (not ph3^sically 
 but mentally), and though I love my own dear land, I am 
 never oppressed nor fatigued by the knowledge I gather in 
 these strange, ancient, and suggestive scenes. And still a 
 voice within asks. Shall I ever sit by the sweet English 
 ingleside again ? So good-night, my voiceless, patient 
 friend. 
 
PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER XYI. 
 
 " Sing— sing — music was given 
 To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving; 
 Souls here like planets in Heaven, 
 By harmony's laws alone are kept moving. 
 Beauty may boast of her eyes and her cheeks, 
 But love from the lips his true archery wings ; 
 And she, who but feathers the dart when she speaks, 
 At once sends it home to the heart when she sings." 
 
 Tom Moore. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 At last I have had an opportunity of enjoying the 
 Royal Opera in London. Here long enough to beware of 
 hasty judgments, I will not trust myself to avow them; 
 but I may whisper that I am not quite carried away by a 
 first experience. We secured stalls in the parquette for 
 $5.25 each, and last evening retiring into the secrecy of my 
 closet, I " unclasp'd the wedded eagles of my belt," and 
 proceeded to array me in festive regalia before going to 
 Covent Garden Theatre to see the nobility before the cur- 
 tain, and the great melodists under the curtain. The opera 
 house is large, heavy, and solid ; verj' English, with a little 
 of the air of musty style that makes age respectable, and 
 goes far to consecrate disabled furniture and dilapidated 
 arras. Although the present stupendous structure has 
 been open only since 1858, it has encountered disaster by 
 fire several times subsequent to the erection of the original 
 edifice, in 1732. In this hric-a-hrac period, when the an- 
 tique is the newest fashion, and when to be in the mode 
 we must drag out of old garrets our great grandmother's 
 (those who have had one) spinning-wheel and andirons, 
 and resurrect long-expired spoons, and tea-kettles, and 
 knee-bilckles, I supposed such a venerable dame as Covent 
 Garden would have thrown me at once into violent ecsta- 
 cies. But she didn't ! 
 
 Though the auditorium of this theatre is larger than our 
 Academy it looks smaller, as the tiers range higher, and 
 are divided into close Boxes heavily draped with florid 
 tapestries. Many of these belong to noble families, and 
 when they do not wish to occupy them they are not too 
 proud to let the managers sell them to the highest bidder, 
 and they pocket the money. Red and gold are the pre- 
 vailing colors, the crimson dominating the whole. We 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. Y9 
 
 started for the opera with the intention of hearing Madlle. 
 Sarda, but before we had been seated many moments an 
 Italian appeared upon the stage, and at once my heart 
 sank within me, I anticipated disappointment. Our friend 
 from the sunny South told us, in very bad English, 
 '' Madlle. Sarda was ill, and, in consequence, opera and 
 prima donna were both changed, but we should hear 
 13ertelli and Smeroschi," two names wholly unknown to 
 me. The opera was Verdi's superb creation, Un hallo in 
 Maschera^ that I had often enjoyed at home, and it was 
 magnificently rendered. So great a city as London is 
 necessarily a centre of musical art. AH the eminent 
 singers, and, of course, many that we are even unac- 
 quainted with in America float here in the season, to get 
 the highest prices for their genius; and yet Italy and 
 Russia often outbid London for such celebrities as Patti 
 and her new husband, ISicolinni. The orchestra, of at 
 least seventy-five instruments, was full, correct, harmoni- 
 ous, and nobly mastered; and the work upon the stage 
 complete. The recitatives were chaste and strongly accen- 
 tuated, the arias sometimes sweet and allegro, at others 
 sublime and sombre, and the ensembles grand. The troupe 
 was particularly strong in its subsidiary force; the ballet 
 brilliant and effervescing in the admirable scenerj^, and that 
 perfect discipline, which may be called the crowning glory 
 of patience and time. It is readily seen that the opera in 
 London is a government machine, and not a matter of 
 speculation. It is an institution like a great castle, built 
 to last, and not made for the pleasure of the rich merely, 
 or for a spasmodic season. 
 
 There was nothing popular about it except the fine reper- 
 toire. Even the cheapest places were occupied by the 
 better class of middle Londoners. Americans always seek 
 the best; they travel first class, they dine a la carte, they 
 never restrain their physical nor moral appetite for a few 
 shillings, and of course they want the best for their money. 
 In the overpowering tide of travel that sweeps across the 
 Atlantic, the major portion are pleasure seekers, and they 
 act on the principle that they are resolved to enjoy their 
 holiday carousal with all its epicurean attributes. Our 
 party sat in the midst of the creme de la crime feeling 
 for the time a sort of millionnaire superiority. I was by 
 no means oppressed because to m^' right sat a countess 
 and to my left a princess. In this state of supreme com- 
 placency I devoted myself to observation. Very unlike. 
 
80 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 indeed, was the prospect contrasted with the radiant and 
 varied habitues of our Academy of Music. An amplitude 
 of gaudy dress, but wholly incongruous. Ponderous old 
 dowagers in point d^aiguille and diamonds, redolent of 
 rare roast beef and port, chaperoned their 3'^outht'ul female 
 relatives. There seemed to be a dearth of gay gallant 
 youths. I missed the fresh maidens accompanied by suit- 
 ors or friends, that fill our play houses; and then, the 
 sweet newly-created matrons, still in their tyronism, that 
 time and tribulation have not yet robbed of their matures- 
 cent bloom. The English girl migrates from a hoyendish 
 school miss, to a square, solid female bovine; nowhere 
 have I seen that stage or age of feminine beauty, so pre- 
 valent in America, that is only comparable to a superbly 
 ripe moss rose, full, fragrant, and magnificent. A British 
 fledgling of eighteen or nineteen summers, under tiie pro- 
 tection of her father's vving, in wliite silk and white mittens 
 reaching the elbows, and Mrs. Langtry, the reigning Eng- 
 lish belle, at whom the Prince of Wales has been casting 
 hulVs eyea^m canary-satin and ten-button black-kid gloves, 
 were the only ladies in the vast assemblage that recalled a 
 vision of our fair ones at home. The opera is always a 
 resort for well-bred indiflference, a savage noise in tlie midst 
 of beautiful music — a place in fact where the so-called cul- 
 tivated classes rush to display their uncultivated rudeness. 
 Ah ! how well these English understand impassive inso- 
 lence. 
 
 Why is it that the most pretentious people in America 
 are Often the most offensive in public places? The more 
 elegant the entertainment the more intrusive and noisy 
 the}^ are; and so it is here, as I learn from those who are 
 initiated into the ways and means of the better orders. It 
 was certainly so last night. There was a box full of no- 
 bility, so much I gleaned from surrounding comments. 
 They arrived late — 9.30 P. m. — and had evidently been 
 dining; in jubilant moods, every one; they were as utterly 
 regardless of the opera as if the vocalists had been planta- 
 tion slaves. There was no protest against their rude pat- 
 ronage, either on the part of the actors or the audience. 
 I am obliged to confess I have seen the same effrontery at 
 home, but never quite so boisterous and unblushing. 
 
 The now familiar science of music takes rank amongst 
 the modern arts. In the early ages, when architecture, 
 painting, and sculpture rapidl}^ rose to perfection, the lyric 
 science seemed to remain a dark and dormant stud3\ 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 81 
 
 Through the most effulgent epochs of ancient civilization 
 and intellectual splendor, music had no place, even when the 
 brilliant epicurean and artistic sports were national amuse- 
 ments. Nowhere do we read of a musical theorist, composer, 
 or performer, among the master-minds of the mediaeval 
 period of beaux-arts. Since the history of the creation, 
 the rudest and most barbaric races have endeavored to 
 make the eye and ear slaves to ecstatic and thrilling emo- 
 tions; but what was intended to gratify the ear, did not 
 progress to the lofty stages of cultivation. The first efforts 
 to reduce to a system and classify its true principles, and 
 reveal its clouded beauties, were apparent at the close of 
 the Middle Ages. Therefore our music is the offspring of 
 the last three or four centuries, and the lyric drama of much 
 later date. Of course, Italy was the cradle where this child 
 of harmony was born, at the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, and nursed until adopted l)y kindred nations. The 
 polyphonic compositions were rapidly decaying for want of 
 fresh tissue, and as the spirit of renaissance was fanatically 
 imbued in the patrons of art in this period of scientific 
 revolution, an attempt to establish the homophonous music 
 of the Greek drama was made, and with the aid of the emi- 
 nent devotes^ Caccini and Peri, our modern recitative was 
 produced, as the most potential semblance of the chaste and 
 classic cadenza. The foundation of this chanting tone had 
 already been laid by Giovanni Palestrina, composer of the 
 masses, hymns, and mottetas that won the encomiums of 
 Pope Julius III, and created the author singer in the papal 
 chapel. Cimaroso, Piccini, and Paesiello, the great com- 
 posers of the last century, and the numberless ones of the 
 present, do not display any marked changes in the empha- 
 sis of their operas, other than the radical division of the 
 aria from the recitative, effected by Alessandro Scarlatti, 
 in the preceding century; he was seventy-six w4ien he died, 
 and composed 118 operas, 200 masses, and 3000 cantatas, 
 and many minor works. 
 
 The earliest French operas, that were little more than 
 complete imitations of the Italian,^ were b}' Jean Baptiste 
 LuU}^, whose first introduction into the French capital 
 was as a scullion in the palace of the Princess of Mont- 
 pensier. He accumulated a vast fortune by his musical 
 genius, and reigned absolute monarch of the stage until 
 the advent of Rameau, who was not more than four 3'ears 
 old at the demise of the musical dish-washer. Gluck, 
 however, was the originator of French " grand opera," who 
 
82 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 struggled with his iniioviitions of st3^1e till his sixty-fiftli 
 year, before he received a satisfactorj'- appreciation from 
 the Paris public. The light operas of Herold, Halevy, 
 Auber, and recently Offenbach, seem to have superseded 
 the heavier and loftier works of Mihal, Rossini, and Meyer- 
 beer, in the hearts of the laughter-loving Parisians. The 
 earlier masterpieces, even of our contemporary musical 
 authors, are overruled by their younger progeny ; thus, 
 Aida, and Un ballo in Maschera are of the latest produc- 
 tions of the Italian senator, Verdi ; so it is with Balfe, Auber, 
 Herold, Donizetti, Thomas, Rossini, and Von Flotow, whose 
 Martha is the only one of his operas known at home. 
 
 LETTER XVI T. 
 
 "To the traveller imbued with a feeling for the historical and 
 poetical, so inseparably intertwined iu the annals of romantic 
 Spain, the Alhambra is as much an object of devotion as is the 
 Caaba to all true Moslems. How many legends and traditions, true 
 and fabulous, how many songs and ballads, Arabian and Spanish, 
 of love and war and chivalry, are associated with this Oriental 
 pile !" — Washington Irving's Alhambra. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 Leicester Square is one of the interesting and beautiful 
 sections of the West End. Formerl}' it was a fashion- 
 able quarter; then it fell into disgrace l)y dint of neglect 
 of the open space, tiiat has been transformed from a de- 
 pository of refuse into an exquisite pul^lic garden at the 
 individual expense of Baron Grant, whose palace in the 
 neighborhood of the Albert Memorial, and en route to the 
 Sontli Kensington Museum, is the present marvel and envy 
 of the great metropolis. He was one of the money-kings 
 of England, but has recently' been the prey of the merciless 
 fiend Misfortune, and will be compelled to part with, even 
 before he has occupied, his regal home that cost over three 
 millions of our money. The current prophecy is, that the 
 Baron Grant will never rise again; but he is elastic, am- 
 bitious, and full of resources, and even now the requiting 
 angel may be hovering over his dreams. He has been once 
 or twice chosen to Parliament, but was deprived of his seat, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 83 
 
 owing to charges of corruption in procuring votes ; and 
 while the newspapers were heaping vituperation upon him 
 for every kind of fraudulent transaction in stocks and 
 bonds, and he was entangled in all manner of lawsuits and 
 contentions, he conceived the idea of rendering a public 
 service by purifying this dismal spot in the heart of Lon- 
 don. So in the centre of Leicester Square he planted plots 
 of grass and parterres of flowers, erected fountains, and 
 placed a statue of Shakespeare in the middle, surrounding 
 the whole with seats for the aged and the poor. Leicester 
 Square was the home of the mathematician, Sir Isaac New- 
 ton ; the artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the free cari- 
 caturist, Hogarth. On the east side of the circle, John 
 Hunter, the pathologist and anatomist, lived and gathered 
 his great museum of specimens illustrative of his profes- 
 sion, snbsequently purchased by the government for the 
 Royal College of Surgeons. These facts and adornments 
 of Grant add immensely to the attractions of the Alhambra^ 
 the famous variety theatre of the metropolis and one of the 
 most profitable of the many great resorts of London. This 
 great show-place is called after one of the oldest and most 
 ornate and lascivious of the palaces of Moorish kings, near 
 Granada, Spain, beautifully described by our own Wash- 
 ington Irving in the words I have placed at the head of 
 this chapter. The London architect seems to have had the 
 Spanish Alhambra for his model, its fountains, dancing 
 halls, conservatories, seraglios, baths and Saracenic splen- 
 dors are all Oriental; the original palace was a combina- 
 tion of gorgeous magnificence, not only in works of art and 
 lovel^'^ women and ravishing music; but in forests, flowers, 
 fruits, singing-birds, delicious fish, and curious animals, 
 and all these are sousjht to be imitated in the dazzlino- 
 music hall and ballet of the spectacular temple in Leicester 
 Square. There is an inanimate duplicate of the palace at the 
 Crystal Palace, Sydenham, which is a marvel of superb Span- 
 ish coloring, mediaeval ornamentation, elaborate carving and 
 quaint architectural style. This splendid attraction stands 
 on a portion of the ground called after Robert Sydney, 
 Earl of Leicester, who was father of the handsome Sydney, 
 who figured in the Gramniont Memoire, published by Count 
 Anthony Hamilton, in 1713 — a complete expose of the ex- 
 ploits of his brother-in-law in love and at the gaming-table. 
 It is a spacious structure in the moresque style of archi- 
 tecture, and was first opened by a scientific and literary 
 bod}', somewhat resembling the Polytechnic, on Regent 
 
84 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Street, under the title of Panopticon; but the night I at- 
 tended the gilded palace the performance did not bear the 
 slightest resemblance to the instructive discourses and 
 palinodes of that "inspired uniformity of goodness," that 
 Canning used to talk about. Twelve years ago gentlemen 
 only attended this wild alluring saturnalia, and although 
 the management still have an arduous task to secure license 
 from the Lord Chamberlain each year, I am obliged to con- 
 fess I saw nothing there but an exquisite musical extrava- 
 ganza. A magnificent orchestra, such as the theatres of 
 London only have, a ballet of 1*75 or 200 beautiful 3''oung 
 women — not female wrecks, rendered dazzling by the aid 
 of paint and calcium lights, such as constitue our home- 
 ballets, — and an audience chamber thronged by quite the 
 same class of ladies that frequent other playhouses. Per- 
 haps there are performances here justifying the caustic 
 iudignation of the circumspect, that I did not see. For, 
 if all I have heard be true, tliere are ambiguous platforms 
 under the same roof where the comedies, farces, dramas, and 
 even tragedies of life are freely enacted. The operetta or 
 vaudeville of "Wildfire" was to me a most brilliant and 
 pleasing feast. The interior is flashingly beautiful, exceed- 
 ing in size any one of the American theatres, the altitude 
 rising five tiers. To the bonnetless ladies and female ushers 
 I am becoming more and more reconciled each day I linger 
 in the capital, but the imperative six or eight cents for a 
 programme that oftentimes is thrust into the hands of the 
 neophyte, and inadvertently accepted, the peddling of re- 
 freshments amongst the audience between the several acts 
 of a play, and the coolness and complacency with which 
 the English ladies call for a glass of wine at the lobby-bars, 
 are customs I cannot vindicate. The first, imposition; 
 the second, indignity ; the third, indelicacy. True, the play- 
 bill is unique, containing vignettes of the dramatis persons 
 upon the margin, that might be worthily imitr^ted at home ; 
 but I entreat you, shun the extortion and the impudence. 
 
 The patriotism of the British, whether inborn of despotic 
 rule or inherent loyalty, is ever apparent, and at all public 
 resorts when a political witticism or local hit is made the 
 hisses and applause are instant and prolonged. I have 
 been present when an audience have joined with one ac- 
 cord in a national chorus. To me, there is nothing more 
 interesting and elevating than a people fired by public 
 sentiment, but not the boisterous demonstrations I have 
 witnessed here. It would not hurt us one bit were the 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 85 
 
 Americans to borrow from their neighbors beyond the seas 
 a portion of their national zeal ; I fear ever since the black 
 and bloody cloud, War, has fallen from our horizon, we 
 have been slowly and surely sinking into a state of indif- 
 ferent fealty. 
 
 All around Leicester Square are bright lights, and surg- 
 ing cosmopolitan crowds. It is the favorite quarter of the 
 foreigners, and abounds in foreign hotels, but the Alham- 
 bra is the attractive constellation that sheds radiance over 
 the secondary satellites. After seeing the beautiful statue 
 of Shakespeare in the new park, I sauntered into a neigh- 
 boring bookstore, and in raking through a heap of literary 
 ashes, discovered a living coal that throws upon the exist- 
 ence of the great poet an indisputable halo. It is an ex- 
 tract from a poem by an English rhymster, Richard Barne- 
 fielde, written in 1598, eighteen years before the death of 
 Shakespeare. Whether old or new, it is ^uite conclusive, 
 and a supreme satisfaction to me to find Shakespeare no 
 myth, and such a proof of his title to his own work ; al- 
 though "rare Ben Jonson's" melodious testimony in his 
 favor ought to silence the clamor of envious tongues. 
 
 " And Shakespeare, thou whose honey -flowing vein, 
 (Pleasing the world) thy praises doth contain : 
 Whose Venus and whose Lucrece, sweet and chaste, ■ 
 Thy name in Fame's immortal book hath placed. 
 Live ever you, at least in Fame live ever ! 
 Well may the body die, but Fame dies never." 
 
 By some the Alhambra is classed amongst the music 
 halls of London, but the mode of entertainment now hold- 
 ing the boards of this theatre deserves the title of vaude- 
 ville, as the difference between it and the stereotyj)ed Lon- 
 don Music Hall is eminent. One of the most popular of 
 these plebeian and independent resorts is Evans's celebrated 
 concert room, famous for its mutton chops, Welsh rarebits, 
 whiskey-punch and brown stout, and its renowned gallery 
 of theatrical portraits. At these concerts, which begin 
 late and last far into the night, the male element prevails , 
 they flock here after the opera and theatres have closed, 
 rather an easy process, as the boxes of the concert hall 
 may be entered from the adjoining Covent Garden Opera 
 House. I have heard the chanting boj^s, or choral singers 
 of this establishment highly extolled, and have been eager 
 to enjoy their harmony, but lacked the moral fortitude to 
 venture upon forbidden ground, — even in a foreign city, — 
 where, I believe, all Americans are conceded unlimited li- 
 
86 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 cense. But I loved to linger in the vicinage hallowed by 
 the names of Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Boswell, Goldsmith, 
 Addison, and Pope. Close to Evans's is St. Paul's Church, 
 not the Cathedral, interesting because in the adjacent 
 grounds we saw the grave of Butler, the author of the im- 
 mortal poem, "Hudibras;" and of Gibbons, the illustrious 
 sculptor, whose flowers carven in wood, needed only color 
 and perfume to make them pass for nature. 
 
 St. James Hall, entrance on Piccadilly and Regent 
 Street, an attachment of the famous restaurant, is a gor- 
 geously decorated room, where the Moore and Burgess 
 American Minstrels present to the English a thoroughly 
 American plantation jubilee. It is refreshing to see these 
 English people enjoying this as a novelty. The Oxford 
 Music Hall, the portals of which I ventured to pass, was 
 thronged with a motley crowd, comparatively little smok- 
 ing and drinking, a cheap place, a dismal repertoire, but 
 the audience exceedingly reputable, that is, while I re- 
 mained in this bacchanalian rendezvous^ which was only 
 long enough to take a peep, and then glad to hurry away. 
 For although I had been anxious and curious to see one of 
 these sports for the London mob, I was conscious of a 
 feeling of self-desecration while my inquisitive longing 
 was being gratified. Canterbury Music Hall is on the 
 Westminster Bridge Road, across the Thames; the original 
 building was the first of this class of carnival in London : 
 and Exeter Hall, near Covent Garden, is a better specimen 
 of the same type of amusements, as it is also often used 
 for meetings of religious associations, oratories, and the- 
 ological disputations. 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 87 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 "Is it not monstrous, tliat this player here, 
 But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, 
 Could force his soul so to his own conceit, 
 That from her working, all his visage warmed, 
 Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect, 
 A broken voice, and his whole functions suiting 
 With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing? 
 For Hecuba!" Hamlet. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 And so I felt, as I sat and saw Henry Irving enact his 
 portrait of Louis XI at the Lyceum Theatre. He is wor- 
 shipped here as the Roscius of the British stage. While 
 the ladies sing praises to his melancholy grace and the 
 music of his voice, the critics exhaust adjectives in eulogies 
 of ills genius. They do not overrate this English disciple 
 of the Greek drama, and I incontinently jnelded to his mag- 
 netic influence. I had seen him several weeks before in the 
 weird representation, The Bells^ where the hero has bidden 
 farewell to content, and dies the victim of a remorseful 
 conscience. Irving is a man whose walk and talk are full 
 of shadowy forebodings, and well adapted for such a cha- 
 racter as the superstitious, suspicious, cruel, and faithless 
 King of France. He is not handsome, but possesses the 
 charms of intonation, gesture, and manner that come only 
 to the finished artist — partial Nature's gifts to her favored 
 few. He has a moody and student air, and seems to have 
 thought out all his paces and points ; an atmosphere of 
 musty books and meditation clings about him. He is at 
 once attractive and repellent. He has conned French his- 
 tory and the novel of the Scottish story-teller founded upon 
 it, and he has studied the illustrated lists of the costumers 
 of the time. The manner in which he dressed the character 
 honored the author; the facial make-up was as artistic and 
 elaborate as the Meg Merreiles of Charlotte Cushman. 
 
 The scenes are all laid at and near the Castle of Plessis- 
 les-Tours, where the miserable monarch passed the last 
 years of his life, surrounded by a body-guard of soldiers. 
 He feared that humanity would be as cruel to him as he 
 had been cruel to humanity. He ascended the throne a 
 tyrant, determined to subjugate all the nobles to his will. 
 He was as wise as he was jealous, but he labored to concen- 
 trate all power in his own hands. He selected his coun- 
 
88 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 sellers from the people, and encouraged commerce and 
 industry, a cause to which Jacques Coeur, the merchant 
 prince of the former reign, had given such impetus. His 
 impulses were low and cunning, and tliough he was a church- 
 man, he was tlie type of abject bigotry and superstition. 
 He thought he could propitiate the saints with promises as 
 he did his fellow-creatures — promises that he never intended 
 to redeem — particularly noticeable in his midnight devo- 
 tions, when he knelt before the image of the Lady of Clery, 
 after supplicating for the fulfilment of all his worldly pro- 
 jects. He concludes his prayer, according to Sir Walter 
 Scott: "Sweetest Lady, work with thy child, that he will 
 pardon all past sins, and one — one little deed that I must 
 do this night — nay, it is no sin^ dearest Lady of Clery, no 
 sin, but an act of justice privately administered ; for the 
 villain is the greatest impostor that ever poured falsehood 
 into a prince's ear, and leans besides to the filthy heresy of 
 the Greeks. He is not deserving of thy protection ; leave 
 him to my care ; and hold it as a good service that I rid 
 the world of him, for the man is a necromancer and wizard, 
 that is not worth th}' thought and care — a dog, the extinc- 
 tion of whose life ought to be of as little consequence in 
 thine eyes as the treading out of a spark that drops from 
 a lamp or springs from a fire. Think not of tiiis little mat- 
 ter, gentlest, kindest Lady, l>ut consider how thou canst 
 best aid me in my troubles ! and I here bind my loyal sig- 
 net to thy effigy, in token that I will keep word concerning 
 the county of Champagne (which, b}' the way, he had pledged 
 several times previous), and that this will be the last time 
 I will trouble thee in affairs of blood, knowing thou art so 
 kind, so gentle, and so tender-hearted." Ah! wily reasoner, 
 how well you plead and flatter! And here we see the shrewd 
 diplomate — without heart or conscience — in his fortress, 
 with none near him but his barber minister, Oliver le Dain ; 
 his provost, Tristan I'Ermite ; and his physician, Jacques 
 Coitier. He feared to meet his Creator, because he had so 
 blackened the life bestowed upon him. 1 recoiled from 
 Henry Irving as he played the intriguing, crafty, soulless 
 hypocrite, yet found myself melting toward him the next 
 moment as he addressed a favorite; his ever}'' tone a sweet 
 caress. He is one of those who so sink the actor into the 
 character, and so rapidly paint the various phases of life 
 that you alternately hate and sympathize with him until 
 the curtain drops, when, for the first time you dwell upon 
 the creative skill of the consummate artist. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 89 
 
 And for the pleasure of the evening passed with the crafty 
 Louis, as interpreted by this gifted young actor, I was 
 indebted to our country's good friend in London, Mr. James 
 McHenry, who is a zealous patron of the drama, and Henry 
 L'ving's special champion. The home of Mr. McHenry, 
 Oak Lodge, is a portion of the old Holland estate, Ken- 
 sington, where the last Lord Holland, nephew of Charles 
 James Fox, died in 1840. Here Fox, Byron, Moore, Addison, 
 Sheridan, and all that galaxy of fast and fashionable Whigs 
 of the olden time, gathered and held high revelry, played 
 their special antics, and plotted their special intrigues, 
 making their clubs and the House of Commons, and old 
 London itself, resound with the gossip of their frequent 
 saturnalias. I looked, or tried to look over the hedges and 
 high walls that separated Mr. McHenry's fair demesne from 
 this paradise of other days, now hermetically sealed against 
 profane ej-es, and deserted by the descendants of the great 
 families, who lived and lorded there so long and so long 
 ago. The last Ladj^ Holland is still living, but the glory 
 of the great place has departed. Traffic and population 
 have usurped the lovelj'' domain, for centuries the exclusive 
 retreat of the magnates who ruled the camp, the court, the 
 senate, and the stage. Mr. McHenry, who paid a large 
 ] round sum for his corner of this delightful suburb, could 
 now sell his property for three or four times what it cost 
 him. And I was told, such is the demand for wliat is 
 left of the grand old estate, that it will not be long before 
 it is surrendered to the rapacious grasp of remorseless 
 modern innovation. 
 
 Of the other countless crowded resorts of London, I have 
 only to say that we give a much better entertainment at 
 home for less money. The best dramatic stock companies 
 here are not comparable to those of Philadelphia and New 
 York. And frequentlj' when I have paid seven or eight 
 shillings for my stall, I wondered if I was not paj'ing for 
 the exquisite adornments of the audience chamber, instead 
 of the play I had come to witness. In contrast with our 
 dollar amusements, fifty cents would be a fair price. True, 
 the artistic and architectural appointments of these drama- 
 tic palaces surpass anything we have at home. The Cri- 
 terion, three stories underground, is a glittering mass of 
 gold and eau-de-Nile satin, reached by a stairway panelled 
 with encaustic tiles and mirrors; but the successful comedy 
 of Pink Dominos, tiiat has alreadj'- passed its 300th repre- 
 sentation, I have seen much better acted in America. The 
 
 8* 
 
90 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Princess Theatre, where Miss Heath nightly harrows up 
 the best and tenderest emotions of the public by rehearsing 
 the struggles and sins of the beautiful but frail Jane Shore, 
 is dismal to the last degree. Had poor Jane borne the 
 slightest resemblance to the lady who assumes her role, I 
 am loath to believe she could have numbered Edward lY, 
 Lord Hastings, and Thomas Lynom, the king's solicitor, 
 amongst her devotees. Mammon, a capital commercial com- 
 edy-drama at the Duke's, is a charming presentation, with 
 Miss Louise Moodie as the heroine. Miss Neilson at the 
 Haymarket, is Miss Neilson everywhere ; and so I might 
 continue ; and yet all these houses are spacious and inva- 
 riably thronged. 
 
 We are apt to regard the present growth of the drama as 
 altogether more remarkable than theatrical displays before 
 and after the appearance of Shakespeare, and in some re- 
 spects the assumption is correct. In the time of Charles 
 I-IT, and for many years succeeding, there were no women 
 on the stage ; men played women's parts, and at an earlier 
 period, at the close of the fifteenth century, passion or 
 religious plays ruled the primitive stage, alike in France 
 and England. One of these, ^' The Passion of our Saviour," 
 "was written so early that the name of the author is lost. 
 A writer by the name of Bale, who died in 1563, the year 
 before Shakespeare was born, wrote seventeen dramatic 
 pieces, some of the titles of which were, " The Baptism of 
 Christ," "Christ when He was Twelve Years Old," "The 
 Lord's Supper," "Tiie Resurrection," etc. Another by the 
 same author, was called " God's Promises," and some of the 
 poetry is of a very doubtful character. 
 
 Endless plays were produced, and the absence of all art 
 in their representation made it very difficult to show them. 
 Great religious quarrels resulted from the religious dramas, 
 until finally they were suppressed by the civil governments. 
 When Shakespeare fell into the hands of the illustrious mo- 
 dern tragedians, of whom Garrick may be called the most 
 eminent, women came forth to add to the illustration of his 
 and all contemporaneous and succeeding works ; and then 
 grew the art of painting, costumes, and that infinite variety 
 of scenery and architecture which have made the stage in 
 all enlightened nations the most potent ally of public en- 
 joyment and social development. Music was equally ad- 
 vanced, and the drama, aided and beautified by the presence 
 of sweet women, called to its assistance the sister arts, and 
 became one of the most delightful instrumentalities for the 
 entertainment and improvement of mankind. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 91 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 "O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce 
 'Twixt natural son and sire ! thou bright defiler 
 Of Hymen's purest bed ! thou valiant Mars ! 
 Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer, 
 Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow 
 
 ■ That lies on Dian's lap ! thou visible god. 
 That solder'st close impossibilities, 
 
 And mak'st them kiss ! that speak' st with every tongue, 
 To every purpose." 
 
 TiMON OP Athens. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 " For they sa}^, if money go before, all ways do lie open." 
 The importance of these words I have learned to realize, 
 though I have hardly looked beneath the surface of this 
 glittering metropolis. The " saint-seducing gold" is all 
 powerful here, as it is at home, and I have already begun 
 to wonder what people meant who talked about going 
 abroad to economize. Of course one can economize here, 
 but he must first learn these old countries, and to gain this 
 knowledge he must pa}' for his experience, and generally a 
 pretty heavy tax. Then there are those who possess the 
 high talent for suffering and starving, and it matters little 
 where they go or where they stop, for they have set upon 
 a campaign of skimping. Strangers must fee the whole 
 kingdom, and this system is reduced to a science. I grant 
 you a very little goes a great way. It is not the amount 
 to any one that makes the vacuum in the pocket, })ut the un- 
 ceasing demand for pennies ; and the pence is what cheats 
 the American. With us the cent is the penny always, and 
 though we know the fact well, it takes some time for us to 
 become accustomed to it, that a shilling is twenty-five 
 cents, though twelve pence. The waiter that smiles as you 
 give him sixpence, would be content upon one; Cabby 
 knows an American at once and trades upon his contempt 
 for coppers and his weakness for silver. The Frenchman 
 is happy on a sou; the German on a kreuzer or pfennig ; 
 the Italian on a centesimi^ and the Spaniard on a real; it 
 is ever the smallest coin offered by the English to the 
 waiter, but the American disdains anything less than six- 
 pence. Gradually I convalesced from the sixpence folly, 
 and the London restaurants wrought the radical cure. I 
 confess I was captured by a superb dinner — music included 
 
92 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 — for "three and six," and exclaimed, with Dominie Samp- 
 son, "prodigious!" before calculating the other expenses 
 attending this epicurean but economical feast. " Three and 
 six" are eighty-seven and a half cents; a bottle of red wine 
 four shillings ($1.00); and sixpence for the waiter, swells 
 your account to $1.50 each if two are dining. The fee for 
 the attendant does not remain at the option and generosity 
 of the diners, but is charged in the bill, and then of course, 
 you are expected — no! not expected, but obliged to hand 
 the waiter a small gratuity for himself. If you take a 
 hansom to reach any one of the swell restaurants, your 
 outlay for dinner will net quite $2.00; what with the lodg- 
 ing at the hotel, and breakfast, you discover that you are 
 living at about five dollars a day, or more than it would 
 cost at the "Continental" or "Fifth Avenue." No one 
 dines here without wine, and the tariff equals the American 
 prices, for the Englishman is also obliged to render impost 
 to his French neighbor across the channel for the beuvt^age. 
 
 There are many chop houses, and pot houses, and grill 
 rooms, where a gentleman may dine well upon a chop, a 
 snack, with vegetables and bread, for six or eight-pence, 
 but these are scarcely the places for a lady. They are 
 mostly found in the city; Strand, Fleet Street, Cheapside, 
 Cannon Street, and Ludgate Hill. I have made a tour of 
 the better class restaurants, and have finally anchored at 
 the " Cafe Royal," Regent Quadrant, where I took my first 
 dinner in London many weeks ago. The English are the 
 vilest cooks on this round globe; the talent for ruining all 
 viands they touch seems plenarily developed, and I hailed 
 the French cafe as a harvest and a home. Here we are 
 served with a savory meal of chicken, vegetables, salad, 
 cheese, bread and butter, ice-cream and wine, for the very 
 modest sum of one dollar. Our gai^gon is a blue-bearded 
 Italian, called Tony, who, besides suppljung our delicious 
 bite, is as polite as a dancing-master, as active as an acro- 
 bat, and lies like a lawj^er. 
 
 Perhaps you are saying "fat paunches have lean pates, 
 and dainty bits make rich the ribs, but bank 'rout quite the 
 wits;" but this subject of food has been weighing heavily 
 upon my — brain (?), and I must deliver myself of it. The 
 other afternoon I strolled along the monumental splen- 
 dors of Parliament Street, the House of Commons and the 
 House of Lords, past old Westminster Abbey, through St. 
 James's Park, past the great India House, through Water- 
 loo Square, and by the four colossal lions of Landseer guard- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 93 
 
 ing the towering column of Nelson, in Trafalgar Square. 
 What a throng! and what a medley of wealth and povert}'! 
 Beggars pleading for pennies at every step, and the gay 
 and festive young soldiers of the Queen's Guard, with their 
 jaunty little caps tilted on one side, short jackets and close- 
 fitting trowsers, each one as straight as an arrow, and each 
 with a bonne, and each bonne with a baby. Then the no- 
 bility rolling along in their luxurious carriages with liv- 
 eried footmen and outriders, it was a panorama indeed ! 
 We lingered on Oxford Street to look into the dazzling 
 shop windows filled with objects of virtu^ gold and silver 
 ornaments, and a perfect wilderness of female parapher- 
 nalia. Shortl}^ we emerged into High Holbor.), and then 
 to the famous restaurant of the same name where we dined. 
 Under the roof of this vast establishment there are many 
 mansions; the grand salon, the duke's salon, the ladies' 
 salon, Lincoln's inn buffet, and the grill room, besides an 
 infinit}^ of cloak-rooms and private dining-rooms. On en- 
 tering the grand salon at The Holborn, for 6 p. m. table 
 d^hote, I thought I was in a fairy palace ; it was as light as 
 a flood of gas and wax-candles could make it; the crystal 
 and gilt chandeliers were reflected in a hundred mirrors; 
 the air was filled with the perfume of flowers, — for on each 
 small table was placed a bouquet, — the silvery tinkle of 
 the fountains' spray as it dropped upon the marble basin 
 beneath, with music and the song of birds; music taken 
 from the operas and executed by master hands. W^e dined 
 in the lower balcony, behind the shadow and within the 
 glow of crimson drapery, from where we could see the well- 
 dressed guests in the large hall just below, and those around 
 us ; the waiters seeming as courtly as the company ; and 
 this was the menu: 
 
 Soups. 
 Puree of Game. Consomme with Italian Paste. 
 
 Fish. 
 Fillets of Sturgeon, Indian Sauce. Turbot, Lobster Sauce. 
 
 Entrees. 
 Turtle Croquettes, with Mushrooms. Fricassee of Babbit. 
 
 Roast. 
 Ribs of Beef, with Horseradish. 
 
 Sweets. 
 
 Rhubarb Tart. Dom Pedro Jelly. 
 
 Genoise Glaceau Kirsch. 
 
94 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Ices. 
 Orange. Ratafiar 
 
 Cheese. French Salad. 
 
 Dessert. 
 
 Apples. Oranges. Pippins. Olives. 
 
 Almonds and Raisins. 
 
 And all of this graceful and elegant feast for three and six. 
 Yet I have heard many American gentlemen say they were 
 obliged to double up on the European table cfhote^ as the 
 usual supply is insufficient. 
 
 At the New Viaduct Hotel, Holborn Viaduct, under the 
 auspices of Spiers & Pond, the restaurant princes here, an 
 elegant dinner is supplied, but not for three and six; that 
 is one of the silvery resorts. The St. James, on Piccadilly, 
 in connection with the concert rooms, serves almost as good 
 a meal, but not the other accessories, as the High Holborn, 
 for the same sum. At the Criterion there is also a six 
 o'clock table dViote, but it is still more expensive. The 
 Burlington, on Regent Street, is conspicuous, costly, with 
 dinners a la carte; the interior adornments are strikingly 
 beautiful, but we suddenly retreated when we were told we 
 should have to wait at least half an hour for a small dinner. 
 Mr. Blanchard, of the Burlington, is also proprietor of a 
 less pretentious establishment on less pretentious Beak 
 Street, where we obtained a very fair meal at rather a 
 reasonable price. Verrey's, on Regent Street, is select 
 and expensive, and the resort of fashionable ladies during 
 the shopping hours. Simpson's, on the Strand, is famous 
 and constantly thronged, so it requires considerable elec- 
 tioneering to secure a separate table, but I regard the 
 cooking inferior to the others I have tried. Here roast 
 beef and mutton, with potatoes and Brussels sprouts, are 
 the staples; the dissector in white apron, jacket, and paper 
 cap rolls a large barrow upon wheels to the side of your 
 table, and there carves whatever you may choose from a 
 huge round of beef or mutton. The Pall Mall, in Pall 
 Mall, is the aristocratic restaurant of this extremely wealthy 
 and noble quarter. It is pervaded by a solemn and stifling 
 hush. Just out of Carleton Gardens and St. James Park, 
 and in the midst of the clubs — the Athenaeum, United 
 Service, the Reform Club, the Traveller's, the Carlton, and 
 Army and Navy — it is at once the rendezvous of the peer 
 and poet, the scholar and the soldier, the man of play and 
 the man of pleasure. The table dliote at the principal 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 95 
 
 hotels, as the Grosvenor, Langhara, Midland, and Charing 
 Cross, are always expensive, never less than six or seven 
 shillings, frequently ten. 
 
 The most costly and exclusive hotels of London are not 
 the largest and most prominent where the greater portion 
 of the tide of travel settles. They are to be found in quiet 
 sequestered districts, off from the din of the mercantile 
 world ; outside, the counterpart of a large private residence, 
 plain and spiritless; inside, palatial; and they are never 
 advertised. 
 
 Much has been written of the quality and quantity of 
 milk and cream in England, yet the price and dearth of 
 ice cream is one of the points to be observed. It is gener- 
 ally a very inferior product, when it is found at all, and 
 sixpence for so much as might be put into a Sauterne 
 glass, frequently a shilling; this depends in what end of 
 the town it is bought. The best is to be had at Gunter's, 
 in Berkeley Square, confectioners to Her Majesty ; but 
 believe me, that ice cream has received a too liberal dose 
 of arrowroot or corn starch. Eighty-seven cents for half 
 a dozen of the most diminutive raw oysters you ever saw. 
 One dollar for a dish of clear turtle soup. Sevent3^-five 
 cents for one portion, and a very small one, of lobster 
 salad. Two dollars for a capon. These figures are quite 
 conclusive that the luxuries of the table are procurable at 
 far lower rates at home. And to tliose who have been 
 harboring the false conception of going abroad to econo- 
 mize — dispel it at once! 
 
96 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 
 This fortress built by nature for herself, 
 Against infection and the hand of war ; 
 This happy breed of men, this little world ; 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
 Or as a moat defensive to a house. 
 Against the envy of less happy lands ; 
 This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 
 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 
 Feared by their breed, and famous by their birth, 
 Renowned for their deeds as far from home 
 (For Christian service and true chivalry) 
 As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry, 
 Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son," 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 In this cloudy country, a "constitutional" is almost as 
 necessary to health as food and sleep, and the '• constitu- 
 tional" of the Eno^lish is a long- stroll or stride of many 
 hours or miles. The practice accounts for the immense 
 feet of the females and the stalwart forms of the males. 
 An English lady in her walking costume is more an ob- 
 ject of oppressive respectability than of attraction. One 
 rapidly grows into the customs of a country. I have 
 already learned to prefer walking to riding, even in rough 
 weather, and what enhances the pleasure are the thousand 
 curious sights and scenes which make our jaunts a series 
 of panoramic views. A stranger in London cannot fully 
 enjoy the metropolis from a closed omnibus, a four-wheeler, 
 or a hansom, and, of course, not from the underground 
 railway ; therefore we have adopted the Baj-ard Taylor 
 fashion of taking views afoot. 
 
 So to-day we concluded to walk from Westminster to 
 Tower Hill. Of the tower with its many black and bloody 
 legends ; its hoary walls and machicolated battlements ; 
 its ancient moat and Traitor's Gate ; its resplendent halls 
 of armor and chambers of jewels ; its bastions and donjon, 
 and its shroud of past gloom, casting shadows over the 
 present sunshine of intelligence and liberty — I will not 
 talk; it is a hackneyed as well as horrible story. But of 
 the approach and immediate vicinity of this mighty monu- 
 ment of bygone vice, slavery, and barbarity, I trust I may 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 97 
 
 dilate without being tedious. The sufferings of Lady Jane 
 Grey, and her husband, Guildford Dudlej^, Walter Raleigh, 
 Archbishop Laud, Lord Lovat, and the many others, are 
 the threadbare tale of every school-book. This palace and 
 prison is tiie familiar cenotaph of the ages, and one picture 
 of it suffices for all time. Not so the environs of the ven- 
 erable pile, for while it remains the same, time with them 
 is ever working^ chansfes. 
 
 From the Royal Exchange where the bronze equestrian 
 statue of the Duke of Wellington stands in all its conscious 
 opulence of the $50,000 it cost, we crossed to the Bank of 
 England ; here I was unable to resist a peep. £lOO shares 
 are at par $500, eacii has risen to £230 or $1150. The 
 yearly salaries of the officers are $1,100,000. The bank 
 manages the national debt, which amounts to $4,000,000,000. 
 "The old lady in Threadneedle Street" — as the English 
 call their bank — is an affluent dowager, as her capital 
 equals nearly $80,000,000. Here I saw the wonderful 
 clock with the sixteen dials, so that a face may be seen from 
 the sixteen distinct offices of the bank, through which all 
 day long wild crowds are rushing to and fro. Here they 
 shovel the bullion, and weigh the gold pieces, instead of 
 counting them ; it all seems very strange to us, but mis- 
 takes occur rarely. With a scoop, they cash a check for 
 $1000 in a second. Tiie bank notes are printed by a sin- 
 gular process, and forgery is rendered impossible. The 
 hordes of people, and the busy officials, the cries in the 
 street, the din of traffic, the dull, heavy roar of the un- 
 ceasing ocean of hauling, make a terrestrial pandemonium. 
 And yet the order of the management of this great temple 
 of Mammon is a marvel of the acre. 
 
 To the east, we have Cornhill, a thoroughfare of cheap 
 shops, counting-houses, tumble-down taverns, insurance 
 offices, historic haunts, and even poetical reminiscences ; 
 for it was in this quarter that Gray was born, and lived 
 years ago, and Daniel De Foe — the author of Robinson 
 Crusoe — carried on the business of stocking-maker, in 
 1*702. But who shall depicture the Stock Exchange ? It 
 was a wild day (Saturday) there! A medley of crazy 
 rioters. Frequently the police are necessary to disperse 
 the mob gathered to buy and sell stocks, tobacco, pepper, 
 indigo, and drugs, and the broker is alwa3'^s there to effect 
 the barter. It was a clear day, but the air was rude, and 
 the tumult ruder as we endeavored to thread our way 
 through this modern Babel. 
 9 
 
98 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 All trades are plied, all classes mingle, all languages are 
 spoken. You are thrust here and there by the extended 
 elbows of a ruffian, by a greasy flsh-basket, a heedless bo}^ 
 wheelbarrows, boxes, and wagons. Suddenly there is a 
 halt midway in the mad tumult; there is a blockade in the 
 torrent of travel on sidewalk and highway, if, indeed, you 
 can distinguish them, as at such a time horses and wagons 
 are driven on the pavement, regardless of human life; and 
 then the air reverberates with the shouts of drivers, por- 
 ters, beggars, hawkers, guardians of the peace, fishwomen, 
 candy and fruit sellers, importunate showmen, and ped- 
 dlers. At first 1 was provoked that I had consented to 
 venture in the midst of the human and inhuman menag- 
 erie, then my mood changed to one of solicitude for my 
 raiment, for my premonition was that I sliould be vehe- 
 mently divested of it, and the tertium quid was a silent 
 prayer for my life. No man tarried for his neighbor, so I 
 abandoned myself to the current, to gaze upon the strange 
 concourse, and watch the passions on the faces of the mul- 
 titude, and stare into the kaleidoscope of the windows. 
 If the picture on the highway was exciting and outre, it 
 was novel in the depositories that flanked the pavements. 
 Here were shelves of gold and silver coins, next door 
 masses and mazes of old statuary, paintings, engravings, 
 musty books, and bric-a-brac. Past brokers, law-offices, 
 and antique houses, we were carried into Leadenhall Street, 
 the place of markets of meat, poultry, and especially hides. 
 Another world as exclusive in its devotion to creature 
 comforts as what I have just left is to money and specula- 
 tion. Here is the vast sepulchre, or confined subterranean 
 sea, of light French and German wines; the cellars of H. 
 R. Williams & Co., extending beneatli the range of the en- 
 tire markets, and then we emerged into Lombard Street, 
 the region of tiie golden gods of Europe and America, and 
 the same where the Longobards of Edward II 's reign met 
 to transact their aff'airs. All here was heavy, and gloomy, 
 and strong ; the great dealers of finance seem to avoid 
 glitter. Odd it is that all tiiese treasure-houses are sur- 
 rounded by marts for the sale of food and grain ; and here 
 we came upon Mark and Mincing Lanes, the corn markets 
 of the world. 
 
 The scene at Billingsgate great fish market and wharf was 
 grotesque and bizarre to the last degree. What a melange 
 of curiously dressed men, and still more curiousl}' attired 
 women ! What an atmosphere and multitude of odd-look- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 99 
 
 ing and odd-named fish. This wholesale market was made 
 open and free for all classes of fish in 1699, and all the 
 oviparous inhabitants of the water that are imported in 
 British vessels, fresh or cured, are free of duties. The fish 
 in this market are sold by count, except salmon and eels ; 
 oysters are sold by measure, and no fish are sold on Sunday, 
 with the exception of mackerel. Much has been written 
 of the peculiar characteristics of the fish-mongers. Time 
 has evidently improved them, as I heard none of the ri- 
 baldry and vituperation of the olden days, but they are 
 much rougher, ruder, and more boisterous than the same 
 order at home. 
 
 The Thames is to London, life, food, health, and enjoy- 
 ment. Without its ceaseless current there would be no 
 world's metropolis. However regarded it is vital to Lon- 
 don existence. Venice is not more dependent upon her 
 canals, than is London upon the Thames; nor is Holland 
 more indebted to her dykes, and the estuaries of the sea 
 that penetrate into, cleanse, and improve her cities. And 
 the very region I have been visiting to-day proves how in- 
 dispensable the Thames is to the city it divides. It is 
 bordered by stately edifices, and they produce a most impres- 
 sive effect. The custom-house is solid, capacious, and most 
 extensive; the long room is 190 by 60 feet, and has an alti- 
 tude of 55 feet, in the centre ; some conception of its extent 
 may be formed, but the rush and crush of business cannot 
 be idealized. Here I had my first real insight of English 
 commerce. Even Liverpool, with its forest of masts, and 
 wilderness of docks, did not impress me like these mighty 
 storehouses on the Thames, that hold the produce of the 
 Mediterranean and America, of the Orient and the Occident. 
 I was bewildered by the scene, yet I labored to retain a few 
 facts of this Trade Colossus. The St. Catherine Docks 
 cost nearly nine millions of dollars, and the wine vaults of 
 the Eastern Docks cover an underground area of 890,545 
 feet ; one vault alone a space of seven acres ! On the India 
 Docks six millions of dollars were expended in the begin- 
 ning, seventy-nine years ago, and they now include three 
 hundred acres of land and water. 
 
 Such is the opulence of London, of its world-wide aflftli- 
 ations, of the endless varieties of its traflfic. All the deli- 
 cacies, refinements, luxuries, necessities, inventions and 
 products of the human race, are collected in their gross 
 and rude virgin state. It was a wild blending of foreign 
 sounds, smells, and costumes. There were many ladies 
 
100 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 and travellers from distant ports, tradesmen, and many 
 like myself taking notes. We had reached the limit of 
 this historical and commercial labyrinthine locale^ and the 
 melancholy walls of the Tower burst upon us from the hilL 
 We joined the democratic brigade commanded by a " beef- 
 eater," with faded and flaunting ribbons, and proceeded 
 to view that of which we had so often read. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 "Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, 
 
 That crown the wat'ry glade. 
 Where grateful Science still adores 
 
 Her Henry's holy shade ; 
 And ye that from the stately brow 
 Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below 
 
 Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey. 
 Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among 
 Wanders the hoary Thames along 
 
 His silver winding way." 
 
 Thomas Gray. 
 
 London, March, 1878. 
 
 The Thames, that vital artery of the English capital, 
 always seemed chiefly important as a commercial stream, 
 till George Eliot, in Daniel Deronda, glorified it into ro- 
 mance and beauty. Taking its rise near Cirencester, it 
 passes Windsor, Hampton Court, Twickenham, Fulham, 
 Chelsea, Riciimond, and so on to London, where its shores 
 are crowned b}'^ the oldest religious, political, charitable, 
 commercial, and literary monumeuts. Although the Thames 
 is often repulsive viewed from the many bridges that span 
 it, or from the new and costly embankments, it seems to 
 purify as we penetrate into rural England. AH along its 
 banks are the silent abodes of blissful wealth. The great 
 novelist has opened new views of its pastoral beauties, of 
 the lovely regions it traverses, of the hamlets and estates, 
 palaces and retreats, battle-fields, colleges, schools, and 
 churches, it has rolled through and by for centuries. As 
 you travel j^ou find inland towns and villages connected 
 with London by rail and sail down to the North Sea, where 
 the river empties its tribute of darksome waters; its mar- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 101 
 
 gin is lined with punts and barges plying out into the cur- 
 rent. We see it at intervals through the trees a mere coil- 
 ing ribbon, gradually expanding into a river navigable for 
 vessels of 1400 tons. These towns are flanked b}'' fine 
 hotels, houses, lordly domains, and public gardens. As 
 you approach London you realize that the Upper Thames 
 has become the rendezvous of fasliion, frolic, high life, low 
 life, and the ten thousand secrets of a huge metropolis. 
 Here they are largely concealed and steadily increase. 
 The Thames at London is pregnant of dark mysteries and 
 darker tragedies. Few travellers follow its course and 
 rarely see its country side in nature. They visit the Docks, 
 Tower, Tunnel, and Custom-house, linger on the bridges, 
 and stop at Windsor, Richmond, and Kew. They are thus 
 only partially prepared for the endless wealth of London, 
 proved by the superb memorials on its river's banks, 
 brought into bold relief by the sky, and these evidences 
 strengthen their belief in the words of the old Pope, who 
 a century ago said, "If the treasury of Philip Augustus 
 had been put up for sale London could have bought it." 
 Then they dwell upon the fountain of this incalculable 
 wealth — the ocean — and of the Thames, its tributary, and 
 think of what the martyr Sir Walter Raleigh said, " He 
 w'ho commands the sea commands the trade of tlie world; 
 he who commands the trade of the world commands the 
 riches of the world, and consequently the world itself;" 
 but there! I am transgressing my woman's province. I 
 have no desire to play the savant,, nor decoy you into the 
 belief that I have all the mots and aphorisms of the eccle- 
 siastical, political, and poetic Solomons, at my finger 
 tips. No ! I spare you the infliction. 
 
 So with the vision of Daniel Deronda in mind, just as 
 the sun was sinking behind the hills, and night was wrap- 
 ping nature in her dusky cloak, and the little stars were 
 coming out one by one like so many eyes to witness his 
 rescue of the melancholy Mirah who had wandered to the 
 river edge, where it slopes gently from Kew Gardens, and 
 the willow bushes stand thick and close to the margin, I 
 projected my tour of the silent highway, with Windsor 
 Palace, Eton, Kew Gardens, Richmond, Bushy Park, and 
 Hampton Court in prospect. Next morning was balmy 
 and soft, though the month March, and as we passed 
 under the darlc arches of the orreat bridg-es, the river was 
 sluggish and opaque, the tall spires lost their heads in the 
 misty clouds, and the dim masses of stone fretwork were 
 
 9* 
 
102 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 indistinctly outlined against the hazy sk3^; but tlie fishers' 
 boats, pleasure barges, and commercial craft, were steadily 
 ploughing the water}' wa^^ The Oxford and Cambridge 
 lads were in their cockle-shell skiffs, practising for the 
 prize competition which will take place in about two 
 weeks. We rested upon our oars clo^e to the (ireat 
 Western Railway Bridge and viewed Windsor, with its 
 ghostly towers and wooded heights, the famous old beeches 
 with outstretched arms and gnarled trunks, that tell us of 
 the "years of generations." At the feet of these old mon- 
 archs is the baby crocus in her cradle of soft, fresh green; 
 she pushes back her blanket, and lifts her sweet sad face 
 to the pale English sun, but a chill gale blows over the 
 bleak Welsh hills, and the new-born crocus shivers and 
 bends her head to her mother — Earth. The willow bushes 
 and long rank grass are dipping into the river, which 
 sparkles as the struggling sun touches its ripples, the 
 anglers are sporting with their rods, and a flock of white 
 sheep are grazing on the young verdure. Yonder on the 
 opposite bank is Eton, the famous school of preliminary 
 instruction for the sons of noblemen and gentry. The 
 main portion of the youths under tuition here are oppi- 
 dans, numbering nearly nine hundred, the number of the 
 King's scholars who reside within the walls is limited to 
 seventy; the narrow lanes and IcA^el highways of the town 
 are full of these oddly dressed oppidans. As we passed 
 many of the lads were out on the greensward, and in these 
 sporting youths I saw the future British poets and states- 
 men, and thought of their predecessors, Walpole, Boling- 
 broke. Fielding, Gra}'^, Cliatham, Fox, and Wellington, 
 who had gambolled upon the same lawn. 
 
 We turned from the chalk hills of Windsor, and pulled 
 toward Hampton Court, past the royal and densely-wooded 
 estates, gladdened by sunny trout-brooks, where the fallow- 
 deer were browsing, and where the dark English roads are 
 bordered by glossy hedges, where the cattle wade among 
 the mossy and slimy stones at the river's brink, within the 
 shadow of the tall elms, where my lord rides out upon his 
 palfry in buckskin or corduroy, while his retainers lay down 
 the hoe and sickle as noon-tide tolls from the curfew tower. 
 
 The first glimpse we caught of the palace made it appear 
 like a small town. We lingered upon Hampton Bridge, as 
 we had been told to do, to gain a view of the Gothic turrets 
 of Wolsey, and then passed the great stone portals guarded 
 by the lions, and adorned by the armorial symbols and tro- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 103 
 
 phies of the third William. Through a neglected court or 
 avenue that lay between the barracks — a long row of low, 
 dilapidated brick structures on the left, and heavy, decay- 
 ing incongruous buildings on the right — we reached the 
 regal home of Ciiarles I and II, where the workings of 
 nature and art go hand in hand, where countless names of 
 fame are indissoluble^ carved, where cling the traditions of 
 the romance and tragedy of three centuries, where the 
 saintly but sybaritic Wolsey held high revel, and his 
 thousand satellites were housed, where the illustrious 
 scriptural tapestries still embellish the walls of the great 
 hall. They are in a perfect state of "preservation and illus- 
 trate the eight epochs of the life of Abraham. They are 
 elaborate specimens of art, "the higher lights being worked 
 in gold." Each one is bordered by an intricate design in 
 arabesque, where figures, fruits, flowers, and vines inter- 
 mingle, emblematic of the lessons the subject is intended 
 to teach. Need I recount the high-pitched roof and 
 pendants, the stained glass windows bearing the titles of 
 the six wives of "bluff king Hal?" the banners, and arms, 
 and ciphers of the nobles? the court and chapel? the 
 king's staircase with its essentially French frescoes by 
 Antonio Yerrio? The adornments are striking and exu- 
 berant, but I am told by superior judgment, thej'' will not 
 sustain criticism. We wandered through the royal bed- 
 chambers and boudoirs^ and long succession of art galleries, 
 where each portrait is an eloquent legend of the past. From 
 the centre window in the queen's drawing-room we looked 
 out upon the garden below, with its brilliant border and 
 level yellow gravel paths, the terraces and mounds of soft 
 green turf, stone vases, a mass of luxuriant bloom, dancing 
 fountains, and through the vista of a long line of lofty and 
 venerable trees, shadowing a footpath, there is a lake orna- 
 mented with statues and sparkling jets d^eau. Across the 
 highroad to Kingston we entered Bushby Park, with its 
 long colonnades of chestnuts and limes, several centuries 
 old, and not one of them seems to be allowed to grow an 
 inch above the other, making a mighty and mazj^ arbor of 
 green. 
 
 A short row brought us to the celebrated Kew Gardens, 
 extending along the Thames. This extensive collection 
 of living flowers and plants of all kinds, is now national 
 property, but nevertheless we could not forget the time 
 when it was leased to the Prince of Wales, son of George 
 II, afterward George III, nor that the cottage is still pre- 
 
104 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 served as it was left by the ill-fated Queen Charlotte. At 
 l^reseiit the chief interest centres in its gardens and botani- 
 cal treasures, said to be the most famous in the world. How 
 soft and velvety the turf 1 How capacious and well-ordered 
 the green-houses, nurseries, and conservatories, and how 
 wonderful in summer the open beds of various colored 
 flowers, exotic and otherwise, gathered from every land 
 under the sun, and cured and cultivated by all the resources 
 of science and of genius. To this lovel}^ resort continuous 
 and countless crowds repair from multitudinous London, 
 by daily boat and rail Kew Gardens are open every day 
 to the public after one o'clock. Famous Richmond — the 
 Tivoli of Entrland — is a sail of a few moments from Kew, 
 a large town with a population of over 15,000, and beauti- 
 fully placed on the right bank of the Thames. Its park 
 and bridge, and palatial surroundings, and glorious per- 
 spective, will live ever in my memory. The muse of history 
 has lingered long and written much upon this favorite 
 place. Near by Pope and Walpole lived for many 3'ears, 
 and here myriads gather during the fine days to enjo}'^ the 
 exquisite scenery, to walk through the historic parks, to 
 punt on the romantic river, or to regale themselves upon 
 the costly dinners at the Star and Garter^ an experience 
 we were fain to avoid, being unwilling to pay for mere 
 form and style, when we could procure an equally satisfac- 
 tovy repast at one of the less pretentious inns. Our hostel, 
 the Talbot^ was "neat but not gaud}^" We had to wait 
 for quite awhile for our steak and potatoes, and while doing 
 so, witnessed one of those exhibitions which I regret to say 
 are too common in England, a rather decent young lady 
 accompanied by her swain, both considerably worse for 
 too frequent potations. The food was good, and we were 
 ready for it, and we did not complain as we paid our nine 
 shillings, feeling it would be double the amount at the more 
 silvery Star and Garter. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 105 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 "And throned immortal by his side, 
 
 A woman sits with eye sublime, 
 Aspasia, all his spirit's bride ; 
 
 But, if their solemn love were crime. 
 Pity the beauty and the sage, 
 Their crime was in their darkened age. 
 
 He perished, but his wreath was won ; 
 
 He perished in his height of fame : 
 Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun, 
 
 Yet still she conquered in his name. 
 Filled with his soul, she could not die ; 
 Her conquest was Posterity !" Ceoly. 
 
 London, April, 1878. 
 
 Barring the noble (?) classes who come upon the stage 
 of life with their titles generally more developed than their 
 limbs, the most exalted positions in England are held oy 
 those who have won renown by their literary efforts. By 
 no other assumption, howsoever lofty, may one claim an 
 entree to the exclusive circle of sa7\g hleu^ as potent as 
 those whose stockings are of the corresponding hue. Of 
 this class " George Eliot" crowns the lettered heights. 
 Marian Evans, the original of this male pesudonyme, is 
 now about lift}' -eight. She was born in Warwickshire, the 
 daughter of an humble curate, and afterward adopted by a 
 wealthy clerg^'man, who lavishly educated his little protege. 
 But her astounding mental expansion grew out of her tute- 
 lage under the philosopher, Herbert Spencer, with whom 
 she studied French, German, and Italian, music, art, and 
 metaphysics, after she had finished at the academy, where 
 onl}' the foundation stone was laid of her great learning. 
 She is the worshipped Calliope here, notwithstanding her 
 mesalliance with the celebrated George Henry Lewes, who 
 sincerel}'- loved and honored her. She has no attractions 
 of face, but her mind overrules all else, and though much 
 of the eloquent and peculiar phraseology, which has gained 
 for her so vast an audience, has been attributed to her con- 
 stant association with Lewes' philosophy, it was her estab- 
 lished style before she assumed the voluntary fetters of that 
 mental and sacred fellowship. Her first literary attempt — 
 a translation — was not made until she was twenty-six, and 
 her first novel was publislied twelve years afterwards. 
 Within a later period she has written several poems that 
 
106 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 would have made the fame of any other struggling aspirant, 
 but have added nothing to that of the great novelist, and 
 are comparatively unknown. George Henry Lewes is her 
 senior by only three years, and tliough his first days of 
 student-life were steeped in anatomy and physiology, he 
 afterward wrote fiction, and later became a scientific zealot, 
 and has ever since attracted attention by the ability of his 
 psychological dissertations. I was tempted to study the 
 surrounding country of the Thames by George Eliot's 
 inspired descriptions, and this led to my meditations on 
 the other female writers of London. 
 
 Miss Mary Elizabeth Braddon, the daughter of a con- 
 tributor to the old sporting magazines — which accounts 
 for her heroine, Aurora Floyd, having a predilection for 
 jocke3^s and the pleasures of the turf, carrying a betting- 
 book, and indulging in such literature as BelVs Life — was 
 born in Soho Square over forty-one years ago. Still cor- 
 responding under her maiden name, she has married a 
 wealthy gentleman and lives in affluence. She is a pro- 
 digious worker, and her novels, plays, and current contribu- 
 tions to periodical literature, are popular and remunerative. 
 She is the editress of the Belgravia^ a monthly magazine 
 of the type of our Galaxy. Her publications have not 
 only enriched the authoress, but as adapted to the stage 
 have proven a source of emolument to actors and managers. 
 
 Mrs. Henry Wood, the daughter of Thomas Price, a glove 
 manufacturer, is about sixty years old. For many years 
 the editress of the Argosy,, a sixpenny monthly and favor- 
 ite of fiction readers, she has been eclipsed by the brighter 
 luminaries, George Eliot and Miss Braddon. How many 
 tears have been shed over the wayward and misled Lady 
 Isabel in East Lynne^ and other equally hapless heroines 
 of her dramatized works! 
 
 One of the oldest English authoresses and artists is Mrs. 
 Anna Eliza Bray. She studied art under the guidance of 
 Mr. Stothard, whose son she married in 1818. Their con- 
 genial life of study and travel was fated to be brief, for 
 scarcely three years had passed when he was killed. His 
 great labor. The Monumental Effigies of Gi^eat Britain^ 
 was completed by his widow, who shortly after married the 
 Rev. Mr. Bray, the author of several theological and poet- 
 ical books. 
 
 Another of these brave women living in London is Flo- 
 rence Nightingale, more eminent for her noble philanthro- 
 pies in peace and war, though she has written much upon 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. lOt 
 
 charitable and sanitaiy subjects. She received all the ad- 
 vantages of a complete education, but her life mission has 
 been to alleviate physical and moral distress. She may be 
 justly called the idol of the good people of England. 
 Though she rarely goes out now, this lady has a claim 
 upon our gratitude for lier unselfish sacrifices for suffering 
 humanity. Surrounded by all the luxuries of wealth and 
 refinement, still her heart beats warmly for the afflicted. 
 She has expended immense sums from her private means, 
 and a few years ago, when $250,000 were voted to her by 
 the public in recognition of her splendid services in the 
 military hospitals in the Crimea, she established with that 
 fund an institution for the "training and employment of 
 nurses." And now, after a life abounding in such examples 
 of royal munificence, she relapses, in the autumn of her 
 days, into restful comfort. 
 
 Another of the toiling ladies of London is Miss Amelia 
 Blandford Edwards. She is about forty-seven, and a de- 
 scendant of the Walpole family, as yet unmarried, I believe. 
 She has written many novels and juvenile books, as well as 
 being a constant contributor to five or six magazines. 
 
 But no woman in all England, with the exception of the 
 Queen, has had more deserved and greater honors than 
 Angela Georgiana, Baroness Burdette-Coutts, wlio won 
 fame by the liberal use of her large fortune ; tlie greater 
 portion of it she inherited from her mother, Sophia Coutts, 
 who married Sir Francis Burdette, an effective Parliament- 
 ary orator, and the " idol of the London populace." The 
 Baroness is about sixt^^-five, and was created a peeress in 
 her own right, in June, 18Y1. Her wealth is as boundless 
 as her generosity, and her features as conspicuously homely 
 as those of the Premier. With $250,000 she endowed three 
 colonial bishoprics in British colonies. With lavish hands 
 she bestows money upon her favorite, the Church of Eng- 
 land, but to institutions of science, charity, education, dis- 
 cover}^, and art, she is in a like manner liberal She is 
 equally solicitous for the advancement of the drama and 
 music. Henry Irving is her chosen friend, and a braver, 
 more modest, whole-souled woman does not exist. 
 
 One of the facts that have ever interested me is the 
 amount of work done by literary'- and professional women 
 in America and England, and, indeed, in every part of the 
 world. The labors of George Sand, Madame de Stael, 
 Madame de Sevigne, in France; Mrs. Stowe, Julia Ward 
 Howe, Louisa Alcott, Anna Dickinson, in America, and the 
 countless thinkers and writers of England, are prodigious. 
 
108 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 "What hid'st tliou in tliy treasure-caves and cells, 
 Thou hollow sounding and mysterious main ? — 
 Pale glistening pearls and rainbow-color'd shells, 
 
 Bright things which gleam unrecked-of and in vain ! 
 Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea ! 
 We ask not much from thee." 
 
 Hemans. 
 
 London, April, 1878. 
 
 We set out for Hastings in a burst of sunshine, but alas ! 
 our bright experience was short-lived. The gray clouds 
 lowered, the first drops pattered against the window-pane 
 of our carriage. We hoped for a favoral)le wind that might 
 chase away the threatening storm. But no! tlie atmosphere 
 was ominous, and at length the storm broke in all its fury. 
 Unlike ours in spring, at home, tiie tempest did not purify 
 the air ; for several days after, the heavens were overcast. 
 Why did this particular war of the elements make such a 
 deep impression upon me? Perhaps because I was at a 
 foreign seaside ! Perhaps because 1 had anticipated glory 
 and met only gloom ! But I did not sit down to moralize, 
 and there is " something too much of this." 
 
 Hastings is three hours' distant from London by rail. 
 Tlie first station of note after leaving London Bridge, is 
 Chiselhurst, familiar as the retreat of Napoleon III and 
 Eug(^nie ; the scene of his death and burial, and since the 
 growth and peace of the Republic the restful harbor of the 
 beautiful Empress. Then on we dasiied througli emerald 
 pasture lands and cultivated farms, smiling roadsides framed 
 by glossy, luxuriant hedges, and past the hills, veiled with 
 Nature's cobwebs, where nestle the white cottages and the 
 rude barns. At Tunl)ridge Wells, an ancient and famous 
 inland watering-place, an humble clergyman, who had been, 
 a pleasant compagnon de voyage^ possessing apparently 
 plenty of brains and little gold, left us. Then our route 
 gravitated gradually toward the sea. The air was full of 
 the smell of salt from the brackish inlets, and over the wide 
 expanse of moorland I saw the naked downs bordering the 
 Channel. From the station we rode along the parade to 
 the Marine Hotel facing the ocean, which was calm enough, 
 but the skies were not bright, the rain was falling in tor- 
 rents, and the air was soft and warm. I had been anxious 
 to see one of these winter seaside resorts upon the southern 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 109 
 
 coast, where London society rushes to escape the black 
 fogs, where the ocean is as level as the Delaware in June, 
 and the people make gardens in tlie open air at Christmas. 
 I knew the town must be bizarre and picturesque, and de- 
 termined to brave wind and weatlier as soon as I had re- 
 galed m3'self witli a substantial English dinner. Beneath 
 my front window lay the gray crested waters of the great 
 main, while close to the rear rose a huge boulder, groined 
 by the finger of Time. The ocean is as fascinating to me 
 as a cemetery. The comparison may appear to you far- 
 fetched, and the taste eccentric ; but, nevertheless, whether 
 it be to toss up on the heaving breast, saunter upon the 
 sands, climb the cliffs and jutting crags of the one, while 
 my heart sings second to the mournful melody of the eter- 
 nal ebb and flow, or to linger by the silent and restful graves 
 of the other, it is the same lesson of eternitj^ 
 
 Wlien Pluvius hid his weeping e3^es behind a temporary 
 screen, I ventured out into this model sea and mountain 
 town, l34ng partly at the base, and partly upon the accliv- 
 ity of the range of steep hills that shelters it from the 
 northern winds. I started in search of an old friend who 
 I heard was wintering in the soft and genial cliniate for 
 her health, and as I w^as referred to one location after an- 
 other, and numbers innumerable, I studied the beauty of 
 the costlj^ and aristocratic little houses upon the velvety 
 terraces, the windows filled with flowers blossoming in bou- 
 quets, the squares fresh and radiant; meanwhile I was 
 being sprinkled in the most liberal manner by the treach- 
 erous god, and oh, great spirit of Fashion, pity mel 1 had 
 on my swell clothes. 
 
 I rose from one narrow^ street to another, and another, 
 and another, sometimes by a few steps, and sometimes by 
 a gentle ascent as they meandered around the old hills; 
 very quaint and very odd are these sinuous avenues over 
 the bold cliffs. In the higher part of the town, 1 found 
 the atmosphere more bracing and American. I confess I 
 had a full satiety of humidity. These English are like 
 fish ; they enjoy the water, and the damp, and cold, and 
 fog; undaunted they waded through the hilly town, um- 
 brellaed and cloaked. The tears of the gods were still un- 
 quenched ; I had sought my friend in vain, and though I 
 anticipated passing the evening at the Pavilion Theatre, 
 erected at the extremity of the lung pier extending far out 
 in the Channel, I returned to the hotel, through the balmy 
 air and the clinging torrents. 
 10 
 
110 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 A thorough English dinner and the drenching over, both 
 ample and satisfactory, I ensconced myself before the 
 genial sea-coal fire in the cosy sitting-rooln of the silent 
 English hotel — always silent as cloisters even if filled with 
 company- — to enjoy my companion, — a book — for a couple 
 of hours, before retiiing to rest under the same roof that 
 had sheltered the Empress Eugenie, when she came to 
 meet her son, the young Prince Imperial, after her escai)e 
 from the palace of the Tuileries. in this flight she was 
 aided by our fellow-countiyman, Dr. Thomas Evans, pro- 
 prietor of the AmHvicaii Begisle?-. And then I slei)t to the 
 chant of the waves, while visions danced through my head 
 of ltlood\^ fi'a3's, led by Harold the Saxon on one side and 
 the Norman William upon the other; of vast fleets of men 
 of w^ar moored close by; of Matilda the industrious wife 
 of the Conqueror, and her maids of honor engaged in sew- 
 ing si)hinxes, and birds, and dogs, and horses, — oh, such 
 horses! — and trees, and ships, and men upon that great big 
 sampler — the Pictorial History of the Invasion — that she 
 presented to the Bishop of Bayeux. 
 
 Next morning was dreary and damp, as I made a tour of 
 the shops — numerous, beautiful, and complete — and the 
 ascent of the rearward hills to obtain a view of the beach 
 thronged bj^ the rude fisheimen in fantastic dress, some in 
 their boats, and others upon laud mending their nets for 
 future use; the broad marine parade stretching far away 
 along the coast ; the town immediately beneath me snug- 
 gling close to the rocks for protection ; healthy villages 
 crowning lofty summits, and the ghastly desolation of the 
 dismantled castle upon a seemingly perilous cliff. i\s I 
 retraced my zigzag steps, 1 descried new comforts and 
 luxuries concealed in cosy recesses Back again we went 
 through Wellington Square to our hotel, a clean edifice of 
 stone, where our carriage waited to couvcn' us to St. Leon- 
 _ards-on-Sea, the '" West End'' of Hastings. Our ride was 
 along the sea, then by the side of the lion sea, quiet and 
 calm — but evidently as powerful as the other forces of 
 nature. A continuous fagade of white stone houses extends 
 from the East Cliffs to Bopeep ; in the bow windows were 
 rather good-looking, clumsy women gazing out upon the 
 world of 'waters. But there were no blue skies nor pure 
 waves of air; no pleasure barges, nor eipiestrian parties; 
 no stream of fashion's votaries pouring through the streets, 
 and no promeuaders lounging in the arcades, for the over- 
 charged emotions of the gods were still uncontrollable 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. Ill 
 
 On we rode past solid, strong structures, until we reached 
 St. Leonard's. What a lovely town ! with noble and en- 
 during homes, fine shops, the same features of atmosphere, 
 architecture, luxurious private residences, and none of the 
 horrors of a London winter, as the historical Hastings. 
 Here I observed the same large feet of the ladies, awkward 
 carriage, indifference to dress, and utter lack of taste. 
 
 There is no more interesting, beautiful, romantic, and 
 historical spot in England than Sussex County or its shires. 
 Everywhere are found relics, eloquent of Roman origin and 
 occupation; legends of the Norman Conquest; ancient 
 estates and titled castles. 
 
 These two seaside towns, Hastings and St. Leonards-on- 
 Sea, even seen through a vail of gloom, more completely 
 fill my ideal than any similar resorts we have in America. 
 Of course I had sketched my picture of Atlantic City, 
 Cape May, Long Branch, Spring Lake and many others 
 before visiting them; and upon personal acquaintance I 
 found I had been feeding upon delusion. I had thought to 
 enjoy the seashore, tiie hotels should be placed directly on 
 the sands, facing main ward, where the roll of the "deep 
 and dark-blue ocean " should be ever dashing against our 
 windows, instead of standing in a paved street half a mile, 
 and frequently a greater distance from the waters. Another 
 feature that always disappointed me at home was the ab- 
 sence of rocks, and every topographical accessory that 
 makes up a beautiful landscape, or rather, marine scene. 
 Here I had it all! 
 
 Every 3^ear greater numbers of our people are copying 
 the foreign custom of wintering by the sea, and the fact of 
 the beneficial effect of the soft and salubrious salt air upon 
 those suffering from pulmonar}' complaiiits must strengthen 
 this fashion. As for me, I should never wish to escape the 
 glory, the fervent clearness, and nipping air of an Ameri- 
 can winter. 
 
 One fact deserves to be studied by the people of Long 
 Branch, Cape May, Atlantic City, Seagirt, and other 
 Atlantic sea-settlements; that from the closing of the 
 summer season to its reopening, they have many long spells 
 of delightfully soft and salubrious weather, and that they 
 ought to profit by the experiences of Hastings. 
 
112 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER :XXIV. 
 
 " Deep in the wave is a coral grove, 
 Where the purple mullet and gold fish rove ; 
 Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue 
 That never are wet with falling dew, 
 But in bright and changeful beauty shine 
 Far down in the green and glassy brine. 
 
 The floor is of sand like the mountain -drift, 
 And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow ; 
 
 From coral rocks the sea-plants lift 
 Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow ; 
 The water is calm and still below, 
 
 For the winds and waves are absent there, 
 And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 
 
 In the motionless fields of upper air." 
 
 James Gates Percival. 
 
 London, April, 1878. 
 
 The Crystal Palace! the beautiful glass temple, witii its 
 girders of iron, crowning fair Sydenham Hill, eight miles 
 lVt)m London, is a store-house of every department of an- 
 cient and modern art and science. Its English and Italian 
 gardens, foreign mediaeval architectural courts, and histori- 
 cal portrait gallery, are lessons for meditation, and form an 
 unrivalled preparatory school to a Continental tour. Yet 
 its industrial department was in a state of dishabille when 
 I saw it, a,nd many of its sections were dingy and tawdry. 
 But English w^ealth, ever ai)parent, is in nothing so strik- 
 ing as in tlie copies of expensive and unobtainable originals 
 in this same Crystal Palace: copies of statuary, paintings, 
 plate, armor, castles, tombs, shrines, jewels, ceramics, an- 
 tiques, and all the spoils of the ages, which are invaluable 
 as so many reflections of the reality. So opulent, indeed, 
 is England, with London as its treasure-house, reinforced 
 by English pride (for they are as fond of their country as 
 a woman of Iier diamonds), that though the great Palace 
 has not proved a financial success, the^' will not allow it to 
 fail. Very beautiful and ample are the attractions of this' 
 permanent exhibition; but I am still blase^ by dint of the 
 splendors of our Centennial. And so in place of rhapso- 
 dizing over all that is spread before me at this banquet of 
 pleasure and knowledge, I orally compare and contrast,, 
 and my verdict is always: Young America has excelled his 
 parent! 
 
 I lingered long in the Pompeian Court, a cop}^ like that 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 113 
 
 to be presented by Mr. Jolin Welsh, our good minister in 
 London, to our Fairmonnt Park, endeavoring to glean 
 some ideas of the exhumed city, where Deo volente 1 shall 
 pass sf)me future days studying the chapters written by 
 ancient art and time. The decorations of the musical court 
 are appropriate and novel; sacred music is typified by 
 David, ""the sweet singer of Israel," and Miriam; also pas- 
 toral and martial melody by Pan. These are upon the 
 exterior, while the interior is still more beautiful and im- 
 posing. Extending quite along the four sides of the court 
 are arched recesses — depositories for the instruments. 
 Over each of these presides the bust of a famous composer. 
 Tiie panels and columns are adorned with playing boys, 
 musical instruments, pipes, and shells entwined with fitting 
 foliage en bas reliefs and vis-avis upon the sides are St. 
 Cecilia an<l the muse Erato en alto-relievo. 
 
 But to the Marine Aquarium! Ho.e I passed my time, 
 for here 1 found a conge^iial amusement in the study of 
 natural science. Of all the 'ologies, this one through all 
 its departments and epochs, from the genus homo to the 
 lowest grade of animal life, the poriphora or por3' class, as 
 sponges, has ever been my pet since my salad days, when 
 J received from the sanctified hand of Archbishop Wood, 
 under the convent roof of the Academy of Notre Dame, 
 the prize for zoology. But some years have elapsed, and 
 having had no subsequent experience with great aquaria, I 
 enjoyed the novel feast with fresh delight. Long did I watch 
 the habits, and study the history of the curious species of 
 the first-class (fish) of animals. Here were the brilliantly 
 and beautifully colored Wrasse that abound on the coast 
 of Norwa}', and though manj"^ writers versed in fish lore 
 tell us that as we ascend into northern seas we find the 
 scales of the water-living tribe losing all the radiant hue 
 l^eculiar to the tropics, and invariably dull and leaden in 
 color, we here have a strong contradictory proof of the text 
 in this exquisite animal; the male is as beautiful as a rain- 
 bow, having ultranuirine-blue and greenish-bronze stripes 
 upon the body, while the head is adorned with the most 
 vivid blue and yellow ; the female is not nearly so handsome, 
 though flashin^ly attractive. The Lamprey, with which 
 the reservoirs of Diomed were well stocked, — the fish upon 
 which tiie first-century Syl)arites supped, — were adhering 
 to the rocks and glass of the tanks with their ugly disk- 
 shaped mouths. One of the Sole family was floundering 
 about with the outlines of tlie human face and features 
 
114 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 plainly defined npon the obverse. I saw the Stickleback 
 weaving its nest of weeds, which it sewed together with 
 threads exuded from its body, in the same manner as the 
 filaments that tlie spider uses in tiie construction of his web. 
 Of course the animals peculiar to Britisii waters were here 
 in great affluence, the White-bait, Whiting, Smelts, Gray 
 Mullet, etc ; and I watched them eating, sleeping, resting, 
 burrowing, and house-building. 
 
 It wns the first fair demonstration I had of zoophytes or 
 the animal flowers. Their form is that of a beautiful flower 
 and generally of a i)ale })ink or yellow flesh-color, their 
 nianifold tentacles bearing a strong resemblance to human 
 flesh. Like the Scriptural Peter, I was not content with 
 tl>e GUI dire of their animated existence, and determined 
 upon having an exhibition of animal life from these white- 
 blooded cieatuies. 1 saw they had motion, and poweis of 
 expansion, but these faculties would be common if they 
 possessed only the vegetable nature. 1 had not long to 
 wait, for soon the keeper came with feed; it wms with few 
 exceptions raw flesh; their absorption of organic matter 
 was a conclusive })roof of their animalism. This class of 
 creation, more familiar as sea-anemones, are radiate ani- 
 mals, and breathe from the surface of their bodies. They 
 are sensitive to touch, although no nerves have been de- 
 tected ; but they must exist in some species, as they are 
 capable of being rendered insensible hy an opiate. I no- 
 ticed they were all voracious, though they presented a 
 well-fed and healthy appearance, their comi)lexions rosy, 
 and their limbs full; but their tentacles are ever spread in 
 "full blast," to sweep whatever may approach them into 
 the cavities of their stomachs. To secure living prey they 
 eject poisonous darts. Their dinner was conveyed to them 
 from the top of the tank by means of a curved tongs. Each 
 one was fed singly, and as the tongs holding the feed was 
 lowered within level of their reach, all the neighl)ors of the 
 one who was to receive the prize extended their mouths 
 until you could look into the very pit of their b(Klies, and 
 then contracted with despair and disappointment. Like 
 all eager feeders their powers of locomotion are limited. 
 The most active and energetic have never been known to 
 accomplish more than six inches of travel in twenty-four 
 hours, and the most slothful scarcely move their position 
 in a life-time. If the aquaria are healthy they often exist 
 forty-five years and even longer periods, giving birth to 
 thousands of young, and evincing no signs of approaching 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 115 
 
 age, a proof of their flevotion to the command, "bring 
 forth and raulliply." Those that have a taste for travel 
 and no desire to tax tlieir own energies, liave the human in- 
 stinct of attaching themselves to the back or flank of a 
 more ambitions creature, the crustacean. The crab, lobster, 
 or pi'awn, often becomes so burdened by its parasitic 
 friends, that it abandons its shell in sheer desperation and 
 seeks another home, while another species so resignedly 
 yields all authority to the s^'cophant, that when it changes 
 its habitation it conveys its vital incumbrance hither. The 
 great lesson taught in this volume is the human povver of 
 understanding between these lowest organized creatures. 
 There are many beautiful legends of the zoophytes in c(;n- 
 nection with ancient warriors whose powers and customs 
 faithfully resembled them. 
 
 Full of this interesting study it occurred to me that I 
 migiit complete it by an examination into the enormous 
 l)layhouse and museum, " The Aquarium," a few steps from 
 the Westminster Palace Hotel; so pa^-ing our shilling we 
 sauntered into this other variegated world, and it only re- 
 quired a few minutes to realize that the title of the great 
 exhibition was in one sense a misnomer. At first intended 
 to be a grand depository of all the ocean tribes, it has rap- 
 idly' become a receptacle of the works of the human tribes, 
 a sort of caravansera, or olla pocbHda^ or general rendezoous^ 
 not only of fish, and fowl, and birds, and beasts, and 
 flowers, and minerals, but of all the species of the [)aragon 
 of animals. In one end Uncle Tom's Cabin played to 
 thousands daily by colored Americans, men, women, and 
 children; in another Chinese acrobats, Asiatic jugglers, 
 Swiss musicians, Turkish doctors, the American circus, 
 operatic matinees, wrestlers, dancers, telephone experiments, 
 learned pigs, educated fleas, and finally a wonderCul mind- 
 reader, " Little Louie," a girl about ten, trained to a light- 
 ning perception, by means of intuitive psychology, and 
 like all those oce-ult practices, quite beyond explanation. 
 Fancy this child standing at her father's side, eyes ban- 
 daged, and answering quickly to every question he puts to 
 her, as he passes from her to a considerable distance among 
 the audience, and liolds in his hand the special object he 
 receives or takes from a spectator; it may be a watch, or a 
 . coin, or a book, or a manuscript, or an inscribed ring, or 
 the tiniest article or animal, while rapid as thought she 
 characterizes the article, its size, its color, and what is most 
 astonishing, the date, the name of owner, and inscription. 
 
116 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Having failed to discover at)}' curious inhabitants of the 
 great deep, I was sufliciently successful in searching for 
 blrango material among my own fellow-crealures. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 "Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: 
 The several chairs of order look you scour 
 With juice of balm, and every precious tlower : 
 Eacli t'iiir instahneut, coat, and several crest. 
 With loyal blazon, ever more be blest 1 
 And nightly, meadow-tairies, look, you sing, 
 Like to the Garter s compass, in a ring." 
 
 Mekky Wives of Windsor. 
 
 London, April, 1878. 
 
 Saturday was a bright, balmy, British day. The whole 
 town was in a tumult; the two rival colleges, Oxford and 
 Cambridge, were to row against each other on the Thames, 
 and myriads came to see, but we were royally inclined, and 
 the train that carried us to Windsor, stopped at every little 
 roadside station only to be laden by hundreds of country 
 la<ls and lasses bound for the river race. Before we reached 
 our destination the radiance of the morning had turned to 
 rain, and so we saw Windsor Palace, one of the eight his- 
 torical homes of the Queen, through a vail of gloom. Our 
 route to Windsor lay through the enchanting valley of the 
 Thames, bordered by the opulent estates of the wealth^' 
 nobles. As we moved onward the scene was so fertile, 
 finished, and clean, so like a regal beauty waiting for the 
 robes of spring, that the wonder grew, where the multi- 
 tudinous poor were hived. Being in Windsor tovvn, what 
 first impressed me was the Merry Wives, or maidens, that 
 thronged tlie little winding stri els. Within the castle court, 
 to ride through the d<niltle row of elms, "the long walk," 
 from the York and Lancaster Towers lo Snow Hill, where 
 George III is enthroned in all his brazen splendor, was my 
 first step; and 1 think the most delightful part of my visit 
 to the palace-home was passed under the shadow of the 
 mighty trees that shelter the avenue which all the inonarchs 
 of Kn<rland have trodden. Three continuous miles of such 
 fresh, formal foliage was a banquet for a botanist. To give 
 the history of Windsor would be to relate the history of 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 117 
 
 the kings and courts of England ; altlioiigh William the Con- 
 queror is said to have had a residence here, the architecture 
 of the most ancient towers is not earlier than the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuiies; but so much of the original edi- 
 fice has undergone alteration, and so much has been added 
 to it, that the authors of its first towers are almost as fabu- 
 lous as Noah's Ark. The castle as we now see it, is with 
 Vf-r}^ few exceptions the creation of Sir Jeffrey W3^atville, 
 in the reign of George lY, against the tyranny of whose 
 father our ancestors warred and won. Never had I so 
 esteemed American liberty until I came here to learn the 
 pomp and wretchedness, the glory and gloom, the con- 
 tumacy and despotism of the dead monarch, though as I 
 looke(i at the portrait of George III, all my resentment 
 melted into admiration and pride for the artist, Benjamin 
 West, a member of the Royal Academy, and an American. 
 And as 1 gazed 1 recollected with still greater exultation 
 the loj^alty of the republican painter in the darkest hours 
 of our contest, even while he was surrounded by royalty. 
 One day when Benjnmin West was engaged on the King's 
 portrait, the castle was in a tempest of hilarity at the news 
 of a victory over the transatlantic rebels. The King ap- 
 pealed to him to learn the cause of his silence, adding, 
 ''Why do 3^ou not join in our rejoicing?" To which Mr. 
 West mnde the read}^ and haughty reply, " I cannot feel 
 pleasure in hearing of misfortunes to those among whom I 
 was born and })assed my early days." Even the arrogant 
 monarcii was moved by the pathetic and noble retort, and 
 replied, *' Right, right, West! Good sentiment, and 1 honor 
 you for it." 
 
 In those days, the sovereigns made their London homes 
 in the quaint old jail-like castle of St. James, at the foot of 
 the Park, the meadows that Henry VI 11 had converted 
 into a pleasaunce. Tliis dingy brick structure, originally 
 a ho pital for leprous women, is really the only edifice of 
 the kind in all the capital that contains. saZc»??« suflSciently 
 spacious for royal levees, but George IV pined for a more 
 sumptuous residence, and therefore transferred the court 
 to Buckingham Palace, at the western end of St. James's 
 Paik and immediately opposite Green Park. 
 
 The Queen had gone to Osborn Castle, in the land of 
 cakes, so the whole of this grand collection of the centuries 
 was open to our inspection, except the private apartments, 
 and after paying due respect to the mausoleum of the 
 Prince Consort, the Virginia water, which is famous and 
 
118 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 artificial, and the ruins which did not awaken in my bosom 
 any emotion of reverence, for they are also fictitious — they 
 are said to have been brought hither from Tripoli, and their 
 entire history is veiled in obscurity tliat is impenetrable — 
 we passed to the royal stables, of endless chariots, phae- 
 tons, wagons, and barouches, most of them gifts from for- 
 eign powers, a mass of splen(^or that remains unused at 
 least six months in the year. Her Majesty has her stables 
 in London, Osborn, and Balmoral amply stocked, and 
 though she is constantly peregrinating, the domestic ap- 
 pointments of the palaces are stationary. Of the horses 
 retained for the pleasure of royalty eighty-five are at 
 Windsor, sixt3'^-five at Osborn, and eight^^ in London, to 
 say nothing of the Government equipages. 
 
 The terraces and gardens, fountains and parterres, the 
 Vand3'ck room, the Zuccarelli room, the Sir Thomas Law- 
 rence or Waterloo Chamber, I must slight for the Round 
 Tower, the most antique of the massive battlements over 
 which the royal standard floats when the Queen is at 
 Windsor. Mounting two bundled and seventy steps, we 
 finally reached the acropolis, from which our brusque and 
 ruddy soldier-guide pointed out the luxurious regions 
 round about, including the territor}'^ of twelve opulent 
 English counties, transcendently fascinating, though seen 
 through a shroud of vapor; alternating with spires, domes, 
 rivei', forest, road, rail, ships on water, and steam trains 
 on land, all bound up in history, poetr^', and romance. It 
 was like a dream of enchantment. Then this bovine son 
 of Mars asked me if I knew what river lay so tranquil and 
 tawny below us and was lost amidst the hills and dales. 
 When I answered, "Certainly ; the Thames," he took up 
 the refrain, saying, "Yes, the Thames; the greatest river 
 in the world. You have no such stream in your vast 
 stretch of country. True, your Mississippi is larger, but 
 1 tell you this is the greatest of all rivers;" and with these 
 words he clapped his mouth together as if he had delivered 
 his ultima um. I confess I was amazed at the abrupt 
 assertion, and could no more summon tiie moral courage 
 to reply, than to a young mother, when she announced 
 that the shapeless mass of rose-colored flesh in the cradle 
 — which more intimately resembled a zoophyte than any 
 animated object I ever saw — was the most beautiful and 
 wonderful of all heaven-born creatures. Such is the love 
 and pride of Fatherland that the Britons have bequeathed 
 to their ofl'spring. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 119 
 
 To our right was Henry the Eitrhth's Gateway, the 
 trysting-place of the polygamous monarch and the young 
 and attractive Anne Boleyn. It was here that he came 
 to meet her when he l)estowed the title of marchioness 
 only as an avant courier of the jewelled diadem tiiat 
 awaited her. 
 
 Slightly to the left, oh the opposite side of the Thames, 
 Eton College and Park, presenting a very different aspect 
 from the one that met my eye a couple of weeks ago, when 
 I rowed up the river Now the hall was closed and the 
 greensward deserted; the students had gone home for the 
 Easter holidays. 
 
 To our rear lay Frogmore, the home of the Duchess of 
 Kent, now the residence of her grandchildren, the Prince 
 and Princess Chi'istian of Schleswig-Holstein. 
 
 Below is the Home Park, where once stood Heme's 
 oak, immortalized by the poet in the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor. The spot is marked by a sapling of the same 
 famil>'. 
 
 Away off is the green meadow of Runnymede, separated 
 from Charter Island ^)nly b}' a narrow estuary of the 
 Thames, as calm and sleep}'^ in the misty noontide, as if it 
 had not witnessed the wrested signati^re of King John to 
 the great charter of the insurgent nobles and clergy for 
 the rights and liberties of the people in the tliirteenth cen- 
 tury. With the aid of a lorgnette 1 plainly saw the Stoke 
 Poges churchyard, where Thomas Gray wrote his famous 
 Elegy^ and close to the Round Tower where I stood, is 
 the castle curfew that "tolls the knell of parting day." In 
 this same belfry the butcher, Mark Fylton, was confined 
 and eventually hanged, for breathing scathing rebukes upon 
 the King's incontinent and untimely love for the fair daugh- 
 ter of Sir Thomas Boleyn. 
 
 Descending the tower with a view by the way of the 
 Queen's dining saloon, where she entertained our solaier 
 President and his spouse less than a year ago, and where 
 she welcomes the royalty of other lands, we next included 
 what many regard as the most interesting ))art of this 
 venerable fortress, palace, and historic treasure-house, St. 
 George's Chapel. Smaller than the several cathedrals I 
 had seen, yet wonderfully oppressive and impressive by 
 its chill}'^ silence and the suspended banners of the knights 
 and kings. It was interesting because here the mother 
 and grandmother. Empress and Queen, worships in public 
 whenev'er she occupies her castle on the Thames. Here 
 
120 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 many of tlie great ones were mated and mourned. Here 
 famous Cliurch of England preachers have preached; here 
 all the illustrious men of the realm, courtiers and cabinet 
 ministers, soldiers and statesmen, have worshipped during 
 their prolonged visits on state occasions. Here the Prince 
 of Wales was married to Alexandra, and here the superb 
 voice of Jenny Lind poured her mellow melody through 
 these lofty groined arches, and chanted in her unequalled 
 tones the sacred henison com[K>sed by the Prince-consort, 
 Albert, for his eldest son and heir. 
 
 LET ITER XX Y I. 
 
 "Thence with Creed to hire a coach to carry ns to Hide Parke 
 to-da}', there being a general muster of the King's Guards, horse and 
 foot ; but they demand so high, that T, spying Mr. Cutler, the mer- 
 chant, did take notice of him, and he going into his coach, telling 
 me that he was going to the muster, I asked and went along wiih 
 him ; where a goodlj sight to see so many fine horses and officers, 
 King, Duke, and others, come by a-horsel)ack, and the two Queenes 
 in tiie Queene-Mother's coach."— Pepys' Diaky, July 4, 1663. 
 
 London, April, 1878. 
 
 Of the lungs of the great metropolis, none is more vital 
 than Hyde Park, the aristocratic resort of the " West End ;" 
 bordeied b}'^ the luxurious homes of Grosvernor Square, 
 environed by royalty, traversed by foot and carriage-roads 
 crossing at all angles, irrigated by the Serpentine, en- 
 riched and enlivened by the exclusively equestrian inclos- 
 ure, Rotten Row — this ineleofant title of the most famous 
 bridle-path in the world is really a corruption of route du 
 roi — it is at once the haunt of the gay voluptuary, the 
 fashionable inconnu^ the wealthy parvenu^ and tiie cen- 
 turied iioblenne. And as I turned from the long line of 
 regal equipages, glistening under the oblique rays of tiie 
 sinking sun as they wound around Ladies' Mile following 
 the northern bank of the Seipentine, with footmen and 
 outriders in lapis-lazuli liveries, gold lace, powdered peri- 
 wigs, and silken hose, and a burden of portly dowagers 
 in garish dress — turned to the horsewomen with their 
 iockey grooms in buckskin or corduroy, following at a 
 respectful distance, passing under the solid symnictiy of 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 121 
 
 the marble arch, past the colossal bronze of the Welling- 
 ton Monument, crossing the pillars of tlie stone bridge 
 that gives access to Kensington Gardens — within the 
 shadow of whose mighty trees. Her Gracious Majesty first 
 saw the light of day — and saw away off the memorial 
 glories of the Albert Cenotaph — the British troops review- 
 ing upon the level sward, to the shrill music of the ear- 
 l)iercing fife — it all seemed a pageant of the feudal ages. 
 The beautiful Serpentine is an artificial stream fed by the 
 Chelsea water-works, where the lovers of skating and 
 sliding revel in the winter with as much delight as the 
 aquatic zealots in the heated season. 
 
 Not so celebrated and universally favored, but larger 
 and equally attractive, is Regent's Park, which was a 
 regal home and gardens in the sixteenth century. It 
 })assed into the possession of private individuals subse- 
 quent to the annihilation of the Protectorate when the 
 House of Stuart was restored; but recurred to the Crown 
 upon the accession of the Hanoverians, and was converted 
 into a i)ublic recreation ground by the Prince Regent, 
 who afterwards became George IV. It is situated close to 
 the northern limits of the dingy metropolis, between Mary- 
 le-bone and Hampstead roads, while Albany and Clarence 
 streets, and Park Road, are upon its immediate confines. 
 Scattered through the park are exquisite private villas 
 closed in by massive strong hedges; majestic terraces of 
 mansions form an outer boundary. A diversity of rural 
 scenery, hill, dale, lake, delightful retreats, and sequestered 
 promenades under leafy canopies by quiet nooks and 
 dream}?^ avenues, challenge the admiration of the lover of 
 nature. The astrologist ma}'- read the language of tlie 
 planets written upon the azure dome from Bishop's Obser- 
 vatory ; the botanist reap a harvest of erudition in the 
 costly hot-beds; the ornithologist gratify his soaring am- 
 bitions in the aviaries and branches of the ti-ees; an(i 
 the mammalogist or herpetologist indulge his propensities 
 among the mammalia and reptiles in the dens and pad- 
 docks of the Zoological Garden at the northeastern ex- 
 tremitj^ of the Park. Hyde is the resort of the sybarite, 
 Regent's the retreat of the student. 
 
 Of all the pleasure grounds of London, St. James can 
 boast of the historic and romantic leo-ends of love, intric^ue, 
 and dark strategy; perhaps because it was the palace paik, 
 and so close to the chambers of political and social royal 
 transactions. The second Charles greatly beautified it, I 
 11 
 
122 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 presume in honor of his fair captor, Nell Gwynn. It was 
 here tiiat the king and she who liad been born in squalid 
 poverty, and whose transition through the several roles of 
 orange-giii, coneert-saloon danseuse, fantastical or jocular 
 actress, until she reached the apex of the social column, 
 bided tryst. Varied, potent, and si)arkling were the ac- 
 com|)lishments of j^retty Nelly. The spot seems dedicated 
 to and hallowed by the sovereign lover's example ; and is 
 slill a rei)d«^zvous of successive Romeos and Juliets, He- 
 loises and Abelards, Jessicas and Lorenzos. 
 
 Since welcome spring's advent a booth has been con- 
 structed iri the park where fresh milk and cream is the 
 specialt3\ To prove the purity of this article, the kine are 
 stationed by; this is for the nourishment of the myriads 
 of poor children sporting upon the sward. If the prices 
 equal those i paid several months ago while patronizing 
 that exceedinor moral beverage, the indigent and ill-starred 
 youths of Britain do not indulge in frequent libations. 
 Under the peristole of old St. James' Palace patrol the 
 guards, with little to heed except the royal mews of the 
 Queen. The Park is at once bond and barrier between the 
 castle and Marlborough House, the city residence of the 
 Prince of Wales. Numerous as are the legends of the 
 Park, they are exceeded by those of the Palace. George 
 IV was born here, but high revel has not been held in these 
 spacious chambers since the da3's of his father, though 
 many still speak of our ambassador being sent to the Court 
 of St. James. Foreign ministers are now accredited to a 
 countrj^ not a court, to a people not a potentate. 
 
 Love intrigues, i)olitical plots, traffic in honor, barter of 
 human souls, sad leave-takings, deaths, births, and the 
 amalgamation of infants, have left their dark imprint upon 
 the old castle walls, but there is no more amusing chapter 
 in its histoiy than that devoted to the presentation of Mr. 
 anci ]^rs. John Adams, our first envoy after the peace with 
 England, to the Court of George III and his plain and un- 
 assuming queen. On both occasions of Mr. Adams's first 
 meeting with the king and queen he was armed with a 
 length}" and preconceived address, for which the royal 
 couple weie unprepared. The king readily collected his 
 scatteretl senses and made rather an able reply, but his 
 equally eloquent burst of oratory to Queen Charlotte quite 
 overpowered the little woman, — for though a queen, still 
 only a woman, and not nearly so finished in manners, nor 
 possessing the ajjlomb of the republican ambassador's wife 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 123 
 
 — and her only answer to his loft}^ rhetorical explosion 
 was, "I thank yon, sir, for your civilities to me and my 
 family, and am glad to see you in this country-;" then the 
 queen relapsed into a friendly conversation witli tlie 
 American official, in which all the royal family could take 
 part. When Mrs. Adams and her daughter attended their 
 first "drawing-room," at St. James' Palace, slie was quite 
 as nonplussed by the initial address of the king as his 
 roj'al consort had been some time previous hy the exalted 
 speech of Mr. Adams. "Have 3^ou taken a walk this 
 morning?" he said. Now the entire forenoon had been 
 occupied in donning the court costumes, upon the con- 
 struction of which so man}'^ days had been spent, and the 
 lady was inclined to tell the truth, but upon reflection 
 merely answered in the negative; upon this, the obtuse 
 sovereign drove her to the wall by asking if she " did not 
 enjo}^ walking?" and now the poor, persecuted female was 
 obliged to offer the base fabrication " that she was rather 
 indolent in that respect." The queen was always embar- 
 rassed in the presence of Mrs. Adams, while the latter re- 
 mained perfectly undazzled by the foreign court. She was 
 a plain-spoken, democratic American, with considerable 
 cultivation and uncommon good sense, and therefore never 
 a favorite at the shrine of arrogant, pedantic, vulgar title- 
 worship. 
 
 The prevailing stjde of city architecture in Great Britain, 
 though stately and imposing, is oppressive. All the famous 
 churches, halls, castles, banks, theatres, and public edifices 
 are either the original plans of Sir Christopher Wren and 
 Inigo Jones, or have been remodelled from their draughts. 
 
 The idea of dividing the metropolis into sections, or 
 squares, or places, or parks, or parishes, is a pretty one, 
 and a necessity in a city where there are almost two hun- 
 dred St. John streets. How should one ever find his des- 
 tination if the affixes, Bei-keley Square, Finsbury Park, 
 Portman Square, Bloomsbury Square, etc., were banished 
 from the directory ? 
 
 The veritable English hot cross-buns, of which we read 
 so much in our infantile rhymes, are always eaten here on 
 Good Friday morning, so yesterday at breakfast we were 
 regaled by the annual supply. 
 
 Among the bigoted millions these cakes are retained 
 from one Easter jubilee to another to prevent whooping- 
 cough in the family. 
 
 Indeed, many of the customs that we think American 
 
124 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 are borrowed from England, and T am daily surprised at 
 strange practices that need an explanation to make intelli- 
 gible. The shop wii)dows are filled vvith Easter eggs, just 
 as the churches were arranged for Good Friday, and Lent 
 was an interval of abstinence, and palms were worn bv 
 Catholic and Protestant on Palm Sunday. The British 
 have a. thousand inherited follies, which tliey continue to 
 honor only because they are old. These odd and childish 
 customs are not confined to the common people, but are 
 cherished by the nobility and the throne. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 " These bookmen, what a busy race ! 
 
 How liappy in themselves and others ! 
 They glorify all time and place, 
 And make us human beings brothers. 
 
 *' What rapture to themselves they give ! 
 What joy to millions yet unborn ! 
 Thus in their wondrous works they live, 
 And turn the night of dulness into morn/' 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 London, April, 1878. 
 
 Among the wonders of London the British Museum is 
 the first. To recount the attractions it offers and the les- 
 sons it teaches would require transcendent genius. It is 
 so all-absorbing, and there is so much of it, tliat it over- 
 wiielmed me. Far different the feeling it excited from that 
 inspired by the Tower, Westminster Abbey, the Parliament 
 Palaces, the Docks, and the Thames. The British Museum 
 is a collection of human progress, a wedding between the 
 past and present; the great threshold upon which to an- 
 ticipate and look into the future. It is of imposing pres- 
 ence, and under the sunless skies and humid atmosphere 
 of London, apparently venerable. Yet the massive group 
 that bears its name, though projected at the close of the 
 last cenlur3'^, was only commenced in 1823 and completed 
 twenty-seven 3'ears afterward. 
 
 The approach to this mighty structure is through a spa- 
 cious court-yard, and under the portals of the Doric en- 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 125 
 
 trance liall, thirt3^ feet high; but this altitude is dwarfed 
 by its breadth and depth. At the western extremity is the 
 grand staircase, itself a work of great magnificence, with 
 its walls and gigantic figures; and it was only when I 
 reached the top that I gleaned some idea of the immense 
 temple itself. Through five stupendous galleries of this 
 section I lingered, sTnd endeavored to store awjjy a part of 
 what was spread about me of botany, zoology, mammalogy, 
 mineralogy, to say nothing of the seven galleries devoted 
 to sculpture, and the five to Egyptian, Greek, and Roman 
 antiquities. In this department many of the relics and in- 
 ventions seem odd and inipractical, others warlike, and 
 others serviceable and suggestive. 
 
 The English are famous for bequests, and if I could 
 determine the millions bestowed upon this institution l)y 
 private individuals as well as the Government, my story of 
 the museum would be better understood. Founded by the 
 Sir Hans Sloane collection in 1T83, and holding in its halls 
 the most varied subsequent gifts and purchases of invalu- 
 able antiquities, the British Museum is not I'eally older than 
 the date of the finish of its chief structures thirty ^^ears ago. 
 George IV presented his father's valual)le lil>rai-y of 70,000 
 volumes; then came the Harleian MSS ; the Cottonian 
 Library, and priceless objects purchased by the authorities, 
 makintr one ":io;antic storehouse ot learnino". What adds 
 to the interest is the steady incessant contril)utions of the 
 rich and titled who die without heirs, and have under their 
 own roofs vast deposits of curiosities, collected by them- 
 selves or their ancestors, which they do not care to will 
 and fear to scatter, even amongst their distant kindred. 
 To such people the British Museum is a blessing, and by 
 them, not only the institution, but all the striving, studious 
 millions, in the future, are reciprocall}^ blessed. So here 
 they leave their precious gatherings safely, feeling that 
 their names will live forever in a blazonry of fame as well 
 for the motive itself as for the intrinsic merit of their gifts. 
 As we advance in years in America, by a natural sequence, 
 the same practice will enrich our colleges, libraries, schools, 
 and benevolent foundations Here in this comprehensive 
 microcosm my reflections were not only of the authors and 
 donors, but of the millions that have poured through the 
 corridors, and of the great men and women who have come 
 here to gather food for their literary labors. Admission 
 is free to all three days in every week, from 10 a.m. till 
 dusk, and on Saturday from 12 m. until dusk. A museum 
 
 11* 
 
126 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 upon which countless sums have heen expended, that has 
 been the object of the generosity of princes and magnates, 
 and the living care of Parliament, is thus thrown open to 
 the poorest and the richest. 
 
 I lingered b}' the desks where Thackeray, Dickens, and 
 their associates, read and wrote ; and where Macaula^^ as 
 trustee and student, sat while he gave shape and file to the 
 material he had collected for his marvellous history. In 
 the King's Library he took his notes, and referred con- 
 stantly to the shoal of [)amphlets preserved by the third 
 George, and given to the public by his son. Across this 
 threshold have passed far greater monarchs than common 
 kings and queens. You are sure to meet tiie contemporary 
 celebrities at their desks if you come frequently; and if 
 you yourself be an habitue, at regular intervals you 
 will see such characters as Tennyson, Tyndall, Charles 
 Read, George Eliot, the Baroness Burdette-Coutts, John 
 Bright, Beaconsfield, Kosetti, Swinburne, Edmund Yates, 
 Dean Stanley, Cardinal Manning, Archbishop Tate, Mon- 
 signore Capel, Canon Farrar, John Walker, of the Times^ 
 Levy, of the Telegraphy Sir Charles Dilke, Henr^^ Byron, 
 Halliwell Phillips, Gilbert, Sullivan, and all the great and 
 even lesser minds of the bench, the bar, the pulpit. Parlia- 
 ment, and the academy; a host of willing slaves of the pen, 
 citizens of the Republic of Bohemia. To linger and ponder 
 in this magazine of the dead ages, this sagacious piepara- 
 tion for the inspired thoughts of unborn generations, took 
 much of my time, so I went home, returning another day 
 to essay the autographs, letters, manuscripts, ro^al, baro- 
 nial and ecclesiastical seals, a wonderful collection. The 
 letters of the dead are ever sadly interesting. They out- 
 live the body, and are the nearest of man's living works. 
 They endure be3'ond his posterity, and are more precious 
 than i)rint or photograph. Leaving the Greville Library, 
 1 mused ui)on the autograph manuscripts of Martin Luther, 
 the great theological reformer of the tifteenUi and sixteenth 
 centuries (in this letter he asserts that disbelief in purga- 
 tory is not heresy) ; of Philip Melancthon (born 1497, died 
 1560, acknowledging a present of venison); Cardinal Wol- 
 sey, ""^ who once trod the ways of glory," to his young friend 
 and aid, Thomas Cromwell (subsequently Earl of Kssex), 
 informing him that Richmond Lodge was not yet read}' for 
 his reception; Sir Walter Raleigh, directing that bread 
 furnished for voyaging adventures should be i)repared, his 
 letter is dated from the court; Sir Philip Sidnej'', writte^i 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 127 
 
 in French from the coiii-t, assui'ing M. Jenn Hotnan of his 
 friendship; Sir Franc-is Bacon, Attorney General to James 
 I, on argnments in the Star Cliamher; and one from our 
 old friend, William Penn, regretting- his inability to do 
 a service for a friend; the letters Irom Ariosto, Michael 
 Angelo, Albert Diirer, Fanl Rnbens, Van Dj^ck, Rem- 
 brandt, Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Vollaire, Prior, Swift, 
 Addison, Dryden, Hogarth, Pitt, Burke, Fox, Washington, 
 Franklin. Byron, Wellington, and the Admiral Xelson to 
 his fair friend Lady Hamilton, on the eve of the battle of 
 Trafalgar, communicating that tiie enemy's combined fleets 
 were coming out of the port, and that he hoped to finish 
 his letter, dated on Board the Victor^', October 19th, 1805. 
 He continued it next day, but it was left unfinished, and a 
 few lines in the hand of Lad}' Hamilton state that it was 
 found in Lord Nelson's desk, after this action of October 
 21st, in which he lost his life. There are autographs of 
 numerous E n owlish and foreion sovereigns; a signature of 
 Shakespeare, and manuscripts of Pojje, Burns, Walter 
 Scott, Dr. Johnson, Ben. Jonson, Macaulay, Queen Eliza- 
 beth, Mary, Queen of Scots; many cases of original char- 
 ters, missals, Hindoo miniatures, Buddhist books, hymns 
 in Ethiopic language, the Gospels on cotton paper in Ar- 
 menian language, the Koran in minute Arabic characters, 
 poems and albums in Arabic and Persian, seals of the sove- 
 reions of Eno;land from Edward the Confessor to her reio-n- 
 ing Majesty; seals of bishops and archbishoi)s, of abbots 
 and abbeys, and sevent3'-tive baronial seals of ladies of rank. 
 Such are the jewels found in this gigantic shell — ^jewels and 
 rarities that come from the ages. Lord Macaulay justly 
 said, "It was one of the glories of his country." 
 
 The collection of Henry Weeks, professor of sculpture, 
 on Tichborne Street, is one of the countless instances of 
 scientific philanthropy. It consists chiefl}'' of curious speci- 
 mens of mechanism. Birds whose songs not only emulate 
 nature, but that hop from bar to bar; mice that gambol 
 nimbly over the floor, and human figures performing upon 
 musical instruments in full band; swans swimming in the 
 water, and serpents winding themselves up trees, all of 
 which is the result of scientific research and experiment. 
 
 I could make another long letter on this subject of the 
 British Museum, indeed a book would not do justice to a 
 superficial view; but I am admonished that my stay in 
 London is coming to a close. 1 must, therefore, hold, my 
 pen. It is like a hungry man stopping in the midst of a 
 
128 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 feast. I have such an appetite for more work in tliis 
 world's centre, that I feel, if time served, like pitching my 
 tent heie for another month. But I must *'move on." I 
 have only two days more in the world's massive capital, 
 and must give these to preparation for crossing the chan- 
 nel; and then for the gay Gallic City on the banks of the 
 Seine. 
 
 LETTER XXYIII. 
 
 " The illustrious house of Hanover 
 
 And Protestant succession, 
 To these I do allegiance swear, 
 
 While they can keep possession ; 
 For in my faith and loyalty, 
 
 I never more will falter, 
 And George my lawful king shall he. 
 
 Until the times do alter." Unknown. 
 
 London, April, 1878 
 
 Before leaving London I determined to take another 
 stroll about the Parliament Palace, and look in again upon 
 the Houses in session. The day was "fine" (I am borrow- 
 ing from John Bull) and the grass had grown full and 
 bright upon the inclosure, though the clouds drifted by 
 like gloomy spectres. The English climate is ever capri- 
 cious, and a few flecks of blue, or a scintilla of sunlight, 
 have no longer the power to decoy me into the hope of a 
 genial atmosphere. J have been living here quite three 
 months, and cannot recall a week of ordinarily pleasant 
 weather. 'J'he cold spell in Maich was as severe as at 
 home, but the thermometer here is not so steady as with 
 us. The natives call it ''beastly" for its tantalizing 
 treachery. These barometrical changes make a sad people 
 by tempting them into an extravagant consumi)tion of 
 beer, brand}^, gin, and rum, even amongst women of the 
 better classes; and the soaking, sunless days, and grim, 
 gruesome nights, produce a sullen, morbid, and sluggish 
 temper. A lady friend, in our hotel, insists that to these 
 four liquors, taken frequently in succession, may be attri- 
 buted the wife-beatings and riotings common all over the 
 kingdom; and that where high and low imbibe heavy 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. ]29 
 
 potations, it is not surprising that so much unhappiness 
 exists. 
 
 It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when we 
 stood on the new Westminster Bridge, and with Our 
 glasses looked over into the esplanade on the river front, 
 where the members of the House of Commons converse, 
 and smoke, and take refreshments at intervals in the long 
 nights of the summer session. Here they are directly 
 within call. I ought to add, that besides other mysterious 
 amusements, there is a subterranean passage which con- 
 nects both houses with the new Conservative Club, St. 
 Stephen's, facing the Embankment, on the opposite side. 
 As the House does not meet till shortly before five in the 
 afternoon, often sitting far into the night, these retreats on 
 the Thames and in the clubs, are closed to the eye of tlie 
 multitude, pouring over the broad and sweeping bridge 
 opened on the 1st of July, 1862, and pronounced to be the 
 largest in Europe. The Houses of Parliament or New 
 Palace of Westminster were begun in 184 0, and are, there- 
 fore, quite modern, but are almost as discolored as the 
 centuried and massive monument of Westminster Hall 
 itself. I had the good fortune to see these historic places 
 in company with a member of Parliament, who courteously 
 secured me an eligible position in the Ladies' Gallery. 
 Dusk comes early in London even in April, and the gallery 
 looked dark as I entered. It was filled with ladies, old and 
 young, and I shortly became accustomed to the dim re- 
 ligious gloom, and as the burners in the great hall before 
 me were being lighted, they came out like planets in a 
 neighboring sky. I had often heard of the jalousies be- 
 hind which the ladies are hidden who come to see the 
 proceedings of Parliament, with its front of iron fretwork 
 and historic exclusiveness; no man being allowed admis- 
 sion; all so different from the promiscuous throngs that 
 crush into our legislative balconies overhanging the halls 
 of Congress at Washington. 
 
 I was anxious to see the faces and listen to the voices 
 of the great leaders of public opinion, but before seeking 
 for them I tried to comprehend the surroundings. Directly 
 below us was the Speaker's throne, and between him and 
 our gallery were placed the seats of the parliamentary 
 reporters for the various journals, and immediately in 
 front of the Speaker, — the desks of the clerks intervening, — . 
 were two long, broad benches, the one on the right occu- 
 pied by the conservative ministers, and the other on the 
 
130 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 left b^' the opposition leaders, a large and spacions table 
 between them. I tried with the aid of my printed guide 
 to disentangle these rival statesmen, whose photographs I 
 had seen and studied in the windows of the printshops in 
 Bond Street; but I soon abandoned the task. An intelli- 
 gent English lady, noticing m^^ disappointment, offered to 
 act as my cich'oiie. Discovering that I was an American, 
 she became quite communicative, and in a clear, cultivated 
 voice, without indicatiug her bias in politics, she said: 
 " There is Mr. Gladstone, the tall man with a stoop, a 
 prominent nose and thin straggling hair; he is just now 
 taking his seat and pulling his hat over his eyes. Now 
 you see Mr. Bright, but you Americans know liim so well 
 by his face that he needs no biography; see, he is now 
 talking to Mr. Bland, the Speaker, the official that we are 
 in the habit of calling the first gentleman in England. 
 The Speaker has not yet called the House to order, which 
 he will presently do. The tall, slender man next to Glad- 
 stone is the Marquis of Hartington, the present Liberal 
 leader, and directh' at his side is Sir William Harcourt, 
 son-in-law of your countryman, the late Mr. Motley, the 
 historian ; these are the Liberals, who oppose almost every- 
 thing set forth by the Tories, on the bench directly oppo- 
 site, to the right of the Speaker. The small, sandy man 
 is Sir Stafford Northcote, the Tory leader of the House of 
 Commons, and the direct representative of Lord Beacons- 
 field. Then you have the Rt. Hon. William Henry Smith, 
 Secretar^^ of the Navy or first Lord of the Admiralty, the 
 owner of the newspaper circulation of the kingdom; Lord 
 John Manners, Postmaster-General, and others." 
 
 And so my English friend, who seemed to be a sort of 
 parliamentary directory, continued to describe the great 
 leaders of public opinion in the sombre hall below. Pre- 
 sently the House came to order, and I remained just long 
 enough to hear some of the voices of the speakers and catch 
 some of their points. I noticed that Sir Stafford North- 
 cote always held his hat in his hand as he spoke, and the 
 same was noticeable of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, but 
 I learned when they spoke an elaborate harangue, they laid 
 down their chapeaux. 
 
 Reluctantly leaving my post I hurried with my Ameri- 
 can friends to the House of Lords. Pausing in the lofty 
 hall, the approach to Westminster Hall, which is of un- 
 equalled magnificence, ranged on either side were the fig- 
 ures, larger than life, of the illustrious men, English 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 131 
 
 orators and statesmen, tlie two Pitts, Fox, Burke, Claren- 
 don, etc. Before descending tlie flight of steps into West- 
 minster Hall I liad a glimpse into the Peers' lobby, and the 
 costly splendors of the House of Lords itself. Of several 
 hundred peers I do not think twenty were present that 
 evening. The Commons are loud and noisy, but the Lords, 
 save on very great occasions, pay very little attention to 
 tlieir legislative duties. To strangers many of the parlia- 
 mentary customs are difficult to understand. The great 
 big powdered wigs of the lawyers, the crimson plush of the 
 ofHcials, the liveried servants, the omnipresent dignity and 
 adulation, are confusing indeed, especially when the real 
 great ones, like Disraeli, Derby, Stanley, and the various 
 dukes and earls, move around you in tlie dress of ordinary 
 mortals, and only don their stars and garters on state oc- 
 casions. I wish I could give you some idea of the interior 
 splendors of this palace of Parliament, but it defies my 
 descriptive powers. 
 
 Now for the beautiful and venerable building, Westmin- 
 ster Hall, founded by William Rufus in 1097, and rebuilt by 
 Richard II in 1399, where he frequently kept his Christmas, 
 and entertained ten thousand guests a day; the largest 
 saloon in Europe unsui)ported by pillars, 270 feet long, 74 
 feet wide, and 90 feet high. This great hall was designed 
 for royal banquets and coronation feasts; courts of justice 
 were conducted here in early times, the sovereign himself 
 presiding; here, too, courts of impeachment have been 
 conducted, and here William Wallace, Sir Thomas More, 
 Protector Somerset, the lamented Earl Strafford, minister 
 of Charles, and that equally ill-fated sovereign, were tried 
 and convicted. Here also Warren Hastings was subjected 
 to that protracted ordeal for his misconduct in India, de- 
 fended and opposed by such intellects as Sheridan, Burke, 
 and their contemporaries. The last coronation-dinner was 
 held here by George IV. Outside is a large paved square 
 into which the equipages of the members of the two Houses 
 of Parliament are driven, and from which they pass into 
 their respective halls. As we stood, many celebrated char- 
 acters who passed were designated to me by name; some 
 were' late, evidently just coming from dinner, and others 
 seem to have been sent for for what is a call of the House. 
 Opposite the north front of the hall is the Parish Church 
 of St. Margaret, begun in the reign of Edward 1, where 
 many great and noble men are buried; Caxton the printer, 
 Sir Waller Raleigh, Admiral Howard of the fleet in the 
 
132 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 time of the Spanish Armada, and very man}' equally dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 1 have now heard some of the most distinguished orators 
 of England, and of those who spoke this evening, Sir Strat- 
 ford IS'ortlicote makes the least pretensions to oratory ; a 
 pleasing, rather tenor voice; liis rhetoric is clear and dis- 
 tinct. Lord John Manners has a bokl, manly style. Sir 
 Kobert Peel, who took part in the debate behind the min- 
 isterial benches, was very fearless, and was followed by a 
 ])erfect chorus of "Hear, liear, hear." JVIr. Bright spoke 
 most like an American, with a rather coaxing voice, yet 
 distinct and capable of rising into a fine volley of eloquence. 
 Mr. Gladstone is evidently very much idolized b}^ his con- 
 stituents, and the little he said proved tiiat he was master 
 of the Liberal situation. I regretted that I had not heard 
 Loid Beaconsfield in the Peers; but one cannot see ever}-- 
 thing and everybody, and so I was obliged to economize my 
 opportunities, and to choose my days from the time 1 had 
 allotted in this great English centre. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 " When France in wrath her giant limbs npreared. 
 And with that oath, which smote air, earth, and sea, 
 Stamp'd her strong foot and said she would oe free, — 
 * ***** 
 
 Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, 
 And shot my being through eai-th. sea, and air, 
 Possessing all things witli intensest love, 
 O Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there." 
 
 COI^ERIDGE. 
 
 Paris, April, 1878. 
 
 When we steamed out of Victoria Station this morning, 
 bidding adieu to the damp and dusky capital, the antici- 
 pated gayety of another strange world gave a fresh zest to 
 iny spirits ; but alas 1 the other vision of the Dover nai-- 
 rows with the short, chopping billows hoisting the boat 
 fore and aft ; the rush of waters under the keel ; and a host 
 of sick and prdlid passengers, with my own white visage as 
 the frontispiece to the tableau, was an antidote to all ex- 
 uberant expectation. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 133 
 
 We started in the early morning before the snn had cut 
 away the gray-white mist and kissed the dew from fresh 
 green nature. After flying along several miles I realized 
 for the first time the transcendent beauty of the English 
 landscape. 
 
 The charms of Cheshire and Warwickshire were height- 
 ened by the presence of vast wealth and the memory of 
 noble deeds. Here it was not the romance of history and 
 the glory of genius, but nature's radiant features that de- 
 lighted my senses. Soon Phoebus spread forth his shining 
 morning mantle, and the English spring blushed around 
 us. The open arras of the great limes and maples seemed 
 to court the welcome warmth. The broad stretches and 
 slopes of herbage had grown brilliant and strong under his 
 influence, and the little field flowers shone in vivid lustre 
 under the raj's of the sun ; and in all this variety and 
 beaut}^ of color I experienced my first ecstasy for anything 
 English. In the months that I had devoted to Westmin- 
 ster Abbey, filled with the splendors of the dead, or to 
 Westminster Hall ablaze with the glory of the living ; to 
 the Tower that holds and hides tiie dark mysteries and 
 miseries of the past, or to the crooked lanes and cramped 
 alleys of the slums of the city that cradle and generate 
 the sin, squalor, and starvation of the present; to the pal- 
 aces of wealth or to the prisons of crime and cruelty; to 
 the fashion and frivolity of the Royal Oi)era, or to the 
 hush of the churches ; to the homes of the poets and po- 
 tentates or the holes of paupers; wherever I turned my 
 steps, there seemed something mournful and mortal. 
 
 On we whirled through wooded tracts, by rushing rivers, 
 sharp defiles and gentle slopes, till old Canterbury town, 
 with its campanile towers, its deca3'ing gateways that had 
 canopied the two youthful monarchs, Henry VIIl and 
 Charles Y, on tiie long-gone Whitsunday, its century- 
 touched cathedrals and baronies were in perspective. Over 
 the vale came the sweet silver chime of the turret-bells, in 
 music as chaste as if fet. Thomas a Becket's blood had 
 never marred its peaceful sanctity. 
 
 Soon the flowering banks of the Medway and its oft-trod 
 paths by saintlike pilgrims were left far behind, and before 
 us rose the white clifts of Dover, crowned by castle battle- 
 ments, protected by watch-towers, and lapped by the dark 
 Channel wave. Upon a soft green hill a flock of white sheep 
 were browsing. The red roof of a farm-house shone against 
 the blue-gray sky, and bare- limbed chubby children were 
 12 
 
134 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 scattering feed to a brood of 3 oiing fowls. In the peace 
 of the dulcet Sunday noon and hnzy English atmosphere, 
 this picture seemed like an animated Creswick, Ruskin, or 
 Birket Foster. More loftj^ still looked the blinding hills of 
 chalk in the rnj's of the mounted sun. " The murm'ring 
 surge that on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, cannot 
 be iicard so high ; and the fishermen that walk upon the 
 beach appear like mice." There was a crush of craft in 
 the strait and at anchor in the harbor of the only existing 
 quay of the Cinque Ports of William. Our royal barge to 
 Calais was moored to the pier; it was not a burnished 
 throne that lurned on the water, neither were the sails 
 purple or perfumed ; no silver oars, no luscious women re- 
 clining upon couches of violets or golden tissue cloth, no 
 smiling, dimpled cupids wielding fans of Oriental dyes, no 
 oallant Mercury or dazzling Apollo. No! in one feature 
 alone did the barque resemble that of Cleopatra when she 
 floated down the Cydnus to meet her Antony, and this was 
 '• from the baige a strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
 of the adjacent wharfs." 
 
 Crossing the Channel was a ghost that had haunted me 
 Ion"-. The strait has been the scene of thousand of ca- 
 hiniities, exi)eriments, and expeditions for as mauy years; 
 and here it tumbles and threatens the human travel that 
 l)ours over it now as in the long-gone centuries: travel 
 ever changing, but this eternal tide the same. 
 
 A crowded boat with a melange of j)asseiigers from every 
 nation and speaking every tongue; gross men and generous 
 n)aidens, shrill screams of porters and seamen; a steam 
 and stench of cooking, and as the steamer dropped down 
 the Channel and Albion's snowy banks receded from our 
 view, 1 descended to the stuff}^, noxious cabin. I contem-, 
 plated distiess from the sleei)less sea, and am too well ac- 
 quainted with the nature of my humid, turbulent enemy to 
 take libeities with him. For awhile all went '^ merry as a 
 marriage bell," and the joyous laughter of those who had 
 been more daring than I, and remained on the upper deck, 
 reached my ear in mockery of my cowardice ; but ray spirit 
 was strong and my stomach was weak, and I heeded not 
 their taunts. "At length their high-blown pride broke un- 
 der them," and as I lay with closed eyes and calm soul, I 
 could hear the mourners descending to my level. They ar- 
 rived in detachments, and sore were their lamentations for 
 their lost ones. The god of the trident had been merciless 
 in his shower of afllictions ui>on my companions ; he had 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 135 
 
 deprived them oftheii* dearest and nearest treasures. To 
 me he had granted all comfort because upon first action I 
 had so submissively yielded all vanity. In this attribute 
 of character at least, a god does not differ from mortal 
 man. When we touched the fair shores of Gaul the afflicted 
 were worn and weary with long suffering and I was com- 
 paratively buoyant. 
 
 Once upon the soil of Charlemagne and Clovis, the fair 
 land washed by the English Channel and tiie Bay of Bis- 
 cay; irrigated by the Seine, the Loire, and the Rhone; 
 and sheltered b}^ the Vosges, Jura, Alps, and Pyrenees, 
 the entire earth's face seemed to have undergone a radical 
 change. I was about to say reform, for such is my honest 
 conviction, but the word would perhaps offend the quiet 
 and puritanic discipline of the isle we had quitted. Here 
 with a Gallic sun pouring down upon me, the light white 
 earth beneath my feet, the brisk, energetic movements, and 
 the shrill, nasal tones of the Frenchman upon every side, 
 the shackles that had oppressed me in the dark metropolis 
 dropped with the first breath of French republicanism. 
 Liberty was all around us! For the first time the soul of 
 the freed man throbbed within me, and then only I defined 
 the weight of roj^alty that had pulled me down. The carol 
 of birds, the soft, sighing breeze, the running stream, the 
 intensely blue and fervently clear heavens, the young 
 waving wheat, the joyous spirit of the peasant, the willing 
 toil of the farmers, and the happy, thrifty cottage homes, 
 sang one universal cantata of brotherhood, equality, and 
 prosperity. 
 
 Before taking our places in the carriage at Calais, our 
 baggage was weighed and registered; here I had my first 
 experience in the Continental custom of paying for the 
 transition of all baggage exceeding sixty-six pounds indi- 
 vidually. These figures vary slightly as one passes from 
 one country into another. 
 
 Of all travellers the Englishman invariably conveys with 
 him the greatest amount of personal paraphernalia. Such 
 cumbrous articles! To say nothing of the trunks and 
 chests innumerable stowed in the baggage car, several 
 portmanteaus, hat-boxes, bundles of countless umbrellas 
 and canes, the inevitable bath-tub, and frequently a fold- 
 ing-chair, to the horror and inconvenience of all other 
 occupants are brought into the carriage. 
 
 Resting here over half an hour for dinner — of course the 
 Englishman eats at every station-boutfet he meets — the 
 shrill, screechy whistle of the French locomotive was 
 
136 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 blown, and the thin, screechy voice of the French conduc- 
 tor was heard in his native vernacular of "All aboard." 
 
 It was all beautiful, all novel, and all sparkling! The 
 white roads wound about tlie green fields in striking con- 
 trast, and here and there in clear outline was the crimson 
 dress of a i)easant child. As we passed through the Val- 
 ley of the Somine this bright, warm Sunday afternoon, the 
 fields were filled with men and woman tilling the ground 
 and sowing the seeds of prosperity and happiness. The 
 majority of the earth cultivators were women past middle 
 age, in coarse shoes tied at the ankle, and blue stockings, 
 short petticoats, and bareheaded, or perhaps a large towel 
 wound about the forehead for protection from the heat; 
 the men always appearing in the blue blouse, the heraldic 
 ensign of the French ouvrier. 
 
 We seemed passing away from the neatly combed hedges ; 
 straggling meagre lines of shrubbery or slat fences taking 
 their place. Great forests of lofty poplars grew in lines 
 as precise as if they had been placed by a master surveyor. 
 After stopping at Crecy, where Edward the ''Black Prince" 
 won the feathers more than five centuries ago, that "Albert" 
 the present Prince continues to wear; and at Amiens, the 
 principal town of Picardy, and famous for the treaty here 
 signed which placed the English and French once more 
 npon amicable ground, and for the signal victory and sub- 
 sequent possession of the German forces in the autumn of 
 1870 — we dashed on to Paris. As we approached the great 
 capital the fantastic mode of trimming and training the 
 trees, and artistic devices of the vegetable gardens greatly 
 impressed me. 
 
 Ah ! Paris! Dashing, dancing, dazzling, insouciant Paris. 
 I came upon you just as the evening Angelus was chiming 
 forth its sweet and solemn melod}^ You looked like a 
 newlj^-arrayed bride, whose snowy garments were yet un- 
 soiled, whose spirit was yet nncrushed by the cares of 
 added years and sorrows, while the sinking sun hung in a 
 halo of burnished gold over your brow! 
 
 The little voitures de place with cocher^ in crimson vest 
 and black shiny oilcloth hat, were flying over the cleanly 
 swept streets like so many fire-flies. The great white 
 hotels were joyous with the sparkle of life. The gay 
 boulevards were shaded by tall, waving trees and filled 
 with pleasure-seekers. All along the sidewalks and in front 
 of the cafes were clusters of little iron tables and chairs, 
 and knots of happ}^ care-free people chatting and sipi)ing 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 13l 
 
 the dilated Biirgundy or coffee au petitf^-verres. The 
 mechanic laid down his hammer and trowel, and descended 
 high scaffolds as the church and convent bells rang six. 
 The flower, fruit, and vegetable shops had their merchan- 
 dise displayed to tlie purchasing public in inviting and 
 infinite gaudy groups. Passing through the Place de 
 I'Opera to the Rue de la Paix I cauglit a glimpse of tlie 
 exterior glories of the New Opera House, and away off 
 directly facing me shone the golden citadel of Des Inca- 
 lides. 
 
 Need I say how I enjoyed my first dinner in the delicious 
 little French hotel, after existing upon English cookery 
 for months ? 
 
 The agitating question was, " Wiiat to do after dinner?" 
 One of the sinners of our Uttle coterie proposed the tiieatre, 
 which the saints vetoed at once by a horrified negative ex- 
 clamation. I objected, not because m}^ religious principles 
 forbade me the pleasure. — / consider it a duty of a voyager 
 to conform to all rules of all countries — but the evening 
 was excessively warm, and I fatigued with travel. After 
 much discussion, the wicked element prevailed; has it not 
 ever been so since the seduction of Eve? and we beguiled 
 our pious brethren into a visit to the cafe chantant on the 
 Chami)s Elysee. All along the Rue de Rivoli the great 
 lamps swung in the dark arches of the colonnades; oppo- 
 site were the liglits and marble urns, and vertical lines of 
 trees of the TuUeries, where the flowers slept, and the in- 
 sects droned, and the fountain spray fell in silver music. 
 A wild, roving, rollicking concourse jostled each other in 
 the Place de la Concorde, rode in the revolving chairs, 
 turned in the elevated wheels, and enjoyed the delectable 
 luxury of getting sea-sick in swinging boats upon dry land. 
 The booths and vendors of lemonade, pastries, and beer 
 were in the full flush of trade, and from the concert-gardens 
 came the melody of the merry, ambiguous chansons. The 
 gnrden was crowded with the better class of men, women, 
 and children, and a great number from the aristocratic 
 circles, if one may form an opinion from clothing and con- 
 duct; there was no intoxication, though the two francs' 
 admission included a very bad glass of beer, brandy, wine, 
 or any other kind of liquor. Upon a small covered stage 
 the actresses and actors sang their songs, cut their antics, 
 turned their somersaults, and seemed to enjoy it as much 
 as I heir audience. 
 
 Back through tjie starlit, glorious city of Sevigne, and 
 
138 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Maiiitenon, De Stael, Roland, Recamier, Jeanne d'Arc, 
 Antoinette, Josephine, Eugenie, and all the literary and 
 social lights tliat have illumined the bright capital, to my 
 sixth-story chamber, looking out upon that panorama in 
 bronze of the victories of the "Lieutenant of Artillery" — 
 the Column Yendome — I came to sleep away my first night 
 in the White City. 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 *' John Bull for pastime took a prance, 
 Some time ago to peep at France, 
 To talk of sciences and arts, 
 And knowledge gained in foreign parts. 
 Monsieur, obsequious, heard him speak, 
 And answered John in heathen Greek, 
 To all lie asked 'bout all he saw, 
 'T was, Monsieur, Je voiis ro^entends pas.''^ 
 
 DiBDTF. 
 
 Paris, April, 1878. 
 
 I CANNOT reconcile myself to the Frenchman's idea of 
 an aristocratic tifth or sixth-story chamber. Jt is consid- 
 ered decidedly plebeian to occupy apartments on the ground- 
 floor or the eriiresol ; these are exclusively for servants. 
 The premier etage of the French domicile is in reality our 
 third-stor^'-, and when I rise in the morning and gaze 
 through or over the jalousies of my elevated window, upon 
 the pygmian horses and carts, and surging population — 
 dwarfed by the heigiit — a sense of distress, and poverty, 
 and confinement as in an old tower, comes over me. I can 
 sympathize with, not satirize, the little village-girl, who 
 travelled to Paris in search of the recreant lover, whom 
 she had heard was ill, and while mounting five or six pairs 
 of stairs, exclaimed, '' Mon Dieu, how poor he must be!" 
 but flung open the door of his salon to meet a blaze of 
 light and gold and fresco; Aubusson rugs, and lace, and 
 damask hangings; the sparkle of champagne, the heavy 
 aroma of sweet perfumes, and the laughter of women. It 
 is ever so here; palatial parlors next the roof: all very 
 beautiful and bewildering vhen you reach the sky-cham- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 139 
 
 bers ; but the journey is tedious, and there is no American 
 elevator. 
 
 There is a rare sweetness in the air of Paris, a radiance 
 indeed so different from London, that I feel already at 
 home in its broad streets, bright society, and happy indus- 
 tries. I so gladly miss the constant fog, that has clung 
 about me for the past three months in the great English 
 city like a wet garment. I like the utter abandon of man- 
 ner, and the holiday appearance of the multitudes who sit 
 along the boulevards and avenues sipping their vin ordin- 
 aii^e, cafe noir^ or absinthe, or eating galette, — a crisp, 
 flaky piece of pie-crust, made as onlj- the French can make 
 patisserie. I like the popular passion for strolling along 
 the highways, and 1 join the legion of flaneurs^ as they 
 are called, to saunter along the Boulevarde des Italiens, 
 Haussmann, des Capucines, Montmartre, and in the Rue 
 de la Paix, to gaze in the wide-awake shops ; every shop a 
 show, and every show anew invention ; from an odd game 
 to a cheap dress, from a figure that talks to a toy full of 
 tunes ; from a game that tells fortunes to a watch that is a 
 barometer ; from a cane that is an umbrella, to a portman- 
 teau that will kill the robber who would steal it. I like to 
 see the bare-headed, blue-bloused workmen, the white- 
 ca[)ped bonnes and the babies, the jeune Jille of the middle 
 class, who never dons a bonnet, but enhances the beaut}^ of 
 her pretty face and large liquid eyes by coquettishly wear- 
 ing Alsacian bows of black velvet ; the paper-capped cooks 
 of the cafes, the gamins spinning their tops, and the gay 
 booths with their flaunting exhibitions. It is all so jo^^ous, 
 jolly, and jubilant. A wild scene without intoxication, a 
 saturnalia without open sin, a revelry that stimulates. The 
 population has the appearance of our fellow-countrymen, 
 and one thought is ever paramount, 'tis so like home. 
 Along the new Avenue de I'Opera the dazzling facades of 
 the six and seven-story white edifices stare me almost to 
 blindness. They aie just from the artisan's hand, yet the 
 exteriors are scarcely whiter than the ateliers and hotels 
 that have braved the elements many years, so bright and 
 pure is the climate. Row after row of these magnificent 
 new structures have large placards in the windows bearing 
 the words " a /otter." A young gentleman in our circle, 
 who possesses a rather limited knowledge of the Gallic 
 tongue, asked me what '' d /ouer" (allure) meant? I re- 
 plied, with surprise, "allure;" you surely understand the 
 word, to decoy, entice, beguile; not realizing my fiiend 
 
140 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 was reading tlie French sign, "to rent," witli his English 
 tongue, and liis reply was, "What an odd way these 
 French have of wording their signs." Poor fellow ! he now 
 believes that the landlords of the Avenue de I'Opera intend 
 to decoy tenants into their property by fair means or foul. 
 The Boulevarde des Italiens is a banquet for the eyes, the 
 ears, the palate, and the memory. In its bazars of confec- 
 tions^ bijouterie, and display of Disderi photography; in its 
 Grand Opera, Theatre Cleverman, Theatre des Fantasies 
 Parisiennes, the Oi)era Comique, and 'J'heatre Italien ; in 
 its epicurean cafea^ as the famous Maison-Doree, Cafe Res- 
 taurant Tortoni, Cafe Cardinal and Riche ; and its ever- 
 varying, never-ceasing flow of life, into the Boulevaide 
 Montmartre ; here we passed the Theatre des Varieties, 
 and 1 paused to read the playbills upon the boards. I 
 catch the name of Judic, and at once I determine to stroll 
 into this playiiouse some evening soon to hear and see the 
 fair, fat Frenchwoman, of whom we Americans have read 
 so much, and whose photographs are floating tiirough the 
 United States in shoals. Right and left are S3'baritic 
 restaurants and cafes ; cafes occupying the upper stories 
 of theatres and bazars ; and so on and on we wander 
 through the changeful kaleidoscope, until the princely 
 establishments dciienerate into eatingr-houses or bouillies, 
 the opera-house into circuses and third-class shows, the 
 voitiwes are few and pedestrians seldom, and we find our- 
 selves upon tlie very confines of the town. In this quar- 
 tier we came upon tlie Church of Notre Dame de Loiette, 
 a place of worship celebrated for its interior sum['tuous 
 decorations, animated and inert. This highly artistic 
 temple is considered one of the curiosities of Paris, be- 
 cause it is sustained and frequented by an aristocratic and 
 rather ambiguous sisterhood assuming " a virtue if they 
 have it not," whose beauty is splendor, and whose toilets 
 are regal ; as a fraternity they wear the name " lorettes" 
 from the oratory in which they pray ; if pray they ever 
 do! It seems their only object in assembling in the sanc- 
 tuary is to fan the flame of envy in each other's degenerate 
 hearts, by the prodigality and anticipated rivalry of cos- 
 tume, and seek expiation of their sins through the medium 
 of their tarnished gold dropped into the hoite pour les 
 paucres. 
 
 To hail a fl}- and ride back through the highways we had 
 trodden, gave us another dazzling effect of the scenes in 
 the changeful drama. The city appeared to be arrayed in 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 141 
 
 carniva.1 reo^alia, and this I attribute to the inauguration of 
 the Exposition Universelle ui)on the Champ de Mars to- 
 morrow ; but old residents tell me tlieir city is ever so. 
 Paris is a universal playhouse, where the farce, the comedy, 
 the melodrama, and tragedj' blend one in the other, but 
 where the curtain never falls. Whether it be an act of sin, 
 sorrow, or shame, a spectacle of pomp and hypocrisy, all 
 are clothed in the garments of pleasure and viitue. These 
 French comj)rehend the true philosophy of life. Every 
 phase of existence seems to possess its charm for them. 
 Their woik is not toil, because they go to it with brave 
 hearts and willing hands and transform it into sport. 
 Happiness is not ostentation and opulence, but the calm 
 peace of occupation and a strong fervent heart. Their do- 
 mestic tasks and social pleasures are all performed with 
 the zest that a Frenchman alone claims, and so mingled 
 that labor becomes play. In the heart of the industrious 
 Parisian, "all time is a temple, and all seasons summer.'' 
 
 In the Place du Palais Royal, just where the jetties of 
 two fountains were casting their spray in a radiate circle, 
 we dismissed the little French cabriolet and entered the ar- 
 cades of the edifice that was erected by Cardinal Richelieu. 
 
 You dine at the Palais Royal, in the Cafe, Vefour^ ele- 
 gantly; and though the price is high, the supply is plen- 
 tiful — cheap, as you remember that you dine upon and 
 drink in history. The Arcade in which this superb res- 
 taurant is placed is gorgeous in gilt, glass, and statuary. 
 It is girdled with the superb shops of Paris, chiefly of 
 jewels and watches. These shops are fairy shows, solitary 
 in the da}^, but at night thronged with customers and 
 crowds in every costume and from every country, while in 
 the hollow square in front there are dancers to the band 
 that pla3's at intervals in the afternoon, and a multitude of 
 children. The elegance of the dinners at the Cafe Vefour 
 attracts epicures from all lands ; but if you desire to enjoy 
 them at leisure, you must come early. When the tide is in 
 you can hardly secure a chair; indeed, from six to nine, 
 Paris is a great dinner world — eager, hungry, polite, fas- 
 tidious, if you please, but still violently hungry. After 
 enjoying a plentiful variety, we emerged into the outer 
 world of the Palais Royal. It was a Whirlpool of light and 
 life, music and conversation — a Babel of sounds, a Solo- 
 mon's Temple of splendors. Here we saw the ravages of 
 the Commune, on the 24th of May, 18*71, and the restored 
 Palace of the Louvre and the new Hotel du Louvres. It 
 
142 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 was an easy stroll along the Rue Rivoli homewards, imrler 
 tlie stars, yet every rood of our progress was made instruc- 
 tive l\y some rare nov^elty and l>y the surging mass from 
 tlie P^'rench provinces and the great towns of the European 
 Continent, centring here to be present at the opening of 
 the Exhibition Universelle to-morrow. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 *' Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
 The civic slander and the spite ; 
 King in the love of truth and right, 
 Ring in the common love of Good !" 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 It is past midnight, and still the shuffle of feet, the hum 
 of voices, the sliouts of the revellers, and the strains of the 
 " Marseillaise," nre heard in the broad and l)rilliant street 
 below, as I sit in my upper chaml)er attempting to organize 
 tlie impressions of the Exposition — to-day's wonderful 
 pageant of wealth, nobility, and popular enthusiasm — 
 before tlie memory is dimmed by other si)lendors. 
 
 Yesterday morning when I walked through the unfin- 
 ished temple of art and industry, legions of mechanics, 
 and decorators, and laborers were busy in the work of 
 completion, or at least striving to reduce the halls from 
 their present state of anarch}^ to a condition suitable for 
 the reception of princes and potentates. We waded through 
 an ocean of debris, the dust of sweepers, the shavings and 
 shingles of sawyers, and the vibration of hammers, to the 
 English Department, which, under the master-hand of P. 
 Cunliffe Owen, C.B., who is Secretary of the Royal Com- 
 mission, already wears a garb of completeness, while her sur- 
 rounding companions are still crude and unfinished. How 
 this vast building was ever to be transformed from chaos 
 to order by the morrow I could not define. After visiting 
 General McCormick in his private sanctum, we met in the 
 American section John Russell Young, the companion and 
 diarist of General Grant, Henry Pettit, the enthusiastic 
 and efficient draughtsman of the American Buildings, and 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 143 
 
 Monsignore Capel, the hero of Lothair^ who has received 
 an a[)otheosis from the London females, whose heads and 
 hearts he swaj^s b^^ his priesth^ eloquence, lie has the 
 portly distinction of a churchman and the subtle elegance 
 of a courtier. A man who comprehends the secrets of 
 winning voluntary concession from all he addresses — 
 socially or profession all}' — 1 had longed to see in his 
 pulpit in London. His villa, not far from the confines of 
 the great citv, the former residence of the comedian 
 Sothern, a really boronial estate, now has changed from 
 the Sybaritic home of the plaj'er to the sanctuary of the 
 prelate. 
 
 1 will neither compare nor criticize the French national 
 displays now. Such a proceeding would be a gross injus- 
 tice, and wiien I do speak of them, if I am not the most 
 impartial judge, forgive me and remember that all m^'- 
 opinions are biassed by one fact: I am an i\merican, and 
 lived in Philadelphia during the incomparable Centennial 
 Exhibition of 1876. But in passing, 1 may say the exte- 
 rior of the palaces on the Champs de Mars are artistic and 
 showy without being flaunting; gay without being gaudy; 
 ornate and chaste even in the combination of rude, ruddy 
 fresco, and fa§ades c f vivid wooden fretwork, and colored 
 glass, sustained by robust caryatides of the nations over 
 whose heads float the standards and streamers of tiieir re- 
 spective lands. Whatever a Frenchman touches seems to be 
 made graceful. What his work lacks of pomp and potency, 
 It possesses in delicacy and purity; so it is with the temples 
 nestled on the left bank of the Seine, against the grassy 
 slopes of Auteuil and Passj^ Still an emotion of sadness 
 thrills me as I meditate upon the unfinished structures; 
 such utter incompleteness seems to presage failure to the 
 exhibition of the republicans, and a stimulant to the hopes 
 of the imperialists and Bourbons of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, who want it to fail. The citv is overflowing 
 with strangers, and hotel and cafe prices are proportion- 
 ately extortionate. 
 
 When 1 rose this morning there was a rustle and bustle 
 of busy life in the Place Vendoine, in the Rue St. Honore, 
 in the Rue de Rivoli; and as far as my eye could reach, 
 or the ear catch a sound, there were evidences of pleasure- 
 bent throngs in the motley concourse <^f pedestrians, the 
 incessant beat of horses' hoofs, and the whirl of wheels. 
 Of course every one was going towards the Champ de 
 Mars; those who were fortunate enough to possess credeii- 
 
144 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 tials of admittance to royalty would cross the Pont de 
 Jena, and be ensconced under the peristyle of the Troca- 
 dero, or at one of the upper windows of the Exhibition 
 Building, while the millions of the democracy would crowd 
 the highways and avenues, not knowing or caring so much 
 for tlie princes or the pageantry as to mingle in and swell 
 the populace. The day dawned fairly, but the sun wore 
 upon his face a sultry smile of treacher>', and though we 
 started in a burst of brightness for the installation, by 
 solemn and political ritual of the first industrial, social, 
 and national event under the republican regime^ before we 
 had crossed the Pont de la Concorde, nature was ardu- 
 ously striving to drown every hope and aspiration of the 
 new government. The situation of those poor deluded 
 mortals in the open noitures and cabriolets — I was one of 
 the damp, drizzled stars comprising this galax}^ — was dis- 
 mal and desperate to the last degree while heaven's bless- 
 ings were descending in a watery superfluity. Though my 
 mood was not amiable, I did not indulge it to the top of 
 its bent; there were so many not any worse, and still so 
 much worse off than myself. Hundreds of nevvl3'-dressed, 
 fashionably-dressed, and expensively-dressed daughters of 
 Eve waded through lakes of mud and mire, until starched 
 skirts and lofty exi)ectations wilted away together. 
 
 After waitino- one and a half or two hours in the Ameri- 
 can section 1 heard a flourish of trumpets and roll of drums, 
 which announced the approach of the cortege. The time 
 passed in anticipating the monarchical and military display 
 was not calculated to promote good temper. Front stalls 
 at the windows were at a premium and unsatisfactory; if 
 you attempted to retain one after securing it, some indi- 
 vidual of ineflTable avoirdupois rested a portion of his bur- 
 den upon your shoulders, although his own were broader; 
 if a gallant — seeing your discomfort — offered you a chair, 
 your gratitude was quick in all save the acceptance; to 
 abandon 30ur post was to make a voluntary and permanent 
 consignment to the too solid enemy, and so meditating you 
 concluded to rather "bear the ills 3'ou had than fly to 
 others that you knew not of." 
 
 All around there was a clatter and chatter of French; 
 the Americans were few, and seemed hushed into utter 
 silence by the Gallic gabble. From the Trocadero, over 
 the Pont de Jena, sanctified in the baptism of angels' tears, 
 came the Prince of Wales, bright scion of the house of 
 Hanover, fair, fat, and not yet forty. As he passed the 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 145 
 
 American pavilion he raised his chapean, and a shout 
 greeted him from the Yankees. It is said Wales has a 
 hearty liking for us Americans, and is a good deal of a 
 republican; but then most royal heirs are democrats until 
 they take the reins into their own hands. The future Eng- 
 lish monarch has a good face, very like iiis portraits; and 
 although it poured upon his regal umbrella there was a 
 jolly smile beneath. The old Marshal President Mac- 
 Mahon looked like a bouquet of daisies, his face all piiik, 
 and his hair and moustache all white, but with a ralher 
 angry and crestfallen air, as if he felt his seat in the execu- 
 tive chair to be insecure, and though loatli to relinquish 
 the baton, so far has failed to devise any polic^^ to strengthen 
 himself. He was followed by the ex-king of Spain, husband 
 of the famous, or infamous, Isabella. A little spindle- 
 shanks, hobbling along in all his finery, a poor, useless 
 Hidalgo living in Paris at an immense cost to the Spanish 
 treasury. Then came a huddle of dignitaries lost in pud- 
 dles of mire; while we were dr3' they were draggled. Had 
 the day been bright it would have been grand, no doubt ; 
 but the democratic gods rained down their most impartial 
 favors, even upon the pride and plumes of kings and princes. 
 Princes and sovereigns they were, it is true, and yet only 
 men. And then — well, then I rode home with the weight 
 of this vanquishing conviction — the pa7'ade did not pay for 
 the pains f 
 
 The sun broke through his humid shroud just as he sank 
 behind tiie wooded heights of Grenelle and Auteuil, gilding 
 the tops of the monuments, and glorifying the open spaces 
 in which they stood. With the closing day the crowd had 
 augmented; grisettes and students of the Latin Quartier; 
 crimson-pantalooned soldiers from the garrisons; the dis- 
 abled veterans of Des Invalides; the ouvrier of the Rue 
 Saint Antoine; the di|)loma4ists and financiers of the Fau- 
 bourg St. Honore; the Legitimist of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain ; the wit, artist, and literati of the Chaussee 
 d'Antin; the bourgeois, and tiie old crone, weather-beaten 
 and time-worn, in black petticoat, white cap, and kerchief 
 folded over her breast, a la Marie Antoinette, to be found 
 in every cranny of the city, were gathered in one i)romiscu^ 
 ous melange. The sun had fallen quite asleep behind the 
 portes of the white town; the hour of six had rung through 
 the arrondissements ; the upper-tendom of Paris were din- 
 ing in hotel, cafe and private salons ; but the great holida}' 
 was not over; it was only opening. 
 18 
 
146 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 As twilight unfurled her dark curtains, busy hands and 
 brave hearts were actix'el}^ engaged in the labor of decora- 
 tion. The fa9ades of all the public buildings and even the 
 churciies were ablaze with patriotic devices in colored lights, 
 and banners and pennons floated from ever}' window. The 
 great lamps in the colonnades, the lights of the Tuileries, 
 the stars in the dark, clear heavens, had transformed the 
 white macadamized road of the Rue de Rivoii- into a sea 
 of brightness. Through it poured a mass of happy, free 
 l)eople from the Hue ISt. Antoine. Were it not for the 
 weird ruins of the palace staring at us like a spectre, we 
 would be prone to fcn-get to-night that seven years ago tlie 
 same populace rushed through the same highway, fiends 
 and petroleuses, sowing the seeds of sedition, and sin, and 
 desolation in their pathway. The Champs Elysees tliat 
 were then a charred and blackened desert are now bright 
 with the glory of a new republic. There is no sad regret 
 for the fate of the fair Austrian, Marie Antoinette, in the 
 Place de la Concorde to-night. Every wall, rampart, and 
 bridge is bathed in a phosphorescence of splendor and pride, 
 and '''' Liberie^ Egalite^et Fi^ateriiiie^^'' shine not in blood 
 but in fire. To-night the memory of wretched crimes, 
 fruitless pra3-ers, and the guillotine, is dead in the Place 
 de la Bastile. The radiant Palais de I'Jndustrie, the head- 
 quarters of the Teutonic enemy seven years ago, to night 
 sheds a free French lustre over the Elysee, and all the Rue 
 Royale is dazzling in the halo of the Madelaine. 
 
 The night has been a deserved cora[)ensation for the dis- 
 mal incidents of the day to the actors and spectators at the 
 Exposition. I had read of a Paris |)opula('e; 1 iiad studied 
 the Centennial in 1876, when Philadelphia was deluged by 
 strangers; 1 had i-een the tluongs of today, but had formed 
 no idea of the sight after twilight on this first of May in 
 the French ca[)ital. It was all so wild and tumultuous; I 
 was the atom of the poet and this was really 
 
 "Ocean into tempest tost, 
 To waft a feather and to drown a fly." 
 
 T was less than a feather or a fly, and in the heedless 
 whirl was borne along like a cloud before a great storm. 
 It was a fantastic, turbulent saturnalia. Yet there was a 
 strange sense of safety in the delirious mass; all were 
 happy, and no one was intoxicated by liquor. The horses 
 were driven to one side, and the glad people filled the 
 broad boulevards with song, and shout, and hymn, and 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 147 
 
 cliorus, until I caught the contagion of their ecstasy. 
 Tliere was a pause, an eddy in the oreat driving current of 
 the great human sea, formed by a side-way in a wide avenue, 
 and 1 floated into it toward my home. I had seen and 
 heard enough to understand it all. The French were en- 
 joying the first real sense of their liberty in a long lapse of 
 years, and 1 did not marvel that the welcome draught had 
 temporarily stolen away their senses. 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 " The French have taste in all they do, 
 While we are quite without ; 
 For Nature that to them gave gout.^ 
 To us gave only gout." 
 
 Erskine. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 I ROSE early this morning to watch the city undergo the 
 cleansing process. The buckets, and tubs, and pans of 
 offal were arranged as primly along the curbs as vases upon 
 a parlor mantel. There was nothing slovenly or repulsive 
 iUL the sight, even of the garbage. The passion for artistic 
 and artificial effect is innate with the French, and it is ap- 
 parent in the minutest affairs. The chiffonnier and his 
 wife were already at woik under my window, raking 
 amongst dust-heaps in the street and ashes and refuse upon 
 the pavement. Sometimes they would lightly toss the 
 contents of barrels or boxes with their long forks — gener- 
 ally a bent wire or nail in the end of a stick — and turn 
 away with an expression of disgust and disappointment, 
 failing in their search for prizes. Over the next pail they 
 would linger, and dive deeper and deeper at each effort. 
 Some of these heaps of debris were veritable olla podridas 
 yielding crumpled paper-bags, old rags, pieces of coal, dirty 
 strings, bones innumerable, stale pieces of bread, and nests 
 of snarly hair, which they tucked away with great caution 
 and classification into the several pockets of the long, 
 narrow, leathern sack hanging upon the left arm. The 
 rolls of hair, however dusty and tangled and interwoven 
 they might be with other matter, whether from the moult- 
 
148 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 ing of mistress or maid, countess or cook, blonde or bru- 
 nette, were sj)eciiil booty. These locks rescued from pol- 
 lution are sold to tlie coiffeur^ antl after passing tlirougli 
 his purif3ang hands again adorn the heads of us poor, un- 
 suspecting females in pufls, waves, crimps, and frizzles. 
 Tiien as tiie wagons came along to cart away the residuum, 
 and the water was turned on at every corner, running 
 through the gutters as pure and limpid as a mountain 
 spring, the weary chiffonnier sat down upon the curbstone 
 to take his breakfast of black bread or to gnaw a spare 
 ])one, perhaps Irom the spoils of his morning ramble. 
 Groups of mechanics were sliufiling through the streets 
 now, and fair Paris greeted them in her freshly-made 
 toilet. 
 
 Inside the toil of the day had also begun. How differ- 
 ent and how much more arduous ai'e the tasks of tliese 
 foreign servants compared with the labor of our domestiques 
 at home ! Yet liere they are all apparentl}^ happy, while 
 in America the same classes join in a universal chorus of 
 dissatisfaction, .leanne, our neat little y<^w?/ie de chambre, 
 told me yesterday — her spare English aided by my limited 
 French — she had the care of sixt}^ chambers, all of these 
 containing one or more beds, and that the hot and cold 
 water for these apartments has to be carried over many 
 pairs of stairs, and through many corridors, as they have 
 not the American accessories of stationary washstands ; 
 and i)Oor Jeanne's remuneration is not more than fifteen 
 or eighteen francs a month. True Jeanne receives many 
 francs from the ladies and gentlemen whose chambers she 
 arranges, but does it compensate for the weary limbs and 
 aching head when the clock tolls eleven at night? And 
 even then Jeanne is still slowly dragging tin pails of water 
 upstairs. As I listened to the poor girl's stor}^, and marked 
 her amiable nature and inborn courtesy, my heart swelled 
 in sympathy. Thinking of her sorrowful lot my memory 
 took a flying trip to my transatlantic home, where my maid 
 has the insupportable responsibility of one bed-chamber 
 resting upon her each day, and other housework of a light 
 character, with nameless piivileges, and three dollars per 
 week ; yet she frequently displays the cloven foot at the 
 weight of her burden. As these contrasting pictures 
 l)assed before my vision, I exclaimed, " You have too much 
 work for one pair of hands. It is far worse than the 
 drudgery of a slave. You should appeal to your employer 
 for an assistant." It was the first time I had ever sown 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 149 
 
 the seeds of insurrection in any household ; now I could 
 not restmin my impulse to protect this girl from such un- 
 just and cruel exactions. I felt the germ I had planted, 
 though you may call it seditious, might produce valuable 
 fruit for Jeanne. Sometimes Etienne, who is the frotteur 
 and husband of the pretty and beneficent concierge at the 
 front loge^ assists Jeanne spread the linen over the beds if 
 he is in the same hall or chamber polishing the floor. We 
 have no carpets under our feet. The boards are waxed 
 until one may behold his reflected visage upon them, and 
 the centre is adorned by large rugs, and t\\Q frotteur »^ with 
 his stiff brush strapped upon the sole of his foot, is always 
 busy scudding over the chambers and corridors. 
 
 I like tlie proverbial politeness of the French. Call it 
 superficial, if you choose; even if shallow it is ver^' fasci- 
 nating. Inquire a direction of a passer upon the streets, 
 and be it man, woman, or child, discovering you are a 
 stranger, will accompany you two or three squares out of 
 his or her way to set you upon the right path, chattering 
 to you all the while, never conceiving for a moment that 
 most of what is said may be utterly unintelligil)le. For- 
 tuuatel}^ I succeed in making myself understood by the 
 natives, but when they orate in their rapid and pauseless 
 jargon, 1 subside in utter amazement. 
 
 During the three months I resided in London, six weeks 
 of which time my friends despaired of my lil'e, not one of 
 the attendants at the hotel offered me the sliglitest voluntary 
 civility. The second day after my arrival here, Jeanne came 
 to my room with a card of a friend, while I was dressing, 
 and noting my unfinished toilet, she asked to be allowed to 
 hook my dress, or button my boots. Perhaps you are say- 
 ing, slie expected a franc for her kindness; did not her 
 complaisance deserve it ? Another instance of the urbanity 
 of this nation took place at the milliner's this morning. 
 Do not sneer 1 Did you ever hear of a lady coming to 
 Paris and omitting her first dut}-, to buy a French bon- 
 net? I did not wish to violate the custom of my sex; 
 1 had no desire to visit the Exi)osition until it had readied 
 a more finished state, so I passed the forenoon in millinery, 
 book, and photograph shops, gratifying my personal de- 
 isires. An establishment in the Faubouro; St. Honore 
 had been highly recommended, and to examine the stock 
 of this magazine I repaired thither. As I strolled toward 
 the Faubourg, again I was impressed by the sobriety of 
 the populace and the absence of beggars. What a vivid 
 
150 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 contrast the picture forms to the great English metropolis, 
 where ebriety and mendicity are written by a sharp stylus 
 upon at least one half the faces we meet 1 An equally ap- 
 parent fact is the extreme neatness of the French women ; 
 however meagre the dress, it is alwa^'s neatly worn, and 
 the hair, if not elaborate, ever tastefully arranged; not so 
 the females on the other side of the Channel. 
 
 On my way I passed many noble homes, where the great 
 wooden gates close out the eyes of the rude, inquisitive 
 world from the flowering paradise of the courtyard, of 
 which I caught an occasional glimpse as a servant would 
 pass, or a marquise enter her carriage. At length I reached 
 a stately building, bearing the number I sought; directed 
 to the fourth story by the concierge^ I ascended and found 
 myself in regal apartments, sparkling in gilt-, frescoes, 
 miiTors, and laces. An infinity of confections were upon 
 exhibition, and though their construction justified the 
 prices, they exceeded what I was able to pay. No bonnet 
 for less than twelve dollars, and many for twenty-five, 
 and I should have turned away had it not been for the 
 courtesy of the accomplished salesladies. I may apply 
 the word ""ladies" in its every acceptation; in manner, in 
 appearance, and in education. Both handsome, the younger 
 past 3'()uth, the elder had crossed the meridian of life, and 
 yet either would have "shaken tlie saintship of an anchor- 
 ite" by their subtle grace, and liquid voice and talking 
 eyes; and so they succeeded in selling me a bonnet. How 
 could I resist the influence of two such seductive flatterers 
 and liars? They compelled me to be seated before a mirror, 
 and one bonnet after another adorned my pate; for "she 
 was quite sure she could suit madame. If one was too 
 costly there was another, hanging upon the next peg, just 
 as beautiful, for eighteen francs less. W madame did not 
 like the rouge., madame should see herself in the ciel-bleu; 
 it was just madanie's color, but then madame was so easily 
 coiffed ; madame was — ah! «t tres belle in anything;" and 
 then these two handsome, craft}' females indulged in a dis- 
 sertation in their own tongue, largely interlarded with 
 English, upon my constructive attractions. This last coup 
 dfetat clinched the bargain. The next " madame" who 
 purchased a more expensive article would be still m(jre 
 beautiful, and would undoubtedly hear her charms extolled 
 in still more winning tones. Still I admire the shrewd 
 l)hilosophy of these people; it made us all happy; they 
 sold their merchandise; I went away in a state of beati- 
 tude, in being compared to flowers, and angels, and sun- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL 151 
 
 beams, the calmness of moonlight, and the sparkle of 
 champagne, which would not have been the case had dis- 
 obliging attendants shown an indisposition to display 
 goods, saying, "Madame, we have nothing that would be- 
 come you." And as I passed away towards the bookshop, 
 m}^ meditations were upon the cruel fascinations of these 
 French women. With me their influence had been poten- 
 tial ; what would such sway be with the opposite sex? I 
 could find little censure for one who yielded to the spell, 
 whether exercised for good or evil. 
 
 The literature of the gay city is a marvel. It abounds 
 in such a variety, that even a woman with an infirmity for 
 dress and ornamentation, is startled at the mass of engrav- 
 ing and printing for sale and show. Here, at least, you 
 have what is not to be found in London. There the literary 
 depots are in the railway stations; here books, papers, and 
 periodicals fill tiie windows and kiosks on the Boulevards 
 in all languages and for every nation. At Madame Michel's, 
 on the 2:)ave of the Grand Hotel, I find French, Italian, 
 German, Dutch, and even Greek, Turkisli, and Chinese 
 literature People of all these nationalities flock here to 
 bu}" and read the periodicals in their vernacular. Of course 
 the French predominates. In comic journalism and carica- 
 tures the French excel. We had nn example of them as 
 printers and sculptors at our Centennial Exhibition. But 
 now I pause briefly u[)on tlie French gift of printed satire. 
 Everybody is ridiculed; no one is sacred or saved from the 
 merciless wit and scathing lampoon of their savage jokes. 
 With a dash of the pencil they transform the most serious 
 statesman into a clown. Mademoiselle Sara Bernhardt's 
 willowy figure is turned into a trail of smoke; the fighting 
 Cassagnac converted into a huge pistol; Victor Hugo, a 
 dying lion, gazing upon the setting sun; Marshal Mac- 
 Mahon, scowling in a gigantic moustache; Gambetta, in 
 kingly robes; Pope Leo XIII, in every conceit of honor- 
 able disguise ; John Bull, in as many shapes as his peculiar 
 habits may suggest; Brother Jonathan, in all descriptions 
 of stars and stripes; and the world's catalogue of politi- 
 cians, soldiers, actors, i)riests, and celebrities of all voca- 
 tions. And as I overhauled the photographs of living and 
 dead heroes in the shops on the Rue de Rivoli, my ardent 
 desire was to make a collection. I looked, and looked, 
 and was dazed by the endless profusion of famous faces in 
 various guises; but I turned away with saddened purpose 
 as 1 remembered my limited spaces, and finances, and re- 
 flected upon how much farther my journey was to extend. 
 
152 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 " Of the hearts that daily break, 
 Of the tears that hourly fall, 
 Of the many, many troubles of life, 
 
 That grieve this earthly ball — 
 Disease and Hunger, Pain and Want, 
 But now I dream of them all !" 
 
 HCOD. 
 
 Pahis, May, 1S78. 
 
 However paradoxical it may seem, the Exposition Uni- 
 verselle is the remotest matrnet to the stranger in Paris. 
 The gay city is itself an endless and unfading microcosmic 
 dis])lay. Of exhibitions we have iiad a satiety; at least, 
 until a warrantable interval has elapsed, when we may 
 again show our demonstrations in art, science, and litera- 
 ture, from the lofty pedestal of Proo^ress, and when our 
 national and social development has reached a iiigher state 
 of civilization. We liad an exhibition at Philadelphia, of 
 "which this one is, with all its splendor, a feeble lethargic 
 transcri|>6; and we can have exliil)itions in every city and 
 town of the two hemispheres which will only be the copies 
 of a great archetype. But Paris — national, political, pecu- 
 liar, and omnium gafhe7'um Paris — stands alone, and can 
 only be enjoyed here; and here there is sucii inexhaustible 
 enjoyment that the ''appetite seems to grow with what it 
 feeds upon." 
 
 The exhibition palaces are still disordered and in disha- 
 bille^ while Paris is ever in gala attire. She is alternately 
 the rainbow, the storm, the sunshine, the starlight, and the 
 cyclone, an(i in each of these phenomenal phases is entran- 
 cingiy unsurpassed. 
 
 J have endeavored in vain to retrospect through the 
 vista of centuries, the ravages of pestilence and famine, 
 the smoke of artillery, tlie bloody sloughs of battle, the 
 flames of communes, and the devastation of revolutions, 
 and on the banks of the Seine, recall the mud huts of tlie 
 Parisii, where now stand the noble monuments which per- 
 petuate the memory of crime, commune, and conquest. 
 
 Oh ! ancient Lutetia, thy primitive mantle dropped be- 
 fore Caesar's sword, and was trampled into dust by his 
 A'anquishing hordes; purged and })urified by successive 
 despoilers wert thou, until now, not even an aroma of thy 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 153 
 
 gypsy, pastoral lineage remains to mar the luscious luxu- 
 riant flower of thy glorious womanhood. 
 
 But who, gazing upon this white-robed Napeae^ can for- 
 get the other and darker side of her life? I mean the life 
 portrayed by Victor Hugo and Eugene Sue, of the drudg- 
 ing, struggling, sinning Faubourg St. Antoine, that hot- 
 bed of indigent insurgents; and upon the Rive Gauche, 
 the Quartier Latin, the home of their reckless student 
 allies? Not so direful, it is true, as when Eugene Sue 
 presented his vividly wrought picture to Louis Philippe, 
 through the medium of his Mysteres de Paris. The in- 
 auguration of the present regime has done much toward 
 ameliorating the morals of these arrondissements, as I soon 
 perceived while penetrating the forbidden precincts. 
 
 Passing the brilliant shops and hotels of the Rue de 
 Rivoli, the equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, and the 
 fountains into the Rue St. Antoine, which is still broad 
 and brilliant, but from which issue numerous contracted 
 by-ways and alleys, dark and damp, lined by cloud-piercing 
 tenant-houses, grim and grimy, whose outer walls seem 
 sustained by huge boulders against which the wheels of 
 our voiture o^rind as we ride throuo-h the narrow streets. 
 Coarse, toiling, hunted, bloated men are tilted all along the 
 margin of the houses, in ragged blue blouses, and stunted 
 clay-pipes between their tobacco-stained lips. Dirty, half- 
 naked children wallow at their feet and under the chairs, 
 seeming to cradle pollution and malaria in th|p folds of 
 their scanty garments. A large lamp projects over the 
 court entrance, and sheds a melancholy glow over the in- 
 mates. Some of the women are drawing water in their 
 large tin pails, while others are drowsing under the effects 
 of anisette or absinthe. From the upper windows, fifth, 
 sixth, and seventh stories, are glimmering rays that dis- 
 play the toiling forms and anxious, famished faces of 
 laboring females, some bending over lace frames, some 
 working over tiny forges, welding gold and silver wir^es; 
 while other hands are soiled in the paint and glue of arti- 
 ficial floral construction. The windows have long been 
 strangers to water or brush, and cobwebs festoon the ceil- 
 ings, but along the sills are boxes of flowers drooping for 
 want of sun and pure air, and over the walls and blinds 
 bean vines are wreathing their tendrils; a little feathered 
 prisoner or a kitten is seen, perched in many of these lan- 
 guishing arbors. A steam of strong, young spring onions 
 
154 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 emanates in regular puffs from the inner stories and per- 
 meates the atmosphere. The front shops of these houses 
 are alive with the trade of energetic snd successful jnar- 
 chands; a cobbler, a tinsmith, a blanch isaeu^e, or a res- 
 taurant, where the menu consists of leeks, radishes, bouil- 
 lon^ and bouilli^ wine, and liqueurs. These people are 
 arduously struggling to make an honest, respectable liv- 
 ing, so they may clothe and educate their children, and 
 lift them out of the slough of contamination. But will the 
 fruition of their humble, praisewortliy aspirations be real- 
 ized? They are young now; hope and ambition are lusty 
 within them. The human buds are bursting in fast suc- 
 cession, but the soil is setoned with virus; the husbandman 
 may choose the sunniest, most sanitary spot in the entire 
 garden, but will not contagion be convened, even upon 
 angels' wings, in the breath of heaven, and the limpid cur- 
 rent of virtue, turned to irrigate and nurture the nascent 
 plant, will gather the virulence of the sea through which 
 it flows! 
 
 Yice is quick and virtue is slow to become root-bound in 
 the embryo procreated and nursed in an atmosphere of 
 corruption. The lessons taught by example exert a more 
 potent and permanent authority than theoretical ones, and 
 here the evil example is ever paramount. 
 
 Often there is seen a young woman carrying a bundle, — 
 perhaps a faded silk skirt, — an old woman with a pillow or 
 iDolster, or a man with a dingy mirror issuing from the 
 courtyard; they do not stop to ciiat with their neighbors 
 upon the corners, but cast stealthy glances right and left 
 and hurry on. You wonder where they are going ; their 
 manner whispers that they are upon some secret errand 
 bent. They all turn toward the northwest ; you need not 
 follow ; they are all tracing the one path, to the Mont-de- 
 Piete, in the Rue de Paradis du Temple. It is a curious 
 establishment, but is nothing more nor less than a vast 
 government pawnbroking office, whose profits are devoted 
 to the support of charitable institutions. It seems an in- 
 congruous project. 
 
 A few steps farther is the Marche du Temple, where 
 hundreds of this same population are congregated to over- 
 haul and perhaps eventually purchase some of the sordid, 
 soiled, trumpery of this wonderful rag-fair. They are truly 
 the ''vestments that Time filches away." Here, in one in- 
 compatible mass, are the cast off 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 155 
 
 — " Purple, princely gown, 
 Of liig'li success ; or ease, like robes of down ; 
 Or harsh denials, like the camel's hair 
 The Prophei wore ; or sable weeds of grief; 
 Or smooth white burial robes of last relief" 
 
 And here the vocabulary most larg^ely patronized bears 
 a similitude to the ribaldry and vituperation of London's 
 Billingsgate. Such a vicinity, of course, is impregnated 
 by thieves, grog-shops, dance-houses, gambling houses, yet 
 when I passed through it was withal orderly in tiie ex- 
 treme. 
 
 From the Faubourg St. Antoine, across the Pont d'Aus- 
 terlitz, along tlie promenade of the Seine, I entered the 
 Faubourg St. Germain, where there exists another popula- 
 tion than the Ultramontanists and Bourbons, which is 
 much oftener seen thronging the streets, and filling the 
 highways with shout and revelry. On the Rue Dauphine 
 and tlie Rue du Bac, there still reside tlie offspring of the 
 companions of Mudames de Stael and Recamier, it is true; 
 but come into the retreats of the students and grisette of 
 this Quartier Latin, where the aristocratic, conservative 
 incense has evaporated though decorum is preserved, and 
 you will at once observe its resemblance to the district we 
 have just quitted on tlie right of. the river. There is not 
 so much sorrowful, starving poverty visible here ; the by- 
 streets are dark and the houses tall and dingy, but the 
 students of art and medicine are full of animation and 
 jollity, swaggering along, linked in each other's arms ; or 
 stopping to take a glass of wine at the adjacent cabaret, 
 where the account is onl}^ scored off" once a month, when 
 the stipulated allowance arrives from the doting parents 
 in the far-away provinces; or going toward tlie Odeon or 
 one of the cafe gardens, apparently happy hy the side of 
 his favorite grisette. 
 
 The conceit I had formed of this class of females was a 
 vain delusion. I had expected to see youthful, natty, 
 sparkling coquettes, whose vocation it was to wink and 
 blink, and waft a salute to every man wiiom fortune threw 
 across their path ; I found neat, modest, confirmed, indus- 
 trious women, not at all calculated to sway a man by their 
 ravishing beauty nor subtlety, but created and trained for 
 good housewives and vigilant mothers. 
 
 The pictures of this section of the city were weird and 
 bizarre, but not disagreeable. If the undeveloped artist or 
 erabiyo doctor was poor, and compelled to lead a studious 
 
156 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 life, and to sleep np many pairs of stairs in a stnffj- back 
 chamber, they seemed to accept the inevitable philosophi- 
 cally, and embrace the pleasant opportunities of their lives 
 wiih hungry zeal. 
 
 The grisettes were tranquil and content. 
 
 The foliage in the garden of the Luxembourg seems 
 forced in its luxuriance for this early season ; the lights 
 flash from the summer theatres, and the orchestras fill the 
 air with melody. 
 
 In a little gloomy shop two women were picking rags; 
 they were handsome creatures, with full white throats, 
 from which their dresses were turned back, and crimson 
 kerchiefs were knotted over their bosoms ; my gaze and 
 attention were arrested by these superb animals, with the 
 dark luminous eyes and wealth of sable hair, set in the 
 engulfing frame of filthy refuse; and as I lingered one 
 flung her lusty, polished arms about the other's neck, and 
 caressed her with a lover's ardent rapture, until the cheer- 
 less hole glowed with the fire of passion and youth. To 
 my eyes it was no longer the dismal home of the chiffon- 
 7}iere, but a heaven — or hell, God knows which ? — of deliri- 
 ous ecstasy. 
 
 It was Saturda}-- night when I passed throngh these 
 scenes, and this community seemed resting in their orgies 
 to stimulate them for the morrow. Yes! Sunday is the 
 grand gala day here; it is the day of frolic and fun, excur- 
 sions into the suburbs and wild sports in the city. 
 
 As I fell asleep alter this experience, it was with these 
 reflections: what I saw had instructed me; it taught me 
 the lesson of strife and sin ; but 1 was eager for further 
 erudition in this stratum of society. Intuition warned me 
 that there was much to be yet unfolded. But how to 
 reach these fantastic marvels of Parisian life was the agi- 
 tating disquisition! My desire grew into a passion, and 
 as I pondered I became wroth with an imnginary tyrant 
 who was thwarting my foolish whim. Soon, very soon, 
 my sad fancy was about to be gratified, to my intense 
 satisfaction and disgust. 
 
 The next evening, Sunday, a company of six set out to 
 visit the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We dismissed cocher^ 
 and applied for admittance at the great entrance of the 
 western fa9ade ; here we received no answer, and loath to 
 abandon our project, we api)lied at many other entrances 
 of the eglise on the isle of Seine without success. We 
 leaned over the parapet of Pont Notre Dame ; in the calm. 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 15t 
 
 even flow of the beautiful river was reflected the star- 
 spangled canopy above, intensely blue at the zenith, and 
 fading gradually into a pale turquoise in the far west. 
 Upon the massive stone bridges flickered rows of yellow 
 lights, finding their duplicates in the current below ; under 
 their dark" arches glided the boats with green and crimson 
 lanterns, casting fore and aft long trails of phosphorescent 
 light upon the gently rocking ripples; the broad stone 
 steps of the quay were clean and smooth by the constant 
 lapping of the tame, sweet waves. Oh! why do not hun- 
 dreds of those wasting, languishing creatures, who are 
 pricking out their eyes with the lace needles, or eking out 
 a miserable existence in a garret hovel, come here on such 
 a night, and "sustained and soothed, wrap the drapery of 
 their couch about them," and let the caressing billows 
 drift their spirits into the "slow and silent stream, Lethe!" 
 
 The fiacres^ with their poor skin-and-bones horses stood 
 along the river-banks ; the care-free students and gay com- 
 panions were coming from their day's outing at Vincennes, 
 Yersailles, St. Denis, Neuilly, Sevres, or St. Cloud, to ter- 
 minate their spree at a jardin. The proprietor of one of 
 the skin-and-bone equipages stepped up to us, and queried : 
 Bullier? I know I looked horrified. At first I thought 
 he was talking about soup or cold boiled meat ; but the 
 word contained fascination for me as I discovered that 
 this mercantile driver wished to take us to the great ball- 
 room of the Quartier Latin. Of course the gentlemen 
 answered and emphasized "?ion," the ladies appeared 
 shocked, but still cocher lingered, as I questioned an Ame- 
 rican resident in Paris regarding this enticing Bullier. 
 Then I thought it must be the sight of which I had been 
 deprived the preceding evening, and, at length, we con- 
 cluded to look at this show, as we would at any horrible 
 curiosity ; so cocher won his suit. 
 
 In a wide rather handsome street there was a blaze of 
 gas-jets, a crowd of gamins, youths, and heedless girls, and 
 an orchestra in full blast; this was the Jardin Bullier. We 
 obtained our tickets, two francs each, at the bureau, and 
 descended a long flight of steps to an immense floor where 
 the band played, and hundreds of animals, with human 
 souls, were mingling in the mazes of the dance. There 
 was no botanical beauty in the garden, which seemed to 
 extend in a complete circle around the hem of the salon. 
 
 It was a narrow, gravel path skirted by withering pines 
 in tubs ; here and there a grotto closed in by shrubbery, or 
 14 
 
158 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 a sheltered arbor. But the audience did not care for quiet, 
 sequesteied reti'eats ; they preferred to bask in the full 
 glare of the gaslight, and bacchanalian revel. Slovenly 
 waiters were hurrying by with little carafTes of cognac. 
 All was wild and incoherent, but no one in a state of brutish 
 intoxication. 
 
 For a few moments we listened and looked at the fan- 
 tastic scene around us. What we saw and what we heard 
 I will not translate, foi* 
 
 "Into strange Vagaries fell, 
 As they would dance." 
 
 Every feature of this human menagerie was nauseating 
 in the last degree. Low, imbecile men; miserable, dirty 
 women, marked by the finger of disease and wretcliedness. 
 There were no laces, nor paint, nor silk, nor jewels, or the 
 stimulus of champagne to hide the tarnished souls, the 
 tattered reputation, and the decaying bodies of these poor 
 children. But they danced,- — danced wildly, as if impelled 
 by a demoniac power, hot caring what, or when, or how, 
 and I covered my ej^es involuntarily and hurried away 
 with more anxiety than I had shown importunity to come. 
 
 LETTERXXXIV. 
 
 " When loveij'' woman stoops to folly, 
 And finds too late that men betray, 
 What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
 What art can wash her guilt away ?" 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 When last I opened my diary it was to chronicle the 
 horrors of the vast human menagerie of the Quartier Latin, 
 where I had seen the animals in the heiofht of their satur- 
 nalian sports on the Sabbath. I never had a prepossession 
 for a circus, a hippodrome, nor any of the curiosities or 
 monstrosities contained in collections of wild beasts, such 
 as educated hogs, — or uneducated^ — armless girls, double- 
 headed babies, brainless men, or heartless women. No I I 
 will not malign so grosslj^ my sex by applying the epithet 
 to the mongrel creatures who filled the Jardin Bullier. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 159 
 
 My experience in this bizarre species had been limited 
 until then, and though I do not regret the trial, as I favor 
 tlie study of animate and inert nature in all its phases, 
 one experiment contented me, and I shall penetrate no 
 deeper into the revolting subject. 
 
 Again it is Sunday night, and I come to speak of the 
 beauties of the marvellous market of humanity, the Jardin 
 Mahille. 
 
 Hush ! a lady friend is appalled becaqse I suggest that 
 we should tread these forbidden paths. But why not? [ 
 query ; had we not the day preceding visited Les Halles 
 Cetitr^ales^ and inhaled the incense of tl^e flower bazaar of 
 the Madelaine ? Why shadow in obscurity the fact that 
 we enjoyed and studied this greatest, choicest, and most 
 bewitching, 3'^es, beautiful, most beautiful of all, — the 
 market of human souls: the retreat of the i^ymph and the 
 haunt of the sibyl ? 
 
 Just off the Champs Elysees in the Avenue Montaigne 
 is this emporium of fashionable vice. Nature and art have 
 labored hand in hand and heart to heart to transform the 
 nursery into a paradise, and invention seeiijs to have been 
 exhausted in the construction of grottos, groves, arbors, 
 sequestered walks, and secret recesses. Tjie ravines and 
 cascades, gay parterres and gentle slopes, make an elysium. 
 Five francs each we paid to enter this beaven of flowers, 
 flounces, and furbelows. We arrived early, rather too 
 earh^, for though the angels had trimmed and lighted 
 their lamps, and nature's musicians were filling every 
 nook and wave of air with sweet melody, the candelabras 
 bordering the cafe and the garlands of Chinese lanterns fes- 
 tooned from branch to branch of the tt'ees, were only dimly 
 burning, and the orchestra was silent in the pavilion. 
 
 Our advantage lay in this fact ; we had ample time to 
 loiter through the avenues and linger upon the delicious 
 features of the garden, while the fair votaries of fashion and 
 pleasure were still employed donning the ravishing toilet 
 designed to make the wearer's fortune, while annihilating 
 that of some other ill-starred sister. The cafe is quite as 
 larore and much resembling; Proskaur's in our Pairmount 
 Park. In the centre of the garden is a highly decorated 
 semicircular building for the accommodation of the bajid, 
 and about this nucleus cluster females whose loftiest aspi- 
 ration is to relieve a gentleman spectator of his hat by an 
 intricate flourish of the left toe, while executing the vaga- 
 ries of the can-can. 
 
160 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 We found a comfortable seat in a rustic alcove, near the 
 main entrance path, where I could observe all who entered, 
 and very much entertained was I bj^ the devices practised 
 by the frail beauties upon their equally faithless prey. 
 Occasionally a veritable old Darby and Joan couple from 
 one of the near provinces would pass through the glitter- 
 ing throng in a state of bewildered admiration at all they 
 heard and saw, without having the slightest conception of 
 its meaning. It was better so ; you know the old adage, 
 "Where ignorance, etc." Had these good, unsophisticated 
 people suspected the perversion of the banquet, at which 
 they were willing guests, they would have denied them- 
 selves tlie otherwise enchanting treat. Oftentimes a coun- 
 try bumpkin, in loose shoes, short trowsers, hands thrust 
 into the very extremities of his pockets, and mouth and 
 e^^es wide open, would stand in a stony attitude, gazing 
 and marvelling at the splendor of these creatures, whose 
 images God had formed after his own, and whose souls 
 had been supplied by Satan witli the covenant they should 
 return to him after the casket had fallen into decay. There 
 were many sightseers from strange lands like ourselves, 
 and as the brilliant butterflies floated and swarmed amongst 
 the flowers, the lights burned brighter, and the tuning of 
 instruments told the advent of the dance. 
 
 The tide of strollers stopped, and by the laughs, and 
 applause, and the shouts of the revellers I knew that fun 
 and frolic were running riot. But I was loath to leave 
 my little retreat, though anxious to witness the dance, yet 
 dreaded lest the exhibition might resemble the sad per- 
 formance a week ago. 
 
 When I did finally move towards the citadel of delight, 
 the array of fashion, elegance, extravagance, and beauty 
 that dazzled my eyes was such as 1 had never dreamed, 
 even in the wildest flights of fancy. The scene was, even 
 to my woman^s eye^ more exquisite than any of the great 
 picture galleries I had walked, though not quite so endur- 
 ing, and the fragrance exhaled by the female flowers was 
 equally sweet if not so pure as the bouquets of the market 
 of the Madelaine. 
 
 To see that most bewildering of all dances, the can-can^ 
 exjBcuted by Parisians, in Paris, and at the most aristo- 
 cratic garden of its class in the world, would indeed be a 
 fantastic sight for an American lady, and there were many 
 there besides me. To procure a position close to the actors 
 in ihe farce was now almost impossible, as the majority of 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 101 
 
 the pleasure-seekers were clustered about them in a series 
 of circles ; so I contented m3'seir in the background until 
 some one satiated by the excess of passionless and garish 
 sensuality consigned me a place ; and what a spectacle riv- 
 eted my gaze ! 
 
 Beside me stood a night-blooming Cereus, excessively 
 handsome and aromatic, in lemon colored satin and gar- 
 niture of bronze leaves, all of which inevitably fade into 
 nothingness as the daylight approaches. 
 
 Before me was another, a sweet moss-rose, in pale-pink 
 silk, a cream-colored mantle embroidered, and a profusion 
 of flaxen golden hair, appearing so gentle and modest, 
 before some rude hand had torn away from her fair face 
 its hood of soft green innocence; the beauty of the full- 
 blown flower had not been marred by unmerciful brutality 
 to the bud, but in the eye there lingered the pensive, 
 pathetic lustre of heaven's own dew. To this sweet plant 
 my heart yearned. I felt that she was no vulgar creation 
 like the devil-may-care hundreds, not only a female, but a 
 icoman^ young and beautiful now, struggling under a weight 
 of sin and wrong, but sure eventually to Gil a penitent's 
 grave. 
 
 Behind me reposed a glorious damask rose, framed in 
 black satin, and a bhi^je of diamonds upon her ample neck 
 and arms, as hollow and heartless as a great l)ladder in- 
 vented to float npon the foam of this most perilous sea. 
 
 The music ceased, and the audience dispersed, so I 
 secured my place at the revel. None of the elaborately 
 attired beauties participated ; the dancers were without 
 exception of the lower, poorer type, and the men — well! 
 I need not discuss the male element; he who consents to 
 such an exhibition of himself is unworthy mention. 
 
 As much has been vvritten about the Mabille Gardens 
 and against them, as in regard to any other of the myriad 
 sins of the age; and yet the abused resort is always full 
 during its season. You are told that it is not what it 
 was; that it has fallen off; that the world has gotten so 
 much purer; and that people go to these glittering devil- 
 tries no more. All I have to say is that such is not my 
 experience. An American resident in Paris spoke of the 
 large sums expended ever}'- year to add to its attractions, 
 and, judging by what I saw aiid heard, the money laid 
 out, and the profits received, show that the business rewards 
 the heaviest and most costly investment. It is not for 
 me to draw the moral. I presume that nobody will uphold 
 
 14* 
 
162 PICTURES A*ND PORTRAITS 
 
 this meretricious place, and that even its acolytes will not 
 dare to defend the example. But what puzzles me is that 
 many persons who in Philadelphia and New York would 
 run away from places no better, and play prude and pre- 
 cisian if even asked to look in at a German theatre, or 
 concert garden, or a bright saturnalia like Gilmore's in New 
 York, come over to Paris and boldly pay five francs for a 
 sight at the demi-monde^ who flutter their stained lives in 
 the doubtful penetralia, and walk the glittering declines 
 that lead down to inevitable Hades. And these Ameri- 
 can Josephs and Clarissas rarely go alone. They come 
 in crowds. Sometimes the ladies veil their porcelain faces ; 
 sometimes the men hide their pious brows; but most fre- 
 quently they gather in numbers, and when they return 
 home they fold their hands in their laps, and raise the 
 whites of tiieir eyes to heaven, and propitiate offended 
 virtue hy saying; "It is an awful place, that Jardin 
 Ilabille, and very naughty ; but we went, like the rest of 
 the world, just to see it for once, so not to have it said 
 that we were afraid to follow the example of othei's." 
 
 LETTER XXXY, 
 
 " He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 
 Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading ; 
 Lofty, and sour, to them that loved him not. 
 But to those men who sought him, sweet as summer." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 A VERY warm and almost American summer day decided 
 me to make several calls, and return several visits, and as 
 Sunday shines no Sabbath in the French capital, 1 did not 
 hesitate to use the first morning in the week to pay my 
 respects to an American family, whose home is on the 
 beautiful and broad avenue Josephine. They had adopted 
 the sensible plan, apd occupied the floor above the entresol^ 
 and as they had plenty of money and plenty of opportuni- 
 ties, they were enjoying Paris to the full. As we drew the 
 bell-handle towards us the great doors of the court flew 
 back, and the concierge appeared at her little window. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 163 
 
 From her we obtained the direction of onr friend's apart- 
 ments, and passed up a spacious stairway of polished oak 
 and walnut. We were admitted to the antechamber by a 
 gentleman of sable hue, imported from "the States" as 
 special valet de chambre. The room was rather small and 
 square, containing only several carved-walnut chairs and a 
 table, but the floor gave evidence of the assiduous toil of 
 the frotteur. Here we left parasols, canes, hats, or any 
 other awkward appurtenances by which we might be encum- 
 bered, before entering the grand salle. Our auspicious 
 brother of the Fifteenth Amendment ushered us into a 
 salon^ garish in its elaborate decorations in repouse of gilt 
 and white and gaud3'^ frescoes. Very few works of art 
 adorned the walls, except those painted in the panels by 
 the deft skill of the artist. The floor was covered by an 
 expensive Axminster; filmy laces and crimson satin draped 
 the deep embrasures of the casement-windows; and even 
 the door-frames were of ornate wooden fretwork tinted by 
 delicate pigments and dazzling in gold leaf. 1 do not 
 wonder that the richest come here, like Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mackay, and other bonanza kings, to revel in these Old 
 World glories and to squander their easily earned millions, 
 and I am sure you will forgive me when I say, had I been 
 equally fortunate, I would have followed their example at 
 least for awhile. There is one trouble that would not 
 befall me. No glare and no novelty would ever alienate 
 my heart from my country. It is too true that many 
 Americans who come to Paris on a short visit soon g-row 
 so much fascinated with this luxurious capital, and there- 
 fore out of heart with their own ways at home, as to be- 
 come regular habitues; and this applies not only to the 
 very rich but to those who have very little money of their 
 own. There are countrywomen of mine to-day in this 
 costly citjT^, women of irreproachable reputations withal, 
 who resort to every sort of expedient, and even at times 
 submit to privations simply that they may live a Bohe- 
 mian's life among these agreeable strangers. 
 
 Although the day was warm, the avenues were already 
 crowded with carriages dashing out to the Bois, and the 
 magnificent boulevards, jocund with the wild and varied 
 life of the bright metropolis; and I could well understand 
 the witty remark of the superficial Frenchman when he 
 said "that the opulent barbarians had again taken posses- 
 sion of his luxurious Paris." The occupants of the glit- 
 tering chariots and shining cafes and decorated highways 
 
164 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 were the foreigners, from all lands, flockintr hitherward to 
 enjoy the Exhibition Universelle; so threading our way 
 through the cheerful and shouting throng, we told cocher 
 to drive us to the College de France, just at the rear of the 
 theological and classical school founded by Robert Sor- 
 bonne. Ever3' American calls to see Professor Laboulaye, 
 now the cliief of that great academy, and a Senator for life 
 in the French Assembly. He lives in the noble institution, 
 which was founded in 1530 by Francis I, containing twenty- 
 nine ciiairs, and distinguished for its lectures in historj'-, 
 law, and languages, M, Lal»oulaye himself delighting crowds 
 every Monday, when the Senate is not in session, with ex- 
 quisite dissertations on such interesting subjects as Wash- 
 ington, the American Constitution, Socrates, Julius Caesar, 
 etc, M. Laboulaye lives in the simplicity of a cultivated 
 student and scholar, and the {)lainness of his furniture, the 
 learned confusion of his books, his soft voice and gentle 
 manner, all a marked contrast to the fresh decoration and 
 rather boisterous welcome of my American friends, was 
 very like the austere and quiet rooms of the other great 
 man I had visited in London, Dean Stanley, in Westmin- 
 ster Abbe3% And when M. Laboulaye said to me, in his 
 sweet broken English, "You Americans are so rich," I re- 
 ceived it as a re|)roach of man^'' of my ostentatious country- 
 women, M. Laboulaye, though, as every one knows, a 
 severe Republican, looked and was dressed like a priest; 
 he possesse<l the rare charm of listening intently to all I 
 said in reply to his graceful questions, Whether I had seen 
 the Exhibition? Whether 1 liked Paris? How long I 
 intended to remain? WJiere 1 lived in America? And 
 whether we would do him the honor to come any Monday 
 and hear him lecture? It was all just as nice as it could 
 be, and when I lelt his presence I felt the influence of his 
 pure character and honest example, precisely as if I be- 
 longed to the French Republic myself, 
 
 As we emerged fronj the College, the streets in that far 
 off quartier were quite deserted, as quiet indeed as Phila- 
 delphia on a sunny Sabbath afternoon; so failing a voituj'e 
 we were rattled otf to the Jardin des Plantes, opposite the 
 Pont d'Austerlitz. This is one of the favorite resorts of 
 the populace, a combination of every description of natural 
 specimens, quick and inert, and perhaps the finest botanical 
 collection in the world. 1 do not desire to be disloyal to 
 fashion or to science, but I confess I have never been able 
 to join in the enthusiasm of those who rhapsodize over a 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL, 165 
 
 wilderness of monkeys, or go into ecstasies over cages 
 filled with lions, tigers, leopards, or regard a colossal ele- 
 phant or awkward hippopotamus with special devotion. 
 To me far more interesting than these curious and savajje 
 creatures, were the thousands of French people gathered 
 to rest themselves in these rural retreats, and permitted to 
 enjoy animate and inanimate nature gratuitously b^^ favor 
 of the French Government. 
 
 Tell me not of the vice and vulgarity of the Paris million, 
 and of the cruelty of its so-called common people when 
 their wildest passions are let loose. Wherever I have seen 
 them, in their homes, in the streets, at the Exhibition, in 
 their churches, or in places of amusement, they have cap- 
 tured me by their politeness and cJeanliness, by their kind- 
 ness to old people, their love for their children, and their 
 invariable temperance; all of which qualities are as dis- 
 tinctively French as they are distinctly different from the 
 working classes in London. 
 
 Much of this contrast arises from the intuitive love of 
 the French from infancy for flowers, pictures, music, dress, 
 comedies, and all that is artistic and graceful. They will 
 detect a false note in an orchestra or a singer, or point out 
 an error in a statue, with a polite shrug, and I have often 
 noticed that the commonest workingman evinces as much 
 genuine delight in high art as the conceited empiric who 
 saunters through the galleries of the Louvre or the Palais 
 Luxembourg. 
 
166 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER XXXYI. 
 
 "Mortality, behold and fear, 
 What a change of flesh is liere ! 
 Think how many royal bones 
 Sleep within these heaps of stones! 
 Here they lie, had realms and lands, 
 Who now want strength to stir their hands, 
 Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust 
 They preach, ' In greatness is no trust.' 
 Here's an acre sown indeed 
 With the richest, royallest seed 
 That the earth did e'er suck in 
 Since the first man died for sin ; 
 Here the bones of birth have cried, 
 ' Though gods they were, as men they died !' 
 Here are sands, ignoble things, 
 Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings ; 
 Here's a world of pomp and state 
 Buried in dust, once dead by fate." 
 
 Fkancis Beaumont. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 I LINGERED ill the Place de la Concorde on my way to 
 the Hotel des Invalides this morning, and as the sun 
 touched the spray of the fountains into radiant prisms and 
 glorified the monolith of Luxor, 1 thought of the past. 
 The nuptial pageant of Marie Antoinette, terminating in 
 the sad catastro[)he of a panic-stricken multitude, followed ^ 
 scarcely more than two decades after bj^ the humiliation 
 and execution of this same beautiful but prodigal queen; 
 the horrors of the Reign of Terror, and the severed heads 
 of Charlotte Corday and Robespierre, trampled under the 
 feet of the sans culottes; the demon populace saturating 
 their kerchiefs in the blood of their guillotined king, and 
 the women knitting while the}' participated in the barbaric 
 carousal ; all these crowded into my mental vision almost 
 as vividly as the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the tablets of 
 the Obelisk. The statues of the eight important cities of 
 France: Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rouen, 
 Brest, Lille, and Strasbourg — the last, alas! French no 
 longer — blazed like shining demigods this brilliant day. A\ 
 To my right, at the top of the Rue Royal, in all its pathetic Jj 
 majesty, were the dark peristyle and hovering angels of the f !j 
 Madelaine, with its [)atron saint as the central figure of 
 the tympanum, where the Last Judgment has been wrought 
 in stony alto-relievo. She is in an attitude of intercession 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 167 
 
 with Christ for the sonls of the condemnetl. Before me, 
 through the leafy arbor of the Champs Elysdes, rose in 
 perspective the Arc de Triomph, the nohle monument pro- 
 jected by Napoleon as a cenotaph to the triumphs of the 
 French, and only completed by Louis Philippe in time for 
 the cortege bearing the corpse of him whose life's chapters 
 may be read from its walls, to pass under its arches on the 
 way to the resting-place prepared amongst the veterans 
 he loved so well. 
 
 Crossing the Pont de la Concorde, I turned towards 
 this magnificent catafalque of the Corsican conqueror. The 
 gilded dome was the first splendor that dazzled me as we 
 came into the fair city, and this was my third attempt, ow- 
 ing to a negligence of the hours of admission, to gain ad- 
 mission to its magnificence. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte seemed to permeate the very atmo- 
 sphere of the Hotel des Invalides; all nature seemed to 
 breathe his name in a hush of reverence. The approach to 
 the glittering tomb is by streets hallowed by the names of 
 Yauban and Varenne, and as you pass through the garden 
 where the veterans are drowsing under branching shade- 
 trees, or planting little plots of flowers, you forget that 
 this haven was not prepared by the first Consul for his 
 scarred and crippled warriors. There is not a thought for 
 Louis XIV, who really founded the hospital for the infirm 
 and aged fighting men of France; every sigh, and every 
 thrill, are for the sorrows and triumphs of the incompara- 
 ble emperor, general, and statesman. You may say his 
 Sfid end was only a just retribution for his repudiation of 
 the sweet woman who led him on to fame and empire ; but 
 do you not think his dread expiation was continually at 
 work upon him through the interminable line of corrnorants 
 who fed and flourished on his power, and finally dras^ged 
 him down ? I was first impressed by the hazy, golden 
 light that veiled the high altar, and hung over the royal 
 crypt in the chapel. It seemed like the holy incense around 
 an ascending spirit. An intense stillness filled the church. 
 Many foreign visitors, toiling men and bo3^s, who had lain 
 down their instruments of labor for a few moments, and 
 bourgeois women and children, stood about the throne of 
 the military deity. The men uncovered their heads as 
 they passed the portals of the sanctuary, the boys stepped 
 lightly over the mosaic laurels that wreath the amaranthine 
 tiles of his victories about his bed, a mournful glamcuir 
 gatiiered in the eyes of the veteran soldier as he leaned 
 
168 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 over the urn of porphyry, and instinctive devotion fell 
 upon the whole gazing and voiceless concourse. 
 
 Down a broad stairway we passed to the entrance of the 
 vault. Over the doors, supported by caryatides, I saw the 
 last characteristic request of Napoleon, that his "ashes 
 might repose upon the banks of the Seine, in the midst of 
 the people he loved so well." How precisely has his testa- 
 ment been fulfilled! About him are garlanded his con- 
 quests ; over him wave the banners of the conquered foe ; 
 in transept and nave are the remains of general or brother; 
 and guarding the tomb are the sepulchral urns of his loyal 
 Marshals Duroc and Bertrand. There is a constant flow 
 of worshippers about the sarcophagus. 
 
 The memory of Louis Napoleon is as cold and dead in 
 the republican capital as if his hands had never held the 
 reins of government ; there is no regretful sigh for the fair 
 Eugenie, whose beauty illumined the Tuileries, radiated 
 the boulevards, and shone upon the Bois ; whose vaulting 
 ambition hurried Maximilian to his final compt, and im- 
 posed the crushing crown upon the brow of the beautiful 
 Carlotta, that holds reason prisoner. The French have 
 even forgotten that the blood of the sleeping hero trav- 
 ersed the veins of the late emperor; all their tears are for 
 the "Little Corporal." 
 
 The mourners come from strange lands and the far-off 
 French provinces to revere the great soldier. All around 
 were signs of the Republic; all around were souvenirs of 
 the new liberty, and, within view, the group of Exhibition 
 Palaces designed and completed by the Republic. But 
 still the French masses idolize the "lieutenant of artillery." 
 Other dynasties have risen and faded out of sight; other 
 heroes have had their little day and have been forgotten ; 
 but the name and fame of Bonaparte are the unsetting 
 stars in the empyrean of France. 
 
 Our next visit was to the celebrated Parisian necropolis. 
 From the Hotel des Invalides, in the extreme west portion, 
 to the cemetery, on the eastern confines, was a ride of 
 quite an hour, through the Boulevarde St. Germain, washed 
 by the blood of the Bourbons, and past the Rue du Bac, 
 for the gutter of which the diplomate in petticoats had 
 sighed when in exile at Coppet, -surrounded by her vice- 
 regal court. Then we crossed the Seine, and looked upon 
 the ruined mass of the Hotel de Ville. I vainly sought 
 the window at which our friend Lafayette presented Louis 
 Philippe to the people nearly fifty years ago, and the room 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 169 
 
 in which Louis XYI spoke almost a hundred years since, 
 crowned with the cap of liberty, soon to be dragged to an 
 ignominious death. In the Place de la Bastille there was 
 a throng of ouvriers. Only the lofty Column of July 
 marks the graves of the victims of the commune of 1830. 
 No stone remains of the old prison to tell the story of tlie 
 wretched creatures who languished in their living graves, 
 only to be released for their execution ; but the quartier is 
 still, apparently, populated by the same elements that de- 
 vastated their glorious Paris by shot, and shell, and sword, 
 and fire in 1789, 1793, 1830, 1848, and 1871. 
 
 From this broad square, covering the ashes of six hun- 
 dred and fifteen martyrs, we emerged into the most curious 
 of all the fantastic sights in this sui generis city, the Rue 
 de la Roquette, where the merchants of the costumes and 
 tributes of the dead maintain their bizarre competition. 
 This street leads directly from the northeastern limit of the 
 Place de la Bastille to the world-renowned Pere La Chaise, 
 It is flanked with ateliers or stuccatos of monumental 
 statuar}^, immortelles, and funeral offerings. This ghostly 
 trafl9c is peculiar, because so many shops, all selling fac- 
 simile articles, should be grouped in one block without the 
 alternation and variety found in a thousand other empori- 
 ums in other sections, but when I had passed row after 
 row of these stalls and still met not the slightest change 
 in the character of the merchandise, I could not coax myself 
 to believe that this was a business from which men derived 
 remuneration, but a museum for the edification of visitors. 
 
 But the Rue de la Roquette was no longer an object of 
 speculation to me after entering the mighty home of the 
 dead. It is one vast collection of mausolea and sarcophagi. 
 There are very few graves, as in our places of burial, and 
 in the chapels, and about the tombs, are strewn wreaths of 
 natural flowers, paper-flowers, and muslin flowers; iin- 
 mortelles composed of black and white beads strung 
 upon wire and formed into every description of re- 
 ligious and appropriate device, all of which are constantly 
 renewed from the market in the streets outside. The 
 photographs of entire families bearing loving inscriptions 
 were placed as souvenirs upon the altars, and frequently a 
 perpetual light glorified the narrow beds of clay. 
 
 I pondered long before one of the countless sanctuaries 
 
 in the central aisle — it was not the tomb of a celebrity, at 
 
 least not one of those bright stars of fame whose lustre 
 
 grows more luminous with added years — peering through 
 
 15 
 
170 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 tlie iron door upon the mosaic altar, and silver candelabra, 
 the marble floor and superb purple velvet altar cloth, the 
 paintings, and vases, and manuals, all offerings upon the 
 grave of the departed, evidently a dead Croesus. Some- 
 times the bridal wreath, or communion garland, or the 
 broken doll, or the war sword is laid by the side of its 
 former owner. It was touchingly realistic and full of 
 love for the dead. 
 
 Opposite was the tomb of Rossini, of pure white stone, 
 rather unostentatious in the interior. He died only a few 
 3'ears since. In the first avenue, diverging from the riglit 
 of the broad patli, is the tomb of the great Hebrew who 
 thrilled two continents by her almost supernatural por- 
 trayal of the dark passions of hatred and revenge, but 
 possessed none of the gentleness that gives woman her 
 greatest charm — Rachel. In the same section was the 
 opulent sepulchre of the princes of Mammon, the golden 
 Rothschilds. 
 
 A few steps to the east is the classic cynosure of all the 
 romantic, love-languishing Romeos and Juliets who visit 
 this sweet place of repose — the cenotaph of Ahelard and 
 Heloise. And here they stand, and weep, and sigh, and 
 meditate. As I watched these double Niobes, I marvelled 
 if they knew the correct version of the lives they mourned. 
 The pair have been deified by generations. And to what 
 end? Perhaps to incarnate the deceitful precepts of a false 
 philosophy. Ahl it has ever been so. Magdalene is a 
 saint; the thief who repented with his expiring breath, an 
 angel; Abraham, who turned the wronged Hagar and her 
 otts[)ring vagrants upon the world, a holy patriarch; Solo- 
 mon, with his hundreds of concubines, the scriptural 
 savant; Judith, the murderess of Holofernes, a heroine; 
 Catharine, tlie Russian Faustina, a queen ; the incestuous 
 Lucrezia Borgia, the theme of the troubadour; and the 
 names of Robespierre, Nero, Henry YlII, Bloody Mary; 
 flaming meteors upon the historical horizon! 
 
 From there we fell into an avenue of graves, planted 
 over with fresh, rank sward, shadowed b}' weeping willows, 
 and marked only by a white or granite headstone. I liked 
 the solemn, umbrous shadows, and the peaceful hush, and 
 the soft, sighing rustle of the leaves, better than these daz- 
 zling tombs and spectacular decorations. And as I saun- 
 tered the otium and sweetness of the spot enveloped me 
 like an incense. On my patli towards the chapel I inad- 
 vertently stumbled upon the grave of Ledru Roilin, the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. Itl 
 
 Republican leader of the last empire, who flew to England 
 after failing in an attempt to prevent the Emperor from 
 sending troops to aid in re-establishing the Pope. At the 
 end of twenty years he returned to his native country, and 
 though endeavoring to avoid politics was thrust into the 
 arena, and by a greater constituency than ever was elected 
 to the Assembly, where he took his seat upon the Extreme 
 Left, and pleaded universal suffrage more impressively 
 than formerly. His grave was laden with the offerings of 
 his party, and bound in the tricolors of France. 
 
 On th^ rio;ht of the church are the mound and monument 
 of Casimir Perier. The display of monumental splendor 
 was attractive, but there were no democratic offerings from 
 the masses upon the clay that covered the peacemaker, like 
 those cast at the feet of the revolutionist. In this locality 
 are a group of dramatic and musical celebrities, as if seek- 
 ing congenial companionship in the grave — Bellini, Gretry, 
 Boeildieu, Cherubini, Chopin, and Talma. When I met 
 the name of Constant 1 involuntarily looked for the next 
 one to be De Stael, but, alas! I recollected how man^' roods 
 separate these two in death who were so close in life. 
 These lives are ever combined in my mind by the wealth of 
 love and intellect with which this strong woman oppressed 
 her ungrateful lover. She prompted his orations in the 
 Assembly, and wound her arms about his neck until he was 
 satiated by the excess of favor. Marshals Ney, Lefebvre, 
 Massena, Devaust, and Mortier, with the old voluptuary 
 Barras, form a magnificent array. In the extreme north of 
 the cemetery I found Balzac, the naughty novelist, close to 
 the limits of the fosse communes or public graves. 
 
 There was a procession of Catholic girls clad in white, 
 with long white veils falling over their faces and forms, 
 and borne bj six of their companions was a little white 
 coffin, while the others carried candles to light the little 
 soul through the dark path to heaven. Two holy fathers, 
 in sable gowns, carrying rosaries, and repeating the office 
 of the dead, walked at their sides. It was only the 
 burial of a poor little mortal, who had come to rest at last 
 amongst the herd, still .how sweet and suggestive it was. 
 Yet in the city so populated by the dead how few were the 
 living persons. But the French are as loving to their dead 
 as they are to the living, and odd enough, if the Commune 
 kills its hecatombs, there is a splendid burial for all. 
 
 Much as I had ever loved these cities of the dead at 
 home, my foreign experience was still more affecting. I 
 
172 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 was loath to quit the sublime rest and beatitude found 
 only here. I wandered amongst graves, and mausolea, and 
 naked mounds; studied the history of great luminaries, 
 "whose lustre had been eclipsed, alas! too soon; and though 
 sad with the experience, filled with an ineffaceable memory. 
 Pere La Chaise was converted into an extra-mural ceme- 
 tery in 1804, and took its name from its former owner, the 
 confessor of Louis XIV, and is of its kind without a peer 
 in Europe, though we have manj^ as beautiful in America, 
 yet none so entirely novel. It is a sanctuary for the quick 
 and the dead, a phice of graves, but a source of contrast. 
 We in our country do not follow our departed like those 
 volatile and voluptuous Latins. They are often at the side 
 of their loved ones gone, and man}' a tomb is a second 
 home, many a vault an altar, many a shrine as familiar as 
 a fireside. Here, as in all cemeteries, 3'ou gather the great 
 philosophy of the emptiness of human ambition, and the sub- 
 stantial value of love and literature. The soldier comes here 
 tired of the blood and smoke of battle, too often forgotten by 
 those he has served. The statesman finds in Pere La Chaise 
 a panacea for his baffled ambition. As I thought of all 
 these broken hopes and buried fortunes, these failures in 
 love, in monej', in station, and in deeds of surprise and 
 empire, I felt again that the happiest and the most endur- 
 ing of lives, and the sweetest of deaths, came from the tried 
 attachment of devoted friendship, and the enduring solace 
 and holy solitude of books. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. US 
 
 LETTER XXXYII. 
 
 " Speak low ! tread softly through these lialls ; 
 Here Genius lives enshrined ; 
 Here reign, in silent majesty, 
 The monarchs of the mind. 
 
 A mighty spirit-host they come, 
 
 From every age and clime ; 
 Above the buried w^recks of years. 
 
 They breast the tide of Time." 
 
 Anna C. Lynch Rotta. 
 
 Parts, May, 1878. 
 
 Of tlie critics in America who essay to pass judgment 
 npon art, how many possess tiie actual requisites for the 
 task? One in the thousand has perhaps onl^' truly and 
 conscientiously studied the rise and progress of painting 
 in the great European art centres; yet the dissertations of 
 the whole thousand upon the great theme are loud and 
 pi'etentious. The}^ talk of tones of shade, gradation of 
 colors, complementary hues, contrasts and combinations, 
 of proi)erly selecting, blending, and balancing jDigments, 
 with judicial gravity. Then they drift into discussions of 
 form, and after a technical manipulation of figure the un- 
 travelled and untauglit reader is forced to believe at the 
 end of the preachment that each critic is a genuine ana- 
 tomical and chromatic professor. But as we probe the 
 examples we find the professor's vocabulary stereot3'ped 
 and stinted. The same generic terms, with sligl.it modula- 
 tion, are applicable in every theory, and with the acquisi- 
 tion of these few scientific phrases the dogmatic connois- 
 seur presumes to become an oracle of art. 
 
 Because I have passed several mornings in the Musde 
 du Louvre I shall not assume to classify or censure any 
 of the several schools. It is a vast, bewildering panorama, 
 where the masters of all the nations are grouped into one 
 bouquet of infinite grandeur. I thought I could compre- 
 hend it while enveloped in its transcendent glamour, but 
 now, in the seclusion of ray boudoi?-^ the chaos of ideas 
 warns me to study each picture again and again, before 
 forming even an unspoken conception of its merits. 
 
 Having followed the river fagade along the Quai du 
 Louvre, and having the window pointed out from whicli 
 Charles IX fired upon his own people (which I afterwards 
 
 15* 
 
174 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 learned bad not been built until lon<r after the perfidious 
 monarch's death!), we turned into the Rue de Ilivoli, where 
 the great pile is equally imposing. Begun by F'rancis I 
 after his return from Italy, burning with the fire of renais- 
 sance^ it became the pretext for ro^al expenditure in many 
 succeeding reigns, and now, after the addition of wings, 
 and pavilion, and arches, and roofs, this gorgeous toy of 
 the dynasties is one of the grandest aggregates of archi- 
 tecture on the round globe. With such advisers and artists 
 as Titian, Bernini, da Yinci, del Sarto, Cellini, and Ro- 
 mano, with sucii patrons as the Francises, Henry II and 
 Catharine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers, the luxurious 
 Henry III and IV, Louis XIII and Mazarin, and the great 
 Napoleon, with the frippery of Louis Philippe, and the 
 supplements of the late Emperor, it seems even more com- 
 plete and glorious because it escaped the perilous crisis of 
 1871. 
 
 For fifteen years Napoleon ^^onaparte made of this 
 world's gallery the pride of Paris and the marvel of other 
 nations, b3^ concentrating here from all the public deposi- 
 tories of art in the countries he had ravaged and con- 
 quered, their masterpieces in bronzes, marbles, canvas, 
 tapestry, and precious stones. Wherever his victorious 
 banner had floated he sought, and found, and seized the 
 choicest products of human genius, alike those of the 
 Pagans, the Romans, the Greeks, and the Teutons, alike 
 those of the middle eras as of the y^enaisssance, and placed 
 them in the Louvre, which he ostentatiously called the 
 Napoleon Museum. For fifteen years, as 1 have said, this 
 museum became the lodestar of European admiration, 
 while the plundered capitals of Italy, Germany, Austria, 
 and Russia, mourned the loss of their chiefest treasures. 
 The domination of the all-conquering Corsican seemed to 
 be widespread and eternal. He was the Colossus that 
 bestrode the earth, and when strangers came to look at 
 these foreign chefs-tVoeuvre^ rifled from the dazzling palaces 
 of subdued monarchs, thej'^ conceived a new idea of the 
 majesty of the irrej)ressible soldier, who carried the eagles 
 of France from the Seine to the Tiber, and from the Danube 
 to the frozen frontier of the Muscovite. Yet in a few 
 short months this bright dream had faded. Waterloo 
 ended his meteoric career. The magic fighter became a 
 fugitive, tlien a guest, and finally a prisoner, who died 
 upon a rock in the sea. Then the rescued kings of the 
 despoiled cities rushed into Paris to demand the restora- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 175 
 
 tion of their pilfered treasures, and ransacked the Louvre 
 for the priceless gifts that had been placed there, as the 
 Man of Destiny vainly hoi)ed, forever. 
 
 Such were ray first sad impressions as I sauntered along 
 the bright and tessellated floors of the Louvre, the theatre 
 of brilliant pageants, dark plots, happy love, and royal 
 license. It is the place to realize equally the power and 
 insignificance of man, the length of his genius, and the 
 shortness of his life. There are said to he five miles of 
 galleries under the roofs of these prodigious palaces of the 
 Louvre, and my immediate and harassijig thought was my 
 utter inability to traverse tliem. The brilliant, deep-toned 
 frescoes of the ceilings, framed in their garlands of repoaaae 
 and gold, first chained my attention, but as I became 
 accustomed to their garish beauty I could distinguish tiie 
 various schools and pick out the gems. 
 
 Who could pass unnoticed the "Belle Ferroniere," of da 
 Yinci? Perhaps 1 lingered longer by it because I knew 
 the story of the last and best-beloved favorite of Francis I, 
 and how the artist had expired in the King's arms, after 
 bequeathing to posterity the chaste and beautiful features 
 of his sweet amor'osa. Or who neglect the " Belle Jardi- 
 niere," of Raphael ; or the Ecce Homo and Magdalen of 
 Guido? With the Venus de Milo, and Jean Goujon's 
 celebrated Diana, an enduring tribute to his celebrated 
 patroness, these are the universal magnets. 
 
 The earlj^ French art is nothing more than a close tran- 
 scription of the Italian schools, as the finest specimens of 
 Claude Lorraine, Poussin, Freminet, and Vernet bear tes- 
 timony. Poussin, perhaps the greatest of French masters, 
 studied his art in Rome, and his style is strongly imbued 
 with the spirit of renaissance. Le Sueur was the first of this 
 galaxy who circumscribed his duties to Paris, and though 
 he left some fair models of his labor, his star was ectipsed 
 by his aspiring rival, Le Brun, who followed the school of 
 Poussin. Still later the studies of Watteau, Greuze, and 
 David seem to have inaugurated and fixed in permanent 
 fame the present French choice of forms and the mode of 
 treating them. 
 
 Certain it is the modern French possess none of the 
 pathos and direful beauty of the early Italians. The latter 
 were possessed with a soul for depicting woful resignation 
 and appealing grief, harrowing lamentations and painful 
 meditations; while the former portray nature in its mature 
 glow of luscious life and loveliness. I had read much of 
 
176 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the Spanish tj'pe, Yalasquez and Murillo, but I confess 
 freely so far in my experience I divine no beaut}^ ; the 
 females impressed me as travesties on an eccentric origi- 
 nal, and the male figures as fierce, fantastic, and unreal. 
 
 In the Rubens gallery 1 was dazed by the number and 
 size of his works ; even with his renowned assistants he 
 seemed a supernatural worker. Fifty or sixty historical, 
 mytliological, and scriptural rei)resentations, each measur- 
 ing lOx 16, were conspicuous for their boldness of outline 
 and radiance of coloring. These alone are self-evident of 
 the indefatigable energies of their creator, to say notliing 
 of the hundreds that grace ever3^ gallery and palace, and 
 many private liomes throughout Europe. I notice that 
 he was fond of sketching himself, and into all his " Holy 
 Families" were woven tlie portraits of his kindred. His 
 twenty productions relating to the career of Marie de 
 Medici are regarded as valuable studies for acolytes ; this 
 ssalon was thronged by copyists taking miniature models 
 of the great antitype. 
 
 The apartments devoted to faience,^ majolica, carved 
 ivories, terra-cotta, and della Robbia bas-reliefs stretch far 
 away in interminable array. But one has not tiie time to 
 linger here and stud}'^ fine arts and history ; the wealth of 
 the first seems to be continuali3' ell)Owing the last from its 
 equitable pedestal. As 1 passed down the steps where 
 Coligny had passed, an honored guest, at a nuptial feast, 
 two days before he was overtaken by traitorous perfidy of 
 the king, the bell of St. Germain I'Auxerrois sent forth a 
 silver music that would have fallen melodiously upon the 
 "hollow of mine ear" had it not been marred with the 
 recollection of the signal for the commencement of the 
 bloody carnival on the appalling St. Bartholomew's day, 
 three hundred 3ears ago. 
 
 But now sentinels listlessly patrol their round, and the 
 troops idle upon the square — 'Hhe wars are done, the Turks 
 are drown'd." 
 
 Directly opposite the Louvre, across the Seine, is the 
 Palace Luxembourg, containing of modern art what its 
 ro^al neighbor holds of mediaeval. The sward was fresh 
 and smoothly cropped, the palace and its parterres alive 
 with visitors, the marble heroines and patron saints, which 
 glisten like white ghosts through the gardens, crude and 
 grossly unsN'mmetrical, and the luxuriant foliage of the 
 glossy lemon and orange trees in the green tubs skirting 
 the plots, made a most touching drama. The children played 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 171 
 
 while the students parleyed. There was neither sigh nor 
 whisper, recall nor rebuke, of the profligate life of Marie de 
 Medici under these roofs, or her wretchedly penurious 
 ending in Cologne. There is no token of the crafty Riche- 
 lieu upon the white marble bridge across the stagnant water 
 of the canal below, which he so often trod from the Palais 
 Cardinale. There is no footprint of the Girondins who lan- 
 guished within the walls that had vibrated, and were again 
 destined to resound with the mirth and madness of civil war. 
 Yes, only a little later and the regal halls were tilled by 
 the luscious, extravagant, intellectual houris of the seraglio 
 of Barras. From her prison Josephine de Beauliarnais 
 was transported to this paradise, and from hence her 
 ascendency to queen and empress was steady and speedy. 
 In those troublous days women were more magnaniuious 
 to each other than in the calm of a conservative govern- 
 ment. The intimacy formed in the dungeon of Carmes, 
 between Madame Tallien and Josephine, resulted in tiieir 
 becoming the unjealous favorites of the Director Barras. 
 It was Tallien who brought the widow of Beauharnais to the 
 ruler, and so sincere was the feminine friendship she enter- 
 tained for her friend, that siie was quite willing that Josepli- 
 ine should share with her tiie affections and protection of 
 the republican voluptuary. There is no trace now of the 
 debauchery and revels of the beautiful woman in her Greek 
 costume of India muslin embroidered in gold, golden girdle 
 fastening the classic toilet about the waist, and rare cameos 
 upon her shoulders^ nor of the witty, racy, 3'et gentle 
 empress in perspective; nor of Lange of the Comedie 
 rran§aise, except what is restored by memory, often at 
 once trustful and hurtful. 
 
 Subsequent to the gay saturnalia, Luxembourg was the 
 seat of the Imperial Senate, and under Louis Philippe the 
 meeting of the Chamber of Peers. Here Louis Blanc con- 
 gregated the socialists, and now it is the home of the Prefect 
 of the Seine. 
 
 An old country like France, with its great benefactors 
 and rulers, its artists and its tyrants in their graves, each 
 leaving behind nothing alive, so to speak, but the enduring 
 memories of bad deeds or the lasting monuments of noble 
 works, is the study of the ages. Over their marble sar- 
 cophagi we recall these authors of evil and of good, and 
 so collect from the retrospect at once mournings and hopes. 
 Oddest of all, most of the wrongs of the past were the pro- 
 duce of French kings, and so also were the lovely works 
 
178 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of ait they encouraged and paid for. Perhaps it seems to 
 have been reserved that as they planted in blood and tears, 
 the harvest in the fulness of time should be gathered by a 
 republican posterity, whose ancestors these tyrants hunted, 
 impoverished, and forced to fight for them. 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 "Versailles ! — Up the chestnut alley, 
 All in flower, so white and pure, 
 Strut the red ^nd yellow lacqueys 
 Of this Madame Pompadour." 
 
 Thornbury. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 Keflecting upon it now, in the sweet French starlight, 
 the whole of my visit to Versailles was a fiasco. I found 
 the seat of political government as dull as Goldsmith's 
 *' Deserted Village," and what added to the dulness was 
 the unexpected absence of the statesmen from their legis- 
 lative hall. Yet the railway route was full of interest; 
 the scener}^, the iiabits of the people in the antique villages, 
 the old palaces, the shops, cafes, and places of public wor- 
 ship, were all studies. 
 
 We passed through a perfect arbor of perfumed flowers 
 and grasses, chateaux gleaming through the dense foliage; 
 the splash of frequent fountains; silent statuary, as if on 
 guard against intruders; white-capped women thronging 
 the streets of the hamlets contrasted with blue-bloused 
 men driving great horses and oxen; females in short petti- 
 coats and sabots, bending over the gardens where the vege- 
 tables of voracious Paris are grown ; now and then a priest, 
 in long serge gown and shovel-hat, would cross the scene, 
 like a figure from the seventeenth century, and occasionally 
 a soldier like a Lilliputian image would strut past like an 
 actor in a French farce. It was a moving picture to my 
 American vision, and I had scarcely time to make a note 
 of my fellow-passengers before we swept into the beautiful 
 station, to find ourselves in the political capital of France, 
 the scene of centuries of revolution, luxurious profligacy, 
 joyous events with sorrowful terminations, and the rendez- 
 vous in the summer of 1871 of the German invaders. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 179 
 
 From St. Lazare station, the first important point we 
 approached was Mount Valerien ; from this fort the sliell 
 was thrown that fell upon and destroyed the palace at St. 
 Cloud. But in the quiet noonday hush there was not a 
 trace of the fast and furious firing seven years ago. On 
 we rushed through a colonnade of tnll, slim poplars, the 
 emblems of equality and liberty, till we paused at St. 
 Cloud, the ancient tribunal of monarchical rule, and the 
 summer residence of the late hapless Napoleon III. I 
 could see the sweet, shady retreats of the wooded park 
 from my seat at the car-window. Thence our route ex- 
 tended through a portion of the grand pare to the adja- 
 cent town of Sevres. In the lanes I saw the artisans of 
 the royal manufactory of jewelled porcelain and patetendre. 
 This was the toy coaxed b}' Madame de Pompadour from 
 Louis XV, under whose regal patronage it made a marked 
 advance, and then chemists and artists endeavored to rival 
 one another in the invention of new and exquisite pigments 
 and designs to adorn the gems of clay. The hleu de roi^ 
 and Pompadour pink, were employed with great effect 
 upon vases and services in compliment to the princely 
 benefactors. After this I fell to studying my companions 
 in the compartment. Opposite was the man of books, with 
 his portfolio and journal, Le Temps^ and magazine. Revue 
 des Mondes^ his black silk skull-cap, and smail white, deli- 
 cate hand, and solitaire diamond ring; beside him an 
 elderly lady~and a poodle— a sweet woman with a faded 
 face, and an air of rest and calm that seemed a foil to the 
 elegant valet, who stood ready to aid her from the train; 
 next was a flashingly beautiful girl, whose pet was not a 
 lap-dog, but a handsome officer in blue uniform, with silver 
 cording and epaulettes; he evidently required greater 
 aplomb and diplomacy to manage than the elder lady's 
 companion, but she was full of the electricity of youth and 
 health, and capable of the task. They took us to be Eng- 
 lish strangers, as I could understand by the conversation, 
 but when I chatted a little French of my own, there was 
 a sudden well-bred silence, and then a confusing smile; 
 they accepted my challenge as a fair Roland for their 
 Oliver. 
 
 Needless that I should recount the stor}'- of Versailles, 
 with its illustrious neighbors in a near circle, St. Denis, St. 
 Cloud, St. Germain, Malmaison, Sevres, Vincennes, and 
 Sceaux; nor extol luxurious fields, massive forests, gray 
 castles, bright cascades, sequestered promenades, and the 
 
180 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 superb Seine winding like a silver scarf round centuried 
 towers, and towns; nor of the three grand avenues, Paris, 
 St. Cloud, and Sceaux; nor of the great churches, St. Louis, 
 the Prefecture, and the Chancery; nor beyond all the pal- 
 aces, with their storied picture galleries, parks, lakes, 
 Granger}', private theatre, chapel, fountains, statues, col- 
 leges, schools, literary and public edifices. 
 
 Yes! The incense of favored women hangs about the 
 spot; not one of them without a poison in her storj^ 
 Maintenon, the ruler of France, and mistress of Grande 
 Trianon, had never touched the soft hand of Fortune until 
 Louis XIV was subdued by tiie importunities and acumen 
 of the ''widow Scarron;" as her biographer sa3^s, "she was 
 born in a prison, bred in pov^erty, the widow of a cripple, 
 and wife of a king." Le Petit Trianon was erected for 
 Madame de Pompadour, who carried more than one stain 
 upon lier vice-regal page of life. Here the luxurious 
 daughter of Marie Theresa amused herself with the extrav- 
 agant toy, the miniature Swiss village, regardless of her 
 approaching fate at the guillotine; and where do we find 
 sadder anecdotes than the narrative of the last days of 
 Jose[)hine and Eugenie? so that the Lares and Penates of 
 Versailles seem to be executing some dread decree upon 
 the fair and unfortunate occupants of her double palaces. 
 
 But of all this we can read in history, and our day seems 
 to be in sympath}^ with the past. Cocher was rather an 
 intelligent bourgeoises with the faculty of conversation 
 largely developed, and a fair appreciation of the beauties 
 of nature and art. Versailles is not a pretty town, but 
 cocher addressed himself to the task of pleasing, and drove 
 us through dark and leafy avenues, closed in on either side 
 b}' heavy walls of foliage, where the trees had been trimmed 
 and garlanded in the most novel and fantastic manner; he 
 extolled the Empire, and denounced the Kepublic, and 
 glorified the Napoleonic dynasties; and finding us com- 
 plaissant and chatty, he demanded his pour boire before 
 we dismissed him, and having enjoyed it on the way vol- 
 unteered to conduct us to an excellent cafe for lunch. 
 While I was indulging an ecstasy of praise of the obliging 
 Frenchman, we were driven to what looked very like a 
 ''beer shop." Undaunted by appearances, we ordered 
 lunch, and oh! what adisenciiantmcnt. But cocher had taken 
 French leave, and when there we began to investigate our 
 bargain. Tiie wily driver had guided us to a fourtii-class res- 
 taurant, the proprietor evidently his confederate. I saw it 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 181 
 
 all too late, when the unsavory repast was spread before 
 us. What were we to do? To dispute was vain; to par- 
 take impossible. The fowl was old and tough, the butter 
 too strong for its weight, and the wine like raspberry vine- 
 gar. Our only alternative was to pay and leave the den. 
 We hastened to Paris oppressed with the hunger and 
 thirst; but as the poet says, "there is no cloud however 
 black but what has its silver lining," and if the poet did 
 not say it, it is an inspiration of my own. In the Cafe 
 Durand, under the sacred shadow of the Madelaine, and 
 close to the noble and monumental Rue Royal, we forgot 
 our grief and forgave our deceiver. 
 
 To this restaurant, and the Cafe Riche, are ascribed the 
 finest cuisines in Paris by epicures. 
 
 I believe when I first opened my diary to chronicle the 
 pleasures and disappointments of tlie day, I said I medi- 
 tated upon the day as a fiasco; but the remark must be 
 frankly discounted by the fact that I had not quite recov- 
 ered my temper. Nol let me be just, and state the dinner 
 at Voisin's was no fuux pas! 
 
 LETTER XXXIX, 
 
 ** I love no land so well as that of France, 
 Land of Napoleon and Charlemagne, 
 Renowned for valor, women, wit, and dance, 
 For racy Burgundy and bright Champagne, 
 Whose only word in battle is Advance." 
 
 Ce-ason. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 On the Champs Elysees legions of wraithlike memories 
 continually elbow the dramatis personse of to-day from 
 their equitable dominion. 
 
 Once upon the broad avenue^ it is not the gay holiday- 
 makers, filling the sidewalks, the voitures^ and the little 
 iron chairs, a sou apiece, that surprise and please so much, 
 as the brilliant and famous characters and events that seem 
 to reappear from the realm of history and romance. Life 
 on the '* Elysian Fields" is always entrancing, but to realize 
 it to the full you must mingle with the Joyous multitude 
 16 
 
182 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 on Sinida}'. Nothing in Paris attains such a variety of 
 pleasure as this multitude on the Sabbath. It is the day 
 of the opera and the oratories; the church and the concerts; 
 the players and the priests; the unity of sin and sacrament. 
 
 Yes! there are the student and his fair, fat grisette, sitting 
 under the chestnuts, eating peanuts and bon-bons ; the good 
 boiirgeoise women with their large, white hands, resting 
 extended upon their ample knees, around their skirts cling- 
 ing three or four little ones chattering French, with a fluency 
 and dainty accent that bring to my cheek a blush of my 
 own inefiicienc}^ ; then troops of other happy children — the 
 ])rogeny of the uppertendom — with their white-capped at- 
 tendants ; the city voitures and cabs for the democracy ; the 
 glittering equipages and jewelled trappings of the English 
 and American money kings, and the lumbering vehicles 
 bearing upon their panels the heraldry of the royalists of 
 St. Germain. But it is not only these that throng the 
 mental vision ; there are the ghosts of Marie de M^dicis, 
 the Louises, the savages of the Director3', the ladies of tlie 
 first Emi)ire, and the recollections of its later travestie, 
 that rouse us to the contrast between this bright to-day 
 and the long-vanished yesterdays. 
 
 And surely the Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Column 
 of Luxor, and Bois du Boulogne, are magical combinations, 
 and on this gloricnis day, more lovely and more bewilder- 
 ing than even my exulting expectation had painted. *'A 
 mighty maze! but not without a plan." To enhance these 
 attractions. Nature appeared in her richest robe and sweet- 
 est mood. The air was an elixir, the flowers heav}' with 
 their own aroma, the luxuriance of the foliage seemed 
 forced, and the sun, though brilliant, was not oppressive. 
 
 Along the superb avenue — much broader than our Broad 
 Street — with deep pavements for pedestrians, and the centre 
 drive devoted to horses and vehicles, extending nearl}- three 
 miles to the gates of the Bois, we waudered and wondered. 
 Advancing toward the Arc de i'Etoile, the lett is flanked 
 by statel}' palaces, while upon the right, through the 
 branching shade, gleams the Palais d^Elysee^ the home of 
 the Marshal President, and the summer-gardens. As the 
 summit of the grand allee is reached, there sits the tri- 
 umi)hal arch to receive you under its massive portals, 
 overlooking the surrounding vicinage, the nucleus of a 
 radius of fine streets, like beams from a central star, whose 
 names i^erpetuate the trophies of Napoleon, and whose 
 viceregal ediftces are the homes of the American colony ; it 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 183 
 
 is one brilliant paradise of history, art, diplomacy, and 
 wealth. 
 
 This vast, yet symmetrical Dome of Victory, under 
 whose dark arches have marched the royal processions that 
 swept away and succeeded the Napoleonic djmasty, is a 
 daguerreotype in marble of the salient episodes in the 
 career of the conquering hero. It was projected by the 
 chief as a monument of bravery to the Grande Armee. It 
 is a marvellous combination of shields, standards, colossal 
 figures, military medallions, and allegorical representations, 
 a frozen parable of the Consulate and the First Empire. 
 Upon every side and l)y every group we are taught the one 
 lesson, the Heroism of war and the Glory of victory. But 
 in those days all men were brave, and all men battled for 
 empire and power. 
 
 Here the Genius of War seems to be omnipotent. We 
 see it inciting tiie chivalric Mars to motion; we see it 
 cheering the young warrior on to the salvation of his 
 country, while he tears himself from the restraining arms 
 of his father, and turns from his grief-stricken young wife, 
 who holds forth appealingly the body of their dead child ; 
 and we' see it in the confusion of battle and carnase. Then 
 as the reward of all his sacrifices comes Victory with the 
 crown of laurels, and History with her stylus and scroll, 
 chronicling his heroic deeds. Over all is the emblem of 
 gentle, gracious Peace, with the sword sheathed, " for he 
 and his sword did earn his chronicled At his side Agri- 
 culture, with the harvest of fruit and grain, and the sweet 
 domestic sway of wife and children. 
 
 The faces upon the Arch are all portraits, and the trum- 
 pets of Fame are proclaiming to the whole world that 
 France has conquered her foes. I saw the marvellous con- 
 ceits with breathless delight. It is a consummation of art, 
 a memorable tribute to valor, a proud cenotaph of a people's 
 gratitude. Yet under this massive monument of French 
 genius to French bravery, the stolid and resistless Germans 
 marched in 1871, after they had conquered Napoleon' III. 
 This to the French must have seemed the severest satire of 
 Fate. The Emperor a fugitive (like his great uncle), the 
 Empress flying from and fearing her own subjects, home- 
 less and friendless, while the grim Teuton triumphed over 
 alk 
 
 But for philosophy I had little time, and dashed on 
 towards the Bois. C>ur fiacre was one among thousands. 
 Far more extensive and intricate the maze than at Fair- 
 
184 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 mount or Central Park, or even Hyde Park, London, 
 where, on the iiltra-fasliionable drives one meets notliing 
 but wealth and titles, where the police keep out the ple- 
 beians, and the mass are too poor and oppressed to ven- 
 ture in. 
 
 Here is a rare combination of roj'al livery and republi- 
 can harness. At present, Equality is Emperor in France, 
 and the ouvrier and Bourbon ride side by side, to the infi- 
 nite aversion of the latter, and the ineffable satisfaction of 
 the former. 80, as the human ocean poured through the 
 Arc, glittering with all the fashions and peoples of the 
 world, it was a m3'riad masquerade, where human passions, 
 intrigues, schemes, ha>tes, loves, envies, and ambitions, were 
 concealed under the guise of frivolity and frolic. 
 
 Once past the Arc de VEtoile^ you stand upon the very 
 confines of the American quarter. The large, flaunting 
 residence across the way is the sylvan retreat of the Prin- 
 cess Bonanza, who empties many sequins from her purse 
 for the decoration of her house upon republican fete nights. 
 Though the display is ample and costly, the effect produced 
 is not always sufficient unto the desires of the Princess; 
 there is a murmur of complaint against the "horrid arch" 
 which obstructs the brilliant scene. It was sheer ingrati- 
 tude — nay, cruelty — for the municipal authorities to refuse 
 to remove or to sell that "horrid thing" at the solicitation 
 of the exacting Princess. Our Minister resides upon the 
 Avenue Josephine; our Commissioner-General to the Ex- 
 position upon Avenue d'Eylau; Dr. Thomas Evans, pro- 
 prietor of the American Register^ in a palatial home upon 
 the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne; and, indeed, there is not 
 an avenue of the famous radius but what is odorous with 
 Americans. My compatriots seem to flock thither from 
 intuition, as do the pigeons of St. Mark to the Piazza in 
 Venice, or the Jews to their wailing place. 
 
 Paris soldiers and Paris horses resemble each other 
 closel}'. The same process seems to have produced both, 
 and both indifferently. There was not enough to complete 
 a full-sized soldier or a full-sized horse, and I did not won- 
 der when I heard the tall Germans and their big steeds 
 contrasted with these little people. Their legs are too 
 short, and their bodies too long, and the same pecularities 
 are pronouncedly observable in the animal and the man. 
 The famous Centaur has really found a claim to ni}' cre- 
 dulity since I have studied these two Gallic creations ; 
 surely this quadruped, to all appearances, was produced 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 185 
 
 as a component part of the soldier, and not to draw the 
 awkward, clnmsy, graceless carriages of the Imperialists. 
 I remember how the choice specimens of conveyances on 
 exhibition at the Centennial of Frencli manufactnre, im- 
 pressed me by their ponderons size and looselj'-jointed 
 hinges, and even here in the Yery midst' of these inelegant 
 establishments my American eye refnses to become recon- 
 ciled. They look like great Black Marias, conveying com- 
 mon offenders to jail. 
 
 The Bois swams with hnmankind between 4 and 6 p.m.; 
 it is the hour to meet Dame Fashion, and at 1 it is as ten- 
 antless as the lone desert; a solitude suggestive of spectres, 
 banditti, poniards, a futile struggle, and a dark death. Ancl 
 yet this is the sweetest and most seductive hour at the 
 Bois, when the garish flare of the mode has passed away, 
 leaving soft, twinkling stars and deepening shadows, for 
 your companions. 
 
 When I first saw the great French park, it was in the 
 mellow glow of the setting sun's last rays, that were 
 touching the mazarine blue and golden clouds into a glory 
 of color; when its radiance played among the fountain- 
 spray, and sank to rest in Dpal splendor on the breast of 
 the lake. A'gain, when the angels had unfurled the curtains 
 of the night, and Nature's gas-jets were all aglow, I rode 
 between the bronze foliage and lingered in the ai-omatic 
 influences, until Nymphs and Satyrs seemed to whisper 
 around me. In the lusty glare of noon, I penetrated the 
 wood again, as far as the gi^and cascade and Pre Gatelan, 
 where we dined upon the dainties of a Parisian repast, 
 surrounded by delicious flowers and trees of every clime. 
 
 The Bois de Boulogne is not a park of Nature's handi- 
 craft alone, but wealth and art have conspired to render it 
 a fitting abode for the gods. Though dolefully damaged 
 by the siege of 1871, artisans and landscape gardeners are 
 constantly repairing the work of the Fire fiend. 
 
 Through the Allee de Lnngchamps the Hippodrome de 
 Longchamps is reached, the race-course of the Jockey 
 Club, where the thoroughbreds are trotted upon the full, 
 fresh sward. The course resembles a royal village in the 
 beauty of its ornate rural architecture, the Emperor's pa- 
 vilion and the noble Rothschild's villa. 
 
 Within sight of the course is the craggy mound of Long- 
 champs, the rush of water ever flowing into the basin be- 
 low and drifting away in two winding streams. All about 
 the paths are graded and curved with an infinite grace, and 
 
 16* 
 
186 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 ornamented by bowers, and arbors, and stretches of dense 
 forest land. 
 
 Further on we have the Theatre des Fleurs, whose 
 scenery is not the painted canvas of artists, but the shrub- 
 bery-, and grottos, and stream, and firmament of Nature, 
 beautified by modern skill. 
 
 History and romance have garlanded the Bois with a 
 whole wreath of legends, where the amaranth of immor- 
 tality and the poppy of death are entwined upon one stem; 
 wliere the olive of peace and the wheat of prosperity are 
 grouped with the rose of York and Lancaster proclaiming 
 war; where the houstonia of content rests upon the very 
 breast of the hollyhock of ambition ; where the cypress of 
 despair has coiled its tendrils in inextricable mockery about 
 the hawthorn of hope; and where the marigold of cruelty, 
 with its twin sister lotus, revenge, are couched with the 
 balm of sympathy upon a bed of fir — time, 
 
 / 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 " The looks of ye, ma'am, rather suits me, 
 The Avages you offer will do, 
 But then I can't enter your service 
 
 Without a condition or two ; 
 And now to begin is the kitchen. 
 
 Commodious, with plenty of light, 
 And fit, you know, for entertainin' 
 Such friends as I like to invite." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Parts, May, 1878. 
 
 I HAVE been newly interested in the eternal question of 
 servant-girlism. Not on the point of wages, but on the 
 larger subject of dress. And 1 think I have gathered a 
 few comparative items that will })e interesting at home. 
 Nothing has given me more mental concern than the very 
 great difference between the girls out at service in Europe 
 and their sisters in the United States. I am not speaking 
 of those who are retained through generations in wealthy 
 and aristrocratic houses, and have become an integral 
 part of these titled establishments, but of the vast aimy 
 of females wjio earji a livelihood in hotels and ordinary 
 families. In London and Paris the usual domestic is 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 18t 
 
 almost a slave, receiving little remuneration except from 
 guests, and in nearly all cases far better educated and 
 better behaved than the corresponding class in America. 
 The civility and subordination of the foreign servant-girls 
 resemble the docility and sprightliness of the colored 
 women of the South, only the Europeans are more thor- 
 oughly trained by their associations, and contrast painfully 
 with the insolence of too many of the importations from 
 the Emerald Isle in our American households. 
 
 Industry and a practical knowledge of the fine as well as 
 the useful arts is the primal ambition of the Frenchwoman. 
 Her struggle is to become worthy of her place, and event- 
 ually to ascend in the social scale. On the other hand, 
 assumption is the chief virtue of her Celtic sister. Her first 
 taste of America does not prompt her to acquire under- 
 standing and skill, but to copy expensive fashions. While 
 Elise is wandering through the Louvre gaining a knowledge 
 of paintings and ceramics, Bridget only sees the follies of 
 the American lady of society. If Madame is a leader of 
 the mode^ Bridget must be equally exquisite in the choice 
 of her own toilets, and in this passion she often neglects 
 tlie duties for which she has been em[)lo3'ed. She forgets 
 that she has been duplicating her mistress's style, and fre- 
 quently so far oversteps her prescribed orbit as to advise 
 the head of the house how to dress, 
 
 ♦ I have already told you hov>^ many chambers our poor 
 femmie^de-chamhre^ Jeanne, must arrange and how many 
 pails of water she must carry to the fifth and sixth stories 
 in a day, and she is a fair type of a system ; one of millions 
 in Europe. In addition to her vernacular German, she 
 speaks French adrairal)Iy, English well, and is a woman of 
 considerable information. Yet this poor creature has no 
 leisure to devote to gewgaws and frippery; very rarely 
 does she enjoy God's pure air and the thousand pleasing 
 inventions of modern life When she lays down brush and 
 broom at eleven o'clock, it is to retire to rest. 
 
 There are legions as poor as Jeanne in these great cen- 
 tres of population, that to retain their situations must 
 drudge and obey silently. The moment a murmur of com- 
 plaint escapes them they are mercilessly ejected, and the 
 vacancy supplied by another hungry one. 
 
 On duty, the French girls are at all times neat and 
 orderly. When taking their outing, a plain dress minus 
 frills and furbelows, an amplitude of white apron, and a 
 crisp white cap carelully crimped, is the universal uniform. 
 
188 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 In London the average girl is called "slavie," and her 
 laboring regalia is invariably a smudge on her nose, a 
 soiled, tattered dress, slipshod shoes, and hair as frowsy 
 as a bird's nest. Off duty, she aijpears in light calico 
 dress, straw bonnet, and cloth sacque or faded shawl in 
 midwinter. 
 
 Upon my own dear enfranchised shores, our ministers 
 plenipotentiary of the culinary department copy the mis- 
 tress of the house, even to the details of shapes and colors. 
 When my friend purchased a sage-hued silk, her nursemaid 
 copied it in an alpaca of the same color; when my cham- 
 bermaid ex[)ressed her intense admiration for the cut of my 
 black silk princess robe and mantle, it did not strike me 
 that three weeks afterward I should behold her clad in its 
 model of cashmere, and still greater was my amazement 
 when she dazzled my vision in pink lawn after seeing my 
 French organdy of the same shade. This practice is 
 wholly unknown amongst the girls out at service in Europe. 
 With us the passion extends not only to blonde Bridget, but 
 to dusky Dinah. Of course there are exceptions in the 
 sensible, striving girls who place their earnings in the 
 building associations and trust companies, but the rule is 
 those who expend their weekly wages upon costly para- 
 phernalia. 
 
 If 3^ou will call at any of the great establishments in 
 Philadelphia, like Wanamaker's, where all varieties of wo- 
 men's wear are sold at all prices, you will be surprised at 
 the vast sums laid out on the decoration of the persons of 
 our female helj). They may not buy the best, but they 
 spend enormously in silks, laces, hose, bonnets, gloves, and 
 underwear, and when you see them on Sundays or holi<lays, 
 you are astounded at the expensive elegance of man}' of 
 their outfits. 1 do not speak of this habit to complain of 
 it so much as to make a note of it. A Boston lady, now 
 here, says that the furor for dress amongst these classes 
 in the New England towns often leads to evil, and has 
 given great pain to humane women who desire to see the 
 servant class improved and elevated. It is a phase of 
 society' peculiar to the United States, and is a result of our 
 freedom, an inevitable outgrowth of our emancipated foim 
 of government, that what one woman may do all can try to 
 follow; nor am I disposed to dwell upon the bad effects this 
 insane appetite for dress must have upon the discipline of 
 the household and the future of those who manage it. That 
 is the right of the servant as it is of tlie mistress. But 
 surely a word on a sul»ject that all of us feel can do no 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 189 
 
 harm. Both sides may learn and unlearn from each other. 
 Nor can the example of the Old World servant-girl be held 
 up here for imitation any more than our own luxurious 
 ways should be displayed to mislead our Milesian sisters. 
 Are we ourselves guiltless? Bridget is no longer Irish 
 when she comes to settle in America. She is a citizen of 
 tlie great Republic, and if she is insolent, extravagant, and 
 dangerous as an imitator, we must even bear with her and 
 try to lead her into better manners by our moderation and 
 humanity. She comes here to the great school, and we 
 are at once her teacher and her friend. An American lady 
 is, therefore, a true missionary. 
 
 LETTER XL I. 
 
 *' When shall I begin with the endless delights 
 Of this Eden of millinery, monkeys and sights, 
 This dear busy place where there's nothing transacting 
 But dressing and dinnering, dancing and acting ?" 
 
 Tom Moore. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 To the average American the theatres of Paris are the 
 superior cynosure, and they are all so attractive and inter- 
 esting I scarcely know at which to begin. The New Opera 
 perhaps ? Yes ! there is surely much to be said of that 
 transcendent edifice. Although I have been lingering in 
 the vicinity a month, it is a constant study and delight. I 
 am charmed by its elaborate grandeur, by its florid capitals, 
 convolved ornaments, crowning Corinthian columns, its 
 multudinous figures, protoplasts in bronze on the niches 
 of the fagade., its frozen immortelles of lyric and dramatic 
 savants. There are adverse opinions of the merit of its 
 architecture, many insisting that the prodigality of orna- 
 mentation is oppressive ; but then it is a masterpiece of 
 French magnificence, and every one gazes upon it with 
 rapture. 
 
 The whole auditorium has ItOO places. The seats in 
 the orchestra and baignoires — small boxes or tubs under 
 the first loges, to which only men are admitted — sell for 
 twelve and ten francs apiece. Tlie first balcony of boxes 
 is the property of the nobility and the part owners of the 
 
190 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Acaclemie; then we, of the plebeian mass, are permitted a 
 place in any of the other tiers or boxes by paying seven, 
 ten, fifteen, or twenty-two francs eacli. Upon granrl festas, 
 when the kings and qneens of the profession appear, seats 
 are sold at a preminm, and handsome sums are realized 
 by their titled possessors. 
 
 The wealth expended npon the lobby, grand stairway, 
 and foyer is fabulons. The stairway is a combination of 
 all the marbles and agates of the chalcedonic plains of 
 Europe and the East. Egyptian alabaster, verde antique, 
 lapis lazuli, carnelian, and a hundred other species of onyx 
 are grouped into stony radiance. From the vaulted dome 
 angels, chnbbj'- cupids, muses, and gods look down upon 
 the luxurious, lavish, sacrilegious throngs trampling the 
 precious mosaics underfoot. I walked into one of the 
 third-story balconies overhanging the grand escalier^ to 
 driuk in the essence of ro^^al wealth and sinful extrava- 
 gance on every side. But the salle de promenoAe is the 
 loadstar of the interior. It is a wildering aggregate of 
 the glitter of gold and the brilliancy of frescoes, one pris- 
 matic lustre of glass and lights, a vast sheen of mirrors, 
 the saliency of repoufise^ glittering colonnades, and lofty 
 ceilino;, and here it is that the vast audience make a ren- 
 dezvous during the entre-acts^ a Vanity Fair unequalled in 
 the universe. 
 
 Representations take place three times a week at the 
 Grand Opera, Monday's, Wednesdays, and Frida3^s, and 
 these performances are also unsurpassed by any in the 
 world. The scholars from the Conservatoire de Musique 
 constitute the choruses, and the ballet is composed of the 
 famous dancers of Europe. In addition to the eleven mil- 
 lions paid out of the national treasury for this regal gew- 
 gaw, a subsidy is granted by the government of 800,000 
 francs annually, and during the empire it received 100,000 
 francs from its progenitor. Napoleon III. The Republicans 
 are almost as generous to art and music as the kings. 
 
 We secured our places for '* Les Huguenots," and though 
 the repertoire was cast with excellence, and the music un- 
 surpassed that ushers in that direful 24th of August, 1572, 
 it seemed to me a little profane that so light and volatile 
 a people should render a creation more in harmony with 
 the mournful Italians or the ponderous Germans. 
 
 My greatest regret is that I was not in Paris before the 
 lenten season, during the epoch of mad foll3^ and riotous 
 insouciaiice^ when the Nouve.l Opera reaches the height of 
 French brilliancy and drollerj- in the frantic hals masques 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 191 
 
 of the carnival. The present costly edifice is only in the 
 foetus of its saturnalian experience, but what instances of 
 frolic and fun, intrigue and equivoque, sin and scandal, 
 could be revealed b^' every stick and stone of the old 
 Opera on the Rue Ldpelletier 1 These divertisements are 
 alvvaj'S speciall}' organized by the favorites of the principal 
 theatres of Paris, and hugely enjoyed by all Paris. The 
 advocates of pleasure mingle in the wild whirl, and offici- 
 ate as vestals at the altars of Bacchus, while the more cir- 
 cumspect connoisseur gratifies his sated palate behind the 
 shadow of the impenetrable foliage sheltering his palace in 
 the Quartier St. Germain, and only rarely comes to the 
 Bal de I'Opera to enjoy the orgies of his less patrician 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The Oomedie Fran9aise, on the Rue Richelieu, in the 
 Palais Royal, the scene of the triumphs of Duchenois, 
 Mars, Rachel, Talma, — father and daughter, — Delaunay, 
 Got, and Bernhardt, who is now portraying Dona Sol in 
 Yictor Hugo's Her-nani^ is really the outgrowth of the 
 Hotel Bourgoyne, purchased by the then only organized 
 company in Paris, the Troupe Royal, three centuries ago. 
 It was in this primitive play-house that the masterpieces of 
 Racine, the sublime and pathetic delineator of womanly 
 passion, and Corneille, who is called the father of Frencii 
 tragedy and the Gallic Euripides, were first represented 
 and won the laurels of their authors. Three-quarters of a 
 century subsequently Moliere entered the litearte-dramatic 
 arena, and Louis XI II was so much more delighted with 
 his efforts as a theatrical zealot than royal valet de chamhre^ 
 that he vouchsafed him a theatre in the Palais du Louvre, 
 Avhere, having attracted the attention of the ecclesiastical 
 premier, Cardinal Richelieu, the aspiring dramatist was 
 granted another stage of action in the regal-clerical Palais 
 Ro3'al. 
 
 Though Moliere was preceded and succeeded by many 
 famous men, yet he is the presiding genius of the Theatre 
 Fraugais, and in the vicinity I daily pass the fountain and 
 street dedicated to the dead poet, and the house where he 
 breathed his last in sight of the court of his amaranthine 
 glories. 
 
 We are told that the drama is retrograding, and that 
 more attention is paid to the efl'ect and mannerism than 
 to exquisite finish and intensity of action. They tell us 
 that the omnipotent Bernhardt does not wear gracefuly the 
 mantle of her illustrious countrywoman, Rachel, although 
 she nightl_)' holds here audiences breathless by her weird 
 
192 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 grace, painful beauty, and anguished emotions in Phedra^ 
 tlie Cid^ the Sphynx^ and Athalie; they tell us that Got 
 and Mounet-Sully are raw and lack polish in comparison 
 with Delaunay and Coquelin ; yet we read in history 
 that Moliere's dramatic enterprise was commenced by only 
 tliree fiddles at the wings of the stage, and Corneille's 
 Le Cid was produced with only "a room with four 
 doors," and other plays with as ridiculous a dearth of ap- 
 pointments ; some being equipped with only two daggers 
 and others with three papers. We know that Moliere had 
 not reached the topmost round in the ladder of fame until 
 Mars came to strengthen his inspired lines by her genius 
 and power, and that neither she nor Rachel attained the 
 apogee of renown by one unbroken line of progress. But 
 Bernhardt dead, will wield a far more potential wand than 
 Bernhardt alive, though even now not only Paris, but all 
 the world have knelt at her shrine to offer her adoration 
 and gold. When the sage philosopher Hugo returns from 
 a rehearsal at the Fran§aise after Bernhardt has rendered 
 a true ideal of his creation, he exclaims in a glow of French 
 beatitude, "I have just kissed the hand of a queen." 
 
 The Theatre Fran§ais has a seating capacity of 1405 
 places; those of the best location commanding thirteen 
 francs. Single fauteuils in the first boxes may be pro- 
 cured for nine francs, and if you do not object to a sofa in 
 the third gallery you may enjoy the vagaries of the inimi- 
 table Sara for the vulgar sum of four francs. This house 
 appears to enjoy all the blessings vouchsafed to the pro- 
 fession. It not only has exclusive license to produce 
 tragedy, but a claim on every scholar of the Conservatoire, 
 which right it does not neglect to exercise, and is so 
 enabled to secure ever}'^ student with the promise of a fair 
 future. Its annual subsidy from the Government is $48,000. 
 
 At the Opera Comique in the Place Boieldieu, where 
 Giraudet is singing Peter in L'^Etoile du Nord, the prices 
 of admission are somewhat more reasonable, though the 
 cast of character is not so fine as I have seen at home. 
 
 The Varieties on the Boulevard Montmartre is the palace 
 of vaudeville, where the fair and fat Judic indulges her 
 antics to the delectation of her countless admirers, in the 
 naughty character of Niniche or La Comtesse de Gorniska. 
 
 She plays her dual role of prude and coquette as only a 
 Frenchwoman "to the manner born" can. When we see 
 her at Danville, with the count, her husband, she is the 
 quintessence of discretion and deliberation, even to the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 193 
 
 commendable fawn-colored silk gown and reputable brown 
 hair a la grecque ; but when she comes to Paris on a ram- 
 page, accompanied by one of her old associates, to whom 
 she is known as Niniche^ the stately, stilted toga of cir- 
 cumspection has evaporated, and we gaze upon her in all 
 the ravishing and half-naked radiance of yellow hair, pale- 
 blue silk, and arch little feet encased in satin slippers, and 
 through the apartment and about its mistress there is an 
 aroma of dash and dare sufficiently eloquent to need no 
 interpretation. Madame Judic is a woman of at least 
 thirty-eight, with the gift of appearing twenty or forty ac- 
 cording to caprice. She has the sweet, playful, pathetic 
 voice peculiar to the French ; never great, ever gratifying. 
 The Varieties has ever been the cradle of representations 
 bordering on the limitation of decency ; yet who does not 
 patronize it? and simply because all who go indulge in a 
 hearty, harmless laugh. 
 
 The Odeon, in the Place I'Odeon, the second Fran9aise 
 and the favorite resort of the students, has 1500 places, 
 that vary in price from ten to three francs, and is the 
 home of legitimate drama. The '' Danichefs," so well re- 
 membered in America, is now enjoying an unprecedented 
 run there. 
 
 At the Porte St. Martin, on the Boulevard St. Martin, 
 Victor Hugo's horrible and realistic Les Miserahles is 
 drawing vast multitudes. The audiences of this house 
 have craved food of thrilling cruelty ever since the days 
 when Mademoiselle Georges presented " Lucrece Borgia" 
 to that public, and fed the home-life of the Palais Tuileries 
 with the bones of contention and gossip. 
 
 The French are an exacting, laughter-loving clan, and 
 at man}^ of the playhouses three or lour separate perform- 
 ances are given in one evening, all attractive and worthy 
 of a distinct chronicle in my diary if I had room. 
 
 Despite the naturally impulsive incontinent French char- 
 acter, the audiences do not yield to the spirit of demon- 
 stration like the Americans and English. The applause 
 is conducted upon a more systematic plan. The actors 
 and playwrights do not hazard their reputations upon 
 the capricious appetites of a promiscuous mass; they 
 employ their claqueurs to lead and educate their houses, 
 to anticipate the worthy points in the drama, to hint at 
 the meritorious renditions of the author, and to temper the 
 popular emotion to the strength of the sentiment. These 
 claqiieni's are a component element of the corpa dramatique , 
 17 
 
194 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 nnd disciplined to their duties by their patronizing artists. 
 The Bernhardt, Croizette, and Got pay them well, and 
 drill them as acclaimers on to glory as they play. They 
 are not allowed to permit the vulgar mass to interriri)t line 
 grande passion when Bernhardt is plunged into a whirl- 
 wind of agony ; with their aid she holds the tension of every 
 nerve in the tightest coil until the final lines, and then she 
 is wafted to heaven with lier hearers in a French craze of 
 enthusiasm. Besides infusing the artist with the fire of 
 success, this custom serves as a pioneer to the pla3'goer ; 
 it teaches him a virtuous pause, and makes him wait for 
 the echo as his own watchword. The claque is the i)ro- 
 duct of centuries. Years ago, when tragedies of intense 
 emotion w^ere to be enacted, females of the same profession 
 were emploj'^ed to do the crying and fainting; of course I 
 looked for these feminine automata, and failing in my 
 search am lead to believe that that branch of hired Niobes 
 has passed Siway. 
 
 Ever3'where we have the female ushers, as in London. 
 -At the Grand Opera they seem to be all over forty-eight, 
 many approaching seventy, looking like an antiquated 
 brigade in uniform — a black gown, white apron, white cap, 
 and an amplitude of flaunting pink ribbon. I am told that 
 all these excessively conservative-looking old ladies have 
 agitating romances attached to their earlier lives; many of 
 them have gladdened the heart of a student in their grisette 
 days. The heyday of their youth has long melted into 
 gray and grim November, and the}^ have billeted themselves 
 upon the dramatic organizations for the remainder of their 
 days. They are the veterans of the naughty past. 
 
 The inevitable footstool that they carry about and insist 
 upon shoving under every pair of female shoes seems to 
 constitute their utmost duty. It was only after I learned 
 that an acceptance of this article meant a fee, that I real- 
 ized the secret income of this faded fraternity. 
 
 It would seem that all these official or licensed amuse- 
 ments would surfeit the French, but nearly every alternate 
 house in Paris is a factory of pleasure. Perhaps in so 
 saying 1 have unwittingly overstepped the margin ; but 
 certainly I shall be safer in the hint that the business of 
 enjoyment is here the chief object of man}^ lives. Religion 
 is a mere source of idle leisuie, in a word, a luxury. While 
 many French take the cream from the surface of pleasure 
 themselves, all through this magic city there are thousands 
 tuiling to make life entrancing to others, by catering to 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 195 
 
 human appetites and vices. They constantly prove the 
 Shakespearian maxim "All the world's a stage," for they 
 are an artificial show-people, ever in attitudes, and masks, 
 and poses, and colors, and music, and trinkets. They 
 seem to have been born to the travestie, and never reach 
 the finale until Death comes, and with his icy hand stills 
 their vagaries. Even then, in the Morgue or Pere La Chaise, 
 the corpse is made a joke or a jollity, the funeral an excuse 
 for a fanfaronade, and the tomb a pretext for a playful or 
 grotesque memory. 
 
 LETTER XLI I. 
 
 " Now is there then no earthly place 
 
 Where we can rest in dream Elysian, 
 Without some curved, round English face 
 
 Popping up near to break the vision ? 
 Who knows, if to the West we roam, 
 But we may find some blue at home 
 
 Among the blacks of Carolina ; 
 Or flying to the eastward sea, 
 Some Mrs. Hopkins taking tea 
 
 And toast upon the wall of China." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 I confess I do not like to leave Paris, and I say it with 
 a faint heart and write it with a faltering hand. Fain 
 would I linger at the banquet. "Time cannot wither nor 
 custom stale her infinite variety." 
 
 There is so much that is weird and old, fresh and start- 
 ling, in the habits and customs of these people, that each 
 distinguishing characteristic demands and deserves record. 
 And still I do not doubt that the French would be equally 
 amused by what they call our equivalent follies. 
 
 We are a domestic nation ; they are a community of 
 players. It is the first and chieiest aspiration of Americans, 
 and especially of Philadelphians, to possess a comfortable 
 — a luxurious — home; the family circle is the sanctuary 
 of bliss with us, and all endeavors look eagerly to that 
 goal. The Frenchman's home is the Tuileries, the Champs 
 Elysees, the Pare Monceaux, the places^ the cafe, or his 
 little iron chair and table on the sidewalk. We embellish 
 
196 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the interior of our houses, because we are more there, and 
 derive greater happiness from that altar of the affections ; 
 tiiey decorate the street, tlie church, the bench of the 
 boulevard, the fountain and the shrine. Every industrious 
 man and woman amongst us must aspire to a flower-garden, 
 bronzes, and fine furniture in the house, because this is 
 where they come when the toil of the day is over, and all 
 that is beautiful must be congregated into this haven of 
 rest. The French enjoy their parterres, and fountains, and 
 monuments in the squares and at the corners of the boule- 
 vards ; art, sculpture, and regal appointments in the Louvre, 
 the palaces, and the museums. There are one hundred and 
 eighty or one hundred and twenty-eight fountains in the 
 city of Paris, — I have really forgotten which, — and these 
 are invariably accompanied by flowering trees, historic me- 
 morials, and comfortable seats. All classes throng these 
 open places and gardens, regardless of station.- There, in 
 the garden of the Luxembourg, where once lingered 
 Madame Roland by the side of the Girondists, in the daj^s 
 of cabal and conspiracy, is one of the musty professors 
 from the College de France, Ecole de Medecine, Palais des 
 Beaux-Arts, Musee d'Histoire Naturelle, Amphitheatre 
 d'Anatomie, or one of the many other magazines of lore 
 with which this quarter is teeming, he is now shifted "the 
 lean and slippered pantaloon," and though there is much 
 in the busy life around him, he is absorbed in his little 
 book, and does not heed and appears not to see, the pretty, 
 liquid-ej^ed girls selling violets, the boys with their hoops, 
 and tops, and skipping-ropes, — for childhood is childhood, 
 in romantic, picturesque Paris, and indulges in the same 
 sports as in artless Philadelphia, — nor truant scholars, and 
 roisterers, linked arm-in-arm, airing their idle thoughts. 
 He goes on reading his book and preparing his recitations. 
 But to the gardens! Later in the day come the nurses 
 and their charges ; the lofty dames from their Legitimistic 
 homes, and the queens of the ambiguous circles, who ap- 
 l)ear in order to fulfil their appointments. Here they 
 mingle, and are permitted to follow the bent of their own 
 impulses so long as they are decorous. With us it is not 
 so; broad public acres and city squares, if not left to 
 questionable classes, are not sought by the better orders, 
 and even a visit to Fairmount Park should be properly 
 made in a carriage. The one dismal feature of the nu- 
 merous Paris pleasances is the dearth of sward. Other 
 elements consi)ire to make them beautiful ; the gleam of 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. . 197 
 
 statuary, the refreshing spray, the harmonious fall of foun- 
 tains, and the luxuriance of foliage. But the French seem 
 to regard grass-plots with antipathy, and prefer vast 
 stretches of arid gravel. 
 
 The restaurants and cafds are as interesting as the 
 squares, and the life in them as varied. On the Rive 
 Gauche the bouillis are an organized system, and tiieir pa- 
 trons are the students, professors, and merchants doing 
 business in the quartier. I believe they are considered the 
 most remunerative class of restaurants; their prices are 
 moderate, but their ceaseless support is a sure profit. The 
 food is savory, be it, only boiled meat or broth. The French 
 are the cooks par excellence of the world, and deserve the 
 palm. I would never swear to what I was eating at a 
 Parisian table. It is charmingly palatable, but there are 
 none of the original characteristics of fish, flesh, or fowl 
 left after the process of a French cuisine. Many and curi- 
 ous are the anecdotes of chefs of the culinary kingdom. 
 We read in history of a certain cook who hanged himself 
 because one of the courses was not done at the proper hour 
 for the royal board. After the fall of Napoleon, Monsieur 
 Tery attended the allied monarchs at three thousand francs 
 a daj^, and Louis Philippe's "Purveyor of Fish" received 
 twenty-six thousand dollars per annum. 
 
 If one wishes to dine with the uppertendom, one must 
 needs repair to Yoisin's, Riche, Anglais, Maison Doree, or 
 one of the epicurean palaces in the Palais Royal; Yery's, 
 Yefour's, Trois Freres Provenceau. At each is a cosmo- 
 politan throng, their respective nationalities distinguished 
 at a glance. The slim, slippery old gentleman opposite, 
 who is eating his dainties in selfish solitude, and sii)ping 
 his champagne, pouring only enough into his glass at once 
 for a single swallow, is an Englishman, and if I mistake 
 not, he is also a scholar. Near him is a group of his coun- 
 try people, ladies and gentlemen, of the predominent type; 
 large, stalwart, sandy-haired men, "in fair, round belly 
 with good capon lined," and robust women arrayed in un- 
 complementary colors. There is nothing e[)hemeral about 
 these ladies. At times they speak French, and at others 
 English, all in a sweet voice, like the tones of a muflled 
 silver bell, and although they are of the upper class their 
 aphseresis and prosthesis with h are distinctly audible. 
 Those two raw, crude boys, just of age, accompanied by 
 their male chaperon of forty, are my Western brethren ; if 
 any one should make inquiries regarding them I would be 
 
 17* 
 
198 . PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 wicked enough to deny their nativity. The eldest is ardu- 
 ously endeavoring to diffuse his whole body over the table, 
 while the youths are importuning the gargon in very bois- 
 terous fashion for roast chicken or lamb and plenty of it, 
 and not these vol-au-venfs and champignons^ and delicate 
 tidbits. Near by there is an exquisite young lady and her 
 distinguished father. He is a Boston barrister, and these 
 I am proud to claim as my compatriots. Her cultivation 
 may be heard in her pure English accent, and her refined 
 fostering in the harmony of her rich costume and polished 
 manner. When she addresses the waiter it is in his own 
 tongue, with nice emphasis, that emulates his own ; while 
 chatting with her father there is a naive unconsciousness 
 of self that is charming. The two young ladies with their 
 dashing cavaliers over in the corner are descendants of 
 Charlemagne, of course. Who would doubt it? To me 
 tl»ere is somethins: far more allurino- about a Frenchwoman 
 than my American or English sisters. They are a com- 
 bination of grace and wit, that in other females would seem 
 disreputable daring insouciance. They are enjoying all the 
 daintiest morsels of the menu^ and demolishing copious 
 draughts of Chateau Larose. 
 
 In most of the French restaurants of the better order, 
 and at the theatre-lobby bars, attractive girls are in attend- 
 ance at the desks; hardened and polished b}' the steel and 
 ice of flirtation, as beautiful as they are reckless, as dazzling 
 as they are desperate. 
 
 The Palais Royal, with its variety of expensive shops 
 and palatial restaurants, is still a hot-bed of faro, though 
 the very wealthy classes frequent the gambling clul)S on 
 the boulevards. Most of the cafes have their gambling 
 salons^ and it is a rare thing to pass in even the choicest 
 of these restaurants, without the flash gentleman at the 
 door interrogating ''* une cabinet particulierV There is 
 no attempt to screen these vices. The}' are spread before 
 the public in all their attractions. Gambling is legalized 
 throughout the Continent, and encouraged by the Republic, 
 while the favorite pastime of the plebeians is attending lot- 
 teries, where millions are lost and only thousands won. 
 
 These people have a way of giving proper names to their 
 leading shops as we do to hotels, and many of them are 
 supremel}' ridiculous. The " Bon Marche" is a reasonable 
 appellation for the establishment it dignifies, as all the 
 goods are moderate in price, and uj)on entering the shop 
 one is incontinently enveloped in the essence of cheapness. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 199 
 
 It is the first and last resort of Americans. " Old England" 
 is a shop of homespun woollens and serges on the Bonle- 
 varde des Italiens. Its name is compatible with its stock 
 and attendants. It is chiefly valuable to English ladies 
 going over to the Continent, as they may here secure a 
 linen duster, an ugly plaid ulster, made of convict's mate- 
 rial, and Turkish towelling, and green barege veiling to tie 
 round their hats. Then the "Carnival of Venice," in 
 which I can discover nothing consistent. The ''Good 
 Devil," ah ! this to my woman's wit reveals its significance 
 — there will be the devil of a row when the liill comes liome. 
 The "Infant Jesus" baffles my powers of discernment, un- 
 less through this omnipotent medium all blessings may be 
 obtained. " The Great House of Peace," yes, here are 
 unctions that physic all pains. But for me, " Les grandes 
 Magasins du Louvre!" Here not onl}' all that adorns a 
 woman, but all that beautifies her home is procurable, in 
 the clioicest and most ravishing designs. 
 
 What a contrast the Paris streets form to-day with their 
 deplorable condition forty years ago! Then when the 
 ladies went on the promenade they were obliged to escaj e 
 dead cats and putrescent matter of divers species ; in many 
 of the smaller byways the garbage floated in the middle <jf 
 the street. Now they are swept and scoured into ullra- 
 cleanliness. Walk where you will, the same universal purity 
 is pre-eminent, even to the confines of the town at the Porte 
 Maillot, where the octroi is collected from the vegetable and 
 fruit vendors, bringing the produce of their little gardens 
 be^'ond the bastions of the cit}', to flnd purchasers within. 
 
 When one arrives in this dazzling metropolis, there is a 
 supreme superficial glitter, that one believes may ver}^ soon 
 be exhausted; but as we linger new and more profound 
 attractions burst \\\)0\\ us. When we are sated by the parks 
 and palaces, the operas and art galleries, the monuments 
 and the museums, the flowers and fountains; then the great 
 public works of education, charity, and civic government 
 engage us even after these'social attractions are powerless. 
 They have hospitals for the treatment of cutaneous diseases 
 exclusively, as the Saint Louis, and the Hotel Dieu where 
 all afflicted by contagious eruptions are denied admit- 
 tance; Hopital du Midi, unexceptionally for males and their 
 malades impropre ; the Plopital de Lourcine is the female 
 branch of this peculiar charity; almshouses innurnerable 
 for the old and the young, the halt and the blind, and a 
 visit to the Hospice pour les infants traves, in the Rue 
 
 k 
 
200 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 d'Enfer, creates a regret in one's heart for legitimate gamins 
 who have no good nun to care for them, and are perliaps 
 starving for bread and rolicking in defilement, while these 
 little inconnus are nurtured with tenderness, and stimulated 
 by purity. 
 
 LETTER X LIII. 
 
 " When, from the sacred garden driven, 
 Man fled before his Maker's wrath. 
 An angel left her place in Heaven, 
 
 And crossed the wanderer's sunless path. 
 'Tvvas Art ! sweet Art! new radiance broke 
 Where her light foot flew o'er the ground. 
 And thus with seraph voice she spoke : 
 ' The curse a blessing shall be found.' " 
 
 Charles Spiiague. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 I HAVE visited the palaces clustered on the Ciiamps dc 
 Mars, within shadow of the exquisite subuibs, — Passy and 
 Lamuers, — and the Moresque Trocadero, crowning the his- 
 torical heights of Chaillot, again and again in the hope of see- 
 ing them in a state of completion, and I have half-fearfuliy 
 souglit in their equipments splendor sur[)assing our display 
 of 18*16. Surel}^ I have not found it upon the open terri- 
 tory surrounding the buildings. While the esplanade is 
 broad, and the grassy knolls and gay parterres bordering 
 the main exposition hall are models of liarmony and 
 grace, tliey have no fitting expanse. While the structures 
 are spacious, there is a general appearance of crampedness 
 prevailing throughout, and this feature is attributable to 
 the absence of the vistas in which our glorious Centennial 
 was so fortunate. 
 
 In the main hall there are no series of long lines of per- 
 spective stretching from end to end, sucli as gave our 
 building its magnificent expressi<jn of distance. But I be- 
 lieve the manner of dissecting streets and spaces by rigid 
 plumb line is pre-eminently Philadelphian, and our adhe- 
 rence to it has won for us the stigma of conoeyitionaliatf?. 
 However, the jutting arms of sections, and the abrupt 
 blockading of avenues in the French exhibition, have 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 201 
 
 stripped the coup d^oeil of all the raagnitude of area and 
 sj'mmetry of contour that we had so completely. 
 
 Lengthy passages drawn out in seemingly endless ex- 
 tension, serving as a telescope by which to anticipate dis- 
 tant glories, are as a rule more appetizing than a dazzling 
 constellation suddenl}^ thrust upon you after being obscured 
 by a cloud of obstructions. We are more deeply impressed 
 by a grandiose display of pyrotechnics, or a luminous me- 
 teor that radiates the firmament from zenith to horizon 
 with empyrean effulgence, than by a series of Roman-can- 
 dle explosions or a succession of ignes fatui. So in the 
 interior construction of the French exhibition the tout en- 
 semble of the display' is much depreciated, at least to my 
 eyes. 
 
 The British department exhibits more geometry in the 
 division of its aisles and the distribution of its cases 
 than any of the other sections, and here I have experienced 
 more real pleasure than even in our American section. 
 Not onl}^ have the English been most vigilant in the recti- 
 linear system of the arrangement, but the cases are all so 
 built as to add to the value of their contents. 
 
 The buildings themselves are more ornate and artistic 
 than ours of 18*76. The prodigality of gay Gallic colors 
 and decorations is very effective. But the whole exposi- 
 tion is as pallid in contrast with tlie Centennial as tlie 
 sweet light of the moon — outdazzled by the lusty exuber- 
 ance of the noonday sun. 
 
 In passing from gallery to gallery the rude, brilliant 
 frescoes adorning the fagades impart to the scene an Ori- 
 ental glow. Once upon the avenue intersecting the main 
 hall with its bulwark of national architecture, and its 
 many detachments for the reception of beaux-arts^ the eye 
 is gratified by an infinity of bizarre and entrancing effects. 
 Perhaps it is the rare combination of sui gene7Hs edifices, 
 domed and shady palisades draped by antique tapestry, or 
 crimson and golden Moorish arras intervening and throw- 
 ing into bolder relief the opposite method of national 
 erection; or perhaps the many curious foreign representa- 
 tives, in their variegated costumes and the Babel of mixed 
 vernaculars, that produce these effects ; but they are very 
 novel. 
 
 Passing between the art gallery and these types of uni- 
 versal national S3^mbols, where the minarets and cupolas 
 of the Mahometan, the lacy fretwork of the Swiss chalet^ 
 the dismal, austere model of early English, the ease and 
 
202 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 elegance of modern French and Italian, and the flaunting, 
 yet practical, red brick of American architecture, are 
 blended into one panorama of harmonious variet}'^, we came 
 upon the Prince of Wales's pavilion. Possessing a testi- 
 monial of admittance from Governor McCormick, the door 
 was opened instantl}^, and the favor denied to many was 
 granted unto us. The Prince and his royal spouse were 
 not at home, so the attendant said, but were expected during 
 the afternoon, to remain overnight in their miniature pal- 
 ace on the Champs de Mars, so we were allowed to roam 
 over the apartments at will. Through a broad, tessellated 
 corridor, flanked by small antechaml>ers, we directly en- 
 tered the dining-hall, where the table was alread}'^ laid for 
 its princely guests, though the day was young. A long 
 table it was, with places laid for twelve. Though the linen 
 was the heaviest and softest, and shone with the lustre of 
 satin, there were no embroidery nor crestings. Though the 
 glassware was the purest and most sparkling crystal, the 
 brilliancy was unmarred by intricate wreaths of engraving. 
 They were undefiled by the stylus of the artisan, with the 
 exception of a modest armorial device, encircled by a deli- 
 cate garland of immortelles. An embossed gold flower-urn 
 and corresponding candelabras furnished the centre, while 
 about the sides and corners of the table a golden dinner- 
 service, elaborately wrought in curious designs of y^epounse 
 and frosted-workmanship, was spread, ready to receiv^e the 
 viands of the sybaritic feast. The four walls were hung 
 with tapestries made at the Queen's castle in the little 
 town of Windsor, and the representations from the scenes 
 in Shakespeare's " Merry Wives." These are the present 
 theme of fashionable criticism in society and the papers. 
 From the ponderous and pompous upholstering and gold 
 plate of the salle a manger to the fair}'' brilliancy of the 
 Princess's boudoir was, indeed, a transformation scene in 
 a holiday pantomime. All that the adjacent chamber con- 
 tained of the oppressive sumptuousness this one had in the 
 delicate splendor of blue and gilt appointments. In a side 
 alcove there was built an artificial grotto, where the waters 
 of a fountain fall in melodious tinkle upon the exotics, 
 whose bronze foliage acted as a foil to the stony scintilla- 
 tions of gods and goddesses it struggled to hide, and con- 
 trasted vividly with the confused tones — brickdust and 
 saffron — of the majolica vases. Farther on we came to 
 dressing-rooms and business bui-eaus, all characterized by 
 a lavish expenditure in English and French luxuries. The 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 203 
 
 exlravagfince of princes was forcibly portrayed in the mar- 
 quetrie mantels and doors, fashioned in the rarest designs 
 from the woods of India — costly additions, that may be 
 useless in a few months, when the pavilion is razed. 
 
 Continuing down this avenue we emerge into tiie broad 
 esplanade of the main hall which strikes me as being much 
 handsomer than our hall in Fairmount Park. The building 
 of itself is a mere shell, but so richly is it colored and col- 
 umned, so radiant with stained glass windows, so to speak, 
 forming the upper two-thirds of the fagade^ that I felt its 
 influence long afterwards. I hear it nevertheless denounced 
 as tawdry^ with its crude and show}'- colossal statues resting 
 against ostentatious pillars far above whose heads float 
 tlieir banners and pennons ; but I did not agree with the 
 A^erdict. A sloping sward closely shaven, planted with 
 flowering plots and freshened by fountains, gravitates to a 
 microcosm of restaurants, kiosks, and foreign bureaus. 
 Through the entrance of the Quai d^Orsay^ guarded by its 
 gigantic bronzes, you rest upon the Pont de Jena, to watch 
 the little steamers puflfing to and fro on the placid Seine, 
 some conveying a freight of visitors to the Exhibition 
 Palaces, and others moored to the stone wharves, depositing 
 their stores of stone and wood, to complete the temples of 
 art, science, and industry. Many aquatic sportsmen in otiose 
 mood are pulling themselves in little canoes over the still 
 and silent stream, while other riotous parties of bacchantes 
 are filling the air with shout and jest. Upon the bridge 
 are the votaries of fashion and frolic, who have come to see 
 and be seen ; the artist with palette and brush, and the 
 architect inspecting with critical eye every curve and capi- 
 tal, base and bend, that make up the colonnades of the 
 Trocadero; the correspondent who is interviewing the in- 
 tegral parts of the picture en masse and jotting down airy 
 nothing from which he will weave several columns of the 
 most substantial material; the fair round churchman with 
 missal and rosar3', adding savor, as it were, to this human 
 olla podrida. 
 
 To view the Trocadero from the base of the mound is 
 scarcely satisfactory. In this position an accurate pros- 
 pect of the whole may be obtained, but to enjoy and study 
 the building proper, one must linger about the parc^ take 
 a seat at one of the little cafe tables so numerous in the 
 grounds, and wdiile lunching, dwell upon this vast loadstar 
 enthroned upon the verdured summit which a century ago 
 was destined as the site of the reoral home of the future 
 
204 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS "^ 
 
 King of Rome. Mark well its many attractive points. It 
 is a vast semicircular edifice; a huge rotunda forming the 
 centre, flanked by square wings with lofty towers, and pro- 
 jecting from these wings, extending from the northeast to 
 the southwest, are sky-lighted galleries modelled after the 
 peristyles of Campanian towns. This canopied and colon- 
 naded promenade stretches from one extremity to the other 
 of the palace with the Spanish name, encompassing the 
 music hall, and connecting at each of the open vestibules 
 of the wings, and reached b}^ spacious stone stairways, or, 
 as a correspondent calls them, stoops from the several 
 footpath?!. There is no sterility of decoration, as flags float 
 in an endless array of colors along the margins of the roofs, 
 and statues perfect each pilaster of the superb colonnade. 
 Issuing from the centre of this building, and as if rushing 
 from the columns, is a cascade of foaming water, that takes 
 one plunge to the ground level, and then over a series of 
 gravitating steps until it drifts into the great circular 
 basin; through this volume of crested foam ^e^s d^eaux 
 eject their spray aloft, and fountains at opposite angles 
 cast their waters to each other in playful motion. The 
 beds of tulips and early spring flowers are more beautiful 
 by their slight inclination toward the horizon, nestling 
 upon the gentle acclivity, and the four great brazen beasts 
 — the horse, the bull, the elephant, and rhinoceros — at the 
 corners of the basin, though magnificent works of art, 
 seem sadly inharmonious. However, they contribute to- 
 ward a construction that is most fantastic and unconven- 
 tional, from the Alpha to the Omega. 
 
 The Chaillot Heights, like many of the Parisian suburbs 
 were discovered to be thoroughly alveolated by ancient 
 quarries, rendering it absolutel3'^ necessary to form a new 
 and solid foundation for the Palais du Trocadero, but from 
 this circular condition of the hillside, the curious fresh- 
 water aquarium sprang. These aquaria are formed b}'- the 
 natural old quarry cavities, and though presenting the ap- 
 pearance of a succession of small ponds upon the grounds, 
 the water descends gently through the ichthyological re- 
 treats. 
 
 When the interior of the Trocadero is quite completed, 
 the long wings will be the depository of art, while the 
 rotunda will be the hall of festas and ceremonials. When 
 I first looked upon the disordered mass, I scarcely hoped 
 to see it in its present glorious state, but the French seem 
 to economize time and weather; they level streets in a night 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 205 
 
 and compass impossibilities in a day. It is a modern ver- 
 sion of Aladdin's lamp and the Prince's palace. And it is 
 ever the one stor}'-, either in work or in war; they overrun 
 kingdoms and establish republics as rapidly as they forget 
 their beloved dead and forgive the tyrannical living. 
 
 To-day the Exposition is a flower and poem, and though 
 I recall the emotions incited by the Centennial in these 
 Paris parterres and palaces spread over the Champs de 
 Mars and hills of Passy, never again can I thrill with the 
 feelings that made me at once so proud and so happy at 
 the celebration of my country's enfranchisement. 
 
 LETTER XLIT. 
 
 "Turn to the world — its curious dwellers view, 
 Like Paul's Athenians, seeking something new. 
 Be it a bonfire's or a city's. blaze. 
 The gibbet's victim, or the nation's ga^e, 
 A female atheist, or a learned dog, 
 A monstrous pumpkin, or a mammoth hog, 
 A murder, or a muster, 'tis the same, 
 Life's follies, glories, griefs, all feed the flame." 
 
 Charles S^kague. 
 
 Paris, May, 1878. 
 
 To chronicle the Exhibition Universelle in detail would 
 be the wildest sort of enterprise; still I must record some 
 contrasts and comparisons that made the most impression 
 on me before I say good-bye. 
 
 But how to begin and where? At the American section, 
 that is closest my heart, or at the English, French, or 
 Italian, that please my eye? From tl^e chief exhibition 
 entrance, the sea of glory opens with the Indian presents 
 of the Prince of Wales. They glitter under the rich can- 
 opy of Oriental design and coloring, called the "India 
 House." To enumerate the jewelled swords, snufl'-boxes, 
 medals, royal decorations, shawls, and laces, duplicated 
 again and again, would craze a mathematician. The deeper 
 l^hilosophy taught by all this superabundance of useless 
 gifts is the obeisance equally of the commoners and the 
 nobility to the crown. All day throngs cluster about 
 these India cases, to count over and memorize the honors 
 IS 
 
206 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 bestowed upon the Prince, so that they may tell them to 
 others. I join the ocean of humanit}', but only to admire 
 and study these sinfully costly gewgaws, just as I linger at 
 the ceramic display of the Minton and Doulton clays, the 
 Copeland and Worcester Parian, the Chelsea porcelain, 
 and the Wedgwood Jasper. Royalty has its uses in the 
 encouragement of genius, and the distribution of the an- 
 tique models; but it is painful to see how many millions 
 are given to feed the overfed kings of the world, and to 
 decorate those who are already overweighted with their 
 chains of gold. I believe it is generally conceded that the 
 present exhibition of the products of the British potteries 
 outdazzles their specimens at the Centennial display in 1876. 
 It seems only reasonable that it should, in consideration 
 of the difficulties of the voyage, but it does not strike me 
 so. Perhaps I am a patriotic bigot who sees all copies of 
 our national display only to their disparagement, but I 
 never can repeat the first joy of our own universal Ameri- 
 can banquet. This is the national excuse for depreciation ; 
 if so, it is the familiar simile of the little child with the 
 gingerbread horse, the sense of first pleasure lasts through 
 the after years. I still taste that earl}^ gingercake. There 
 is nothing to take the place of the Centennial. 
 
 Bronzes, tapestries, statuary, and pictures are sources 
 of endless enjoyment at a great fair. Among the most 
 bizarre gems of the English pottery department were the 
 Greek vases in imitation of red granite, from the factories 
 of Wedgwood & Sons, at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staf- 
 fordshire. 1 bent long over a choice collection of clocks, 
 time-pieces, etc., adorned with original plaques of faience, 
 from James Howell, Regent Street, London. Fascinating 
 as many of the modern services are, the most persistent 
 efforts seem to be lavished upon certain panels. These 
 are entrancing beyond description. Many sacred subjects, 
 representations from the early Greek and Roman epics, 
 and themes of feudal troubadours, are faithful, with a deli- 
 cacy of pigment and exactness of outline that are the per- 
 fection of ceramic art. "The Infant Saviour in the arms 
 of Simeon," "Gethsemane," "The Walk from Emmaus," 
 "The Resurrection," "Elaine," and many other equally 
 familiar objects, are treated with almost articulate pathos. 
 
 Staffordshire is, so to speak, a priceless mine of clay 
 fields, as one soon learns by walking through the Paris 
 Exposition. It is almost visiting the district of the "Pot- 
 teries," which extends along the course of the Trent, where 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 20t 
 
 the only occupation of the population is the manufacture 
 of this precious earthenware, and though Burslem sends 
 many fine productions, Stoke-upon-Trent, a town of lesser 
 inhaljitants, and two hundred factories, transmits the lion's 
 share. Have we not in our country the same earths, and 
 the same sl^ill to mix, mould, and poetize them? 
 
 I noticed a case of exquisite ladies' shoes, bearing a close 
 similitude to the same with which our English friends 
 favored the Centennial; surely no French cordonnier ever 
 infused greater finish and delicacy into his inspiration, yet 
 the English are the illest-shod females on the two hemi- 
 spheres. They invent exquisite shoes, but have few feet 
 among their own people to fit them. 
 
 The cutlery of Sheffield and Birmingham can no longer 
 claim a place alone, no more can the Manciiester prints, 
 since our Yankee steel and cotton are sold upon English 
 counters; anotiier disenchantment began at the Centennial 
 and repeated in Paris. It is upon this platform that tlie 
 United States stands pre-eminent. I find here other facts 
 for thought. Our agricultural and steam-propelling ma- 
 chines, our pianos, and sewing machines, are everywhere 
 unsurpassed, and let it be said our exhibits of this kind 
 were not onl}'" creditable to our inventors, but to our taste 
 in the useful arts. This last feature is also noticeable in 
 our surgical and dental instruments, our carriages, and the 
 exquisite gold and silverware of Tiffany. But, where was 
 the great ''Corliss" that impelled our country's industrial 
 and mechanical representatives? How [ missed the colos- 
 sus. It would have made the Frenchmen stare, and com- 
 pensated for other deficiences. 
 
 The Japanese and Chinese departments are interesting, 
 as these almond-eyed people ever are in all their enter- 
 prises. But there is a sweet familiarity about all that I 
 see. The carved ivory beds and painted silk canopies are 
 just as wonderful if not quite as fresh as when I saw them 
 in Philadelphia. Still even those Americans who are so 
 indignant because we are not strong enough in the Ameri- 
 can department in Paris, and scold Congress for not giving 
 Governor McCormick half a million to make a respectable 
 show in this great world's carnival and jewel-house, — even 
 these take comfort because the Japanese showed their most 
 lovely productions first to the world through our spectacles 
 in Fairmount Park. The Centennial is a great comforter, 
 I assure 3'ou, away over here. 
 
 The crown jewels of Great Britain have been convej^ed 
 
208 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Inther from the Tower, and here is a splendid treat for the 
 French masses that we were unable to offer in Philadelphia. 
 After that, very naturally, I strayed into the jewel depart- 
 ment of the French section, and found this part of the 
 pageant sparkling with diamonds and gold far beyond con- 
 ception. I wish I had the ability to paint this dazzling 
 scene. It is so, indeed, that a great gem is never lost! 
 It may be stolen, but all the thieves feel a special property 
 in its preservation. It cannot be imitated, and so carries 
 lis own protection in its scarcity. A great jewel is like 
 the special discovery of an island, once found all are 
 solicitous to keep it, and a continent cannot be counter- 
 feited. The Russian jewel department, though perhaps 
 not finer than in 1876, is more extensive. It embraces a 
 wider sphere of female decorations, and the Russian man- 
 ner of giving tone and color to gold is wholly unique. A 
 medallion has upon its upper face the protoplast of a pear 
 and the leaves; tlie fruit is a fac simile pearl of a delicate 
 pink and yellow shade; the leaves are of the metal, pre- 
 sented in frostwork, combining the green, yellow, russet, 
 and brown of autumnal tints. Ear-drops, symbolical of 
 fuchsias, of this same colored gold, having tlie petals tipped 
 sometimes with coral and sometimes with pearls; orna- 
 ments figurative of the rose, shaded from pale-saffron to 
 pink, are only the more simple of these elegant designs. 
 The Muscovite is master in his own school of art, and is 
 strong in his silver and malachite conceits, even be3'ond 
 the French. 
 
 In the French annex of Indies' costumes we find the 
 grandest achievements of Worth's and Pingat's skill. Here 
 are dresses that would create an insurrection if carried into 
 a Philadelphia saloon. I will not attempt to sketch these 
 fantastic anatomies. But then their vagaries were pro- 
 duced to glorify the inventor's name, and though they are 
 the excessive poetry of female attire, it is doubtful if they 
 will remunerate the contriver. 
 
 An English lady of considerable cultivation insists that 
 the display of statuary falls in point of merit far beneath 
 our collection in 1876, and not only so, but declares that 
 after visiting all the important galleries of Europe she 
 found none so rich en masse as that gathered into our art 
 aggregation in Fairmount Park. I listened but was not 
 convinced, and so took her compliment in silent surprise. 
 To compare our Exhibition, even with all that was loaned 
 from abroad, to the depositories of ancient art, is scarcely 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 209 
 
 just. One is the schoolroom of present study, the other 
 the tera|)le of bygone splendor. We do not look for a 
 Phidias, a Praxiteles, a Milo, or Marble Faun. These are 
 the uncontested and often unknown masters. I see much 
 that pleases me, not so much it is true as I saw at home, 
 but then I look tli rough my patriotic glasses, and I cannot 
 forget original tastes, as I said. 
 
 The French disciples of the brush are all here, in the 
 Beaux Arts, in holiday regalia; Jules Breton, in his real- 
 istic pencillings of peasant life; Diaz in forest scenes, 
 where the mellow yet brilliant blending of tones is his chief 
 merit; Bouguereau in saintly portrayals; and Messonier 
 in his characteristic little gems. J hear that quite a num- 
 ber of Corots are yet to be bung, but there is some discus- 
 sion about giving them a place, and I shall have bidden 
 adieu to sweet Paris before the issue can be settled. Many 
 of our old Centennial pictures smile on me a homelike wel- 
 come, and among these Frith's Railroad Station and Queen 
 Victoria's Marriage. 
 
 In my saunterings, this thought comes: Human intellect 
 is undoubtedly more worshipi)ed and has better chances in 
 France than in England; and there is no more patent dis- 
 play of this fact than in this French Exposition. In Great 
 Britain there is still a large royal family, with only their 
 azure blood to consecrate their titles, and there a higher 
 court must be paid to those whose crowns are worn on 
 their heads than to those whose great thoughts are the 
 gold and jewels hidden in the casket of the brain. The 
 mere snob gives his homage to the sovereign invented by 
 law, but is quite as likely to sneer at the French monarchs 
 of the mind, Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, Emile de Girardin, 
 and Laboulaye; he never heard or cared to hear of the 
 dead kings of literature and art, Chateaubriand, Scarron, 
 Guizot, Thiers, Voltaire, Moliere, Racine, and Sismondi; 
 but this noble show is suggestive of them all, the dead and 
 the living. The face of the Prince of Wales has very much 
 the appearance of a jolly country squire, with his bold fore- 
 head and Hanoverian cast of countenance. The old King 
 of Spain looks like a faded roue. The Princess of Wales 
 has a plain, refined face, but void of beauty, and a hundred 
 others of these people ma}^ be classed in the same category. 
 But there is a presence about Gambetta, with his one 63^6, 
 that gives him the look of a fierce Cyclops; Girardin seems 
 a polished courtier of seventy, in whose face reason holds 
 the highest throne; Edmund About, a bronze giant; La- 
 
 18* 
 
210 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 boiilaye, the statesman and the philosopher; and Victor 
 Hugo, an inspired Dervish. I do not know anybody in 
 the Royal House of England that ever showed any special 
 brains; none of tlie Princes or Princesses; while over here 
 in France the Orleans and Bourbon pretenders are some 
 of them very able men. Most of the great writers, artists, 
 painters, and sculptors, are Republicans, and have been for 
 years, long before the fall of the last Empire. Most of the 
 philosophers and scientists are on the same side. Of course 
 tiiere are plenty of other men against the Republic, and for 
 reaction; but 1 look in vain for a man on the Rei)ul)lican 
 side in England who has an}'' special status as a great poet, 
 painter, sculptor, s{)eaker, or essayist. The best Republi- 
 can in that great country is a woman, and lier name is 
 Georije Eliot, 
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 
 "In orange-groves and myrtle bowers, 
 
 1 hat breathe a gale of fragrance round, 
 I charm the fairy-footed hours 
 
 With my loved lute's romantic sound ; 
 Or crowns of living laurel weave 
 For those that run tlie race at eve." 
 
 Rogers. 
 
 Lyons, May, 1878. 
 
 Never was Paris more glorious than when I passed 
 through its shining boulevards and open squares toward 
 the Embarcadere de Lyon yesterday. The spires and 
 domes of the marvellous city were sparkling in the sun- 
 light, the flowers blooming at the corners, and the Tricolor 
 of France and the Stars and Stripes of her sister republic, 
 America, blending and floating in the breeze. Perhaps it 
 was this sweet fraternity, and perhaps my own affection 
 for home, that caused the ineffable sadness at my heart as 
 I rode away. There has been an essence of home about 
 this place ever since I came into it one shining Sabbath 
 four weeks ago. Peradventure, you may say, 1 loved it 
 because it is gay and dazzling, because 1 caught all the 
 smiles and none of the sighs, because I had seen only the 
 beautiful and none of the bestial, because I was thoughtful 
 only of the charms and thoughtless of the crosses ; or, it 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 211 
 
 may be, yon will say that I revelled in the wild enchant- 
 ment, and had no conception of its sins and its sorrows. 
 Bnt eager as I am lor fresh territories, the regret at leaving 
 this sweet foreign habitation, as I had grown to regard it, 
 was quite sincere. 
 
 As 1 passed the cabarets^ hotels, and shops I met occa- 
 sionally Italian, English, and even German flags, but 
 French and American constantly. We were passing 
 through the Pays Latin ^ where liberty is dearly cherished, 
 and these twin republican symbols were far more frequent 
 than on the opposite border of the Seine amongst the rep- 
 resentatives of the ancient regime. 
 
 Numbers of students were clustered about the libraries 
 that flank the Seine in this i)ortion of the cit}', where 
 books by famous authors, of whom I never heard, may be 
 purchased from two sous to a Louis d'or. 
 
 As we drew near the depot, upon the confines of Bercy, 
 we found the streets straggling, and the workmen in their 
 blouses; now and then one in sabots would clatter over the 
 stones, a fruit-seller or flower-girl in blue petticoat and 
 white coiffe^ and arms as bare and as brown as polished 
 porphyry, crossed the white streets that increase in dazzling 
 lustre, with their little stores upon their heads from their 
 homes about Charenton beyond the bastions; great logs 
 and rafts were drifting in the silent flow of the river, or 
 heaped upon the stone quays. Everywhere there was con- 
 tent and thrift, but none of the glitter and crush of tiie 
 city. We had already crossed the threshold of the Palace 
 of Enchantment. 
 
 We took tickets for Lyons, a ride of nine and a quarter 
 hours through the Burgundy vineyards of France. It 
 seemed like a long ride, but I knew it would not prove 
 tedious, lying through this golden district, that i)resented 
 a new and entrancing picture at each step; but I was not 
 prepared for the burst of glory that greeted me upon leav- 
 ing Paris, and did not desert me until night came and hid 
 it from m}^ ardent gaze 
 
 We rapidly penetrated into the richest sections of France, 
 though not the most picturesque; for it had none of the 
 wild romance of rugged mountains, sharp defiles, dark 
 gorges, and foaming waters ; but all the calm, domestic 
 beauty of rich farmlands, cultivated hillsides, and happy 
 homes. I met with no starvation and squalor; all was 
 peaceful and flourishing, and all were at work; no one de- 
 spised or scorned labor, and therefore all were prosperous. 
 
212 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 This absence of the woes of intemperance is tlie prevail- 
 ing characteristic of tlie Valley of tiie Marne, that stretches 
 far away to the left, in one unbroken plain of fertility. 
 After crossing the waters from which this luxuriant region 
 derives its name, near their confluence with the Seine, 
 guarded on tiie west i)y Fort Ivr^^, and the east b}^ Char- 
 enton, our companionship with it ceased, and through 
 Seine et Marne, along the green slopes of the Yeres, a 
 territory of verdure-clad hills, we saw here and there an 
 artistic dwelling set down in a dale of flowers, and the 
 smoke from thriving mills curling over the landscape. 
 
 Entering the forest of Fontainebleau the trees seenl as 
 if they had been uprooted and replaced in long straight 
 lines by a surveyor. The vegetable gardens are rich in 
 produce for the great cit}''. We have already passed many 
 white-stone quarries, the wealth of which is so extensively 
 utilized in the noble edifices we have left behind us — per- 
 haps forever. I had believed the glistening Paris houses 
 to be composite, and a portion of the city certainly is, but 
 here before me and around me are vast blocks of creamy 
 stone, newly cut from chalky beds beyond. These deposits 
 lie close along the railway, and laborers are busy digging 
 and hewing the material for builders. 
 
 And now there are vines everywhere; they are drawn 
 out far ahead as a wayside border of our route. The 
 grapes are grown upon the terraced hillsides, and trained 
 to little sticks not more than two feet high, and women are 
 to be seen everywhere upon the blooming acclivities tend- 
 ing their crops for the approaching vintage. Where are 
 the men? I involuntarily ask; the women are doing all the 
 drudgery. One fertile valley succeeds another, and another, 
 and another, until I am prone to believe there is not an 
 acre of Yonne and the Cote d^or which is not devoted to 
 the grape and the olive. Behind the hillocks are plateaux 
 of sward and neat little cottages ; tall poplars shorn of 
 foliage, until the eff"ect is that of a forest of flagstaff's or 
 telegraph poles, one of the principal features of the French 
 landscape. Hamlets as white as a seagull's wing are 
 couched against gentle inclinations, and feudal chateaux 
 and abbeys crown the summits, where many a revel, and 
 many a secret, and many an exile were hidden in the long 
 ago, when convent was only a euphuism for carousal, and 
 chateau for confinement. The turrets and the spires gleam 
 still and solemn against the intensely blue sky, the land is 
 as full of mediaeval history as of present prosperity; per- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 213 
 
 haps when it rang with wilder revelry, more triumphant 
 victories, and the glory of greater names, it felt the lash 
 of a more tyrannical rule. 
 
 As we neared Dijon our line lay through a series of tun- 
 nels, cuttings, and viaducts, and as we emerged the dusky 
 gray of the olive was seen in more frequent patches of light, 
 to which the vine-clad hills served as a background. Here 
 and there in vales to our right we saw the golden glisten 
 of orange groves between the glossy foliage; and I realized 
 that I was in a strange country. Ruins, pointing out the 
 spots where time has placed his despoiling finger, were crum- 
 l)lino: around wliere feudal sovereis^ns dwelt and died. Ah! 
 yes, the Cote d'or is very beautiful and luscious in its green 
 and purple robes, and delights the eye as much as it grati- 
 fies the palate. 
 
 The peasants were clustered in little groups at the 
 stations, and in the white roads sparkling with silica they 
 looked like moving bouquets of ruddy autumn dahlias. 
 Their costumes were modelled after the picturesque Swiss 
 type, doubtless the dress of their alpine neighbors. These 
 fair maids of France do not fulfil the fair conception we 
 had formed of them from romances and traveller's tales. 
 They are almost unexceptionably dwarfed and ungraceful; 
 but a better educational system seems now to prevail iu 
 these districts of France. The daugliters of the vintage- 
 owners assist in the cultivation of the vine, and no part of 
 mental discipline is neglected to render them proficient. 
 Those we met were merry ; not intoxicated b}^ the juice of 
 the grapes, but drunk with the delight of their new liberty. 
 
 We were very near to Haute-Sa6ne, and the magnificent 
 forests, with their caverns of coal and iron, branching off 
 from the Vosges, close in the valley like great walls of pine 
 and poplar. 
 
 It was 4.30 or 5 p.m. when we stopped at Dijon, and with 
 all the transcendent glory of the Burgundian hillsides, the 
 prosaic name of dinner was not unwelcome. Nothing could 
 be more delightful than the viands spread before us at the 
 station buflfet, the wine of the vicinage included, for four 
 francs. A dinner of seven courses, comprising a delicious 
 soup, fish, roast beef, vegetables, spring chicken and let- 
 tuce, compote, pudding, fruits, nuts, cheese, and coffee, had 
 the effect of returning the passengers to the train in the 
 most vivacious mood. 
 
 Dijon is a zigzag old town, at the confluence of the 
 Ouche and the Souzon, of about 40,000 inhabitants. In 
 
214 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 earlier dnys, when France was under the dominion of a 
 number of petty feudal officers, it was the capital of Bur- 
 gundy, and the home of the reigning dnke until the six- 
 teenth century. Now, shining under the sun of the allodial 
 system, we find it the metropolis of the department of the 
 Cote d'or and the heart of the wine trade. A friend told 
 me I had lost much by not remaining overnight and dip- 
 ping into the cm ious sights and customs of this provincial 
 town, such as I shall never enjoy by visiting only large 
 cities. Being anxious to sleep in Lyons, womanlike, I 
 follow the dictates of my own desire, and drive on to my 
 intended destination. 
 
 Then, as we whirled through soft, green valleys, from 
 which tlie fruit-burdened hills diverge on every side, and 
 crossed crystal streams whose meagre waters ripple over 
 stony beds, where women sit at the margin dipping their 
 linen in the lucid current and beating it on the stones; on 
 the white roads, winding around the acclivities into the 
 dales, and ascending the dark mountain arms in the far 
 distance again, we saw the grape-wagons drawn by oxen 
 clumsily yet ga3iy caparisoned, and heard the silver tinkle 
 of their bells vibrating through the sweet evening; the sun 
 tiirew his last warm radiance over the earth, and the volup- 
 tuous hush of eventide was made musical by the dreamy 
 jingling chimes of convent towers. 
 
 Now we were in the heart of Haute Bourgogne, and we 
 bade adieu to the famous vineyards of the Clos Yougeot, 
 only to greet those of Gevrey, and lose sight of the yellow 
 and purple heights of Nuits, V^olney, or Pomard, to gain 
 the prospect of the slopes of Beaune. 
 
 Yes! Night with her owls and bats and starry veil had 
 come to dwell with us. The coach-lamps were lighted, 
 closing all communication with the outer world, and I 
 essayed to read my novel. With the dying gleam of day 
 I saw the misty shadows of the Jura in the east, and my 
 guide tells me in clear weather the icy iridescence of Mont 
 Blanc is perceptible. 
 
 When 1 emerged from the courtyard into the Rue Belle- 
 cour this "morning, with my first sight of the ramparts or 
 sectional heights of the city of Lyons I wished for the 
 power of a Millet or a Daubigny. It combines all the va- 
 riet3^ and fascination of pastoral and metropolitan beauty. 
 Before me mounted ridge above ridge of garlanded heights, 
 and rows of tall houses distinctly visible border the rocky 
 ledges. I wanted to ascend the fortifications, but how? 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 215 
 
 Behind me lay the tongue of the city lapped by the Rhone 
 and Saone, and I turned to the shops and City Hall through 
 the new and beautiful Place de Bellecour. Not so many, 
 it is true, but all around me are shops and streets as beau- 
 tiful as those of the feverish capital. Not such an endless 
 display of silks and velvets as I anticipated ; black laces 
 and fine linens are conspicuous, as though envious of the 
 silkworm's reputation. After tiring of the municipal sights, 
 I engaged cocher to open unto me the rural splendor of 
 the Pare de la Tete d'Or, for this community, though 
 scarcely more than a third as large as Philadelphia, must 
 have their Fairmount Park on the left of the Rhone. 
 Starting from the converging point of the two streams, all 
 along the quays on either side are the floating laundries, 
 where the washerwomen come to perform their duties, 
 which seem to be the cliief soui'ce of emolument amongst 
 the lower classes. The boulevard leading to the Pare js 
 dry and level, planted on either margin with prolific shade 
 trees, and the river is spanned by frequent bridges. One 
 of the great charms of these foreign cities are the rivers 
 that glide through the centre, with their handsome embank- 
 ments and white-stone wharves. 
 
 In the park we find the Zoological and Botanical gardens, 
 a lake where little skiffs are dancing, vast parterres of gay 
 flowers, cultivated by the husbandmen, and a vacherie 
 where fresh milk is offered to the pleasure-seekers. To 
 our right a great checkered counterpane of yellow and 
 pink and white and green appears to have been spread. 
 As we approach this gaudy coverlet we find it woven of 
 tall, graceful, waving grain, drooping its golden head as if 
 in modest sense of its mature wealth, blended with patches 
 of pink and white clover, and young crisp verdure. 
 
 Toward the silk factories, traversing the heights of Croix- 
 Rousse, we ascended in an infractuous coil, that often proved 
 an arduous pull to our poor old horse. The inclinations 
 are dangerous, the streets narrow, the houses rearing to 
 the height of six and seven stories, and permeating the 
 atmosphere are the moisture of steam and the whirr of 
 looms. The diminutive stature and hunted faces of the 
 silk-weavers are visible, a cogent proof of the seditious 
 sentiments of this sinuous section. I may call almost 
 every house a silk factory, as manufacturers furnish the 
 raw material to the laborers and they transform it into 
 sheeny fabric in their homes. 
 
 Mounting ten or twelve pairs of steep steps through 
 
216 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 ding}?^ corridors and dismal chambers, we reached one of 
 the leading establishments ; a large room filled with looms, 
 of which only a few were in active operation, and we hear 
 the murmer of "hard times." The looms that were in 
 motion contained the warp of gold and white damask 
 ordered by President MacMahon to upholster a new suit 
 of furniture. The proprietor of this great establishment 
 escorted us to a room adorned with silk pictures, the pro- 
 ducts of the Jacquard looms ; — "he and his family received 
 by the Emperor and Empress," " Washington," "Lincoln," 
 and many illustrative of French history, all capital por- 
 traits. We disdained offering a fee to this pompous silk 
 man, who had been in the presence of royalty, believing 
 profuse thanks to be our only mode of grateful demon- 
 stration. I summoned my entire vocabulary of French 
 courtes}" and lavished it upon him ; but even this did not 
 appease the old vampire's cringing soul. He beckoned us 
 into a small room, and I, believing he was about to reward 
 my ultra civility by a display of further glories, thanked 
 him again and again. At length I yielded to his impor- 
 tunities, and there scattered over a table were a shoal of 
 other woven adornments. I expressed my admiration for 
 the wonderful work in my strongest language, and still 
 not a glimmer of the old man's design dawned upon me 
 until he enumerated the prices of them. Then, and then 
 only, the sun of Wisdom broke through my cloudy percep- 
 tion in a perfect exuberance of light. I comprehended 
 the situation ; I was the fly in the spider's web, and my 
 escape could only be purchased b3^ the price of several of 
 these pictures, the cheapest valued at ten francs! So 
 through life one must pay for his ignorance, and though 
 the school of experience exacts the most bitter lessons, 
 the}^ are always the most chastening and enduring. 
 
 Lyons presents no appearance of neglect. Its streets 
 are new, its squares adorned with statues, its gardens and 
 plots carefully planted ; yet there is ever apparent a sim- 
 mering insurrection, that with a breath may be fanned into 
 a broil. It is more the city of successful manufactures 
 and weary proletaires, than of costly pleasures. It is a 
 community of toilers and merchants, not poets and states- 
 men. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 211 
 
 LETTER XLVI. 
 
 *' The cheapness of wine seems to be a great cause, not of drunken- 
 ness, but of sobriety. The inhabitants of the wine countries are in 
 general the soberest people of Europe ; witness the Spaniards, the 
 Italians, and the inhabitants of the Southern provinces of France." 
 
 Smith. Wealth of Nations. 
 
 "And sound again, bold Melody, 
 For baffled millions raise 
 The last victorious rallying cry, 
 The nation's Marseillaise. 
 Once more advance in the vanguard, France, 
 To the roar of the Marseillaise !" 
 
 Marseilles, May, 1878. 
 
 When I rode away from Lyons I was convinced tliat 
 excellent cooking was not confined to the gilded Capital. 
 The dinners — vin ordinaire inclusive — were poems, and I 
 freely confess the chief charm of a foreign hotel to voyagers 
 is an unexceptionable cuisine. 
 
 From Lyons to Marseilles our route lay through that 
 portion of Transalpine Gaul, rich in the luscious warmth 
 of the grape, the golden glow of the orange, the hectic 
 flush of the poppy, all lending an Oriental hue to the pic- 
 ture that was tempered into harmony by the puritanical 
 robelS of the dusk}^ olive; and sumptuous in its numberless 
 relics of Roman occupation. The authenticity of many of 
 these remains and their accompanying legends is un- 
 doubted, as the Romans conquered and held tenure in 
 Gaul, which they in those early days overran and appropri- 
 ated, as they did the other kingdoms of Europe. They 
 sequestered their Caesars as the Bonapartes did in later 
 times. This immortal garland of history has encouraged 
 romancists to weave many wayside weeds and spurious 
 reminiscences into their fanciful wreaths. As we passed 
 over the Alpine ledges, and through the granite excava- 
 tions, and by the numerous arrowy streams, tributaries of 
 the Rhone and fed by mountain springs, not only each 
 city and town, but almost every village deserves a special 
 record. Here are vineyards 3^ielding the same delicious 
 "Hermitage" through all these centuries, from the little 
 slips of vine planted between the interstices of rock by 
 the recluse who made his retreat upon the hill, to the hire- 
 ling of the local duke who inserted saplings that have been 
 the favorite cup of the castle. This exquisite product of 
 19 
 
218 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 white and red wine scarcely ever passes out of France ; at 
 least none of the first quality. It is monopolized by the 
 millionaires and native roj^alists, and when exported the 
 lower grades are invoiced as the prime original. Before 
 touching the conical declivity of the Hermitage, we had 
 passed the Chateau de Ponsas on the right bank of the 
 Rhone, and in the distance we caught a glimpse of moun- 
 tain peaks, from which, tradition tells us, Pontius Pilate 
 committed suicide. The tale, however questionable, seems 
 to liave become rootbound. The group of lofty summits 
 still bear the name of Mont Pilat. For a few moments one 
 is in the beautiful valley of the turbulent Isere, only to 
 cross it, and then its swift tide and rocky eminences are 
 left in the northeast as we dash on in our southerly route. 
 We gradually leave the course of the Rhone, though we 
 continue in a parallel line for some distance. 
 
 Avignon, once a Roman colony, and in the fourteenth 
 centur^^ the seat of the pontifical throne, if containing no 
 magnets of present power, is at least interesting as the 
 theatre of the melodramatic phase in the lives of Petrarch 
 and Laura. This melancholy, love-languishing poet-laure- 
 ate, crowned in the Roman cai)ital, conceived his immortal 
 passion for Laura de Noves when he was scarcely past boy- 
 hood, and though his importunities were repelled with de- 
 termined purpose, — so the story runs, — throughout this 
 3'oung lady's virginity and wifehood, the faithful Romeo 
 continued to sing his love sonnets until the cold earth 
 shrouded his constant and tempestuous heart forever. It 
 was a woful day when the young Italian poet was first 
 enthralled by the "nymph at her orisons" in the nunnery 
 of St. Claire. The historian forgets to relate whether 
 Laura's passion for her husband, Hugues de Sade, equalled 
 Petrarch's ardent affection. While the lover was travelling 
 through Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, gaining rich 
 laurels alike from the volatile Gaul and grim Teut(m, pre- 
 serving classical manuscripts and pouring out the perennial 
 fountains of a love that were destined to carry his fame down 
 through the unfathomable abysses of time, Laura re- 
 mained in Avignon, going through the maternal routine of 
 domestic life, and when he returned to the hallowed spot 
 after an absence of nearly a decade, found his idol op- 
 pressed by domestic grievances and a prolific offspring. 
 Oh ! what a prosaic planet is this earth! We are prone to 
 believe we are living in an age from which all the chivalry 
 and grace, and poetry have departed. But such lessons 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 219 
 
 teach ns to wish no longer for the lyrical days when Ciipid 
 was just as capricious as now. Poor Petrarch ! his passion 
 for Laura was one of those pleasing fancies that serve to 
 point a moral and to hang a tale. 
 
 And then Rienzi — Rienzi who was transformed from a 
 poetic dreamer into a political reformer. This wild revo- 
 lutionist is another sanctifying memory of Avignon. 
 Rietizi, the companion of Petrarch, who languished in 
 prison while the latter luxuriated in palaces. Rienzi, who 
 perished on the Capitol steps at the hands of the infuriated 
 populace, — the same wild populace that had gathered here 
 to dignify Petrarch with the diadem of fame. Yes! One 
 is fascinated with the profound historical reflections of the 
 vicinity, and longs to linger by the wa}' to visit the haunts 
 of the poets. With these close associations, and the south- 
 ern flush and hush of the landscape, one is inclined to be- 
 lieve he has already crossed the boundaries of the Cisalpine 
 Gaul of the ancients. The gradual transition into Italy is 
 at once distinguishable in the soft pronunciation and dul- 
 cet tones of the peasants, the frequent appearance of holy 
 fathers from the cloisters, mountain goats on the rocky 
 passes, and little donkeys bea^ring weighty burdens over 
 perilous crags. Mountain springs plunge from their dizzy 
 heights to feed the great wells of irrigation tliat are 
 turned through vast tracks of arable land. Tunnels are 
 becoming frequent now, and we issue from these subter- 
 ranean cells, sometimes to find ourselves perched upon 
 lofty ledges overhanging the flowering dale or sharp de- 
 file, and sometimes at the base of a sterile promontory 
 rearing its summit skywards. Skirting the Etang de 
 Barre^ an inland lake, a vast sheet of water bluer than 
 heaven, and as silent as death, we entered the longest 
 mountain cavern in France, from which we emerged to 
 greet the mystic Mediterranean, where the little boats with 
 their lateen sails were gliding over the azure ripples like 
 butterflies pausing upon flowers, with gay wings elevated, 
 not outspread ; where Marseilles lay in iier extensive sand- 
 beds, caressed by the blue surge, protected by the isolated 
 pile of Chateau d^If^ and the long pier and blinding bas- 
 tions of Fort St. Jean, and sheltered by the stony apex of 
 Notre Dame de la Garde. 
 
 Coming into Marseilles I was impressed by its Moorish 
 appearance and Southern aroma. It is wholly Oriental. 
 There is the smell and the moisture of the sea, the luxuri- 
 ant foliage of graceful palms, and a miasmatic, stifling 
 
220 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 atmosphere. The windows are shaded by gaudy awnings 
 of the Turkish type; a flaming combination of orange and 
 blue, green and maroon, pink and purple material in stripes 
 broader than my two hands. Over the shops these showy 
 caparisons extend in variegated ostentation; and all along 
 the margin of the sidewalk orange and lemon trees, and 
 waving palms exhale their fragrance. Women selling 
 fish and fruit stand at the corners under the branching 
 sliade, in short, flashy petticoats, low-cut velvet bodices, 
 and crimson or 3^ellow kerchiefs knotted over their bosoms ; 
 they have swarthy, carnal faces, framed in a massive coil 
 of raven hair. They are interesting creatures, l)ut essen- 
 tially eartliy. The galley-slaves, chained in long lines, 
 work on the stone harbor and on the pier of St. Jean. 
 They toil in painful silence, and the strains of the Marseil- 
 laise are suppressed in their agony. 
 
 As we drove into the courtyard of the hotel it looked 
 like a scene in a fairy palace. There was a cosmopolitan 
 throng clustered about the tables under the feathery palms, 
 and by the golden fruit-trees; canary birds twittered in 
 brazen cages, while invalid ladies, who had been ordered 
 by physicians to the salubrity of a soft Southern climate, 
 dozed in the sleepy atmosphere, and florid Englishmen 
 equipped for an Alpine or Tyrolese tour, in wash-basin hat 
 and Turkish towel drapery, drank their Stout and read 
 their Times. A canopy of colored glass overhangs the 
 octagonal rotunda of the court, and as I pass to my left 
 over the great marble stairway an icy chill shivers through 
 me, and 1 pit3'^ the valetudinarian who comes here for 
 health. The hotel is palatial, an extravagance of marbles, 
 frescoes, and gilding, as all such French constructions are; 
 the ciiambers airy, and the casements draped with lace and 
 crimson satin. Opposite my door I espied several luxuri- 
 ously appointed bath-rooms; not large tin-tubs to be filled 
 and carried into the apartments, but really American baths. 
 My soul exulted at the revelation, and I determined to 
 occupy one of the welcome novelties. It was like meeting 
 an old and appreciated friend in a foreign land. The maid, 
 upon inquiry, replied they were all vacant, and she would 
 prepare one for my revel immediately. 
 
 Now "preparing a bath" in Europe, being interpreted, 
 means placing a Turkish towel, as large as a sheet, on the 
 lower level of the tub, which is an excessively uncomfort- 
 able process, and not providing soap, which is quite as 
 inconvenient. I have already learned to carry away my 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 221 
 
 candle'^, but charging for soap is a phase of liotel extortions 
 I had neglected to note. The Englishman who runs over 
 the Continent generally once a year to escape the dismal 
 season at home, becomes an habitue in these meridian 
 regions, and, knowing their customs, invariably travels 
 with his soap. Americans are expected to do likewise, 
 and, failing, they inevitably pay for their neglect. Now 
 when I was wholly immersed I made a direful discovery, 
 — the absence of soap, — and, ringing for the attendant to 
 supply the need, who seemed amazed that I was unfur- 
 nished with the article, went in search of it. It was quite 
 half an hour before slie made her appearance. Several 
 times in the interim I had rung the bell in the hope of 
 tidings, and was informed tliat the commissioner had been 
 sent out to purchase it. When I read Mark Twain's anec- 
 dote in Innocents Abroad^ being unsophisticated, and ap- 
 preciating the wit's facetiae, I could not credit his story of 
 a similar circumstance. Now I am convinced his book is 
 a work of facts, satirized l)y tliis ridiculing genius. And 
 yet the guidebook says "Marseilles is noted for its manu- 
 facture of soaps and oils." 
 
 The wider my journey extends, more fixed becomes the 
 conviction that these Latin nations, with all their centuried 
 wisdom and experience, do not comprehend the luxury of 
 living as we do. 
 
 There are some points of comparison between Lyons and 
 Marseilles, but the contrasts overrule, alike in their topo- 
 graphical and commercial features. While the populace of 
 Lyons toils at the looms, the populace of Marseilles labors 
 in the docks; the wealth of Lyons is in its marvellous 
 quantity and quality of cocoons, and the opulence of Mar- 
 seilles in its valuable exports; if Lyons gave Gambetta to 
 the French Republic, Marseilles furnished Thiers ; Lyons 
 manufactures while Marseilles traffics, and Lyons reposes 
 peacefully in a communit^^ of her own, while Marseilles 
 gathers within her walls the travelling and trading throngs 
 from the four quarters of the globe. 
 
 Lotteries seem to be the prevailing pleasure and vice of 
 the lower classes. When night falls, and the patrician 
 element are riding through the Prado toward home, and 
 the great lamps swing over the doors and throw the dark 
 foliage and flashy awnings into vivid contrast, then the 
 laborers from the quays and the sailors from the vessels, 
 the poor women carrying babies and the meretricious 
 beauties occup3ing the tall tenant-houses overlooking the 
 
 19^ 
 
222 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 mnzarine waters of tlie Mediterranean, throng to these 
 houbes of cliance and risk their purses upon a dress, a hat, 
 a watcli, a bed, a set of jewely, or a broken mirror, which 
 are all gathered into a motley heap. I even saw birds from 
 the Levant and Maltese kittens gambled for in the same 
 breath with an old teakettle. There was a fascination in 
 the strata of life gathered about these Faros, and 1 loitered 
 in them to study the passion which flattered some with 
 success and happiness, while others were sent home wretch- 
 ed by their disasters and disappointments. Even the fruit- 
 woman must leave her tray at the corner, where the flaming 
 torch casts a more luscious glamour over her sparse store, 
 to enjoy the wild hazard. The peanut-boy and the ragged 
 gamin from the docks blend in the excited rivalry, and 
 peril their few coppers — earned, or begged, or stolen, 
 Heaven and themselves alone know best — for the false 
 glitter of some empty bagatelle. And here they flock, night 
 alter night, to feed this unhealthy and insatiable passion. 
 
 LETTER XLVII. 
 
 " In the ages of faith, before the clay 
 
 When men were too proud to weep or pray, 
 Tliere stood in a red-roofed Breton town, 
 Snugly nestled 'twixt sea and down, 
 A chapel for shnple souls to meet 
 Kightly, and sing with voices sweet, 
 Ave Maria." 
 
 Marseilles, May, 1878. 
 
 A VISIT to the docks of Marseilles, if not so hazardous, 
 is certainly more interesting than to adventure the crest of 
 Notre Dame de la Garde. This church, perched upon the 
 Alpine vertex sheltering the old port, is regarded by the 
 Marseillaise as their pillars of Hercules; therefore, not to 
 have risked its perillous paths, is not to have seen the city; 
 so I determined upon doing Notre Dame de la Garde, 
 without a suspicion of its situation, its merits, or the mode 
 of access. I had not proceeded far over the hilly streets 
 leading to the plinth of the eminence, before I was terror- 
 stricken, and I would have abandoned the undertaking. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 223 
 
 had it not been a confession of my pusillanimit3^ It was a 
 tedious pull over rocky slopes and furrowed coils, until the 
 inclination became a straight oblique plane, and the driver 
 dismounted to guide the horse over the precipitous ridge. 
 At times the road contracted into a mere stony ledge, 
 scarcely wide enough to allow the wheels of our convej'- 
 ance to pass, frequently rolling and bouncing over frag- 
 ments of bowlders that bestrewed the wa}^; then, upou 
 the brink of the precipice the gravel crushed and yielded, 
 and we often heard it rattling among the flinty crags 
 below. These repetitions of the earth crumbling away 
 from under our feet, as it were, transformed my journey 
 from one of pleasure, as 1 had contemplated, into one of 
 pain. From vast granite vaults where rough-hewn walls 
 closed in on every side, only the sky visible, we 'turned 
 abrupt corners to find ourselves upon sharp spurs, with the 
 blue waves tossing far away to the left, the busy life of the 
 city in dizzy confusion below. Yet still far ahead stood 
 Notre Dame de la Garde, in clear outline against the hori- 
 zon. The coachman manifested some solicitude for my 
 l)leasure by stopping upon every giddy height, and point- 
 ing to Marseilles, exclaimed ^''regardez, c^eat trop grande,^^ 
 but I was not intrepid enough to take his advice. He 
 could not comprehend my fear, and repeated his importuni- 
 ties until I entreated him to pass on. It was thrilling in 
 its grandeur, but it was not a picture I cared to dwell upon. 
 It was a religious festa, and the peasants in their fantas- 
 tic costumes and broad brows, many from the hamlet of 
 Catalans, were scaling the rock}'- altitudes to offer their 
 waxen tributes at the shrine of their Holy Patroness. 
 Many of the children carried gay chaplets of paper flowers, 
 while their elders bore tapers of every size, varying from 
 the ordinary tallow to spermaceti five feet long and six 
 inches in circumference. Frequently these men and women 
 in holiday attire, on their way to their Virgin Goddess, 
 oflTerings in their hands and orisons on their lips, paused 
 at our carriage to beg centimes^ and so pertinacious were 
 they that they often forgot their religious mission. Upon 
 reaching the crest where the sacred fortress is enthroned, 
 an ocean of childhood literally overflowed the long flight of 
 steps leading to the goal ; a handsome structure, but not so 
 effective as I had a right to expect, as a reward for my 
 travail ; but the view of the city, obtained from this vantage- 
 ground, which expanded over the entire valley, the galaxy 
 of shining villas couched upon the" encircling hillsides, the 
 
224 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 sterile base of Chateau d'lf and Ratonnean, caressed by 
 the azure waves, and the forest of shipping with the colors 
 of many nations floating over the harbor, as if to welcome 
 travellers from every zone, was an entrancing compensa- 
 tion. The coachman led his poor beast over the declivity 
 with an empty voiture^ while I passed on with bruised feet 
 and agitated limbs over the rocky pathway only to be beset 
 by photograph, cake, lemonade, and souvenir venders; 
 blind beggars, halt beggars, scarred beggars, and mendi- 
 cant friars, who, in their lus?ty manhood, seemed counter- 
 feit l)eggars, assuming the wail of woe upon the appearance 
 of any one who ajjpeared to have two sous to give away. 
 If we refused to sow our coppers broadcast, double-distilled 
 curses, uttered with vehemence, and thrice repeated, hurled 
 our souls down to the depths of perdition. Many of the 
 j)easant men we met had crimson or gaudy-striped snoods 
 knotted about their heads; these I instinctively avoided at 
 first fearing they were banditti^ but upon further acquaint- 
 ance, discovered them to be of that element known as the 
 Catalans or Spanish gypsies, inhabiting the delta at the 
 southeast of Marseilles, and stretching into the Mediterra- 
 nean, — the community from which young Edmond Dantes, 
 afterwards Count Monte Cristo, Uumas's hero, chose his 
 bride. This population that I passed on the mountain are 
 the offspring of the Spanish colony who perched like pen- 
 guins upon the promontory many centuries ago, and in 
 their short beaded and broidered jackets, and flaunting 
 kerchiefs wound about their heads, we traced their Moorish 
 origin. The colors and trinkets of their heteroclite costume 
 liave degenerated with the years, but still the principle of 
 the dress of their ancestors is preserved. 
 
 To the citadel Nicolas^ and thence over the quays of the 
 oblong old port, there was a different life from that we left, 
 crawling up and down the rough, religious ladder that led 
 to the heavenward shiine. BeggarsI Oh, yes, there were a 
 hundredfold more beggars and swaggerers among the docks 
 than upon the granite mount, but there was too much 
 diversion to heed the tricks of sharpers in the crush of the 
 myriad craft and the throngs of sailors on duty on the 
 merchantmen, the hordes of poor panting human toilers 
 loading and unloading the trading vessels locked in the 
 basins, and the care-free troops of seamen off duty, with 
 full pockets and light hearts, whose gold was soon to 
 vanish in the seduction of the glittening casinos and their 
 black-eyed sweethearts. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 225 
 
 Then, in great storehouses of grain, spices, and provi- 
 sions bordering the wharves, there is very much tlie same 
 wild life and secret habits common in the great rendezvous 
 of foreign traffic in New York, Baltimore, and Philadel- 
 phia. As we rode, we seemed to diffuse an American air, 
 and were several times hailed in our course, and informed 
 that there was an American vessel in port; we were re- 
 quested to visit the sea-bird from our native land ; but we 
 persistently' refused all these pertinacious civilities. As 
 we travel we learn that to accept attentions means an ex- 
 pected reward. And so we turned the square of the An- 
 cient Port, and there, upon the opposite quay, we found 
 tlie shops where tlie ship mechanics were at work repairing 
 Spanish galleons, Turkish feluccas, broad-bottomed Dutch 
 steam barges, black British cruisers, American brigs that 
 had brought cargoes of tobacco, petroleum, and cotton, 
 and Chinese junks with packages of opium. 
 
 Out upon the glaring pier of Fort St. Jean, I overlooked 
 the motionless sea, all along this Southern shore — as mo- 
 tionless and as blue as the cerulean canopy — and then 
 watched the great ships freighted with their treasures of 
 eil, fruits, wines, and perfumes, bound some for the Levant, 
 and others for the Occident, quietly vanishing over the 
 horizon. There is an ineffable charm about these foreign 
 seaports, and to me Marseilles is more wonderful because 
 far more varied than Liverpool. It may have been the 
 salubrity of the French climate and the poetry of the azure 
 Mediterranean, in striking contrast with foggy dingy Eng- 
 land, and the muddy Mersey, and it may have been my 
 own mood, but today the scene upon the wharves was 
 strangely Oriental. 
 
 The Ancient Port was the only haven Marseilles owned 
 until within the last thirty years; now the entire facing of 
 the niaritime metropolis glistens with the outer walls of 
 the basins. Though it might scarcely be deemed necessary 
 to construct wet docks where the ebb and flow of the tide 
 is so moderate as in the Gulf of Lyons, still not only is 
 the city hemmed by these mammoth inclosures, but there is 
 a demand for increased accommodations owing to the tre- 
 mendous accession of trade with foreign powers. 
 
 In this fair city I enjoyed the broad boulevard of La 
 Cannebiere, with its fine shops and garish awnings, and 
 cosmopolitan multitudes ; and the Rue de la Republique, 
 which I take to be one of recent birth from its name, where 
 the houses are as tall and white as in pearly Paris ; through 
 
226. PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the Prarlo I have lolled in dreamy mood under the shadows 
 of leafy avenues that stretch behind and before in unbroken 
 colonnades of green, and even in the Boulevard de Long- 
 champ, with the transcendent fountain and statuesque front 
 of the Palais in the perspective; all these beauties and fas- 
 cinations, together with tlie hundred other attractions of 
 a great city, are still inferior to the solemn majesty of the 
 environs. 
 
 Starting from the careening naval basin on the eastern 
 extremity of the old port, we continued over a contracted 
 j)ath bordering tlie sea that winds about the tongue of land 
 that forms the Creek de la Reserve, then to the northeast 
 we met the broad white level Corniche, the pride of Southern 
 France and Italy, which extends from Marseilles down to 
 the toe of Italy along the border of the Mediterranean. 
 In the village des Catalans we found the homes of the 
 community we met upon the Alpine passes. Little white- 
 washed nests that seemed falling to decay, some holes 
 hewn in the side of rocks, apparently constructed of earth, 
 crumbling to a fine powder certain to evaporate with the 
 first breath of the hyperborean Mistral that sweeps over 
 Provence in scourging velocity. Squalor and poverty 
 reigned supreme, yet about all there was a picturesque 
 phasis at least pleasing. It may have been the luxuriant 
 arbors of roses, the towering heights, the zigzag titled 
 ))aths, where these hovels reposed sleepily, the brilliant 
 dress of the inhabitants upon the glaring alleys, or the 
 mystic lapis lazuli of the sea. 
 
 On the left of this scene we had all the beauty of a rug- 
 ged, sublime landscape with its pastoral and even gypsy 
 life. On the right were the blue waters laviu": the Cor- 
 niche, and dashing upon the base of the sterile islands, with 
 the glamour of romance and peril hanging over them. 
 Far ahead the chemin de Corniche coils about the border 
 of the land like a silver ribbon. 
 
 In reaching the Rest Roubion we passed the " Yalley of 
 the Shepherds," and the Vallon de I'Oriol, that lay like 
 slumbering twins cradled between the heights of Notre 
 Dame de la Garde and the marine ridges. 
 
 The Rest Roubion stands upon a plateau above the sea. 
 Entering the grounds of the hotel we climbed sloping 
 paths and groups of little steps until the scene below in- 
 creased in beaut}'- with every view. Exquisite parterres, 
 and vases burdened by an exuberance of blooming rose 
 vines, and closely-cropped sward, gave the spot a mytholo- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 22T 
 
 gical air, resembling the haunts of the Grecian gods and 
 Neapolitan fairies. 
 
 The rain fell, but the sea lost none of its wonderful color, 
 and a sharp penetrating wind greeted us even here on 
 this southern shore and in these declining days of May. 
 
 LETTER XLYIII. 
 
 "O I The earth is fair in plain and glade, 
 
 In valley and mountain range, 
 But it changes as the ages fade. 
 
 While the brave sea knows no change : 
 Along the shore, as in ages past, 
 
 His noisy footsteps fall, 
 And the gray rock melts to his touch at last, 
 
 For the sea rules all ! 
 
 Yea ! the sea rules all ! " 
 
 Nice, May, 1878. 
 
 My task should be reserved for the poet. It is not in 
 sober black and white prose that the splendors of the 
 Riviera should be calendared. They demand tiie glowing 
 harmony of Byron and the inspired pencil of Raphael. 
 Around this Mediterranean nest there is just now an in- 
 effable beatitude in the air and a glorious springtide of 
 color. ^ 
 
 *'Ah me ! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, 
 To follow half on which the eye dilates, 
 Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken 
 Than tliose whereof such things the bard relates. 
 Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates?" 
 
 Following the line of the Corniche along the brim of sea 
 from Marseilles one realizes the Frenchman's i^atriotic 
 aphorism, "La belle France." To determine just what 
 beauties are included in this compliment is an insoluble 
 problem, as the boundaries of France are shifted twice in 
 a generation, in conformity with the revolutions of the 
 political axis. Despite stereotyped eulogy, the English 
 landscape never kindled in me much ecstasy, but here God 
 hands us such a perfect chrysolite, that man's genius can- 
 not divine nor describe its peerless radiance. It is not 
 municipal taste nor municipal government, religious senti- 
 
228 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 ment nor political equipoise, not moral dogmas, nor social 
 discipline, that masters the stranger beholding this lovely 
 reo-ion for the first time. It is the chaos of enchantment 
 that covers this whole route of travel. Even the toppling 
 towers of the white convents, floating 'twixt sky and sea, 
 seemed to me nature's crown to the whole panorama, just 
 as if she had "snatched a grace beyond the rules of art." 
 
 There was a cloud overshadowing Marseilles when I left 
 it, not a political nor commercial cloud, but a dense atmo- 
 spheric frown that was severed into shreds by the shining 
 scimitar of the sun before we came in sight of Toulon, the 
 war harbor of France, where human beasts of burden toil 
 in long files, manacled l)y the galley-chain; where the 
 sybaritic sharper, the delicate perfumed lover, who in a 
 frenzy of jealousy had killed his fair one, and the double- 
 distilled felon, suffer side by side. 
 
 From the heights beyond Toulon there is a view of earth, 
 sky, and water, that stamps it as one of nature's chefs- 
 d^ceuvre. Through the tunnels, and over the ledges, we 
 turned an angle, and yonder, nestled on the slopes of Des 
 Maures, we saw what looked to be a great white cathedral, 
 or cloister. It proved to be the town of H3'eres, rapidly 
 expanding into a great sanitarium, though perched upon 
 too lofty a ridge to be sheltered from the scourging blasts 
 of the mistral. In another curve the town is lost, but we 
 get a full view of its islands, Ij'ing off in the Mediterranean, 
 their sterile foundations and fortified capitals blended with 
 a heap of sparkling rugged rock. 
 
 For almost seventy miles we skirted the base of the 
 Maritime Alps, nature's eternal monuments, piled ridge 
 npon ridge, finally fading away in the clouds, ungarnished 
 by a blade of verdure. They extended close to our car, 
 until each projection would seem about to dash the win- 
 dows to splinters; then b}^ an abru[)t evolution we were 
 whisked into the black bowels of the tunnelled Colossus. 
 
 At the little harbor of St. Raphael, about half an hour 
 from Cannes, Napoleon landed when he came from Eg3'pt, 
 bathed in the glory of transcendent victory. Fourteen 
 years after, crushed by his own reverses, and followed by 
 the scorn of his people, he again weighed anchor from the 
 same port upon his ostracism to Elba, and within the year 
 returned and landed not many miles from the same spot. 
 What more cogent example of the irony of fate than these 
 nnforgotten lessons in the meteoric career of the Corsican 
 Corporal ? 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 229 
 
 At Cannes, the Cape May of France, we only rested to 
 deposit our freight of invalid English and rich French, 
 who came to find a haven in its salubrious air and perfumed 
 flowers. Hedges of pink and crimson rose-vines, twisted 
 and woven into one exuberance of bloom, now replaced 
 the glossy, vigorous myrtle. Great groves of blossoming 
 orange-trees stretched around us, and the glow of the cac- 
 tus and oleander cast the purity of the former into painful 
 pallor. May and June are the harvest months of roses 
 and orange-blossoms in the Midi, and the peasants were 
 embowered in fragrant wreaths, plucking them for the 
 perfume distillers. The peculiarity of the soil in this 
 region seems to be favorable to the cultivation of aromatic 
 plants, as the grape is indigenous to the Burgundy and 
 Bordeaux districts. The English have done much to en- 
 hance the value of a section that God has burdened with 
 fruits of splendor, by erecting luxurious homes on the 
 hills and dales, and so attracting the best society from their 
 own bleak island and the French cities and provinces. 
 Perhaps Lord Brougham, by making Cannes his winter 
 home, gave the impetus and impelled the annual tide of 
 visitors to this Mediterranean resort. 
 
 These seaside cities of the Latins have none of the 
 ephemeral features of our ocean resorts. They are of 
 marble and granite, and strong in metropolitan splendor 
 and solidity. True, they have existed for centuries, and 
 were temples of art and sanctuaries of learning before we 
 were even struggling in the womb of the past. 
 
 But the devotees of fashion and of the golden calf have 
 fled, and Nice is as voiceless as the great Sahara, though 
 as I came upon her to-day she was arrayed like "Solomon 
 in all his glory." The mountain torrents leap from cliff to 
 dale beyond the city gates, and yet the waters of tlie Pail- 
 Ion which bisect the town scarcely cover the stones of its 
 broad bed. Th« sparkling city reposes in an amphitheatre, 
 guarded from the northern blasts by the mountains that 
 close around the inland border, with only the blue sea and 
 the drifting boats as a stage scene. 
 
 The city is a vast Eden of deserted hotels and vacant 
 villas. Along the principal boulevards and Promenade des 
 Anglais cards of "to let" stare in undaunted succession 
 from portal and shutter. The beat of hoofs, sounds of 
 revelry, and the loud ostentation of foreign nabobs and 
 American millionaires are dead on the parade by the sea, 
 20 
 
230 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 where a few months ago sk}^, ocean, and air resounded with 
 their saturnalia. 
 
 Following the course of the waters, the ramparts seem 
 ablaze in a white column of sunlight, capped by an odorous 
 and fervid blush of cactus and crimson cypress, glowing 
 oleander and golden oranges, the tropical plumose palms 
 waving over the aureate fruit and flaming flowers. The at- 
 mosphere seems asleep in an agony of sweetness, and life is 
 as morbid in the streets and gardens as it is in the environs, 
 where we meet only the goatherd or the blossom-gatherers, 
 and see only the monastic towers of convent or cloister. 
 Mounting tlie apex of Cimies and St. Pons, we hear onl}-" 
 the rippling laugh of a little child, a sign of solitude. There 
 is over the hills and through the dales a religious hush, an 
 odor of sanctity, a beauty of holiness, in marked contrast 
 with tlie whirl of the capital and the thrift of tiie provinces, 
 and I am prone to believe I am alread}^ within the spiritual 
 sovereignty of Holy Mother Church. We see none of the 
 traditional squalor of Italy, but all its silent comfort. 
 Rough wooden crosses, uncouth crucifixes, and graceless 
 shrines, protect the crops and hallow the roadsides. Who 
 can enjoy such a country but those born upon its soil, and 
 who have mingled in its customs? Surely not those who 
 endeavor to gain an idea of its beauty from canvas, and 
 much less readers of novels and travels. You may figure 
 a steep hillside clad in royal purple and emerald, lighted 
 by the crimson dress of the peasant girl, and a little white 
 cottage home in an arbor of aloe and cypress; a rude 
 ascending path, over which vintagers are drawing gra})e 
 wagons to which they themselves are harnessed, while their 
 wives or daughters i)ush the wheels ; a garden wall, behind 
 which fallow fruit glistens; a village priest counting his 
 Ave Marias and Paternosters; and the hoary ruins of cathe- 
 dral or chateau as a sacred coronal upon the mountain 
 brow. You may even see the scene vitalized by broad acres 
 of wheat and timber; but no brush can paint or quill de- 
 scribe the soft laugh of the maiden, the tender lowing of 
 the kine, the perfume of garlands, the marvellous maze of 
 color, and the sublime influences of atmosphere; they must 
 be inhaled and felt to be realized. It is not so much per- 
 ception as emotion. 
 
 The world would tell me I have lost much by finding this 
 siren's nest stripped of its ga}^ audience and their gayer 
 pursuits and tastes. But if it was rife with frolic, music, 
 receptions, baccarat saloons, and the riot of human life, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 231 
 
 would this spirituelle element be potential? No! I have 
 viewed the fair goddess of the sea in all tlie sweet purity of 
 nakedness, and find her one of the sacred creatures that the 
 flash of jewels and the glitter of gold would carnalize. 
 
 There are fine boulevards of shops, extending from one 
 extremity of the town to the other, but, with few exceptions, 
 they exhibit only the extract of the grape and the olive, 
 and these appear in great profusion. The streets seem to 
 have been swept and the gardens garnished for Sunday; 
 the denizjens have donned their Sabbath garb, the white 
 roads, white houses, honey-laden atmosphere, the fervent 
 clearness of the sky, each man and woman taking shelter 
 from the noonday heat under a crimson, blue, pink, green, 
 or yellow umbrella; the whole place looks like the opening 
 scene in an opera bonffe. Nature is in a swoon and the 
 people are in a holiday. 
 
 Although a city of the sea, there is none of its mois- 
 ture in the climate; the mountain air is volatile; the May 
 season is full of peace; Harlequin is in his bed; the fiddle 
 is at rest; all the fun of the place is pantomime; and no- 
 thing seems alive but the sweet melody of a distant chime 
 and the sad call of a solitary robin. 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 
 "O Christ ! it is a goodly sight to see 
 
 What Heaven hath done for this delicious land ! 
 What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree ! 
 
 What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand ! 
 
 But man would mar them with an impious hand, 
 And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 
 
 'Gainst those who must transgress his high command, 
 With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge, 
 Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foeman purge." 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 Monaco, May, 1878. 
 
 Monaco is the Principality, but Monte Carlo is the 
 Casino, and Casino is king. Monaco sits upon a lofty 
 promontory overhanging the sea, looking like the ruins of 
 a great catiiedral. But there ai"e no architectural or 
 geographical ruins at Monte Carlo, only an incalculable 
 
232 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 wreck of lives, and these are not exhibited to the seeking 
 stranger like crumbling mounds and decaying castles, hut 
 hidden under the gayety and glitter of seductive vices and 
 costly adornments. Few stop at Monaco; all go to Monte 
 Carlo, and when I left Nice on my further south-bound 
 route along the Riviera, passing away from its pure, rest- 
 ful, religious atmosphere, — enhanced by the sweet Sabbath, 
 — I felt as if I was taking one stupendous leap from heaven 
 to well no, for Monte Carlo is a strange and fascinat- 
 ing hybrid of heaven and hell. 
 
 Tlie same beauty of feature and outline prevails through 
 the short ridge that leads from Nice to Monte Carlo. 
 Perhaps the roses are in closer clusters, the cactuses in a 
 greater blaze of fire, the sea bluer, the sky more intense, 
 and the heights more dizzy; but the characteristics are 
 exactly like^hose of this Franco-Italian region since I left 
 Marseilles. Admiral Le Koy's vessel lay in the ba}' of 
 Yillafranca at the corner of Nice, which I only glanced 
 at from a natural louver window in the rocks. The line 
 was now wholly subterranean, except at the stations or a 
 rent in the mountain, where we welcomed daylight only 
 for a second, to be again whisked into utt^r darkness. 
 
 Around a great projecting curve Monaco bursts upon 
 you I It seems detached from the mainland, and hangs 
 'twixt earth and sea like a great swinging garden. Novels 
 and tracts, Murray or Baedeker had painted the Arcadia 
 to which I was hastening; although none have succeeded 
 in extolling, nor even justifying its attractions, as its most 
 pronounced influences are a sense, not perception. The 
 Corniche coils about it, and the railway traverses the 
 Principality from one extremity to the other, where the 
 Maritime Alps project in bold spurs into the Mediterra- 
 nean. It is the star of the most luxuriant and charming 
 district of the Riviera, though the view obtained from the 
 car is greatly disparaged by the irrepressible granite monu- 
 ments. Monaco crests the culminating point of the road, 
 though it and Monte Carlo and the environs are overlooked 
 by the towered pediment of Turbia. 
 
 The histor}^ of ihe peMt principality is cloudy, but it has 
 been under the sovereignty of the Grimaldi since the tenth 
 centur}', of which the reigning prince, Charles Honore ill, 
 is a direct descendant. He is a man of sixtj'^, sensitive of 
 all the delicious beauty and l)eguiling pleasures of his 
 monarchy, and a voluptuarj' in costly Paris, where he 
 passes six months of the year. Tired of entertaining and 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 233 
 
 g-nmbling at home, lie a^oes to the capital, that is only more 
 of a metropolis in latitude and population, there to be en- 
 tertained and gambled with. Within his own contracted 
 walls he has all that Paris may unfold except miles and 
 peoples, — churches, cloisters, colleges, palaces, gardens, 
 ca.fes^ and casinos, and the addition of nature's handicraft 
 in the wild supernal landscape. 
 
 There is a dogano (custom-house), with the escutcheon 
 of the Grimaldi, at the station, but there is no overhauling 
 of merchandise nor duties to be paid. There are no 
 formulas, nor irritating detention at the gates; we passed 
 the golden portals as jauntily as so many deadheads into 
 the gamesters heaven. We required no passport, no cre- 
 dentials of character, and our tempers were not ruffled by 
 the tedium of the red-tape process with our baggage. We 
 all felt a mutual ownership in the elysium. Of course we 
 pushed forward to the casino station, Monte Carlo, a short 
 mile from the principality throne. Why stop at Monaco? 
 AH its sweets I had fed upon ad nam^eam; pictures, 
 statuary, flowers, birds, palaces, antiquities. Oh, yes ! I was 
 very fond of all, but I had already enjoyed them in lavish 
 loveliness, and if not exactly surfeited— for there are com- 
 fits of which I am never blase — I knew their colors, flavors, 
 and effects; but in the casino I had a bonbonnier from 
 which I had not torn the shining tinsel wrapper. 
 
 Monte Carlo is the lovely hill of sin and swindling, if I 
 may be permitted to use two synonyms to express one 
 thought. There is no concealment, all is open. The lux- 
 urious railway carriage stops at a station that looks like a 
 piece of highly polished furniture. I ascended the money 
 paradise by a road as easy as a velvet walk, flanked by urns 
 and wreaths of flowers, and as I reached the top I was en- 
 veloped in perfume, and fairly speechless with surprise. 
 Everything is regardless of cost, and I'egardful of harmony. 
 Bazaars are open on all sides; carriages, as gayly dressed 
 as Cinderella's equipages drawn by fairies, glide by laden 
 with flashil}^ dressed women, and liveried attendants with 
 gold and silver lace gleaming in the sunlight, pass along 
 the cultivated walks; magnificent chateaux and hotels, 
 and conversation halls of yellow stone; exotics embowered 
 the lace-draped windows, and framed the ledges; throngs of 
 people flocking into a lovely saloon, from which exquisite 
 strains of music float in a sort of eloquent radiance upon 
 the startled senses, — all this I saw in a dazed way as I 
 hurried to the hotel. One's first thought is to join the 
 
 20* 
 
234 PICTURES ANl) PORTRAITS 
 
 glittering procession and take in the points of the organ- 
 ized spectacle. How superb the landscape here in the 
 loveliest part of old Italy and new France, where the purple 
 hills I have so often seen in foreign pictures close about 
 me. There is a golden glow in the atmosphere, and these 
 strange yet fascinating colors exceed in mystic radiance 
 the copies I once thought impossibly artificial. Monte 
 Carlo is a rock polished into a sort of devil's elysium, and 
 tiie purple hills, often veiled in a sadder mist, rise about 
 it as if they had been placed by some mechanical invention, 
 and add rather to the prepared beauty ; small delicate 
 houses of white stone, and Catholic churches in snowy 
 purit}', set off the darker hues, like seagulls floating in a 
 black tempest on the deep ocean. 
 
 The Monte Carlo faro is upon the plateau of rock hover- 
 ing over the station. Great flights of marble steps and 
 glowing terraces, glistening parapets and sparkling balus- 
 trades, lead to the fair Circe. A rumbling little coach 
 carried us over a steep narrow road, flanked by beautiful 
 cottages and gardens, to the Hotel de Paris, within the 
 Casino grounds. I saw it was a silver}^ place upon enter- 
 ing by the vast marble vestibules, spacious stairways, and 
 costly appointments; not so refreshing and calm as the 
 hotel at Nice, with the shady palms waving through the 
 stone corridors, and the little beds draped with their fleecy 
 bobinet curtains. The smallest and simplest double cham- 
 ber in this castle of a hotel was two dollars a day, rates 
 that would exceed ours at home, when the table and extras 
 were included. Although we are out of season, th& halls 
 are rife with the hum and jargon of foreign voices and 
 hurrying footsteps. Here at least there is none of the 
 painful silence pervading the English hotels. Every one 
 seems selfishly heedful of his own desires and pleasures, 
 and bent u})on his own pursuits. There is a continual tide 
 of gamblers drifting between the hotel and the Temple of 
 Faro, only a few yards apart. 
 
 The last strains of the afternoon concert have died upon 
 the air, but still the votaries of tliis strange and seductive 
 worship come and go. The plot in front of the piazza and 
 the broad steps of the sanctuary of sin are ever full and 
 ever changing. The whirl of human flies looks like the evo- 
 lutions of moats in a spot of noonday sunlight. The steep 
 gray rocks and loftier mountains (^lose in the Casino arena 
 on the north, the east, and the west, and the white palisades 
 overhang the blue sea on the south. From where I sit 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 235 
 
 and gsze about me, I discover no visible egress for the 
 poor unfortunate neophyte who realizes an ill-chosen vo- 
 cation and too arduous a rubric in the Holy of Holies, ex- 
 cept to plunge from the snow3' parapet into the surging 
 eternity below. But could any one ever grow heartsore 
 or enimied in so beautiful and well-attuned a section ? 
 Surel}', they must be ingrates. It is an enchanted region, 
 and the insurmountable walls of granite close about us, 
 not to impress us with a sense of imprisonment, but only 
 as a sweet retreat from the vulgar world. This is the in- 
 nocent visitor's first impression. Little kiosks, cafes, and 
 pavilions, dazzling in Oriental frescoes, border the coast 
 and are scattered over the gardens ; fountains cast their 
 l^layful waters to and from vases toppling under their 
 weight of luxuriance and perfume, and marble gods and 
 goddesses glance between the foliage of pines, aloes, palms, 
 and oleanders, around whose roots, and over the earth, 
 great black gutta-percha water-pipes coil like vitalizing 
 serpents. A Dominican friar, in black gown and calotte, 
 flanked by his acolytes, crosses the white square, but per- 
 sistently ignores the colonnades and disciples of the Palace 
 of Chance. With the gathering shadows a chill air blows 
 off the northeastern peaks, that chastens the atmosphere 
 of all its saline moisture, and the sound of the dinner-gong 
 disturbs the devotees. There the>' come, flocking out from 
 the solemnity of Vespers to the flesh-pots. 
 
 Dinner at the Hotel de Paris is one of the most novel 
 and characteristic processes of this gaming city. The salon 
 differs from any of the others I have seen along the south- 
 ern shore, and contrasts vividly with the one at the Hotel 
 de Louvre et de la Paix at Marseilles, where my eye sought 
 vainly for rest upon one square inch of lath and plaster, 
 that was not blinding in a glare of white, gold repousse, 
 and frescoes ; even the doors were china gloss, frescoed 
 panels, and gilt beading. Here all decorations are equally 
 elaborate, but in dark velvety tones of Pompeiian red, olive, 
 green, dun shades, walnut and ebony woods and plate-glass ; 
 no crystal and gilt chandeliers, but bronze metal. The 
 room is an extensive; oblong with a lofty dome, and long 
 windows set in deep embrasures, gorgeously upholstered, 
 and looks like the hall where Apicius might have held his 
 banquets. Columns separate it into two sections; the first 
 furnished with small tables, where viands are ordered a la 
 carte] the latter assigned to the table d^hote. The a la 
 carte department was thronged b}' those whose faith was 
 
236 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 tlieir mistress, and liere the female element prevailed. Ah ! 
 il gladdened my very soul to onin so potential a proof of 
 the unselfishness and constancy of my sex ; even if mani- 
 fested in behalf of an impure cause, it pi'oclaimed a loftier 
 cast of character than that shown by the male cormorants 
 by whom I was surrounded. Their wedded wife was 
 forgotten in their appetites. They had two goddesses, 
 Hazard and Glutor)y] which was the most despotic I am 
 unable to say. Is it not George Eliot who says, "jThe 
 passion of jealousy makes fiends, and the passion of hunger 
 makes beasts of men ?" The latter species were all around 
 me at the table. They are the sustaining element of this 
 glittering palace, and have l>ribed all the waiters into their 
 slaves. They were the first to be served with every course, 
 and if a lady intervened she was omitted for the next 
 gambler in the line. If the supply of food was unequal for 
 the number of guests, a lady would be denied the delicacy, 
 while a mysterious wink or sign to a waiter from the 
 gambler next her commanded a replenished dish of the 
 luxur}' she had been told was quite exhausted. I ordered 
 ice-cream. As I wgis about to help myself one of the 
 individuals near gave the cue, the cream and servant 
 were transported as if by electricity, and when I collected 
 my disbanded faculties I had the pleasure of seeing my 
 fellow-diner enjojing mj^ dessert after having disposed of 
 his own. Need I dwell or moralize upon this gross vul- 
 garity ? Need I say that men with these base manners 
 have baser morals, and that to be robbed of one's ice-cream 
 was not so flagrant an indecency as to be robbed of one's 
 amiability by the leering gaze of these heartless ghouls? 
 But we were here as others were, even the best of our kind, 
 to gratify a natural curiosity ; and true safety was to get 
 out of it, quickly and quietly as possible. To remonstrate 
 would be as great a folly as a proposition to purchase the 
 bank. Such monsters are the foundation upon which the 
 great temple rests, the fulcrum which supports it, the girder 
 that binds it, the pillar that strengthens it, the stanchion that 
 upholds it, the axis upon which it revolves. These crea- 
 tures are the Atlantes, Caryatides, and Hercules that carry 
 it. They are the elect children, the faithful believers, the 
 clergy, the propagandists, and the society of the Taber- 
 nacle of Fortune. 
 
 The gambling-hall in the hotel is en deshabille j being 
 garnished for the winter frolic; the green-baize tables with 
 the chalked numerals are turned upside down, and the fi-es- 
 coers' trestles are conspicuous in their stead. Although this 
 
 1 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 237 
 
 grepn-room^ if I may use the term, is entered from an octa- 
 gonal conservatory, where stained glass, frescoes, exotics, 
 divans, and otlier superb embellishments reign supreme, 
 there is a chill about it as of a sepulchre. It is not the 
 dismal solitude of the "banquet-hall deserted," depressing 
 by the gayer memory of happy hearts and light feet, but 
 the ghastly grandeur of the murder-chamber in Elsinore 
 Castle; it is like a palatial judgment-hall, where thousands 
 of souls have received their death-warrant, and the haunt- 
 ing, terrifying memory hangs in cloudy oppression. It is 
 a Golgotha. 
 
 The first melodious notes of the evening concert came 
 floating from the crowded, stuffy chambers of the Casino 
 upon the sweet evening. I crossed the broad, white, maca- 
 damized square, and climbing the marble stairway, paused 
 beneath the portals, and turned to gaze once more upon the 
 entrancing landscape, before plunging into the abyss of 
 Risk, the great lure of lucre. The adornments were rich, 
 but not meretricious; out7^e decorum was paramount; for- 
 eign servants and well-dressed gentlemen were hurrying 
 through the corridors. It had rather the appearance of a 
 nobleman's palace prepared for a ball than a gaming-house. 
 One is not compelled to gamble or even enter the slaughter- 
 house of souls because he comes here. There is the concert, 
 free to all, and to it I resorted to iron out the wrinkles of 
 prudery from my conscience with the soothing harmonies 
 of Rossini, Strauss, Meyerbeer, and Mozart. The hall was 
 crowded when I entered ; many ladies and gentlemen, im- 
 mature misses of fifteen or sixteen, and some of my delec- 
 table companions of the table d^hote^ but this stratum I at 
 once discovered to be restive — only listening to a couple of 
 ]>ars of the music, and then vanishing for perhaps a half or 
 three-quarters of an hour. There floated in young ladies, 
 unattended by gentlemen, from time to time, who disap- 
 peared as rapidly and mysteriously as the men. These 
 were the vestals, and I followed them to the shrine of their 
 devotion. The roulette tables were surrounded by double 
 and treble rows, the greater number females not past the 
 meridian of life. The wheels were in motion, and the 
 croupiers sat on either side of the centre of the long board, 
 armed with their little money-rakes, and sixty times in an 
 liour they command in sepulchral tones the "gentlemen to 
 make their game." It is as silent as death within these 
 walls, while thousands of dollars are changing hands, the 
 bank winning every eight of ten games. The ladies were 
 
238 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the most successful, risking very little at a time, but inva- 
 riably adding to it. The men are of two classes; the young 
 and brainless fops of fortune, who are here cutting tlieir 
 social eye-teeth, perhaps with less pain to themselves than 
 to tlieir parents, upon the brilliants of Monte Carlo, and 
 the burly, bullying roues and sharpers I have already 
 spoken of. The women are of every age, station, and na- 
 tion under the sun, the younger tossing down their stakes 
 with the playful recklessness of children, and the elder 
 ones seated at the table, brows furrowed with thought and 
 anxiety, as if the}^ were solving the problem of their fate. 
 I stuciied the game long. The more I lingered the more 
 interested I became. Several times I thought I had unrav- 
 elled the warp of its progress and penetrated its darkest 
 secrets, when by some new law of success I became aware 
 of my utter helplessness to disentangle the skein. 
 
 The amusement is absorbing and seductive, and as I 
 looked 1 too felt its peculiar influence. It is the charming 
 expectancy of luck that enchants, and we are beguiled into 
 the machination by an ecstasy of anticipation. Several 
 times I found m}' hand upon my iioiHe-monnaie^ for I con- 
 fess my evil genius was busj'^, i)articularly as I watched a 
 3-oung lady who never staked more than a five franc piece, 
 and yet whose star was ever propitious. Besides here, in 
 the presence of the delusive evil, we do not think of the 
 printed admonitions of the moralists. 
 
 All is peaceful and luxurious, and with the exception of 
 now and then a broken-hearted-looking old woman or a 
 haggard man leaving the table in despair, we see none of 
 the misery we had expected would stare at us like wretched 
 deaths'-heads from every corner. There are many eager 
 candidates for the vacant chair of the unfortunate one, and 
 our budding sympathy for him is soon forgotten in the risks 
 and triumphs of his successor. I ceased to recollect the 
 whole category of painful affections, the inevitable out- 
 growth of this passion; I forgot the attending sins and 
 sorrows, and saw only the lottery wheel of a church fair. 
 Surely, I then said, there can be no wrong in this, since 
 it is only the machine employed to fulfil a purely religious 
 and charitable end. The sin is so highly veneered by 
 glistening prosperity and artifice that the hideous fact is 
 lost, and a sedulous mental review of the thousand tragic 
 scenes enacted on the spot is necessarj'' to withhold one's self 
 away from the vampire's talons. Roulette seemed nothing 
 more than a mere innocent child's game of chance, or fair 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 239 
 
 raffle, with its revolving wheel and balls, dropping into the 
 alternate red and black sockets, but trente et quarante, to 
 which one apartment is devoted, is much more serious. It 
 is played with cards, and nothing but gold coin is staked. 
 It is not so exciting as the roulette, fewer indulge, and of 
 these mostly women are seated at the tables; a most deathly 
 silence reigns, and the gamers devote their most subtle in- 
 tellect to the work. Vast rouleaux of Napoleons and heaps 
 of Bank of France notes lay on the tables, and after the 
 cards are dealt around twice, the game declared, the money 
 is raked in by the croupier and distributed amongst the 
 winners. I saw fifty dollars staked, and by some trick of 
 betting on the first card dealt, the winner received fifteen 
 hundred. 
 
 The Casino is not the only gambling salon of Monaco ; 
 indeed, there are numbers of assemblies or circles in all the 
 towns and hamlets of the Riviera where baccarat is played 
 all day long. Almost every private house and hotel has 
 its roulette tables, as they are for sale in the shops as 
 plenty as peanuts at our corners. Gambling is the miasma . 
 in the air, and to remain in the atmosphere you can no 
 more hope to escape the infection than the yellow fever in 
 Memphis, or the malaria upon the Pontine marshes. 
 
 Gambling is not the only vice of this chosen district. 
 The business of pleasure — and ruin — is studied in its most 
 minute details and abstract phases, and all that may con- 
 tribute to the enjoyment of man is congregated here. I 
 have heard loathsome tales of loose morals and free life 
 here ; the lamias, who sweep down in hordes upon unsus- 
 pecting youths, and of frequent murders and suicides. Of 
 course my limited stay prevented me from seeing any of 
 this, but where so much sin exists retribution is inevitable. 
 Nemesis is as certain as Satan. 
 
 When Emperor William ostracized Monsieur Blanc and 
 his nefarious comrades from Baden Baden, it was here, 
 in the corner of Prince Monaco's paradise, that he found 
 a sanitary refuge under the French Tri-color. I call the 
 occupation nefarious; still is it any more guilty than rail- 
 way, stock, commercial, and political speculations? It is 
 bolder, but before the Eternal Judge it will not be more 
 severely punished than the systematic villauy that is prac- 
 tised daily b}^ those who make the food, the comfort, and 
 the peace of nations the sport of great corners, the ex- 
 cuse for living in luxury upon property not their own, 
 and the opportunity to ruin those who invest in their false 
 
240 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 speculations. Human law justly chastises the g.imbler, 
 and the chief of Monte Carlo has massed millions upon 
 millions by his organized vice; but there is no human law 
 for the rulers who gamble with the lives of their people, 
 and slaughter millions in great and useless wars. 
 
 LETTER L. 
 
 *' Heroic guide ! whose wings are never furrd, 
 Hy thee Spain's voyager sought another world ; 
 What but poetic impulse could sustaui 
 That dauntless pilgrim on the dreary main ? 
 Day after day his mariners protest. 
 And gaze with dread along the pathless west ; 
 Beyond that realm of waves, untrack'd before, 
 Tliy fairy pencil traced the promised shore. 
 Through weary storms and faction's fiercer rage, 
 The scoffs of ingrates and the chills of age, 
 ""Jliy voice renewed his earnestness of aim, 
 And whisper'd pledges of eternal fame ; 
 Thy cheering smile atoned for fortunes's frown, 
 And made his fetters garlands of renown." 
 
 TUCKERMAN. 
 
 Genoa, June, 1878. 
 
 I WOULD not dare to appl}"- the threadbare and hackneyed 
 boast of ''La Superba" upon Monte Carlo, and yet it 
 might be justh^^ applied to that glittering pageant, and not 
 to Genoa. Genoa is dirty, dismal, and dilapidated, and 
 though the beauties of Monaco still linger in my mind like 
 the pomp of some gorgeous pageant, the first picture that 
 met my gaze here as 1 threw open my casement window, 
 made a sad and lasting impress; a manacled defile of con- 
 victs passing over the railway embankment under my lat- 
 tice, from their toil upon the quays, as the Angelus bell 
 chimed the evening hour. 
 
 For some miles after leaving Mo :te Carlo, we had the 
 fair French landscape about us, and the peddling peasants 
 of French Savoy pushing their little wagons of carved 
 wooden ornaments and cuckoo clocks over the white 
 mountain paths, but after passing the line of the custom 
 station, Yentimiglia, Italy was apparent in a general as- 
 pect of untidiness, squuloi', and decaj-, which we saw only 
 
. OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 241 
 
 in the intervals we were upon terra firma^ as our route 
 was almost wholly subterranean, emerging from one tun- 
 nel only to encounter another. The guide-books say there 
 are forty-one tunnels between Monte Carlo and Genoa, but 
 it seemed like four hundred to me. As we approached 
 many of the Italian towns grape-vines formed the walls 
 and canopy of arbors that stretched through green fields ; 
 but so close as to disparage this beautiful view were 
 crumbling houses, whose fortunes and lineage had expired 
 together; manufactories, now only deca3nng shells, and 
 sclioolhouses tottering and dismantled. The once ruddy 
 frescoes, now defaced by time, appearing frequently upon 
 the fagadea of buildings, and Virgin shrines at the street 
 corners, told me I was near Genoa, dearly and clearly 
 associated with his own country in the mind of every 
 American. Of course, the first object I looked for was 
 something referring to Columbus, and found it in the 
 Piazza Acquaverde adjoining the station. The monument 
 of Ghristoforo Golumbo is pointed out by every vetturino 
 and cicerone to Americans as the loadstar. 
 
 To me Genoa is depressing in its decline; it seems like 
 a beautiful woman reduced to a skeleton — a master intellect 
 worn to a thread, — a monarch nodding to his fall; and 
 memor}^ reverts with a tinge of sadness to the time when 
 this colossal wreck was a sovereign of the sea, powerful in 
 her domestic wealth, and strong in her foreign possessions; 
 when victories over the Saracens, conquests of the Pisans, 
 and prolific trade in the Levant gave her a supremacy that 
 even Venice envied; when the great names of Doria, Grim- 
 aldi, Spinola, and Fieschi shed a halo over the oligarchy, 
 that in the present shines with spectral lustre upon the 
 withering city. 
 
 I was not only impressed by its utter dilapidation — 
 partly the work of the scythe of time — but by the mould- 
 ering, festering foulness universally met with, and as a 
 strong effluvium of putrescent vegetable matter, maggot}'^ 
 garbage, bilge-water from the vessels, rancid oil from loco- 
 motives, the musty rag-shops, and the naked and offensive 
 chiffonniers^ floated in upon my susceptible senses, I 
 prayed the merciful gods to rain a powerful antiseptic 
 down upon this fetid city. 
 
 Through the crooked, labyrinthine, narrow streets — so 
 narrow and the buildings so tall that never a ray of sun- 
 light penetrates — we came upon the quays, where the 
 arches are crumbling to powder. Under these the Italians 
 21 
 
242 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 sell macaroni and pick rags; but under these same colon- 
 nades we pushed open a door and ascended the marble 
 'stairway of the Hotel Trombetta, formerly the Palace of 
 the Admiralty. Spacious dining halls, vast marble corri- 
 dors, and luxurious chambers, formed a striking contrast 
 to the exterior filth and decay. Through zigzag passages, 
 and dark, damp, slimy alleys, where the antique palaces of 
 the alternate black and white stone blocks rear their heads 
 heavenward, I found the Doria estate, and entering met not 
 even a symptom of the outside pollution, but a mansion 
 crowned with the glories of Perino del Vaga, one of 
 Raphael's pupils. The church of the Annunziata^ though 
 the bricks and mortar appear moth-eaten, is as superbly 
 finished inside as a mosaic picture or a lady's enamelled 
 gewgaw, and to me more beautiful than the Madelaine in 
 Paris. Hours could be passed in this highly embellished 
 sanctuary, and gladly would I have lingered longer with 
 the young Italian acolyte as guide, feasting upon the 
 beauties of the superb temple, had not time beckoned me 
 away. This is my initial day in the religious tournament 
 of Italy. It is a country of churches and a church-going 
 community ; everyone who comes here immediately launches 
 uj)on the peaceful sea of sanctity; holiness is the infection, 
 and we can no more escape it than the gambling contagion 
 at Monte Carlo. I do not know whether the Catholic cus- 
 tom of keeping their churches open all day and every day 
 foslers a moral and powerful population, but it certainly 
 has its merits. It is the onl3'' proper way for the house of 
 God to be conducted. I never approved the system by 
 which supplication and repentance are condensed into one 
 conglomerate mass during six days, to be hurled, a pious 
 projectile, upon the seventh. Religion should, like love, 
 ])e an emotion of the heart — an ecstasy; and we should 
 seek our God as our sweetheart, at the moment irresistible 
 im[)ulse prompts us to sweet communication. Worshipping 
 God by routine and wooing by rule are for austere bigots 
 only. If we sin on the first day of the week, and upon the 
 second or third our soul cries Peccam^ we must bear the 
 stings of the still small voice within four more da^^s before 
 we may cast our contrite hearts upon the altar of the Great 
 Confessor, and it would demand a very tender conscience 
 to bleed with the same remorse after this lapse of time. 
 And so when Sunday morning shines, the ardor of our 
 penitence has cooled ; our heart-scourgings have been 
 seared by time and the worldly work ; we veneer one part 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 243 
 
 of onr guilt and forget another, and go our way with only 
 a partial forgiveness. There is a prologue of penitence, 
 but the wounds are only cauterized, the poison still fester- 
 ing at the core. 
 
 If mj' proclivities are Romish, let it be attributed to the 
 fact, I entered a convent school at the age of eleven, and 
 though my sentiments are far too liberal ever to adopt all 
 the precepts of the Church, yet at so early an age the mind 
 is placable, quick to receive and slow to remove, and the 
 surroundings and teacliings have left their vivid and endur- 
 ing colors. 
 
 Genoa is built upon altitudes, and the streets coil round 
 and round, until the first, the easiest, and the most frequent 
 thing a stranger is guilty of is, to lose himself. There are 
 spacious squares and fine stores, but they are the exception. 
 The new Mazzini Gallery^ christened in honor of the fierce 
 and inspired Italian republican, is the pride of the Genoese. 
 It is an exquisite glass-covered avenue, lined by fresh and 
 costly establishments, while the half of one side is occupied 
 by the new liotel. 
 
 I had heard much of Campo Santo, the picturesque 
 cemetery of Genoa, and my first steps were turned towards 
 it. I found almost as much food for reflection upon my 
 route as in the sui generis necropolis. And of all I saw 
 and all I studied, dirt and donkeys were tiie most affecting. 
 All along the quays rag hovels — Genoa is the great rai^r 
 mart of the world — were plenteous. Dark, foul, half-naked 
 men were assorting their tattered merchandise, and baling 
 it upon the numberless drays that were to convey it to the 
 A'essels. The air was permeated with the fumes of bad 
 tobacco and garlic. By a mysterious turn we found our- 
 selves in the broad Via Nuova, where the sunlight seemed 
 to pour down with treble effulgence upon the white square 
 by being debarred by narrow bywa3^s; where the Palazzo 
 del Municipio reposes upon an inclination adorned by the 
 eternal story of Doge Grimaldi in fresco, and guarded by 
 iMazzini in marble. The stairway from the court is one of 
 those costly and masterly works that, alas, sadly recall to 
 us the art of bygone days, now a soiled vestige of former 
 loveliness. In the Council Chamber Columbus and Marco 
 Polo are blazoned in gaudy mosaics, and in a room adjoin- 
 ing is preserved the violin into which Paganini breathed 
 the melodious life that electrified the world. This and two 
 autograph letters from Columbus were the only objects of 
 interest in the municipal palace. 
 
244 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 The ladies of Genoa are, as a class, elegant and fantastic. 
 The}' have ever been noted for the signal grace of their 
 step. Add to this most eloquent beauty of woman, a pre- 
 maturely developed, yet shapely form, clear olive com- 
 plexion, large luminous ej'es, and a wealth of raven hair, 
 that seems a burden to the wearer, in its multiplied coils, 
 and you have a model of this attractive province. Then 
 their costume is so bizarre and romantic, they look like 
 the antique females stepped from the canvas of a Spanish 
 or Italian picture, in their rich, brilliant colors, with only 
 a filmy scarf of black lace draped about the head and throat, 
 and their large Oriental fans. There seem to be fewer 
 visitors upon the streets than in any of the other foreign 
 cities. I cannot account for this dearth of strangers, but 
 I can point out every alien female by her bonnet. 'J'he 
 upper classes of the natives' coiffure is only the veil, fast- 
 ened on one side by a luscious damask rose or gilt orna- 
 ment. 
 
 The shop windows display but one character of jewelry 
 — the filagree. There are three species manufactured: the 
 pure gold, the pure silver, and the silver with gold facing; 
 and every description of bauble for which the female heart 
 longs may be found in confused superfluity. These, with 
 velvet, are the chief staples, and the prices, compared to 
 those at home, are excessively moderate. An exquisite 
 set of ear-rings and pin of the pure gold, are sold for eight 
 American dollars, a bracelet for twelve, a necklace for six- 
 teen, — ranging higher, according to the intricacy of the 
 work and weight of metal, while the lower grades depre- 
 ciate with the value of the silver. 
 
 Toward the Porta Romana we passed through streets in 
 which I feared we might be wedged. Certainly some 
 calamity would have occurred had a mule, a man, or even 
 a mouse, been encountered. Fortunately neither convey- 
 ance nor animal was met. Where either would have sought 
 refuge from the contact is still a sealed problem, as there 
 were only here and there holes beaten into the hedging 
 walls where blacksmiths, tinkers, cobblers, and rag-pickers 
 ply their meagre trade. Once outside the gates we breathe 
 the fresh air and try to force from our lungs the noxious 
 gases that have all but strangled us in our ride through the 
 cramped town. Laundresses are beating their linen on 
 stones in the Bisagno, whose waters seem insufficient for 
 the process. It is a peculiar way these Italian rivers have, 
 yielding more pebbles than water. The flow is always 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 215 
 
 scanty, and rolls in its ston3'- bed like the ebbing life of 
 some t(n'|)id creature. The poor, pathetic little mules trot 
 over the hills and steep passes, their pannier baskets laden 
 with every sort of household or personal furniture, vege- 
 tables for market, and frequently carrying whole families. 
 These beasts, with their hunted, mournful faces, if subjected 
 to a phrenological examination, would be found to possess 
 the faculty of location in the highest stage of development. 
 They take their own route; their master slee[)s upon their 
 back in the happy consciousness of perfect faith. At first 
 1 believed some poor man to be the possessor of a donkey 
 who had acquired this wonderful endowment, perhaps from 
 the habit that becomes second nature, and perhaps a heredi- 
 tary gift from father and grandfather who had travelled the 
 path before him ; l)ut as I passed on I learned it was a char- 
 acteristic attribute. All these patient quadrupeds went un- 
 faltering over their way; all the drivers were asleep. 
 
 The Campo Santo was a surprise and a pleasure. It 
 differs ioto ccelo from an}^ city of the dead I have delighted 
 in ; as I have, in truth, an infirmity for ceineteries. Great 
 marble corridors or galleries of shelves, reaching from floor 
 to ceiling, contain the coffins of the dead, square marble 
 tablets, bearing the name and date of birth and death, hide 
 the unsightly mural caskets. Long palisades of monuments 
 skirt the outer walls, and rising with the terraces on the 
 hill are costly tombs and chapels. There seems to be 
 enough funeral statuar3'^ upon this burial hill to exhaust 
 all the marble quarries of Italy, and offer employment to 
 everj' disciple of Phidias and Praxiteles in the Old World. 
 Ouh' the lower classes are buried under the earth, over 
 each grave a black stick bearing a little black lantern. 
 
 Here in this lovely white and silent city, modern Italy 
 shows its inherited genius. The dead are as recent as the 
 artists ; and among the first are soldiers and statesmen of 
 conceded local fame, while among the last are proved 
 masters of sculpture. Many, indeed most of these carved 
 effigies have names unknown to Americans, and so also of 
 most of those who moulded and finished their forms and 
 features Only Mazzini on his hill, recalled the fiery Demo- 
 crat, whose life was a great agony for liberty, and whose 
 soul breathed its iiicense over all the world — onh^ he was 
 familiar to me. 
 
 21* 
 
246 ncTURES and tortraits 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 
 "O Rome ! my country ! city of my soul ! 
 
 The orphans of the heart must turn tothee 
 Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
 
 In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
 "VVliat are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 
 
 The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
 O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! 
 
 Whose aiionies are evils of a day — 
 
 A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Rome, June, 1878. 
 
 The impoverished condition of Italy is painfully app:ir- 
 ent in the tottering habitations, decaying stations, crum- 
 l)ling aqueducts, and broad stretches of barren moorland. 
 Last night I passed through some forty tunnels, but 
 thanks to Somnus, he folded his peaceful wings about me, 
 and I dreamed of triple-action springs and luxurious mat- 
 tresses in these dark caverns, only to waken with the 
 dawn, and find my cramped limbs and aching head pain- 
 fully real in comparison with my happy delusions. 
 
 Pisa was the first station 1 saw in the early morning, 
 and 1 thought if J could catch the least sight of the Lenn- 
 ing Tower 1 should go on my way contented and satisfied 
 that 1 had not vainly climbed its apex, traversed the wind- 
 ing ways of the town, and witnessed the reputed sensuality 
 of the populace. But not a line of its columns nor a scroll 
 of its fretwork gladdened mj^ expectant gaze. A group of 
 dusky Italian boys lounged about the platform, and I 
 beckoned one to the carriage window. Handing him a 
 towel, 1 asked him in French to dip it in water; the boy's 
 eyes wandered alternatel3' between the towel and my face 
 in blank amazement; then, interrogating me in Italian, I 
 comprehended he had not the slightest idea of the language 
 in which I was addressing him. I made this discovery 
 with some surprise, as it was the first peasant or native I 
 had met on the continent not able to speak the polite and 
 really standard language of Europe, — and I could not 
 master one word of Italian. After a few moments' annoy- 
 ing hesitation and silence filled with pantomimic gestures, 
 I made an endeavor upon him with the Latin word aqua, 
 which was the magic key to his understanding. For my 
 brejdifast I purchased a small flagon of wine for ten cents, 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 247 
 
 and a sandwich made of bologna sausage so impregnated 
 with garlic that the atmosphere was redolent at once, and 
 had it not been for a cold fowl tucked awa3" in one corner 
 of my lunch basket, at Genoa, 1 should iiave been obliged 
 to go fasting to Rome. 
 
 The Italian railway stations are frequently separated by 
 extended stretches of country, utterly houseless and god- 
 forsaken. The train often makes a run of three or four 
 hours without cessation, and, unlike America, there are no 
 luxuries, nor even conveniences ; if you are suffering from 
 hunger or thirst j^ou must bear it nntil your necessities 
 grow into agony. Then at the first stopping-place, which 
 is frequently a little mouldering town, with an offensive 
 railway boiiffet, there is a general outpouring of passengers, 
 and the slightest succor or relief must be paid foi*. How 
 I recalled the splendid comforts of the railways of my own 
 country I 
 
 I thought T should be made aware of my approach to 
 the Eternal City by certain signs of sanctity, which would 
 at once transform me into a devotee of his Reverence Leo 
 XIII. Surely this could not be the city of Cfesar and 
 Brutus, of Augustus and Trajan, and the great Constan- 
 tine. Surely this is not the Rome of Romulus and the See 
 of St. Peter, revealed to me in the crumbling aqueducts 
 and white cattle knee deep in tlie lush grass of the (Jara- 
 pagnian marshes. Where is the glory of the Gracchi, the 
 glamour of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Canova, the 
 grandeur of Trajan, and the cruelty of Nero? Oh where, 
 where are all these influences and elements that really 
 make the sublimity of Rome? I asked myself again and 
 again as 1 came through the new quarter of the city, where 
 the fa§ades are as fresh and glaring, and life as insougiant 
 and youthful as in Paris. 1 vainly looked for some sign 
 by which the consciousness of the sacred city might take 
 possession of me. Perhaps I sought an emperor in crim- 
 son-bordered toga and sandalled feet. Perhaps a legion of 
 gladiators, or the early disciples of Jesus. There were 
 scores of Capucini and Dominican friars upon the streets; 
 but these were familiar objects, and then the}' were all 
 either too dirty or too corpulent and carnal to summon the 
 ghosts of the past; they were pre-eminently of the present. 
 
 And so ray entree into this Etrurian capital was disap- 
 pointing. I had expected its splendor to burst upon me 
 like some great meteor of a southern sky. I was prema- 
 ture; much that was magnificent, and much that was 
 
248 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 anomalous, awaited me, l)Ut it is not the order of grandeur 
 that oveii)Ovvers by one glory of etfulgence. It is all so uni- 
 form in its magnitude that you must grow into and slowl}^ 
 a))Sorb it. 
 
 My first steps were not turned toward St. Peter's. It 
 was too late in the day; another reason, 1 always "save 
 tlie best wine until the last." So after dining sumptuously 
 upon rol)in, artichokes, macaroni, prawns, and Lacrima 
 Chridi^ in the sweet glow of the dying day, I joined in 
 the glittering line of equipages slowly mounting Monte 
 Pincio. J should have preferied to walk; then I could 
 have studied the curious sti'eet corners, sparkling with the 
 spray of fountains, and sacred with the Virgin shrines, but 
 ] did not know the way, and must submit to vetturino. 
 The life I met was as much a vanity fair as Paris, and only 
 a repetitif>n of a ride to the Bois de Boulogne. There 
 was no fragi'nnce* of antiquity, nor chime of holiness, nor 
 gloss of imperialism. No Angelus bells made sweet and 
 solemn music; no orisons floated upon the air, no prayerful 
 hush upon the place, no peaceful l)enediction to balsa»n a 
 bleeding soul, no Te Deum of praise, no genuflexion of 
 worship to tell me I was in the city of God. Long parades 
 of costly turnouts, with high-stei)pi ng steeds and liveried 
 attendants, ostentatious crests, and dark, gaudily-dressed 
 women, chaperoning their infantile progeny and nurses 
 through the procession. The nurses, as gay as peacocks 
 in their gaiish [)lumes, I at first mistook for ladies of some 
 high degree of nol»ility, and while I did not admire their 
 ])omposity of paraphernalia and streaming pink head rib- 
 i)r)ns, — I think the })ink pennons are the universal indice 
 of this order, — I did regard the republicanism and maternal 
 pride with which these grand duchessea bore their own 
 children — as I then supposed. 
 
 The Roman matrons do not seek to alleviate nor even to 
 spiritualize their essentially earthy faces and forms by their 
 mode of dress. Many among the showy community in 
 which 1 mingled last night— only the upper-tendom — were 
 magnificently beautiful women, but with sensual faces. 
 Their charms lie in massive coils of dusky hair, eyes that 
 are luminous with the dew of unshed tears, and creamy 
 luscious throats. 
 
 We entered Monte Pincio from the Piazza del Popolo, 
 where the obelisk of Kamses, with its quartette of guard- 
 ing beasts and dancing fountains, crowns the centre of the 
 great oblong circle, while the monumental churches, great 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 249 
 
 fonts of leaping water, the gate of the piazza, and lofty 
 columns and walls, surmounted by colossal statues of 
 Rome, Neptune, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, 
 form an unforgotten coronal. 
 
 Passing under the portal, where the seasons blend in 
 glorious harmony, we were among the cypress and box, 
 ilex and palms, cedars and oleanders, stretches of sward 
 and mounds of prodigal bloom. Gods and goddesses, 
 heroes of war and conquerors of science, masters of verse 
 and victors of art, glance from between the pines and be- 
 hind corners of bronze foliage in a state of pitiable decay. 
 The strains of the musicians assisted in dispersing any 
 gathering shade of sublimity in this twilight retreat of 
 stony celebrities; for they were all silent, — the marble effi- 
 gies bordering the paths not more so than the flashy groups 
 of fashion upon the avenues. 1 left the glittering Roman 
 crowd, and again passing the broad piazza entered the 
 Villa Borghese beyond the city walls that hedge the park. 
 Here there was no pageant of money, nor titles, nor fash- 
 ion; no dead emperors nor slaughtered generals gazing in 
 marble dignity; but shady avenues, great forests of dense 
 herbage, the sweet odor of earth, and a stifled air of purity 
 that chastened the spot of all the profligacj' of its Corsican 
 Princess, and left only the memor3' of her beauty and 
 grace as a hallowing reflection. Still there remains, in one 
 of the upper chambers of the palace, the celebrated Yenus 
 Yictrix of Canova, modelled from Pauline Bonaparte, 
 Princess Borghese. 
 
 The original seven hills upon which ancient Rome rested 
 like so many pediments, have now multiplied into as many 
 more. Upon any one of these altitudes we see the city, 
 with its domes, and spires, and monuments, and ruins, rise 
 and fall like the breast of the ocean. Tiiis undulating; belt 
 forms an entire girdle to the city, and each summit has a 
 special monumental crown: St. Peter's and the Holy 
 Prison (?) of the Pope upon Yaticanas; the Franciscan's 
 Gardens and a group of villas upon Janiculum, in the dis- 
 trict of Trastevere; the Palace of the Caesars upon Pala- 
 tinus; the Palace of King Humbert upon the Quirinalis; 
 San tana Sabina and several other churches upon Aven- 
 tinus; the Basilica of Santa Maria Maojoriore and the Baths 
 of Titus upon Esquilinus; the Baths of Diocletian upon 
 Yiminalis; and St. John in Lateran at the base of Caelian ; 
 and the Mamertine Prison, the archaeological institution 
 with arches, temples, and columns innumerable to mythical 
 deities and dead empeiors. 
 
250 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER LII. 
 
 "Or tuniing to the Vatican, go see 
 
 Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 
 A father's love and mortal's agony 
 
 With an immortal's patience blending : — Vain 
 
 The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain 
 And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp. 
 
 The old man's clench ; the long evenom'd chain 
 Eivets the living links, — the enormous asp 
 Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp." 
 
 BiRON. 
 
 Rome, June, 1878. 
 
 As I rode home from Monte Pincio and the Villa Bor- 
 ghese, a few evenings since, the little lamps siione like stars 
 in front of virgin shrines at the street corners and over the 
 doors, while the great celestial lamps swung in the broad 
 dome above, casting more of a carnival tiian a religious 
 glow over the Catholic capital. When I woke next morn- 
 ing, with the dazzling Italian sun flooding the chamber, 
 and tiirowing the rude highly-colored frescoes into blinding 
 lirilliancy, the troops of King Humbert were drilling in the 
 great square beyond, while the tinkling of church chimes 
 made festive the early day. And this double parade of 
 soldieis and saintly worship was on the Sabbath 1 I could 
 not realize that it was in Home J had slept. 
 
 It is a city for reflection ! '^Rome was not built in a 
 day;" this idea flashes upon one through ever}' step of 
 experience. Neither can it be seen nor studied in a day, 
 and one must meditate, whether he will or not. Every 
 moment some aged relic or mouldering ruin rouses a vivid 
 recollection ; anything modern in this venerable shadow 
 seems a profanation. While I feel old in the presence of 
 these crumbling centuries, yet it is what I sought in Rome. 
 ^ he broad streets, bright new houses, and unfinished Prot- 
 estant church, are unanticipated pleasures in Rome, yet 
 the only real sublimity, the only inspiration in this capital 
 of the centuries, is the mould, and rust, and dampness of 
 the antique. Still how lovely the aged city in its ancient 
 iioblesi^e, and tattered lazzaroni ; with its souvenirs of 
 greatness and evidences of decay ; with the memory of 
 ni3rrh, frankincense, and all the aromatic spices of the 
 East, and the too offensive odors of the present; with its 
 wealth of mediaeval art and hordes of modern disciples. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 251 
 
 Here only do I falter in my strong proclivities for the primi- 
 genious. Tlie great names that form a circling halo to 
 Roman history are here portrayed, not in the freshness 
 and fashion of their day, but with all the impression of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries upon them. Our eye, 
 not inured to primeval art, even at the rugged height of 
 its glory, wanders to the modern copies and back to the 
 originals, while the treasonous thought creeps in: Would 
 these immortal names shine with the same lustre if they 
 were of the present epoch, and if they were the product of 
 the genius of this magnificent era of scientific discoveries, 
 philosophical demonstration ; artistic cultivation, and ar- 
 chaeological explorations — in our day, when human life 
 and human brains, wealth, and invention are devoted to 
 the education and elevation of the masses ; when the world's 
 battle-cry is advance ? Is it not only the legendary cloud 
 of age that hangs in transcendent ra3'stery around the 
 chefs d^ceuv7^e of earlier days? Time, to the untaught 
 mind, has robbed the canvas and marble of their expectant 
 charms. Are we disappointed because we behold art touched 
 hy the despoiling finger of age, because, as he passes on froui 
 3^ear to year, he adds a brighter tone to the names they 
 bear? The fame that to-day shines only with a wan and 
 ])allid light, sufficient to illuminate a city, may, in the next 
 century, when death has claimed and seasons have hallowed 
 it, burst forth a meteor to dazzle and bewilder worlds. What 
 a volume to read I What monuments to study! What 
 relics to gather, to decipher, and to organize! 
 
 Come through the Piazza di Spagna, where we find great 
 libraries of English books, cafes, photograph shops, and 
 windows laden with the gaudy scarfs of Roman silk ; where 
 the picturesque but soiled models (soiled body and soul) 
 recline in artistic costumes upon the great rows of steps 
 that lead to Trinita de Monti. From dawn till the sinking 
 sun throws his rosy mantle over the hills of Albano, these 
 beautiful, luscious, unwashed Roman women swarm in this 
 quarter, waiting to be chosen by one of the hundreds of 
 students of the vicinity. Glance at them as you pass, then 
 come with me to St. Peter's. It is not a temple to be 
 visited, but a sanctuary in which to linger ; where we may 
 return again and again, and the oftener we come the more 
 we shall find to feast upon. It is the one spot to resort 
 when the heart is oppressed and the soul craves a balsam, 
 there to remain until these holy shadows fold you in their 
 sweet embrace. Do not look in when you are hastening 
 
252 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 toward another monument. That annihilates the entire 
 splendors of the effect. \our mind first absorbs enough 
 of the great cathedral to be enthralled by its sovereignt3^ ; 
 then, when sufficiently filled with its majesty, you are safe 
 from the influence of subordinate charms. 
 
 Now come and drink deeply of its imperishable mosaics 
 that are as brilliant to-day as they were centuries ago. 
 Come linger at the tombs where all the horror of the decay- 
 ing bones within is lost in admiration of the statuary on 
 the top. In truth the place is a purified charnel-house, and 
 we are surrounded by the sarcophagi of mouldering saints 
 and vanished popes ; but we see only the deeds of great 
 heroes, and the fasting, prayer, and castigations of devotees 
 in classic marble. It is not a vault of the dead, but a 
 temple of art to keep their memories fresh forever. 
 
 The Piazza of St. Peter's rests upon the inclination of 
 the hill. In the centre an Egyptian obelisk, with fountains 
 on either side, is dwarfed in the shadow of the great basi- 
 lica. Semicircular wings of the temple, in the form of peri- 
 styles, a perfect labyrinth of Doric columns and massive 
 pilasters, surmounted by colossal statues of saints and 
 popes, inclose the square. The interior seems to boast a 
 peculiar atmosphere of its own. When the malarial sun is 
 scorching all Rome in the porticos beyond, here it is calm 
 and cool, even chilly, though never damp. Far up the nave 
 men appear like mice, and the wonderful Confession of St. 
 Peter, the cynosure of the interior, where one hundred and 
 forty-two bronze lamps shed perpetual immortality upon 
 the Christ-elected pope, seems only a twinkling star. In 
 tlie crypt beneath rest the ashes of the apostle, directly 
 under the broad gilded canopy. If you would descend and 
 be in the holy presence of the anointed dead you must pay. 
 Such favors are not for the impecunious. "Put monej' in 
 your purse," as lago tells Roderigo, and all paths do lie 
 open. Chapels adorn every nook and nave, chapels whose 
 mosaics and monuments apotheosize the names of Michael 
 Angelo, Canova, Bernini, Guido, and Sacchi, and under 
 whose garlanded and carved arcades, aliens, such as Chris- 
 tina of Sweden, who abdicated the throne before she was 
 thirty, the Stuarts, and the Countess Matilda, have found 
 their last sleep far from the country of their fathers. 
 
 Alas ! the mosaics that we regard as works of artistic 
 delicac}' in the dome, hjinging like a great balloon at a dizzy 
 height above us, are rude enough upon closer examination. 
 But the precious marbles of the altar, the porphyry steps, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 253 
 
 the lapis lazuli, malachite, and Egyptian alabaster are in 
 themselves an El Dorado of wealth. 
 
 May I say that I eiijo^^ed the Vatican Palace, or papal 
 prisons, as the holy occupant chooses to term it, still more 
 than St. Peter's, or shall I say the pleasure it afforded me 
 was more ecstatic than reverential? First came the gigan- 
 tic cartoons and frescoes of Raphael, over which. we are 
 expected to rhapsodize because they are from the mystic 
 pencil of the peerless magician, and the Loggle of Raphael, 
 that extends in portico about the upper stories of the 
 southeastern wing of the palace. They consist of fifty-two 
 biblical themes drawn from Raphael's cartoons, executed, 
 with verj'- few exceptions, by his pupils. The pictures of 
 the Loggie are not characterized by the same boldness of 
 outline and eccentricity of attitude as the great frescoes 
 of Jurisprudence, the School of Athens, and Mount Par- 
 nassus, but they are more brilliant in hue, and conventional 
 in construction. 
 
 In the halls of sculpture we have such a feast that it 
 becomes a burden, and we are wont to wish we had not 
 dined so profoundly upon the other good tilings spread be- 
 fore us. Much that is fine, and much that is fragmentary; 
 each has its storj^, and many are the relics of vanished ages 
 of which we have nothing authentic. Such grand concep- 
 tions as Apollo Belvidere, the Laocoon of Rhodes, the Nile, 
 which to me is a still more marvellous piece of art than the 
 Laocoon, the recumbent Ariadne on the Isle of Naxos, the 
 wonderful Faun, a copy of Praxiteles, — these are lessons 
 to be remembered; who, indeed, once having viewed them, 
 could forget? Yet in these halls there are multiplied 
 statues, sans eyes, sans noses, sans arms, sans legs, sans 
 everything — gods and heroes who lost their ph3'^siognomic 
 members in the pagan era. Torsos and hermse that would 
 require the inspiration of a Phidias to invest with any of 
 their original symmetry, yet these are invaluable to show 
 the antiquity of art in this vast world of art. Days have 
 I passed amongst these marbles, until they became the 
 companions of my life, and when at last compelled to leave 
 them 1 felt indescribable sadness and solitude. Then I 
 could discern the enthusiasm of the sculptor for his stony 
 creations, rather than for his living models. As he moulds 
 and chisels, he invests his offspring with all the fire of his 
 soul, the cunning of his hand, the genius of his brain, and 
 the majesty of his ambition. Being finished he loves it and 
 22 
 
254 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 shuns parting with it, because there is more of his life in 
 the cold marble than in the vital frame. 
 
 As I pass up the ro3^al stairs of Bernini, the equestrian 
 archetype of Constantine seems to frown me down; and 
 why? It must be that I passed him so often with onl^'^ a 
 glance, ever hastening on to other gods. Now the tapestries, 
 then the pictures, again the Last Judgment, and then back 
 to the statuary or the papal library. 
 
 The Last Judgment of Angelo in the Sistine Chapel is 
 considered the masterpiece of his life. The fresco is in his 
 vigorous contortionate style, but the conception is an 
 avenging Judge, not a merciful Saviour. Christ upon the 
 celestial throne seems to be hurling the offending souls into 
 eternal damnation in confused multitudes; his eye is aflame, 
 scorching even his mother, who trembles at his side, while 
 Mary Magdalene is in an equivocal position of supplication, 
 half fearful of farther exciting her Master's wrath; j'ou 
 almost hear the un uttered pra^'er for the condemned die iu 
 a stifled sob. The upper part of the fresco is filled in with 
 soaring figures — the blessed, who have received their testa- 
 ment of virtue and are ascending to the golden tribunal in 
 happy indiff"erence. The artist has woven a silhouette of 
 his life into the picture: the angels have the faces of his 
 friends, whilst the sinners are portraits of his enemies, with 
 him to whom he bore the greatest hatred as Judas in the 
 depths of hell. 
 
 The Vatican library teaches us the opulence, royalty, 
 power, and world-wide influence of Catholicism. Not in 
 the 80,000 volumes and 24,000 MSS. alone do we read this 
 profound truth, but in the sumptuous saloons and costly 
 gifts of foreign potentates. Sevres vases from Napoleon, 
 malachite timepieces and ornaments from the Czar, Egyp- 
 tian alabaster from Mehemet Ali; buhl cabinets and tables 
 of rarest Grecian and Italian stones line the great hall, 
 where frescoes and gold repousse seem to have had their 
 finishing touches overnight. In fact, I fancied I could 
 smell the paint, and stood aloof from the pillars and walls; 
 and this is only one of the cells in the sacred prisoner's 
 dungeon. 
 
 Then the gardens, where his reverence ma}' ventilate his 
 ever pious plans, are not a dark and slimy cavern where 
 toads do procreate and serpents crawl, but inclosures as 
 beautiful and bright as a Parisian pleasance. They extend 
 along the declivity of tlie hill, and manifest all the splendor 
 of natural and artificial embellishment; the shrubbery' is 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 255 
 
 exquisitely^ trimmed; pedestals and bronzes stand here and 
 there; even curious and ingenious water-works surprise the 
 stranger, by issuing from invisible apertures beneath his 
 feet as he pauses to admire the huge pine cone from the 
 mausoleum of Adrian, or passes on from terrace to terrace. 
 
 The manufactory of mosaics within the Yatican walls is 
 a catchpenny. I do not intend to intimate that it is un- 
 worthy a visit, for to see it is the only way to gain an idea 
 of these Catholic workmen and adepts. Even the coarsest 
 of their products require pains and time to finish. Thou- 
 sands of boxes of tlie enamelled stone, of every hue and 
 siiade, are arranged upon the shelves that surround the 
 long rooms from floor to ceiling. Tliey are at present em- 
 ployed upon the medallion portraits of the Popes for St. 
 Paul's in Lateran, or beyond the walls. Each executor has 
 an oil picture of the subject before him as a model, and 
 watching the process we discover it requires some skill to 
 perfect the copy. Now, T called this manufactory a catch- 
 penny, because our guide, who is, as I think, even an exag- 
 geration of the importunate boring and falsif3nng traditional 
 guide, told us it was free to strangers. True, there was no 
 charge to enter, but the ransom of deliverance was heavy ; 
 every one who opened a door, or turned a picture, or handed 
 you a specimen of stone, expected and demanded some of 
 the small coin of the kingdom. 
 
 Though not inspired with the same hush of solitude and 
 healing rest in the private palace galleries, perhaps I gained 
 a more instructive idea of art than in the holy museums. 
 Of* course, I went to the Barbarini to hunt out the original 
 Beatrice Cenci by Guido, of which the}'^ say all the copies 
 that float the universe as thick as flies upon the shambles 
 are shameful travesties. I found it amongst a whole family 
 of Cencis, and that was a disappointment. Surely this 
 brave, fanatic girl deserves a place alone, as the suffering 
 heroine of her line, instead of being grouped with step- 
 mother, aunt, sister-in-law, and a host of other relatives, of 
 whom the world never heard. Perhaps it was done that 
 her kin might shine in the reflection of her lustre; but the 
 glory of a self-created martyr should not be sacrificed to the 
 vanity of a family. There are those whom this sad face, 
 lighted by the great pathetic eyes, have haunted a lifetime, 
 but I freely confess, and let it be attributed to my ignor- 
 ance of art or dearth of intelligence, that it did not impress 
 me as deeply, viewing it from the protoplast I had in mind, 
 as a little painting I have at home, by no very eminent 
 master. Sorrow and suffering are admirably depicted, but 
 
256 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 there are cold lines about tlie montli and nose, and even 
 eyes, that Beatrice, as I conceive the character, never ha(L 
 There is fixed purpose and strong determination upon the 
 canvas, and these were her ruling attributes. 
 
 Raphael's Fornarina glows with all the magic of her 
 lover's brush. It is not a beautiful face, neither is it a face 
 of a patrician, but one to be loved; a face of Southern 
 warmth and passion and youthful freshness. But all en- 
 chantment faded when I heard she was a baker-girl, and 
 existed in one of the thousand dark, dirt}'^ little holes of 
 Rome, where "/br72o" appears over the door in large text. 
 t'^or??o" is the oven, and Fornarina was the young lady 
 who kneaded and baked the black bread in yard measures 
 for the Italian mass. Yet, through the love of the artist, 
 she is immortalized in oil from zone to zone. 
 
 Del Sarto's Virgin more completely fills my conception 
 of Mary, at the birth of Christ, than any I have looked 
 upon amongst the thousands here. Sacred painting was 
 paramount in the halcyon days of art; what else had these 
 ^early masters as subjects but the Bible and mythology? 
 There are some few illustrative of their own lives, but such 
 scenes labor under a disadvantnge that biblical ones never 
 can contend with ; the former often need an interpreter, the 
 latter are read at once. Now Del Sarto draws the Ma- 
 donna as a luscious, radiant young female, with the infant 
 Saviour upon her lap; all other artists represent the woman 
 with the infant, and the woman clinging to the cross upon 
 Mount Calvary," thirty-three years afterward, of the same 
 age, cast of feature, and with the same expression of weight 
 and care; a ph3sical impossibility. 
 
 But there is a small picture, I know not by wdiom, that 
 made an ineffaceable impress. So long as life lasts I shall 
 see it as I saw it then. Mark it well; it hangs in a small 
 salon at the rear of the gallery. No diary nor guide will 
 ever be necessary to recall it, for it lingers in my memory 
 like strains of unforgotten music — "Orpheus Charming 
 Birds and Beasts;" verj^ odd, touching, and grotesque, — 
 the listening air and attitude of the captivated cow, the 
 hearkening horse, the absorbed owl, the mesmerized mon- 
 key, the silenced magpie, the surprised fox, the tickled fish, 
 the arrested eagle, the terrified tiger, the languishing lion, 
 and even the whale called out from the ocean by the dulcet 
 music; the birds stilled in their flight, and the very air list- 
 ing among the branches of the trees. When you visit 
 Rome seek it, and see and hear this enraptured animal 
 world in the Palazzo of the Barbarini. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 257 
 
 LETTER LIII. 
 
 •' In the breathless gloom 
 I sought the Coliseum, for I felt 
 The spirits of a manlier age were forth ; 
 And there against the mossy wall I leaned, 
 And thought upon my country. Why was I 
 Idle, and she in chains ? The storm now answered : 
 It broke as heaven's high masonry were crumbling : 
 And the wide vault, in one unpausing peal, 
 Throbbed with the angry pulse of Deity !" 
 
 Jack Cade. 
 
 Rome, June, 1878. 
 
 I FOUND the Rome I sought upon the Palatine and Capi- 
 toline. Not the holy Rome of Yaticanus, nor the political 
 Rome of Quirinalus, but the antique pagan Rome of the 
 Caesars. I had thought a visit to the palaces of the Caesars 
 was to be the culminating ecstasy of my Italian experience. 
 But while I found the mound full of the glory of the past, 
 life in the vicinity was lusty with the pleasures of the 
 present. The foul, coutracted byways of old Rome were 
 thronged with men, women, and children. Dark, dirty 
 drowsy beings seemed to be in a slow putrefaction by dint 
 of their own sloth and squalor. Their only emi)loyment is 
 the animal functions of life, including the exhalation of 
 their noxious garlic breath upon the stifling atmosphere. 
 The females are beautiful. Though an intense admirer of 
 womanly grace, my frenzy is not sufficient to excuse un- 
 clean persons and soiled gowns; but these voluptuous 
 Roman women possess a fascination of face and form that 
 almost cancels their contempt for purity. 
 
 In this southern climate nature matures earlier than in 
 our slower nortli. The same sun that causes the orange to 
 glow, the cypress and oleander to blaze, and the grape to 
 ripen, kisses the human buds into a precocious exuberance 
 of bloom. At the age of fourteen we find these girls in 
 the full flush of adolescence, but at twenty-five, when the 
 flower of life should be most aromatic, they have declined 
 into middle-aged, toiling, wasted wrecks. Where do we 
 discover one trace of the radiant, luxuriant maid, of the 
 sweet, soft shadows about the dusky throat, of the lumin- 
 ous eyes and dewy complexion, ten years after in the hard 
 face and obdurate lines of the matron, the saffron skin, 
 angular form, dull or glaring eye, and furrowed cheek? 
 
 22* 
 
258 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Their wealth of hair, black as a raven's wino; and lustrons 
 as satin, is the only enduring attribute of former beauty. 
 And then the babies! The superfluity of babies is one of 
 the most impressive features of Italian life. Every woman 
 has an infant upon her arm, and two scarcel}-^ older cling- 
 ing to her skirts or wallowing at her feet in the gutter; a 
 woman minus the infantile appendage would be as great a 
 curiosity as the fabled Centaur, Minotaur, or Cyclops. A 
 very usual picture in these Latin cities is a scanty door-- 
 step, upon which two youthful scions of a plebeian family 
 are at work; the second is perched at an altitude overlook- 
 ing the former's crown, which he manipulates in the most 
 sedulous manner; so 1 was at first nonplussed to which I 
 should api)ly the term of " industrious fleas," the hunted or 
 the hunters. These urcliins seem to be universally skilled 
 artisans in this, the only trade they are taught. And thus the 
 soil procreates pollution. In no other country are the con- 
 ventionalities of social laws so completel}'' abandoned. All 
 that is sweet and sacred in the ties of nature is utterly ig- 
 nored. I have read much of the classic dignity of the 
 Roman women, but certainly in this community it is an 
 unknoM^n quantity. The august chastity of Cornelia, the 
 innocence of the 3^outhful Metella, seem to have vanished 
 with the un forgotten dead, and only the saturnalias of 
 Faustina, the cupidity of Danae, and the licentiousness of 
 Messalina, remain as a code and a principle to these mod- 
 ern Laidis. Yet, let me say, in this whirlpool of profligacy 
 the inherent delicacy of woman stood forth pre-eminent to 
 the disparagement of the opposite sex. Never had I such 
 a rare opportunity to read the potent parable: A woman's 
 vices may be most offensive and flagrant, but there is a 
 something that her Creator has placed in her soul — a com- 
 mon endowment of the sex — which deters her from sinking 
 to the same degree of brutality and vulgarity with her 
 burly brothers. 
 
 Such were the life-pictures I saw, and the life-lessons I 
 studied. But what of the palaces of the Caesars, the home 
 of Caligula, and the house of Cicero ? What of the 
 Koman Forum, where great Caesar fell; of the formidable 
 Tarpeian Kock, from which Cassius — not the ''lean and 
 hungry" conspirator against Caesar, but of the same lineage 
 — was hurled ? Ruins all ; a mouldering mass of shattered 
 grandeur; — these baths where the voluptuary was wont to 
 pass his hours; these temples of false gods where the 
 great pagans worshipped ; these triumphal arches under 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 259 
 
 'which the conquerors rode; these theatres where the con- 
 suls and praetors enjoyed the wild cruelty of the early- 
 sports ; and these prisons where the adherents of Cataline 
 perished, and St. Peter languished under the tyranny of 
 the savage Nero. 
 
 The remains of the mansions of these Etrurian poets, 
 potentates, and philosophers are tiresome, and thougli the 
 durability of the earl}^ masonry is marvellously real in the 
 foundations of these structures, where time seems to have 
 added to the immutability of the bricks and the fixedness 
 of the mortar, the high art and enduring pigments of the 
 ancients potentially significant in tiie remnants of mosaic 
 pavements and the brilliant hues of frescoes, yet it requires 
 the fancy of the poet to supply the departed beauty and 
 missing members that once gave the scene its sublimity. 
 The chambers of Caesar's palace are mere sleeping cribs, 
 not so spacious as the bathrooms of our moderate-sized 
 houses, and while the artistic adornments in the courts and 
 ground-floors were costly, if not chaste, these ancient kings 
 had none of the common and continuous luxuries of our 
 day. A stroll amongst the fragments of Roman luxury is 
 tedious and perilous. The memory of great names and in- 
 trepid exploits, the classic odor and empyrean lustre of 
 other eras, is shadowed in the heavy pall of death. Ah I 
 pitiable the dilapidation of the crumbling, moss-grown, 
 mutilated statues, once the embodied virtues and vices of 
 a now dead religion ! What are they now? Nor man, nor 
 woman, nor thing. Here we find a human trunk, there a 
 bodiless head, again a headless face, or a faceless head, and 
 so we go searching about the gardens for members that 
 might complete one perfect man, where wandered the plead- 
 ing Calphurnia upon the fated ides of March, when her 
 lord unheeding went forth to fall at Pompey's statue. 
 
 The awe-inspiring Tarpeian Rock, which history in the 
 schoolroom, and Byron in the Parlor, taught us was steep 
 and 
 
 " Fittest goal of Treason's race, 
 The promontory whence the Traitor's leap 
 Cured all ambition" 
 
 is another sad delusion. Instead of a lofty and rugged 
 vertex, with a raging torrent below, I found a gentle 
 mound, against which dwellings recline, the Archaeological 
 Institute, and Prussian Embassy gardens stretch around 
 in pleasant perspective, with a very dirty, sluggish stream 
 
2G0 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 drowsing at the base, and a vast quantity of broken soil, 
 partly the accumulation of time, and the exhumations of 
 the vicinity, filling the surrounding ditch and levelling the 
 mighty altitude to an indifferent hillock. 
 
 Home, so overcrowded with the dead is, nevertheless, 
 often suffocatingly full of the living, and it has been well 
 said of this pagan-Christian capital that although owned 
 by the Latins and populated by their descendants, it is 
 more thoroughly enjoyed and improved by the French, the 
 Germans, the English, and the Americans. 
 
 In strolling through the Palatine, the Coliseum, the 
 Pantheon, St. Peter's, the various amphitheatres and cir- 
 cuses, I met crowds and coteries of these strangers, some 
 with guides and others with guide-books, tracing the in- 
 scriptions on the monuments, the old frescoes, and the 
 discovered and recovered secrets of the long gone centuries. 
 Among these foreigners were sauants, priests, artists, prin- 
 ces, and even monarehs, called to Rome by the unceasing 
 wonders of the sacred city. The two Napoleons — I and 1 1 [ 
 — spent enormous sums in the excavations, even out-rival- 
 ling the great Popes, who from the beginning have also 
 given time and money to the revelation and improvement 
 of ancient Rome. The Coliseum, about which I had read 
 and thought so much, was one of tiiose things that tran- 
 scended imagination ; it has been painted and photographed 
 and engraved, so runs the record, more than any other 
 human habitation or edifice, and it has attracted the atten- 
 tion of princes and kings and potentates since it was pro- 
 jected by Vespasian, and to this da}', covered as it is with 
 the dust of over nineteen hundred Christian years, is still 
 a fresh wonder of civilization. It was a superb June day, 
 but a Roman day with all the drowsy oppressive miasma 
 of the Campagna in the atmosphere, when I passed through 
 the front court or vestibule of the colossal ruin, where the 
 legendary insurgent Thracian refused to meet his brother 
 in gladiatorial combat, and where now vendors of cheap 
 jewelry stand with great trays of rough mosaic ornaments 
 of the ruined hills. 
 
 Althougli the city was bare of visitors, and the hotels 
 preparing to close for the summer, I had an opportunity 
 to see the majestic ruin under exceptional advantages. 
 There is something awful in this mighty space, and even 
 if you are not familiar with the history of the ages, you 
 are forced to stop and study it for very shame sake. It is 
 so vast that although two-thirds of the original edifice have 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 261 
 
 (lisappenred, the materials to build the palaces of the 
 Roman nobility having been taken for iwo hundred years 
 from its colossal walls, the almost perfect circle that is left 
 standing gives you a fair idea of the stupendous whole. 
 
 Nearly ever}'- excursionist or traveller who visits these 
 ancient massive structures recites B^^ron. Poor Byron ! 
 he is the compelled decorator of most of the guide-books, 
 and is sung by the verdant pilgrim from the St. Lawrence 
 at home, who makes a vehicle of his poetry when he de- 
 scribes Niagara, to the Rhine in Germany, where he 
 expresses his ecstasy over that vaunted stream, and when 
 he gets to Rome and enters St. Peter's, and the Vatican, 
 and the Coliseum, he becomes the involuntary echo of the 
 l)oetic pictures of the British bard. 
 
 Upon the Appian Way we see the supposititious si)ot 
 blessed by the footprints of Christ, the Monarch of Heaven, 
 and glorified by Constantine and the Caesars, conquerors of 
 the world, over which they led their puissant armies. We see 
 the baths of Caracalla, where the early sybarites lounged 
 amid pungent scents and spicy opiates, when perfumes 
 were more alluring to the natives than the}^ are to their 
 posterity, discussing politics or the latest scandal in a 
 prretor's or a consul's family ; so the ihermse were to the 
 ancients what the beer saloon and cigar shop is to the 
 Sc'ipios, Diomeds, and Claudii of the present. The Cata- 
 combs, that completely seton the Campagna, and even ex- 
 tend as far as Ostia, are another wicked fallacy practised 
 upon the unsophisticated stranger. No doubt they were the 
 retreats of the early persecuted followers of Faith when 
 Rome was rife with the religious cabals of the first century, 
 and no doubt much of the virus rising from the great sterile 
 moors is only the poison of these long-hoarded bones in the 
 subterranean sepulchres. From the Porta San Sebastiano 
 to the right are the great Christian cemeteries; and to the 
 left the Jewish, hedged in by walls, marked by a series of 
 interstices reseml)ling pigeon-holes. To grovel through 
 these narrow, dirty, labyrinthine dungeons, preceded by a 
 cadavarous-looking friar, with only the ghostly glearh of a 
 puny tallow candle to add horror to the spectral scene, is 
 not calculated to inspire poetry or safety. The martyrdom , 
 scourging, and dire flagellations of these Christian standard- 
 bearers is forgotten in their own fraud and the fright of 
 their guests. Winding about uneven paths, stumbling up 
 and down crumbling clay steps, peering into little holes 
 that once^ perhaps, contained dry and whited bones, but, 
 
262 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 alasl have been sacrilegiously rifled by visitors in search 
 of souvenirs; occasional!}^ having a little incision in the 
 wall, near a coffin -shelf covered by glass, pointed out as 
 the casket that contains the blood of a saint, caught from 
 his wounds while dying, and preserved through tiie centu- 
 ries, and while you search for the vital fluid and discover 
 only a smear like a soiled finger-mark upon the glass, your 
 canonical guide tells 3'ou the rest has evaporated, and then 
 vanishes around a corner, some corner, there are so many 
 corners you are undecided which one to turn. To follow 
 the wrong path will be death; to hesitate will be deatii. 
 In another moment our holy friend, curtailed of his fair 
 proportions, will have swept another curve, and then the 
 wan glimmer is lost forever. We follow in a state of un- 
 pleasant and eager expectanc}^, and heave a sob of relief 
 when we see the ghastly flame and grim visage. All this 
 and more is not the most delectable entertainment, and 3'et 
 this "is seeing the Catacombs." We tell our anointed 
 brethren we have had sufficient of the repulsive repast, and 
 beg to be excused from tasting it further. But we are in- 
 formed there can be no retraction; hungry or satiated the 
 spectral banquet-hall has been entered; to stop at the 
 entrees is not permissible; we must agonize through the 
 succeeding courses of blood and bones, dust and darkness 
 and clay, to the tail-end of the menu. With these unpleasant 
 reflections we are asked to pay for the murderous and cank- 
 erous meal, which we do unresistingly, glad to escape the 
 further hospitalities of the grim host. He is obsequious 
 ui)on rolling our silver in his grimy palm, and importunes 
 us to gaze upon a splinter from the Holy Cross and one of 
 the Crown of Thorns as a sort of receipt for our pains! 
 
 I have touched the stone that contains the sacred foot- 
 prints of Christ when he met St. Peter on the Appian 
 Way, but I had to pay for it; and to see the original nail 
 that pierced one of his hands at the crucifixion also re- 
 quires some liras; these things are not preserved for the 
 sanctification of souls, but as so much stock in trade. 
 
 Far out along this ancient bridle path are lines of 
 mouldering tombs — these and the broken aqueducts the 
 only features of the barren, desolate Campagna. Tombs 
 of heroes and royal families, where the humanity interred 
 has long since faded into air, but the sculptured figures 
 and stone foundations remain to proclaim the immortality 
 of art. 
 
 All along the road the workmen of King Humbert were 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 263 
 
 building new ramparts, and I asked why the youthful 
 monarch was taking this precaution. If Italy be endan- 
 gered, I saw no sign of it. I presume it is the papal 
 power he fears, that everflowing font of omnipotence and 
 l3igotry. The whole society here savors of the Catholic 
 Church. The masses proper are adherents of the Yatican. 
 Catholicism is so much capital, and the result is, even 
 other religions partake of tlie odor of the Holy Mother. 
 Protestantism is a very feeble affair, and as the Roman 
 nobility and cardinals hold the keys of the social Sesame, 
 it onl3^ opens to obedient worshippers, or generous givers. 
 
 The laborers had ceased work to take their noonday 
 meal, as we turned toward a dilapidated farm inn, to take 
 a piece of black bread and a flagon of sour wine, under the 
 shadow of great trees and upon the greensward, where 
 dogs and babies lay sleeping in each other's embrace, and 
 Roman women were picking and making their dinner from 
 raw peas. The proletaires out upon the road were feasting 
 upon their "hard tack" and raw onions, that cast their 
 aroma — stronger, though not so sweet as new-mown hay, 
 orange blossoms, or tangerines — upon the atmosphere for 
 miles. This cepivorous race, patrician and plebeian, feed 
 upon the bulb pungent, and subject it to all the intricacies 
 of their culinary art. 
 
 An attempt to epitomize the churches of Rome, with 
 their thrilling pictures and appending stories, would be a 
 wild enterprise. Long I studied the beautiful fresh adorn- 
 ments of St. Paul beyond the gates, and St. John, where 
 crawl repentant sinners over the Scala Santa, said to have 
 been the steps of Pilate's house, over which the suffering 
 Saviour descended after judgment. Here the contrite pil- 
 grims cringe and creep and go through their genuflexions 
 upon each of the twenty-eight steps, and every step grants 
 eight hundred 3^ears' indulgence — so I was told. Oh! what 
 a convenient and elastic creed! 
 
 And St. Paul's, apart from the tomb of the body of St. 
 Paul, — his head lies side by side with his brother evangelist, 
 Peter, in the Lateran, — is of singular beauty, with an unu- 
 sual abundance of precious decoration, 3'et fresh and untar- 
 nished from the hand of tiie artisans, the basilica having 
 been reduced to ruins by fire in the summer of 1823. If 
 not so vast, it is certainly more compact than St. Peter's, 
 and by most travellers considered the gem of Roman 
 churches. 
 
264 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER LI Y. 
 
 " There is a new Rome upon the ruined site, 
 A bright and modern metrepole, 
 "Where telegraphs and all their kindred light 
 Assert the presence of the monopole. 
 Low down the Corso will the horse car fly, 
 Already newsboys fill the ambient air 
 With the wild clamor of their hourly cry, 
 And now the bycicle awakes the dusky fair. 
 Imperial Rome is rushing to its doom. 
 The democratic age is hammering at the door. 
 Caesar and Rienzi are in deserted gloom, 
 Beatrice Cenci is an ecstasy no more." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Rome, June, 1878. 
 
 Was it not Cicero who said, every fragment of stone 
 upon a Roman roadside had its history ? and this was two 
 thousand years ago, before the Pagan ravages and the 
 Christian innovations. 
 
 To ride along the Appian Way now is like a journey 
 through the remembered or written ages. That still splen- 
 did avenue is eloquent of the long-gone past, and the Pagan 
 and Cliristian time marks may be easily defined. Alas I if 
 the iconoclasts had been one-tenth less busy in destroying 
 the vestiges of the dead than the moderns have been in 
 restoring them, the Ai)pian Way would now be full of the 
 marble effigies of the vanished generations. For what is 
 left, let us thank the era of the printing press, telegrapli, 
 and railroad. Till they came to rule the world and arrest 
 the ruin, Rome was becoming more and more the ghastly 
 graveyard of the ages. Other capitals have felt the pres- 
 ence of the salt that saves the carrion, and Rome has been 
 saved to the future by the new-born energy of the nations. 
 With one hand this resistless energy has lifted the sinking 
 body of the Imperial city, and with the other imparted new 
 life into the desolation of death. The Roman Government 
 is now vital, active, and full of the fire of enfranchisement. 
 The press is free, speech is loud, and Italy has found a 
 new call to reform. Even the Catholic Church has gone a 
 little into the fashion, and if Rome pervades all Paris, 
 Paris makes the clothes and modern arcliitecture of Rome. 
 
 To be in Rome, where Te Deums and anthems float about 
 us; where the Great St. Peter hallows lis and carnivals 
 intoxicate us; where the story of the Gracchi thrills us 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 265 
 
 and the treachery that killed Rienzl oppresses us ; where 
 the greatest fantasies of greatest men are painted on can- 
 vas and walls and chiselled in marble ; where we may in- 
 voke the blessing and forgiveness of the Virgin at eacli 
 corner for our daily sins, and rove conscience free ; where 
 the fountains splash and the water-pails clank, and the 
 miserable old tinkers mend pots, hats, umbrellas, and 
 shoes, in their little dark holes beaten into the sides of the 
 wall ; where the art of Phidias, Raphael, and Canova joins 
 hands with the work of Story, Rogers, and Miss Ilosmer; 
 where we may walk the silent sublimity of the palaces 
 where the voices of dead gods speak to us from the choice 
 legacy they have left — all this is what thousands before me 
 have enjoyed as a sort of matchless ecstas3\ But to be in 
 Rome as an artist is something more; it is the supreme 
 content of double possession and participation. The artist 
 has, therefore, more than an equal ownership in all these 
 marbles and jewels with King Humbert or Pope Leo Xlll. 
 He does more than either; he contributes of his life to the 
 great treasure. 
 
 There are whole streets of art ateliers here, such as are 
 to be found nowhere else. The Yia Margutta is a model 
 beehive, and here their gods and idols are worshipped in 
 oil, clay, bronze, and marble. There are other headquar- 
 ters, such as the passage di Ripetta and the Via Babuino, 
 but the first is the quarter in which the genii cluster. 
 Entering it from the Piazza di Spagna, it is known by the 
 efflorescence of its shrubbery; clay powder and marble- 
 filings make the portals and leaves as white as the statues 
 they hide. The numbers of the residences are cut into the 
 gate pillars, and frequently there are four or five of the 
 same number in the same street with only the distinguish- 
 ing addition of St. 8., or 7 B., or 6% or 7 A. 4° P^; what 
 the meaning of this very peculiar mode of designation is, 
 except to rob one of his time and amiabilit}^, I have not 
 discovered. We were in search of Randolph Rogers — did 
 you ever hear of an American who visited Rome and did 
 not call at the studio of our courteous countryman ? After 
 much talk and pantomime, and a few French words to the 
 Italian hackman, and man}'' windings, we found Rogers 
 amongst his stony offspring. He greeted us in the front 
 court, where Illju-ia's sun burnt the rank grass to its roots 
 and the insects droned, and led us into the cool recesses 
 of his celestial arbor. Surely celestinl! for who were here 
 but the pure and the brave? ^'ydia, the blind girl of 
 28 
 
266 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Pompeii, a bust of a New York belle, a bust of his own 
 little daughter, and the Lost Pleiad, are his proudest 
 achievements. The latter is represented in her descent 
 from the golden throne, after having fallen in love with a 
 mortal; her limbs float upon air as she turns to gaze back- 
 ward and upward upon her six sisters in their heavenly 
 zone, while her little hand is raised to shade her eyes from 
 the lustre of their virtuous effulgence. 1 rhapsodized upon 
 the graceful curves, purity of tone, and the ethereal expres- 
 sion of her wondrous eyes, almost as potent and speaking 
 as mortality. Looking at this fair vision again and again, 
 the exquisite perscmation of an enchanting fal>le, the master 
 smiled at my enthusiasm, and in his own na'ioe way he spoke 
 of her as "the young lady who lel't her old maid sisters in 
 Elysium to follow her hubb}^" My dream was dispelled, 
 the haze of romance faded, and I saw only the satire in 
 marble. Thus in life do our sweetest delusions vanish ; 
 our gods are dashed from their pedestals by the jest of the 
 minute, and we find the clay hollow and filled with vermin. 
 
 I repeat, who would not be a sculptor and live in Rome, 
 and pass his life in one of those cool, quiet, shady sanc- 
 tums, among his own creations? And though the reward 
 be worldly', hiave the remuneration of gold, as well as glory. 
 
 But where do the nobility reside ? This has been my 
 constant self-interrogation. I do not mean the Corsini, 
 Doria, Borghese, Barberiui, and other noted palace-owners ; 
 if they have left an opulent posterity, they inhabit a por- 
 tion of the old castle, and magnanimously open the galleries 
 to the public. If their fortunes have decayed, or the family 
 is extinct, the property becomes the home of one of the 
 foreign ambassadors, or wealthy Eniglish or Americans. 
 Nor do I refer to the ro^'al residences in the district of 
 Trastevere, Palestrina, nor upon the Sabine hills. I never 
 dreamed that these lofty, spacious structures, with the 
 jail-like grated windows, and cow or mule stables occupy- 
 ing the ground floor, were the mansions of Italian noblesse. 
 Yet so they are. Once having made the discovery 1 rapidly 
 grew familiar with the sight, and learned to look beyond 
 the stalls of animals, and heaps of deca3^ed vegetables, into 
 the cool shade of palace-courts, where crystal fountains 
 drip, and greensward and gay flowers light the picture ; 
 while ilex and palms wave tiirough the atrium, in the per- 
 spective. The Romans, vvrhile pei-fectly insensible to nox- 
 ious odors, are keenly alive to aromatic essences ; they live 
 in stench below, and glory in perfume above! 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 267 
 
 The Mole of Adrian, lonor the papal stronghold, is only 
 interesting to me as tlie prison of the yonthful Beatrice 
 Cenci. It is a great circular citadel, entered from the bridge 
 of St. Angelo, guarded by archangels, and has served as a 
 fortress for St. Peter's, a tomb for ancient emperors, a 
 seclusion for ecclesiastical insurgents, an appendage of 
 ro3^alty, a retreat for the popes, the scene of many a satur- 
 nalia in the tenth century, and, in fact, an epitome of 
 Roman history from the second Christian period to the 
 present. To visit such a tower teaches us that the title of 
 ruler in the ancient monarchies was often a brevet. These 
 Italian dukes were many of them, tyrants fearful of their 
 subjects. The walls of this fort are forty-five feet thick, 
 v^hile here and there along the stairway narrow windows 
 pierce the depth of stone, through which the light strug- 
 gles. And this precaution the Emperor Adrian took to 
 protect his body, living or dead, from his foes. But the 
 romantic and hallowins; influence is that of Beatrice 
 Cenci, who languished in one of these cells. We yield our 
 sympathy to the murderess, not the murdered. Who, with 
 those haunting eyes upon them, and the fresh memory of 
 her sweet girl's strength and wrongs, could class her as a 
 parricide ? There are some tragedies better than some 
 texts ; some sins cancelled by a holy logic, and hers was 
 of them. The sluggish stream that washes the base of the 
 Mole is the same that our school books describe as the 
 turbulent Tiber. The river is a corresponding link in the 
 chain of ancient Roman reminiscences. Like the commu- 
 nity of the Palatine and Capitoline it crawls in its putres- 
 cent bed foul as the rotten shambles on its slant shores. 
 Commerce repudiates it, infection rises from it, and dogs 
 make it their grave. Oh ! spirit of the great Galileo, inspire 
 these instructors of the youthful mind in our academies, 
 and let the truth be told of these Roman ruins ! And this 
 is the fierce rolling Tiber! 
 
 Near to the Castle St. Angelo is the house where Raphael's 
 presence still hangs a sanctifying influence ; not the grander 
 residence where he died, nor the walls that tell the story 
 of his love-life in the suburbs, but the casket with which 
 he invested the chapel of his sarcophagus in the Pantheon I 
 At whose tomb I bartered for spicy pinks with a dusky 
 Roman boy, and then looked upon the altar where rests 
 the late soldier monarch, Victor Emanuel. The marvel- 
 lous canopy of the Pantheon is a sort of one-eyed giant, 
 through which the dews of heaven fell for centuries upon 
 
268 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 pagan idolators and Christian worshippers, and the sun of 
 God penetrated as if to light the way for the Saviour of 
 the world. 
 
 St. Marie Maggiore, sacred crown to the Esquiline sum- 
 mit, is the most beautiful of all the Virginal dedications of 
 Rome. You ascend the height from the street of the Four 
 Fountains. If the day be torrid, as it was when I attempt- 
 ed it, stop at an intervening cafe and get some gr^anite 
 (Roman ice-cream), then continue your way along the 
 dusty eminence. You will meet a number of very pretty 
 girls, who have been at their orisons, with excessively dirty 
 men, who exhale a cogent decoction of perspiration and 
 garlic. An iiged woman, crippled and indigent, debars 
 your entrance, with a flaming tongue — not sword — and ex- 
 tended arms, until she drops her knitting and hobbles to 
 the portals to hold aside the great swinging curtain of 
 Canton matting. If you are not in a remunerative mood 
 as you pass in, a shade of disappointment appears in her 
 old eyes ; that is all. You enter to find a temple of precious 
 gems and holy marbles, pontifical tombs, saintly shrines, 
 and ro3'al chapels, of which the one bearing the Borghese 
 arms is the radiant star, and 3^ou gaze at the mosaic pave- 
 ment beneath, and the brilliant adornments above, until 
 3'C)u yield to the holy peace of the hour, and kneel to pray 
 with the laborers in their noonday prayers. I am impressed 
 by the wealth of the Catholic Church, the sincerity of its 
 devotees, and its increasing power. There can be no such 
 thing as permanent Protestantism in Italy. But what 
 touches me most is the equality- of their discipline. The 
 countess, in her silks and jewels, kneels side by side with 
 the dirty lazzaroni^ and dips her dainty hand into the same 
 chalice of holy water where he plunges his filthy fingers. 
 The scrub-girl comes in with her bucket and brush to thank 
 her Holy Mother for her kilo of black bread, and miladi 
 supplicates forgiveness for her petite faute. 
 
 As you make 3^our exit there stands the female St. Peter, 
 guarding the holy entrance ; she scrambles from her haun- 
 ches and again makes a plunge for the curtain, which she 
 snatches, and throws obsequious genuflexions around you 
 in a circle ; then, if 3'ou be still of an uncompensating turn, 
 or if small coin does not fall like a shower into her leather 
 palm, the flaming tongue hurls scathing curses upon 3'our 
 otlending soul, and scorches 3^our charity into a cinder. 
 
OF FOKEIGN TRAVEL. 269 
 
 LETTER LY. 
 
 " Of snckclotli was thy wedding garment made ; 
 Thy bridal's fruit is ashes." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Rome, June, 1878. 
 
 Ye who have not lived in Rome know notliing of popery; 
 the power, the magnificence, the processions, the societies, 
 and the troops of black cloth filling the streets. They are 
 either medicants or opulent churchmen, the former dirty and 
 unshaven, the others well dressed and supremely well fed. 
 A beaming smile of courteous familiarity greets me wher- 
 ever I meet one; none present an appearance of severe de- 
 privation, unless of soap and water in the case of the first. 
 The brown hair-cloth gown and cowl, sandalled feet, and 
 huge rosaries of the Capucini, the black frocks of other 
 orders, the gayer dress of papal dignitaries, and the fan- 
 tastic costume of His Holiness's Swiss Guard, look like a 
 scene from one of the early passion or mystery plays. The 
 Catholic religion in Italy, especially in the capital, is a 
 great trade, a system of profit for the priests, a world-wide 
 drama, a direful delusion for the poor. Of the tens of thou- 
 sands of ecclesiasts how few do any work beyond what they 
 call worship, and how much they demand of the fold in 
 matters of faith, charity, and doctrine 1 Whenever we meet 
 one of these he is eternally counting his beads or murmur- 
 ing his aves^ and though he gracefully salutes his comrades, 
 and smiles upon the . stranger, the sacred hum is uninter- 
 rupted as he seems to have transcended the point where 
 foreign elements may prove a distraction. All religious 
 celebiations and festas are frolics. Ostentation and fun 
 transform sacred ovations into saturnalias and jubilees. 
 And though the kingdom is now divided into two great 
 powers, the Pope in the palace of the Yatican, and young 
 King Humbert in the palace of the Quirinal, each having 
 his own court, still there is a potential and pervading in- 
 cense of the former, and to-da}^ the intrigues of the Church 
 exceed those of the State. 
 
 The city is at present floating in a sea of glory in honor 
 of the political triumph of united Italy; but in this cere- 
 mony the Pope and the cardinals will take no part. While 
 the Castle of St. Angelo will be bathed in a phosphores- 
 cence of splendor and victory, the church dignitaries will 
 
 23* 
 
270 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 liide their liolv heads under their blessed tojras for fear of 
 being contaminated by a glimpse of the lustre. But the 
 Pope has a hundred jollifications to every one of the king's, 
 thus strengthening himself so much per cent, in the hearts 
 of the masses. The community is fond of merry-making, 
 and no community so much as the Catholics. Therefore 
 he who otfers or affords them the most amusement is mon- 
 arch , if not nominally, in reality he is the worshipped god. 
 
 The more I linger amongst the papists so much more 
 readily do I comprehend their world-wide influence. Their 
 ceremonies are impressive and dramatic, their temples 
 soothing, their religious rites venerated more by spectacle 
 than by study, and the masses are universally ruled through 
 the medium of the senses. 
 
 Certainly the Catholics have man}^ ways of conquering 
 converts. They lay all manner of customs under tribute, 
 and they excel in the glory, the gory, and the ghastly. 
 They deal in blood and thunder; they flourish in robes of 
 crimson and gold, and literally revel in bones. The boniest 
 rei)ast offered in Rome is the Capucini Convent, a collec- 
 tion of petrified corpses, and a vast crypt of centuried 
 dead. Fancy your ancestors laid out in their cerements on 
 tl»e cellar shelves; their bones only remaining, all flesh and 
 former resemblance fled, and each man labelled with his 
 proper name. There are the grim and grinning skeletons 
 ticketed and standing in their places just like a chemist's 
 bottles or a student's books, and you have only to inquire 
 to discover wliether the dried anatomy at your side was a 
 Roman republican or imperialist; a man of the town or of 
 the ton ; or at least 1 so thought till 1 was quietly informed 
 that many of these bony gentlemen had been cured for 
 several hundred years, and their names had died or dried 
 out with their flesh. There is ever somethinor hideous in 
 death, and 1 endeavored to be as nonchalant amongst these 
 well-ordered and silent vertebrae as the priest beside me, 
 but 1 confess 1 had just a scintilla of poor Juliet's emotion 
 when she conjures up the ghosts of her forefathers in their 
 festering shrouds all about her in the tomb of the Capulets. 
 
 Several attempts were made before gaining admission to 
 the Capucini Convent, cresting the undulated mound of 
 the Piazza Barberini. We had been advised never to leave 
 Rome until we had walked the Bone Gallery. The name 
 inspired horror, and though I had passed the ordeal of the 
 Catacombs with considerable trepidation, I went undaunted 
 up to ^'old rawhead and bloody bones." 1 hesitated at 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 2H 
 
 which door I should knock, as they all seemed to be barred 
 ill a hermetically significant manner. 1 mounted the main 
 flight of steps ascending from the piazza; after a prolonged 
 and arduous encounter with the bell-handle and brass rapper 
 which I attacked alternately-, one of the friars made his 
 appearance behind the great door and communicated with 
 us through the shifting panel, I demanded entrance in 
 Frencli, and he answering in Italian, consternation ensued; 
 from what words I imagined I understood, and his expres- 
 sive gestures, I felt assured he was endeavoring to convey 
 that one of the rules in their code was to admit males only. 
 And so we parted, he seeming relieved by my taking my 
 shadow from off his door, and I indignantly murmuring 
 contracted misogynist, as 1 walked over the broad square 
 and stopped to chat with one of the vegetable huckters who 
 had her sparse store spread upon the arid, dusty ground of 
 the piazza, where market was being held ; and what a mar- 
 ket! No stalls, no counters, no covering; the sun pouring 
 all the flood of his fire down upon stock and traders; with- 
 ering the vegetables, melting the fish, wearying buyers and 
 sellers, and stupefying the poor old mules that were hitched 
 to the garden wall of Barberini Palace. My dusky commu- 
 nicant of doubtful erudition, told me ladies were admitted; 
 however, my patience exhausted and temper ruffled, I sup- 
 plicated no further that day. 
 
 Next morning 1 consulted the clerk at the hotel, and re- 
 lying upon his information, started upon the visitation of 
 skulls and skeletons again. I went to the same great door 
 at which I had played one of the characters in the panto- 
 mime before. I was now greeted by a younger, more ac- 
 complished, and placable brother, who directed me in the 
 Gallic vernacular to apply at a side door, where 1 was re- 
 ceived by one of the holy order, who addreesed me in sur- 
 prisingly clever English, but was a walking personation of 
 uncleanliness. This confederacy is regardless of the old 
 aphorism, "cleanliness is next to godliness." They have 
 acquired the chiefest virtue and pay no heed to subordi- 
 nate ones. 
 
 ]t was a wonderful and ghastly spectacle, this gallery of 
 bones, where over six thousand skeletons of the monks of 
 the fraternity are arranged in curious devices and emblems 
 to ornament floor, ceiling, and side walls. Mantel-shelves 
 of bones sustain crosses and other sacred desio;ns made 
 from the smaller parts of the human anatomy. Hanging- 
 baskets and swinging-lamps in ,every variety of fantastic 
 
272 ncTURES and portraits 
 
 sliai)e are suspended from the ceiling, which is frescoed and 
 stuccoed in the most ingenious patterns with the bones of 
 this sickening sepulchie. Many of the dead were laid 
 upon shelves in their grave-clothes, the shrivelled skin on 
 their bony hands, and the beard still clinging to their 
 fleshless chins, while others peered at me from the corners, 
 where they stood staik upright ; some posed against col- 
 umns or brackets, and some were still in their narrow beds 
 of clay. The last of these strange interments has taken 
 place for the last time. No more will a Capuchin trans- 
 form his unoffending brother into a lamp, jardinier, shield, 
 anchor, or star. No more will one poor old friar be ex- 
 humed from his cold bed of earth for a brother usurper to 
 rest in his couch, while the former undergoes the embalm- 
 ing process, only to appear after a time in some grotesque 
 shape. By a wise decree of Victor Emanuel the horrible 
 and inhuman practice was forever prohibited in 1870. 
 This charnel-house was as clean and sweet as a lady's 
 boudoir, and I inquired what deodorizer or acid they made 
 use of, and marvelled at the answer, ''•none." I discovered 
 my condemnation of these good men as misogynists was 
 unjust, as our courteous guide told us they had entertained 
 a lew months previous several nuns from America, who 
 were visiting Europe. This led to a pleasant little confab 
 of my experience with the religeusen of my schooldays, 
 and when I left the tabernacle of death I felt nearer to the 
 dirty cloisterer, who looked as if the use of water had 
 been tabooed in the monastery. As we were about to 
 make our adieu the monk quietly' repeated, they were abso- 
 lute mendicants, and lived only by the charit}' of visitors 
 and alms begged on the streets of the Imperial City. This 
 language needed no interpretation, so we filled his palm 
 with pennies. 
 
 A mil generis pageant certainly, and one to be remem- 
 bered long after the moie romantic have faded into oblivion. 
 I lingered here, arrested as it were, by a fascinating awe, 
 not with the ecstasy 1 had dwelt upon the graceful shapes 
 of the marble galleries, the very names of whose authors 
 have been obliterated from the memory of man, and into 
 whose dreamy eyes I have gazed until 1 wished their stony 
 lips would open and reveal the lost story of their origin. 
 
 But the streets of Rome ! Here indeed are food and 
 refreshment for the student. I had thought the libidinous 
 customs of these people, so unequivocally laid down in 
 the pagan classics, a fable, or, if not, so ambiguous that at 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 2t3 
 
 least the degradation had evaporated with idolatry. Not 
 so. The manners of the masses to-day on the public high- 
 ways are little better than the narrative of Petroniiis in 
 the Satyricon^ whose lines lose all the fascination of equivo- 
 que in their disgusting details. 
 
 LETTER LY I. 
 
 "In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains, 
 Across the charmed bay, 
 Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains 
 Perpetual holiday." 
 
 John Greenleap Whittier. 
 
 ISTaples, June, 1879. 
 
 Irresistible as the impulse maybe for an enthusiast to 
 repeat the melodious lay of our sweetest singer, the la- 
 mented Buchanan Read, when looking upon Vesuvius, 
 Naples, its azure bay, and still more mystic islands, I am 
 quite determined not to impose the harmonious measure 
 and topographical exactness of these musical lines upon 
 my unoffending friends, though it is the song of my heart. 
 Not alone do I refrain from public declamation because the 
 theme is hackneyed, but to me a more humiliating reason: 
 with all the assumption of ignorance I read the exquisite 
 verses of "Drifting" once to a maestro of English, and so 
 bitterly did he criticise my elocution that I made a grave 
 for my favorite deep in my heart, where it still remains. 
 
 Who would not feel sad at leaving Rome; and who would 
 not thrill with pleasure at beholding Naples? The crum- 
 bling disjointed arches of the aqueducts, straddling over 
 the Pontine Marshes, and the white cattle knee-deep in the 
 rank herbage upon these death-breathing swamps, is a pic- 
 ture nowhere else to be found ; and while we linger upon 
 the archaic and Oriental scene we mourn over the decay and 
 desolation of this wide waste of uninhabitable country. 
 Yast stretches of pestilential soil, where not a human 
 abode is seen nor a mortal voice is heard, are the ghastly 
 features of the landscape for many miles after quitting the 
 Holy See. To the left the peaks of the Yolcian range are 
 often crested by convent turrets, while at the base sweet 
 
274 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 vales and luxuriant vineyards blossom ; far away to the 
 right the infectious moors extend to the sea, within whose 
 islands we find all the romance of history and mythology. 
 The approach to Naples is indicated by the groves of fiery 
 pomegranates, contrasting with the lighter and darker 
 aureate tones of the orange and lemon ; and the opulent 
 plantations where the dusty olive trees are garlanded by 
 the coils and wreaths of the purple grape. When the day 
 is fine the waving plume of Vesuvius may be seen long be- 
 fore tlie train traverses the fertile district of Capua. What 
 3'ou at first mistake for a cloud gradually reveals itself as 
 the graceful feather upon the mountain brow; couched as 
 it is upon the dome of heaven, you can barely decide 
 whether it is a visitor of the upper or lower realms. Out 
 in the Mediterranean are the haunts of banditti and the 
 legendary rendezvous of the nymphs. The elysium to 
 which Circe allured her victims is not the only weird in- 
 fluence of the shores of southern Italy. There are the 
 caves where the sirens sang; the strongholds where con- 
 victs are prisoned to-day ; and the isolated isles where out- 
 raged fathers and husbands banished their wives and 
 daughters, some to seek repentance, others to find repent- 
 ant deaths; the plains over which Fra Diavolo roamed, 
 and, indeed, there seems to be little either authentic or 
 legendary in the story of Illyria but what adds new beau- 
 ties to the garland that hangs over this maze of islands. 
 We seem to have transcended the limits of earth and live 
 aujidst fabulous charms, with the memoirs of deities float- 
 ing about us in a sea of song, and a glory of blue waves 
 and crystal grottos, over which white-winged skiff's drift 
 and dip; where the golden glow of sunlight pla3^s upon 
 high rocks and finds its image in the almighty mirror be- 
 low; where a riotous magnificence of color blends in a 
 marvellous mist of incense from shore to shore; where the 
 wild heights of Ischia, the rocky coasts and watchfires 
 of Capri, and the chimes of Ave Maria are heard through 
 the rocked-ribbed galleries of Amalfi, who would not yield 
 to the dolce far niente of the place and time? Tlie nest- 
 ling isles, rocked in the caressing seas and protected by 
 the filmy coronal of haughty Vesuvius, need no Bourbon 
 empire nor omnipotent church, no universal commerce, not 
 even the classic art of early times, to gild their natural 
 splendor. Here in the rags of lazzaroni and the wild 
 fisher's odorous skirts, the rot of ages and the darkness of 
 poverty and ignorance, the Immortal Architect has painted 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 216 
 
 and illuminated the great picture with his own eternal 
 pigments. 
 
 Naples is a genuine seaport. Everj^ description of man 
 throngs the depot; the Turk with his long tinselled toga 
 and crimson cap is there, so that not only a cosmopolitan 
 but an Oriental odor pervades the town. As I rode to the 
 hotel great loads of wilting vegetables were heaped upon 
 the quay, where vessels were depositing their varied stores ; 
 bordering the parapets of the Chiaja are parterres of gay 
 flowers of rudd}^ southern cultivation ; half-nude men and 
 bo3^s lounge indolently in the public roads, over which the 
 heights of quaint houses throw their shadows, — houses 
 that seem jammed up, one against the other, and one on 
 top of the other, without any regard to comfort or appear- 
 ance, with great curtains of gaudily painted matting float- 
 ing from the windows, from which are stretched clothes- 
 lines, adorned with the motley apparel of the family. So 
 tattered were these habiliments that it was an impossibility 
 to distinguish the original shape or sex of the garments. 
 I marvelled how they stood the abluting process, and how 
 they were to be worn, and who wore them ? The foreigners 
 are tthe only well-dressed people I see, excepting the cab- 
 men and priests ; the nobility I do not see at all ; and the 
 masses upon the streets seem to have donned a costume 
 man}'- years ago, how long I could not sa^', as the greasy, 
 clinging fragments seem never to have quitted the body 
 that claims them since first tiie work of decline began ; the 
 dress has grown old and soiled with the individual ; they 
 are part of one another, and once isolated, like parted 
 lovers, never again could enjoy graceful and melting ad- 
 herence. The poor little donkeys are as shaggy as their 
 masters; and so with the overwrought beasts and slothful 
 attendants, there is an air of sadness and laziness all 
 round. 
 
 The Neapolitans all ride. Perhaps carriage-hire is 
 slightly lower in Rome, but in Naples it is a confession of 
 shameful penury not to patronize the hackmen, and a very 
 frequent sight is the little one-horse public calash laden 
 with young women and men, bonnetless and hatless, on a 
 holiday frolic. The country people possess a weird little 
 donkey to carry their produce to market, and often har- 
 ness an ox and a horse with their surefooted quadruped, 
 or debasingly yoke the mother of the family with the beast 
 of burden, while a great, torpid, lazy husband stretches his 
 larded length upon the wagon. 1 noticed female car-con- 
 
276 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 dnctors were universal, and ladies promenade the Strada 
 di Roma (the Neapolitan Chestnut Street) without head- 
 covering, their bosoms quite bare, and while this is the 
 prevailing mode it has a startling appearance to the cir- 
 cumspect American, who never crosses her threshold un- 
 less her charms be hidden almost as sedulously as the 
 Turkisli dame. 
 
 Tlie greatest expense and most nefarious extortions in 
 Italy arise from tlie transfer of baggage. All must be paid 
 extra for, as no appurtenances are conveyed with the pas- 
 senger or included in his fare of transportation. Every 
 package is weighed at the station and a heavy duty levied. 
 Upon no consideration whatever allow your baggage to be 
 expressed in advance. When we tried this plan from Nice 
 to Rome we were sadly swindled. After having stopped 
 at several intermediate cities we arrived in Rome, found no 
 trunk, and after telegraphing for three days, living in 
 anxiety, going through an endless red-tape process, and 
 l)nying fifteen dollars^ we obtained our one trunk. The 
 question in my mind was, had it not been more comfortable 
 and economical to buy a new equipment ? 
 
 Our hotel on the Strada Chiatamone is one of those new 
 palatial structures that looks as if it had been placed by 
 some enterprising Yankee to teach old Ital^'' a lesson of 
 cleanliness. Exquisite reception-rooms, garnished in blue 
 and gold frescoes and furniture, with just a dash of Pom- 
 i)eian drawing to glorify them. A dining-room that seems 
 to have had the plasters and pigments of the buried city 
 transported toto coelo. An apartment that might have 
 proudly dined Agamemnon, had it not been debased by the 
 discordant voices of travelling magpies, at table debate. 
 Those who have never suffered the plague can neither 
 sympathize with nor conceive the affliction of those mor- 
 tals who have waded through the trying and seemingly 
 endless slough of table d^hote. 1 am not going to assail 
 my own countr^'women in this paragraph for their shrill 
 loquacity, the usual wail of such a chapter. While I often 
 shrink from the wordy and emptj'^ babble in which they in- 
 dulge, seemingly more for the parrotlike pleasure of hear- 
 ing their own chatter and regaling others by a disi)lay of 
 their ignorance than because they have something in their 
 hearts clamoring for utterance, yet, let it be said, the most 
 indecent manners at table I have noticed have been those 
 of foreigners. I think some of the Italian and German 
 Hebrews are the worst. If an American girl laughs too 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 2*7*7 
 
 often, or has not toned her voice to the low sweet contralto, 
 these at the worst are slight imperfections; but women 
 who extend their bodies half over the board in pursuit of 
 food, or who ask you to pass them the ice you have ordered 
 (ice is a luxury here) and do not return it, or who freeze 
 your marrow in your bones by using a toothquill at table, 
 such people deserve expulsion from delicate society. The 
 levity of the Yankee may be condoned ; gross indecency 
 never! But this table d^hote^ with the high-sounding name 
 and bombastic bill-of-fare, is a horrible delusion, a bitter 
 snare. A glimpse at the hall previously, assures you that 
 the tables are laid in their candelabras and crystals, flowers 
 and fine linen for a banquet ; the head waiter, who does 
 nothing but superintend the laying, is importunate to know 
 if you will dine idhle d^hote ; he exhibits the menu, and you 
 at once yield to the ostentatious showing. The dinner 
 generally lasts an hour and a half; it is served in courses, 
 each course being separated into limited portions, so that 
 the sparse supply meets the end of the circle; no individual 
 is permitted a second instalment of the food he prefers, 
 but must continue in the routine of the programme, whether 
 the succeeding dish be palatable or not. This then is the 
 first direful disappointment, — the meagre supply and va- 
 riety of dishes, — but not the worst for me as I enjoy a 
 diversity and am content on little, but the gross humanity 
 around me gives no Apician flavor to the feast. There are 
 occasions when delightful little symposise may be enjoyed 
 in this manner, but such cases are the exception. 
 
 ^ight approaches, and I sit upon the piazza projecting 
 from my window, where the placid Yesuvian bay expands 
 far away to meet the horizon ; pale Cynthia sheds her silver 
 rays in a band of jewelled splendor to my right, where 
 dance the little cutters and brigs upon the star-lit phos- 
 phoric ripples. The lights are coming out one by one in 
 the white fisliing cottages on the delta of Posilipo, jutting 
 far out into the bay. The equipages of the Italian nobility 
 drawn by high-stepping mountain-trained chestnuts are re- 
 turning from their evening jaunt to the Yilla Nazionalle 
 along the Chiaja, while the shadows deepen and the column - 
 of white smoke on the volcano fades into night. Under 
 my window the natives lounge, some threadbare, more 
 ragged, and many stript of clothing, such a scene as I 
 never beheld in any other city; yet no note is made of 
 these vulgar customs. The boys play marbles and spin 
 their tops, as ours do at home, clothed in only Nature's 
 24 
 
278 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 apparel; the men — dirt}", brawnj^, disgusting men — pitch 
 pennies, a sort of mild gambling, upon the wharves ; the 
 l)riests, in long black cloaks and shovel-hats, guarding 
 their acolytes, enjoy the beauty of land and climate vouch- 
 safed to them, heedless of the despoiling morals of the 
 inhabitants ; then comes a mendicant Capucini over the 
 scene as the last light of day fades and the white featlier 
 of the fiery monster is now a lurid flame. Our ardent 
 friend on the opposite curve of the horseshoe manifests 
 signs of uncontrollable irritation; whether he is preparing 
 to belch forth new worlds and destroy old ones, or whether 
 this deep growl is only one of his playful antics, I am all 
 anxiety to learn. The natives expect an exhibition of dan- 
 gerous temper from the fervent symptoms of their good 
 friend, and I hear the liquid Italian tongue weaving a 
 pra^'erful solicitation lor the happy event into the evening 
 Ave. Happy, indeed, to this penurious, speculating com- 
 munit}', as such a grand denouemevt would attract myriads 
 of strangers to their city, and thus oflfer a fresh and extended 
 field for plunder, from which the professional beggars and 
 sharpers always garner rich harvests. 
 
 A crimson column of flame is issuing from the crater, 
 accompanied by bursts of stone in intermittent periods, 
 when the whole mountain assumes a turbulent, angry 
 aspect, while the glare blazons upon the purple peaks of 
 rock far out in the bay. Vesuvius is not so large, neither 
 in height nor circumference, as I expected, yet it stands a 
 conspicuous and distinct feature against the clear sky. I 
 deem it indeed a special dispensation of nature that this 
 supreme incendiary should fete me while in Naples witli 
 one of his magnificent pyrotechnical solemnities. I may 
 visit and revisit the spot, but will I ever see this petroleuse 
 disgorging fire and ashes and lava as I have seen it spit 
 forth to-night? so vivid is it all I fancy I hear the retch of 
 ejection as the flaming food is vomited from the tempestu- 
 ous stomach. 
 
 As dawn spreads her rosy wings over earth the agonies 
 of the burning mountain subside; the meteoric ravings 
 have died with the parting night, and the white feather 
 waves in the gentle breeze of the new-born day. The celes- 
 tial curtain is gradually furling behind the crater, where 
 the background is a scarf of delicate variegated hues as 
 soft as silk and as fleec}^ as Indian tissues, with here and 
 there the sparkle of a tinsel thread; such a mantle as 
 Cupid folds about his victims while leading tliem in ecstasy 
 on to the engulfing stream of fire and lieuzy. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 279 
 
 LETTER LYII. 
 
 " With Pompeii itself at the distance of a few miles— the sea that 
 once bore her commerce, and received her fugitives at his feet — and 
 the fatal mountain of Vesuvius, still breathing forth smoke and fire, 
 constantly before his eyes !" Bulwer. 
 
 Naples, June, 1878. 
 
 The old aphorism runs " See Naples and die." My 
 advice is, having gotten to Naples, do not die until you 
 see Pompeii; that is, if it be possible to survive a night in 
 the city with those pestiferous bedfellows vulgarly known 
 as fleas. They drained the venom through my veins, until 
 I believed the adage was indeed to be verified. I, however, 
 struggled with my adversaries, and when day rescued me 
 from their clutches 1 still lived. I was thoroughly resolved 
 not to risk another night amongst them before walking the 
 city of the dead, and so started on my Pompeian excursion 
 at once. 
 
 The entire scene seemed the tableaux of a romance. 
 From the initial, where the little dusky Nubian boy, in his 
 Eastern garb and polyglot tongue, assisted me into tiie 
 carriage with its gayly comparisoned horses and little 
 tinkling bells, and clapped his slender Ethiopian hands and 
 gabbled his jargon as we dashed off; to the return in the 
 golden twilight over the white roads sacred with the foot- 
 prints of Sallust and Glaucus, it was as quaint as a picture 
 two thousand years old. 
 
 Saturday is market-day here in the land of the gods, as 
 it is in adolescent America; and though I was disposed to 
 l)elieve that provision for the creature comforts was an un- 
 known vulgarity in a section apotheosized by the splendor 
 of classical deities, I found the georgical supplies in more 
 abundant masses than at home. A caravan of donkej^'-carts 
 filled the streets. Poor little beasts, how oppressed they 
 looked hauling their heavy loads, or burdened by two great 
 pannier-baskets entirely concealing the animal; all I saw 
 was a succession of wailing faces, with great nodding ears, 
 and spindle legs trotting, trotting, trotting, over the lava 
 paths. Two great brass horns project from either side the 
 plaintive eyes, from which are suspended on a yoke three 
 bells — bells that re-echo each other's melody. Owing to 
 tlie salubrity of the Neapolitan climate every variety of 
 trade is carried on in the open air. The cobbler and car- 
 
280 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 penter, linker and tailor, hatter and hosier, work at the 
 street corners, their stock spread about them on tlie pave- 
 ment; here they sew and saw, sweat and solder, paint and 
 polish, and bawl for ceiitisimi when they spy a stranger. 
 But these are not the professional mumpers, whose stock 
 in trade is in advertising nameless deformities and novel 
 maladies, ill-shapen monsters, Calibans, each a Lazarus of 
 the lazzaroni. 
 
 The street merchants only try their luck as momentary 
 mendicants, but the official beggars are an organized 
 national nuisance, the remnants of an ancient system born 
 in these districts, when the wealth of centuries was con- 
 trolled by such houses as the Medici and Borgia. Though 
 banditti are erroneously supposed to be different from the 
 old evils, the present eleemosynar}^ classes look like brigands 
 — reckless and wicked, daring and repulsive. These beg- 
 gars seem to move in battalions, that spring out from the 
 walls in certain neighborhoods where they are indigenous, 
 and these localities multiply as Pompeii is approached, till 
 the numbers increase into a small army. 
 
 All along the route were the macaroni and Italian paste 
 manufactories. The unclothed men and boys were at 
 work in the dough, while others were spreading the wheaten 
 blankets upon the pavement, over racks, and upon roofs to 
 dry; dark and dingy establishments, that not even the 
 amplitude of flour-dust has power to chasten. Every couple 
 of steps were vendors of earthen jugs of the early Roman 
 form — large round bodies, long narrow necks, a handle on 
 either side. Travellers purchase them to take home as 
 relics ; the natives still use them as household utensils. 
 The road was dusty as it is ever in the dry season, and the 
 inhabitants seemed crumbling into earth. Here paupers 
 and princes cluster together. The filthiest people live and 
 carry on their trade in the first stories of the palaces, 
 while above them and behind them are ineffable extrava- 
 gance and beaut}-. The high-road is the empire of the 
 unwashed, uncombed, and unkempt classes, a very sink of 
 corruption, while through iron-barred courts I caught ex- 
 quisite views of the magnificence beyond, Miiere the palace 
 lawns slope down to the margin of the blue bay and the 
 hoar}^ pallor of the marbles casts the vivid Italian hues of 
 nature into a richer color. Here the old apothegm is trans- 
 posed, foul without and fair within. 
 
 As we I'ode on, the eternal crater, — cloud by day and 
 fire at night, — kept us company. Sometimes we seemed 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 281 
 
 to be scaling his very base, at another he was receding, 
 and again he was upright by our side. Great bowlders of 
 lava bestrewed the way, and served as supports to the 
 wretched shanties; and here they were, just as the molten 
 fire rolled down the mountain-side, and accumulated, and 
 grew solid, eighteen hundred years ago. What with the 
 scorching sun and the pumice-stone powder from the high- 
 way, the plants were as arid and white as the wall by 
 which they drooped. It was a warm disagreeable ride of 
 two and a half hours, with no fresh patches of glowing 
 scenery to relieve the squalor of the road ; all was as dole- 
 ful and dirty as if Sorrento's orange-groves, Capri's sap- 
 phire caves, and Ischia's purple rocky heights were not 
 glistening off in the bay like "jewels in the Ethiop's ear." 
 Tiie sunshine was there, but there was no green nature to 
 temper its rays; it fell fierce and blinding upon all around. 
 I was glad when we came to our journey's end, curious as 
 all of it was to my stranger gaze. 
 
 The Diomed Inn, a dirty miserable hostehy at the gates of 
 Pompeii, is the rest for tourists while waiting for the guide 
 of the unearthed city: and here we tarried long before a 
 cicerone appeared ; they were either dining or engaged with 
 earlier patrons, and while I lingered I noted the incongrui- 
 ties of the place. In a back chamber of the shanty immor- 
 talized by the title of the opulent Pompeian merchant, was 
 a Singer sewing machine, operated by a modern Julia, per- 
 haps more beautiful though not so rich nor so petted as 
 her centuried-buried progenitor, as her robe was plain and 
 at her side a baby pawed. In the atrium a troubadour in 
 Spanish costume, thumbing a guitar suspended over his 
 shoulder by a crimson riband, begged coin for the music. He 
 had a vile look, the olive skin and black beard, and bad 
 habits of his class, who would sing or stab as opportunity 
 served. The beggars and cripples are annoying ; the min- 
 strels dangerous. The house of the wealthy trader was not 
 famed for its modern larder, despite the tradition of his 
 luxurious feasts in the long ago ; the tastes of this portion 
 of the family must have degenerated with their fortunes. 
 A good bottle of red wine you are ever certain of in Italy 
 — a wine that refreshes and strengthens without intoxica- 
 ting ; but I fear as there was no French chef m the house- 
 hold economy, the culinary department fell below par. 
 Still as I gazed upon the surrounding district from the 
 second story of the inn, the vicinage was lovely ; it was a 
 study for poet and artist. The luxuriant still-life in sight 
 
 24* 
 
282 PICTtJRES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of tlio frowning volcano was almost startling. The varied 
 brillianc3^ of tlie vegetation grew to the very crown of tlie 
 crnter in the softest and most dazzling garments. It is 
 the internal and all-consuming lire in the womb of the 
 mother, that gives the hectic flush to the face, and the 
 feverish delirium to the blood of her prolific oflTspring. 
 And this is the entrance to Euthanasia I This the Stygian 
 shore flowering in the lusty beauty of the fabled gods. Ve- 
 suvius is death robed in the gaudy raiment of a gala-da}-- ; 
 jocund Jove throws his shining mantle o'er the hills above 
 the tomb of centuries ! The jaws of death are fringed by 
 the lotus flowers; the strains of the chant du sygne are 
 smothered by the note of the lark ; the woful death-rattle is 
 drowned by the playful dashing of the wanton sea, the last 
 gasp is stifled by the trail and tangle of vines, and the hum 
 of myriad insect creation ; a bravura of life at the throat of 
 the fiery sepulchre. 
 
 Need I mar the harmonious chant of Pliu}^, Bulwer, Du- 
 mas, or Nicolini by a discordant repetition ? They have 
 bequeathed to the world the religion, the sports, and the 
 romance of this early Roman Newport. The}' have added 
 an account of the moral diseases, gnawing like canker- 
 worms at the heart of society, when poor Pompeii was over- 
 taken by the triple storm of fire, ashes, and lava, on that 
 daik and dreadful August day of 79 A.D., when wives 
 sought husbands, mothers their children, and lovers cried 
 aloud in vain for each other, finding peace only in eter- 
 nity. I had read the stories of that eventful day, with the 
 same wonder and awe as 1 had read of the Creation, the 
 Flood, the Crucifixion ; perhaps with some of the vague 
 bewilderment with which I read Revelations, and a season- 
 ing of the romantic skepticism with which I read the Ara- 
 bian Nights^ Robiiison Crui<oe^ or Gulliver^ s Travels. 
 There, in the museum, I sought the exhumed proofs of the 
 existence that was choked so long ago as scarcely to have 
 a lineal connection with our world. I found eight human 
 bodies perfectly petrified in their ashen sheaths ; in these I 
 read the encouraging lesson that Cicero, Pompey, or Marcus 
 Antoninus, Glaucus or Clodius, were not men of greater 
 ])hysical stature than our present j)oets, statesmen, and ora- 
 tors. The skeleton of a dog, a bird, a bone of roast-beef, a 
 loaf of bread, a dish of barley, a napkin (the warp still pre- 
 served), bronze-lamps, household luxuries, eariings, brace- 
 lets, and necklaces, teach us that the work of creation, the 
 human appetite, the preparation of food, the habits and 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 283 
 
 craving.s of females for gewgaws, were the same in the 
 classic ages as they are to-day. It is a cold, stern fact that 
 the life we found in the streets of Naples is very much the 
 life that was stilled in the street of Tombs eighteen centu- 
 ries ago, where the front and lower story of the palaces 
 were let to merchants, while the aedile supped in the atrium 
 with his lordly guests, upon lampreys, pistachio, figs, and 
 Vesuvio wine. We saw that the baths, the theatre, the 
 temple, and the forum were the loadstars of men and 
 women then as now. Luxuriously as these Sybarites lived 
 in their houses, sparkling with all the glory of fresco, mosaic 
 statuary, rich in their retinues of slaves, lulled by the fall 
 of fountains, charmed by the beauty of Greek female love- 
 liness, still the most opulent homes were comparatively 
 small, while vast spaces were devoted to the public build- 
 ings, where the populace met to discuss statecraft in the 
 forum, social scandal at the baths, to worship the false gods, 
 and be duped by the charlatanry of such false priests as 
 Arbaces in the temples, and enjoy the bestial sports of the 
 amphitheatre. Here the masterpieces of Greek and Roman 
 princes of the chisel and the brush were exhibited ; here the 
 song of the poet and voice of the declairaer rang through 
 column and archway, from foundation to capital ; here the 
 patricians felicitated in a transport of oil and aromatic oint- 
 ment ; here the contrite matron and maid repaired to solicit 
 pardon for the old sin, and sign a contract with her absolver 
 for a new one. 
 
 The streets are narrow, the carriage-way scarcely broad 
 enough to admit one of our two-wheeled vehicles of to-day, 
 sinking more than a foot below the sidewalk, in the centre 
 of which are stepping-stones, retaining the print of horses' 
 hoofs. The ruts of wheels and the worn and rounded curbs 
 are evidences of the superannuation of the city before its 
 destruction, or, as I have heard it termed, its preservation. 
 Would we have Pompeii in so perfect a state of conserva- 
 tion to-day had not the ashes from Vesuvius embalmed it, 
 and protected it from the deca}' and corruption of ages? 
 The fountain-basins at the street corners are worn into 
 hollows by the press of weary human hands upon the brim, 
 while the water filled the i)ail, or by lazy indolent hands 
 that lolled here while their owners chatted the hours away. 
 The stone steps are worn into grooves by the tramp of 
 many feet, but the word of welcome, salue^ or cave canem 
 (beware of the dog) are still in perfect black and white 
 mosaic in the pavements. Shafts are gone, columns broken. 
 
284 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 and nltfirs defiled, but the colors and forms of the frescoes 
 are tnarvellously nnmarred. Walking the streets we ex- 
 claimed at the limited dimensions of the town: How much 
 sleeps still under yonder hills of pumice-stone? 
 
 Come with me to the house of Diomed. Every one goes 
 to the house of Diomed! Of course, is that a just reason 
 I should neglect it? It is slightly out of town and elevated 
 from the road. A flight of steps lead to the peristyle, from 
 whifh we entered the baths, the atrium, the eating rooms, 
 the gardens, the library; anotiier flight of steps descend to 
 the cellar, to the scullery offices of the house, and where 
 the aniphorse of wine were kept; the vault that gave forth 
 the dead that sought shelter in it with their stores of oil 
 and food; the subterranean retreat to which the vain Julia 
 came with her jewels and frail life, eighteen hundred years 
 ago, hoping to foil the insatiate avenger. Here are the 
 chambers where Julia writhed in an ^gony of envy when 
 she heard the fair lone had won the heart of Glaucus ; 
 here the halls where vulgar wealth entertained and flattered 
 genius; here the libraries of charred and blackened papyri 
 scrolls, from which the master assumed to cultivate a love 
 of Greek literature ; here the cabinels of gems, intaglio and 
 cameo, that formed the pride of the rich man's ambition; 
 here the spot where the skeleton arm was found bearing 
 still upon the whited bone the golden circlet with the 
 name "Julia," a false charm that endured how many hun- 
 dred years after the decay of nature's; here the doorposts 
 at which Diomed was transfixed in a preserve of ashes and 
 steam as a sample and a text to posterity. 
 
 Come then to the house of the tragic poet, sanctified by 
 the pure adoration of the Thessalian slave-girl, who loved 
 her master for the charms her sightless eyes could not 
 behold; ah! I can see her now, sitting in the shadow of 
 broken columns, weaving a garland to crown her god, and 
 singing away his hours of ennui and her own heart; I 
 fanc3^ I hear the echo of their mutual prayer to their pagan 
 deities for one gleam of light to break through the closed 
 windows of her soul, — her prayer that she might gaze upon 
 the radiance of her king; his, that she might see the beauty 
 of his lone. Oh! what a satirist is Love! 
 
 Come to the wine shops, where the counters are groined 
 and dented by the arms of loungers, where the great casks 
 still stand as if the proprietor had just stepped out to dis- 
 cuss the new pi'jetorship with a neighbor-politician. Come 
 to the shrine of the Cyprian goddess, where you find curious 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 285 
 
 inscriptions on the walls which I could not read, and pecu- 
 liar emblems or beacons of trade that I could decipher. If 
 these people were lewd and their art wanton, remember 
 they were only in the embryo of civilization. 
 
 I am not here to preach a sermon upon their lives nor to 
 moralize upon their vices, only to record what I saw, yet 
 objects- that are pointed out as those of chiefest interest I 
 dare not expound. Who has not listened to a moral 
 harangue upon this text, the point of which was the cor- 
 ruption of the populace, and that God in his wrath had 
 swept off this community not an hour too soon, as their 
 crimes exceeded those of Sodom and Gomorrah? Is this 
 doctrine a true one? Have we reformed? I fear not; go 
 into any of the great capitals of Europe or America to-day, 
 and 3'ou will find vice existing in as many forms and colors 
 and of course more frequent in proportion to the population, 
 as at the annihilation of Pompeii. If these gross iniquities 
 do not stare us into horror and shame, it is because of the 
 prescribed orbit in which we revolve, or because the record 
 of our time has not been written, and not because the base 
 infection is not raging and inoculating in our homes and 
 highways, like a subtle poison or the fierce fire of petro- 
 leum. 
 
 After visiting the town theatre, a neat, moderate-sized 
 playhouse, where the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles, 
 and ^schylus won the applause of listening crowds, we 
 trudged over the dusty country paths, out to the amphi- 
 theatre where the gladiatorial sports were enacted, an 
 edifice not only for the accommodation of the Pompeian 
 commonwealth, but for such voluptuaries as should come 
 from Naples and the neighboring towns at the time of the 
 grand pageants. The noble patrons drove into the theatre 
 in their chariots, and entered their boxes by a concealed 
 passage extending around the arena in an irregular circle. 
 The interior arrangement is much like the Coliseum at 
 Rome, and not unlike the theatres of our day, tiers of 
 stalls and galleries being the chief features. Here, perched 
 upon some cruel emperor's box, with the memories of wild 
 beasts tearing, limb from limb, early Christians, and lap- 
 ])ing the human blood from off their nether jaw, while the 
 audiences turned their thumbs for death, with Castellamare 
 across the bay burning me to blindness with the sparkle of 
 its silver and jewelled heights, I drank the fiery blood of 
 Yesuvius, — a franc and a half a bottle, from an adjacent 
 vineyard, — dra^k to the pagan deities, that have left us 
 
286 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 such a sweet legacy of hallowing sublimities and beguiling 
 romances; to the Greek dramatists and sculptors for the 
 benefaction of their literature and art, and to the flaming 
 scourge waving his graceful plume over the complete demo- 
 lition of the city of sin and debauchery. 
 
 The guide was one of those incorruptible officials who 
 cannot be feed with two francs, but who does conduct you 
 to a photograph shed, where you are requested to buy 
 an album for eight, ten, or twenty francs, which he divides 
 with the proprietor of the atelier. 
 
 Back to Naples through the valley sacred with the thun- 
 dering eloquence of Cicero, or the song of Yirgil, and the 
 praise of Tacitus, or the kisses of Johannas Secundas, and 
 the panegyrics of Sallust, where the little asses were return- 
 ing from the busy city rid of their burden of provisions, 
 but carrj'ing their dream}'' masters to their suburban homes, 
 where the most grotesque forms were beaten with black 
 pebbles into white walls, and lamps were lighted to honor 
 curious dwarfed Yirgins, that resembled jointing-dolls of 
 the last century. 
 
 In the Museum Borbonico a perfect feast of inscriptions, 
 whole quarters of walls, with the frescoes preserved, taken 
 from the exhumed city, and mosaics, statuary, paintings, 
 gems, antiquities, and papyri is spread for the antiquarians. 
 Of the Pompeian frescoes we note strong colors, fine lines, 
 and considerable grace of treatment. 
 
 The one valuable text of this wonderful sermon of 
 Pompeii is that infidels who doubt the wonders and the 
 miracles of the Scriptures, and others who laugh at Robin- 
 son Crusoe and Pilgrini's Progress^ and Arabian Nights^ 
 will find the romance of reality and the fiction of fact in 
 this unearthed <j'\iy. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 28t 
 
 LETTER LYIII. 
 
 "We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
 Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
 Reels with its fulness ; there— for ever there- — 
 
 Chain 'd to the chariot of triumphale Art, 
 We stand as captives, and would not depart." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Florence, June, 1878. 
 
 At Rome I remained overnight en route to this lovel}'' 
 city where I am now writing. " The papal capital is in tor- 
 por and its hotels are dismantled, but it is ever fascinating 
 to me. I believe tlie Costanzi was the only startling ex- 
 perience of that night in Rome, and the staggering blow 
 was its hotel bill. Envious friends may say it was a just 
 retribution for my choice of such ostentatious lodgings. 
 It was not pretension that prompted me to the costly 
 albergo where American sovereigns dine foreign princes, 
 but the rational motive of a modest traveller, who found 
 the Costanzi near the depot. Possessing a keen appreci- 
 ation of the luxuries of life, I revelled, of course, in the 
 palatial a}»artments assigned me, dined in the royal base- 
 ment dining-hall, amongst Pompeian and Egyj^tian frescoes, 
 and congratulated myself on all the landlord's excess of 
 courtesy. Alas! when the account came to be settled the 
 sweet delusion vanished; every blue sphinx and crimson 
 dragon on the wall, every block of marble in the floor, and 
 every antique brazier or lamp that had so deligiited me the 
 previous cA^ening, had to be bravely paid for. There is no 
 pleasure equal to that of the travel-stained tourist as lie 
 recruits his strength in a regal hall hung with costly 
 tapestries and laces, but 3'ou who have had to square such 
 debts in gold painfully realize how rapidly the sheen of the 
 satin and the fleeciness of lace fade under these circum- 
 stances, and how soon remorse comes to enforce a stern 
 economy. But there is some compensation for one such 
 thoughtless extravagance. It was a iiealthy reaction, and 
 as I reflected upon the Roman epicure Apicius, who lived 
 in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, and spent one hun- 
 dred millions of sesterces (about $3,600,000) on his kitchen 
 alone, and poisoned himself because he had only $360,000 
 left, 1 felt that I might be pardoned this folly of a night at 
 the Costanzi. 
 
288 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Tlie entrance to Florence is a continuous flovver-gnrrlen 
 of quite twenty miles. The more extended my travel in 
 Italy the more marvellous become the variety and wealth 
 of vegetation. The spontaneity of still nature is the un- 
 interrupted deliglit of the vo^^ager. The Tuscans worship 
 the emblem of life as the protector of their crops as de- 
 voutly as the Calabrians, and very curious are the huge 
 personations appearing in the fields and at the roadsides 
 of their tutelary god. The blue heavens, the golden grain 
 waving under the shadow of the gray mountains, the white 
 roads, the emerald turf, and the olive-bronze foliage of the 
 trees, make up the colors of the picture in ihe exquisite 
 suburbs of the sweet city of art. The colors were rendered 
 more living by the vision of two mules carrying their bur- 
 dens up the steep mountain-path that winds in snakelike 
 coils to the summit, which is crowned by a monastery. 
 
 Florence is perhaps the most aristocratic cit3^ in Italy, 
 considered in relation to its ancient families and art, its 
 recent improvements, and the influence of the English con- 
 centrated here, though at present it is under the ban of 
 national poverty, and feels the exigencies of the times no 
 less than America. Its garniture is, however, much more 
 threadbare than the young republic's, but this is more at- 
 tributable to age than present indigence. Here history and 
 romance have combined, here the past and the present have 
 been newly married, and if we have no flaming Vesuvius, 
 nor Castello de I'Ovo frowning grimly from the bay, no 
 cracking of whips, and shouts of hawkers, no smell of fish, 
 nor traffic of a seaport, as at Naples, we are more than 
 compensated by the half-vague, religious, studious hush of 
 the art emporium, the noble palaces, and the gentle Arno 
 bathed in tlie silver beams of the lovely moonlight ; its flow 
 is so calm and its murmur so melodious that it seems some 
 animated phantom beneath my window. 
 
 I first saw Florence by moonlight, or by moonlight and 
 gaslight, as the gas lighted up the piazza of the Cathedral 
 and the adjacent streets; where street merchants were hold- 
 ing little fairs, their tawdry stock glorified b}'^ glaring pitch 
 torches, while the moonlight chastened the statues upon 
 the Ponte Trinita and in the open squares, and I think that 
 memory will linger longer than any other. Where can one 
 turn here without encountering a fresh revelation ? and 
 each new one seems to elbow the preceding from its pedes- 
 tal. It is qui^te impossible to forget the sanctifying genii 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 289 
 
 of Florence, as they speak to you from every corner, square, 
 portico, and church. 
 
 Dante in the piazza Santa Croce recalls the " Inferno," 
 the "Vita Nuovo," and his idealic love of the youthful Bea- 
 trice; and how many ghosts of former glory rise before us 
 in the Church of Santa Croce ? It seems to be the treasure- 
 house of immortal memories: tombs and mausolea that are 
 consecrated by the bones they cover, marbles that tell long 
 life-stories of toil jmd triumph, monuments that speak of 
 love's suffering and devotion, dust that mingles in death as 
 the spirits blended in life; yet here the scathing tongue of 
 calumny has lost its fatal sting. Go look upon the prince 
 of artists' sanctuary guarded by the sister arts, Painting, 
 Sculpture, and Architecture. Go to the tomb of him wlio 
 hails you in the piazza. Go to the catafalque of the crafty 
 "Florentine secretary," and ponder the life of the subtle 
 statesman and student, yet public benefactor. Go to the 
 resting-places of the mad but sincere lovers, Alfieri and the 
 Countess of Albany, and tell me if there is not a holy at- 
 mosphere about their ashes despite their irreverent passion ? 
 
 Come, then, to the S.Lorenzo; you will not tarry in the old 
 sacristy amongst the rattling bones of the sons of Cosmo 
 de' Medici, but wend your way to the Medician Chapel, 
 where evidences of the family wealth and piety are por- 
 trayed in precious marbles, paintings, statuary, and golden - 
 bronze effigies of the former monarchs of this house. The 
 fac similes of Julian and Lawrence de' Medici upon their 
 sarcophagi are the cynosures of the sacristy, not so much 
 by the immaculate drawing of the representative figures as 
 by the hovering sovereignty of the personifications of Day 
 and Night, Twilight and Dawn. The supernatural signifi- 
 cance yet vital lineaments of these emblematic figures is 
 something so inimitable, and the end so devoutly to be 
 attained, that I was almost about to advise the young 
 aspirant to study every curve and expression of these alle- 
 gorical mentors for three years, as the immortal Malibran 
 acquired the elements of music from a card, and then apply 
 the combinations to whatever subject they may treat. 
 
 Yet there were no cop3'ists here, while the Pitti and 
 XJffizi galleries were swai'ming with young ambitious devo- 
 tees. Long I watched these students, and often preferred 
 the new and obscure duplicate to the honored original. 
 
 The Pitti and XJffizi Palace galleries are connected by a 
 corridor-bridge across the Arno, and very peculiar the sen- 
 sation to be suddenly aware of your novel situation, with 
 25 
 
200 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 only the deeply flowing waters beneath, while pictures 
 and tapestries are on all sides. I should say the distin- 
 guishing features of this thesaurus of art are the furlongs 
 of tapestry that embellish the walls of the passage girding 
 the galleries on either shore of the classic stream. They 
 are the manufactures of the establishment inaugurated by 
 Cosmo de' Medici over three centuries ago and wliile the 
 cabinets of gems, woodcuts, and national schools of art 
 are here in magnificent profusion, it is a dose oft repeated, 
 while the woven representations of eminent masters shine 
 forth in salient splendor. There is a marked contrast be- 
 tween these museums of Florence and the Borbonico at 
 Kaples. Pitti is opulent in the number and schools of 
 j)ainting; Borbonico in its gems, antique marbles, and 
 Pompeian preserves. Not having enjoyed the archaic in- 
 taglios and their cameo obverse, — ^jewels from the collec- 
 tions of Sallust and Pansa, — those in the Uflizi would 
 have been a gratifying treat; but the graceful grouping, 
 allegorical and mj^thological combinations, and minutice of 
 execution shadow the rivalling collection into comparative 
 obscurity. 
 
 Then the marbles I Does the Florentine quarry con- 
 tnin nny thing as startling in their style of manipulation as 
 the P'arnese Bull and the Diana of Ephesus, or that insin- 
 uating little Bacchus, — whose I cannot say, but he cannot 
 be mistaken, though standing amongst a legion of brother 
 gods ? And where does there exist another so bizarre a 
 treasur}' as contained in the barred rooms of the Neapolitan 
 Museum. I allude to the apartments from which the visitor 
 is warned by a flaming Italian inscription, which may be 
 read by one of almost any nationality ; where the exhumed 
 illustrations of pagan vitiation are spread in unblushing 
 eftVontery; designs that proclaim each step of moral phi- 
 losophj^ through the era of idolatry. Yet only the favored 
 lew, the archffilogical students, are permitted access to this 
 depositor}^, and if a priestess of the sanctum of Clio enter 
 w ith all the aplomb of one of the elect she is hurled out as 
 a firebrand from a powder magazine. The awful and sad 
 lesson tauglit by these remains I must dwell upon just for 
 a moment. Never do I refer to the destroyed city, but 
 some new and terrible evidence of God's implacable ven- 
 geance suggests itself to my mind. Not content to pour 
 down the liquid fiie of His wrath upon these malefactors 
 wliile i)hinged in the very summer of their sin, He pre- 
 served every symbol and epigraph of their iniquity as a 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 291 
 
 declaration of their shame to all succeeding ages, while 
 there remains hardly a trace of whatever virtuous or chival- 
 ric tendencies may have graced them. In the Pitti all that 
 is great in government, ennobling in art, pure in religion, 
 and sweet in domesticity is presented. In each salon the 
 deification — either pagan or Christian — of one of the early 
 patrons of the gallery is portrayed in fresco; it may be 
 termed by the Stoic a romantic conception, but does it not 
 inspire a spirit of public benefaction ? Then, in the hall 
 of portraits of painters — is it not an incentive to young 
 ambition that he may in tiie future fill a place in one of 
 these panels ? 
 
 In Florence one need not go to public hall or private 
 palace to enjoy tlie fairest flowers of art that ever bloomed 
 upon the plant of human genius, nor the rarest jewels 
 coined in the crucible of the human mind. Every piazza 
 is crowned by its shining coronal of mirble gems; everj'- 
 street is bordered by a zone of beautiful conceits and pre- 
 cious devices. Art is as plenty as chestnut cakes at the 
 corners; Yenus, Cupid, Mars, Juno, or Adonis, sparkling 
 in all the symmetry of inspiration, fresh from hands that 
 toiled in unison to the purest promptings of the soul, are 
 sold in sliops, which are as frequent as drygoods stores on 
 Ciiestnut Street. 
 
 On the Ponte Yecchio is a marvellous street of jewelry 
 shops. How long have they stood ? Ah! since tlie days 
 Fra Angelico prayed and painted at Fiesole, or Savona- 
 rola's voice thundered through the streets in zealous and 
 crude eloquence against the corruption of the de Medicis. 
 Perhaps tlie Florentine demimonde decked themselves in 
 turquoise and pearls from these dark, low-roofed stores 
 upon the bridge. Pearls befitting the purity of Desde- 
 mona ; pearls hanging in great hanks in the windows, in 
 such amplitudes as we display wax beads at home; pearls 
 for which my woman's heart yearned, yet from which I 
 was obliged to turn, without even venturing to price. 
 
 All these Italian towns, certainly since the accession of 
 Victor Emanuel and the dazzling triumphs of Garibaldi, 
 have added to their old art treasures in the public and 
 private palaces, beautiful galleries, or, as they call them, 
 piazzas, as also fine parks, and walks, and drives; and the 
 genius of United Italy is seen everywhere in abundant 
 statuary to Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and the later 
 leaders of thought and action. You mark the healtiiy 
 difference between ancient kings and favorites and the 
 
292 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 recent republican innovators, by the money spent upon 
 these latter, and although many of the worshippers of the 
 past will tearfully tell you of the great loss sustained by 
 the dismantling of the palaces heretofore belonging to the 
 crown, and to the discrowned dukes and nobility of such 
 falsely-called republics as Genoa, Venice, Florence, Milan, 
 and Naples, I hail the better time when the money of the 
 state is rather given to the state for popular education, 
 than lavished upon the luxuries of princes. Among these 
 beautiful, popular places let me rank the Cascine or park 
 of Florence, called, from a farm to which it once belonged, 
 casino or dairy. Bounded by the rivers Arno and Mugnone, 
 the road rises to a striking "open" about tw^o miles in 
 length, approached by broad highways, leading to a large 
 circle, where the military band plays several times a week. 
 As we stood listening to the music, carriages, filled with 
 the nobility, drawn by spirited horses, came up, the occu- 
 pants pausing also to hear, and to see the soldiers flirting 
 with the girls in the shade; we next started off through 
 the unique avenues radiating to the monument of the Rajah 
 of Hoiapore, a young Indian prince who died at Florence 
 in 1870 on his way home from England, and whose body 
 was cremated on the spot, his attendants making the whole 
 neighborhood resound with their strange and melancholy 
 worship. These avenues were singularly wild and pictur- 
 esque, the tall and venerable trees by which the}" were 
 lined recalling some of the natural arcades in our Fair- 
 mount Park. 
 
 But older and more interesting than this fashionable re- 
 treat are the Boboli Gardens, which are approached through 
 the Pitti Palace, and whose history takes you back to its 
 origin 350 years ago. From its height there is a charming 
 view of Florence, with its palaces and churches, and as I 
 stand and gaze upon the ample landscape below, and en- 
 joy the mass of shrubbery, and statuary, and fountains, 
 with their swans and other water fowl immediately around 
 me, I think m}'^ gaze never drank in a more enrapturing 
 siglit. The evening was so mild, the air so balmy and so 
 heavy with the incense of the spic}'' odors of cedar and of 
 palm, that I did not wonder at the pride of the Florentines 
 in this exquisite and elaborate conservatory. 
 
 Florence lay drowsing sweetly in the valley of the Arno, 
 with the golden mists of heaven falling between the rigid 
 palace walls and in the narrow streets where chilling damps 
 strike to the soul, while the piazza beyond is in one blaze 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 293 
 
 of wliite fii'c. Such lieat that even the wretched beasts in 
 the hacks droop until they fall dead in their harness; the 
 stranger hurries into the raw shuddering by-streets, and 
 the natives loll along unconscious of the caloric. The 
 brothers of the Misericordia are in the streets and upon 
 the bridges in their long black gowns and hoods and black 
 masks, some bearing a bier upon their shoulders, others 
 returning from their visits to the sick. The calm silver 
 waters flow gently in their course, and to my right and to 
 my left and beyond are the villas of illustrious American 
 sculptors, English painters, and wealthy authoresses, near 
 the roads glorified by the names of Michael Angelo, Gali- 
 leo, Machiavelli, and Dante. 
 
 Fair Fh)rence indeed ! fitting home of the great masters, 
 seat of art, science, and bravery, favorite of Angelo and 
 Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and their scholars and con- 
 temporaries, and at a later date the capital of the king- 
 dom; it seemed a thousand pities that the urgency of the 
 government and the historic logic of Italian unity de- 
 manded the removal of central authority to the great capi- 
 tal founded by the Caesars, consecrated by the sublime 
 sacrifice of Rienzi, and the later statemanship of Cavour 
 and his illustrious red-shirted co-worker, the hero of 
 Caprera. 
 
 LETTER LIX. 
 
 " You may remember, scarce five years are past, 
 Since in your brigantine you sailed to see 
 The Adriatic wedded by our duke." 
 
 Otwat's Venice Phesetived. 
 
 Venice, June, 1878. 
 
 Between Naples and Florence there are pronounced 
 points of contrast and comparison. Venice has no parallel 
 nor approximate. If it were an animal I might call it mon- 
 grel : a plant, heterogenous ; a fish amphibious; a language, 
 hybrid ; a human being, hermaphrodite. Be there a word 
 in the queen's English, in the whole categorj^ of tongues 
 upon which to couch it? Sui generis is too weak; outre 
 too vague a term. Anomalous would suit the rhetorician, 
 
 25* 
 
294 riCTL'RES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 while nonpareil would.be the chosen phrase of the printer. 
 I niiglil call it an eccentricity of nature, an aberration of 
 earth, a prodigy of the cosmical sphere, an incongruity of 
 the universe; and so richly clothed in parlance, yet no pic 
 ture of this fair Aphrodite would be presented, rocked in 
 her briny cradle, whose hues have as many changes as the 
 chameleon — now azure, then emerald, and again a pale 
 opaline rose. 
 
 It was eight in the evening when I left Florence, and as 
 arid and breathless a night as one might expect in the tor- 
 rid zone. Emanuletta, the celebrated flower-girl of Ital}', 
 • — who has, alas! long since shed her youtliful and brilliant 
 plumage, — was at the station, tossing her nosegays into 
 the ladies' laps, and presenting them to the gentlemen with 
 all the beguiling coquetry of eighteen. I had heard much 
 of this girl, who had reigned queen of her clan for decades, 
 sometimes appearing in one Italian capital, then in another, 
 floating and clipping into all the saturnalias these southern 
 cities afford, now the pet of a duke, then the protege of a 
 countess, always the favorite of the community. She is 
 now a woman of quite sixty, but her natural graces and arti- 
 ficial personal perquisites make her look at least twenty 
 years younger. Her full figure and fantastic costume are 
 her characteristic advantages. With her, life has been one 
 uninterrupted drama from the cradle; all the natural inci- 
 dents and tastes of the several epochs of a woman's exist- 
 ence have been given to the winds, and the play has gone 
 on day after day in a succession of tableaux. To-day she 
 wears the same crimson petticoat, the same velvet bodice, 
 the same lace kerchief, ne?it\y folded over her bosom, that 
 she did forty-three years ago ; even the same smile curves her 
 lips, the same ndice sparkle brightens her eyes, the same bon- 
 mots dro}) from her tongue, and the same quick repartee. 
 Her life-chain of adventure has not dulled with time, but 
 rather brightened with its attritions. As she has lived so 
 will she live on to the end. The deep night rapidly grow- 
 ing through the twilight has not deadened any of her gay 
 dress nor effervescing spirits, and when life has been eclipsed 
 by death she will be remembered as Emanuletta the flower- 
 girl. 
 
 As we left the gentle valley of the Arno far behind, the 
 clouds burst into a flood of water, and the atmosphere be- 
 came more endurable; but as tunnels were frequent, and my 
 fellow-travellers in the carriage, one a British daughter of 
 nobility, — the Lady Louisa and her companion, — were ex- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 295 
 
 ccssively fidgety regarding tlie adjustment of the windows, 
 the blessed oblivion of sleep was not the portion of any 
 of the occupants until our titled Englisher changed cars 
 for the Tyrol ; then we poor republican mortals resigned 
 ourselves to the seductions of the sweet soother, and 
 dreamed the hours away until morning. 
 
 The approach to Yenice is marked by the swamps that 
 dot the landscape, where vegetation is prolific and thrusts 
 its glowing life through the brackish estuaries, and an 
 infinity of vegetable color glows in the shallow water 
 of the blue lagoons. These marshes increase and extend 
 until the great bridge is crossed that carries travellers di- 
 rectly into the station on one of the large islands washed 
 by the Grand Canal. As I stood in the dawn looking out 
 upon the city of the sea from the depot quay the dank at- 
 mosphere enveloped land and water in a misty cloak, the 
 weeds clung to the door-posts and foundation stones, and a 
 saline odor and taste filled the air. The lines of Rogers 
 came to me then, and not those of Byron, which is the 
 acknowledgment of an undisciplined mind ; surely the 
 " Childe" should take precedence, and yet there is a theory 
 afloat attaching school-girl romance to these poems, and if 
 we would be considered past our tyronism we must keep 
 our mental cells well swept of these vagrant verses. But 
 who, with the sentiment of a mud-turtle, could cross the 
 Bridge of Sighs, pass the palace of the Foscari, ascend the 
 Giant's Stairway, or linger in the piazza of San Marco with- 
 out recalling the lordly English bard ? Who drift under 
 the Rialto without recollecting Shakespeare? Or who gaze 
 upon the widowed Adriatic and forget Otway ? Some say 
 these are the influences of the past, but they are the powers 
 which will endure, and be they hackneyed or having the 
 odor of a young lady's manual, they are popular because 
 they are permanent. 
 
 There is a decided flavor of the Orient about Yenice. It 
 may lie chiefly in historical associations, and certainly the 
 traders from the Levant, the decaying glor}"^, and prevailing 
 moresque style of architecture, revive the legends of the 
 Turkish wars centuries ago. 
 
 Riding to the hotel in a gondola, through a street of 
 water, and driven by two sailor-boys in white shirts and 
 blue ribbons, was a peculiar experience, and not a pleasant 
 one to me. I had contemplated a delirium of ecstasy float- 
 ino: through the canals where Desdemona had drifted, and 
 swimniino- in the boats that had carried Belvidcra and 
 
296 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Porlia. Tlie old halo vanished in the depression of the 
 present. The decaying magnificence of otlier centuries is 
 the grim-visaged phantom that stares one into revery; from 
 the crumbling art the mind reverts to the degenerate popu- 
 lace, the waning commerce, the buried doges; then the in- 
 tense silence of the streets, where no sound of horse's hoof 
 nor rumble of wheel is heard, nought save the solitary dip 
 of the gondolier's oar, and his weird salute to his fellow- 
 oarsman as he whirls his black barge around the acute cor- 
 ners of the watery pathways. It was all very oppressing 
 to me; indeed, 1 felt more as if I were exi)l()ring a city of 
 the dead than 1 did at Pompeii. The entombed glory of 
 ages seemed to underlie the waters, and the sombre boats 
 — which are entirely black b}^ order of law — appeared tiie 
 sailing hearses of expired majesty. 
 
 The hotels as a rule are not any more fascinating at the 
 entrance than the sea, from which they seem to rise. The 
 atrium, as the Roman would say, is damp, dark, and pre- 
 sents very much the appearance of a boathouse, or ship- 
 chandler}'. Ascending a spacious stairway there are second, 
 third, fourth, and fifth floors, abounding in all the charming 
 equipments of a Parisian house; the chambers luxurious, 
 the floors mosaic, and the inevitable porcelain stove, the 
 conspicuous feature that baffled my imagination long before 
 1 discovered its use. In every hall and chamber I saw a 
 great, white, fluted, cylindrical apparatus, and I walked 
 round and round them, turning every screw and crank, and 
 at length divined their purpose, and although it is June 
 their warmth is not unwelcome in the salt climate and 
 the chilling rain. 
 
 The formation of this strange product of the pirates of 
 2000 years ago puzzled and interested me. How came it 
 iiere? was my continual mental interrogation. It is indeed 
 mountain debris and drifting alpine currents that fashioned 
 this floating city ? While it is declining in power it is grow- 
 ing in latitude. Every year earth is added to the sand 
 islands covered by the lagoons, and some day these foetus 
 worlds will have completed their gestation and spring into 
 existence, glorious and beautiful spheres. Children of the 
 sea, may I call them ? and Venice the regent, though hoary 
 and superannuated, is augmenting her })rogeny each year, 
 ^nd a healthy oflTspring it is; rich in its capabilities, afflu- 
 ent in its growth of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and animal 
 life. 
 
 These lagoons, so lusty with life, would be sinks of infec- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 297 
 
 tion were it not for the cliastening saline ingi'edients; and 
 where all glows with vitalit}' death would exhale its venom- 
 ous breath. The ragged weeds coursing in the stream and 
 the green scum that marks the flow and ebb of the tide upon 
 the marble foundations, are its true conservators of life, 
 and teach us God's ubiquitous providence. 
 
 "Hast ever swum in a gondola at Venice ?" Ah, yes! 
 and a very emotional swim it was. The magnificence of 
 the grand canal coiling far beyond like a great S of sapphire 
 crystal losing itself in the curve, spanned by its bridges 
 and bordered by its palaces, is the first impression ; tlien 
 as the barge moves onward with measured sweep, the cus- 
 tom-house, a long narrow edifice at the entrance of tlie canal 
 upon the left shore, recalls the extended traffic of the past ; 
 the churches, with their variety of schools and eras of art; 
 the palaces, with their storied recollections of dukes and 
 demigods, of pampered favorites and oppressed genius, and 
 after all the abode of poets; piles that still echo the names 
 of Othello and Shylock, Antonio, Pierre, and Jaffier; stones 
 that suggest the base of tragedies, and fa§ades that portray 
 the art of the Saracens, the austerity of the Decadence, and 
 the resplendence of the Renaissance. Here a regal home, 
 grim in the rigid splendor of mediaeval days ; there an illumi- 
 nated front, glowing in its gold and frescoes, awnings, and 
 jutting balconies; farther on an exterior of white, elaborated 
 in black marble; and again the most brilliant pictures in 
 mosaic, vaguely hidden by canopies, arches, and columned 
 porticos. 
 
 The Rialto, where the Christians were wont to rate the 
 Jews about their moneys and spit upon them ; where the 
 traders sell their gay beads from their stalls upon the 
 bridge, and the venders of hot boiled potatoes supply their 
 customers with the Irish vegetable in their bursting jackets, 
 while the varied populace drift under the dark arches be- 
 neath, was one of my chosen rendezvous. Farther on, the 
 Grand Canal curves the delta of the Camps di Marte, — ^a 
 large grassy island, a sort of suburban retreat of the ultra- 
 marine city, — and loses itself in the Guidecca, that sepa- 
 rates the city proper from the island where the laborers 
 and factory employes have their homes; the district of 
 Guidecca is to Venice what Manayunk is to Philadelphia. 
 Its channel is broad and deep enough to pass large craft, 
 and is the thoroughfare of traffic for the manufactories and 
 exi)orting houses. Here the romantic delight of the Grand 
 Canal faded into an emotion akin to fear as the clouds 
 
298 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 lowered, the riotous winds came sweei)ing over the hroad 
 bosom of the ocean, creeping amongst tlie sand reefs, 
 swelling the waves into foam-crested billows, that broke 
 into tempestuous eddies, and rocked the frail skiff fore and 
 aft with the growing storm. The gondolier's sharp cries 
 grew louder, and as I rode around this wilderness of water 
 I thought if I were careened in the brine it would be an easy 
 and soon forgotten sleep. 
 
 The city may be traversed through the contracted alley- 
 ways, and by the bridges that serve as stepping-stones over 
 the mammoth gutters of sea-water. This is a tedious mode 
 of transit, but the only method by which to get an idea 
 of the construction of Venice. A ride in a gondola to the 
 piazza of St. Mark condenses all the beauty and romance of 
 the situation; but to thread the labyrinthine sinuosities of 
 the footpath a picture of lowly Venetian life is best obtained. 
 Narrow avenues, that seem only arcades, flanked b}^ prosper- 
 ous shops, whose doorsteps almost touch in the centre of tlie 
 passage. Wandering through these curtailed inflexions of 
 the town, I found myself in the noble square of San Marco. 
 I cannot relate by wiiat route I came, suffice it, I got there; 
 my saunterings brought me face to face with tlie temple of 
 the tutelary saint guarded by the winged lions of the 
 Apocalypse. Indeed, where may the eyes turn in Venice 
 and not rest upon these prophetic monsters? They are in 
 the immediate piazza of the tabernacle in a countless va- 
 liety and multitude. They are gaudy in fresco, rude in 
 mosaic, glowering in bronze, mounted upon columns at a 
 dizzy altitude; they hover in tiie court of the doges, they 
 crouch at the tomb of Canova, and crown the cenotaph of 
 Tilian; they hail you from common and court, ornament 
 portal and pediment, symbolize saint and sinner, the crest 
 of prince and pauper, and are the genii of the Queen of the 
 Adriatic. 
 
 The piazza of St. Mark is the focus of municipal power. 
 It has an opening quay toward the sea on the west, and a 
 fencing of palace, shop, and church, upon the three other 
 cheeks. The devotees come to their matins and vespers, 
 tlie fashions come to enjoy the gayety and sorbetta^ the 
 traveller to see, the ladies to be seen, the trader to fulfll 
 his mission, tlie Jew to barter, the seamen to sport, and 
 the flovver-girl to sell her bouquets and receive the glances 
 of admiration from the throng. Trul}', a scene of fair 
 witchery when tlie glowing lamps throw their mellow, 
 golden light over the square and its gossiping occupants, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 299 
 
 and find a triple reflection in the blue waves, which are 
 lighted into a phosphorescence by the moon, and the sweet 
 strains of the dulcet Italian band float over all a surge of 
 melody. 
 
 The Venetian flower-girl is the most conspicuous object 
 of the picture; she circulates between the cafes and the 
 little tables under the arches. They are most decidedly 
 the 3'oungest, best-dressed, and best-looking women of this 
 school I have seen, and are also the most importunate 
 canvassers for personal favor. I watched the subtlety 
 and cajolery of one of these fair ones as she endeavored to 
 decoy the male fish into the net she wove- — the woof of 
 smiles and blushes; she courtsied, winked, blinked, smiled 
 archly, wafted kisses from her aromatic finger-tips, and, as 
 a binding favor, fastened the flowers upon the cavaliers' 
 coats. 
 
 The Cathedral is a flashingly ornate structure, with low 
 mosque or minaret domes. Blackened by time, it stands a 
 majestic relic of the past. The coarse, garish mosaics in 
 the fa§ade that overarch the doors are rendered more 
 flaunting by contrast with the sombre pile and its poor 
 surroundings. Inside there is none of the characteristic 
 cleanliness of the basilicas in Rome and Florence. The 
 mosaic blocks of the pavement are lacerated and dislocated 
 by the scythe of Time, grimed by the dust he carries with 
 him, and unwashed by friendly hands. The jewels and 
 precious marbles of the altar have alone defied the almighty 
 despoiler, standing forth the stars of the withering sanc- 
 tuary. 
 
 The Palace of the Doges is a dream of wonder to the 
 stranger. Its great rows of cloisters or columned galleries 
 are of architecture so graceful as to appear the poetry and 
 music of masonry, and yet so enduring as to last through 
 the eternity. Such elaboration of base and capital I had 
 yet not beheld ; curves, loopholes, and entablatures that 
 seemed the inspiration of the troubadour. A great stair- 
 way — the Giant's Staircase — down which Marino Faliero's 
 head is said to have rolled at his execution, though it was 
 not erected until after he was guillotined, leads from the 
 court to the colonnades above. A gaping wound in the' 
 wall marks the spot where conspirators dropped the pois- 
 onous billets against their enemies into the lion's moutli, 
 in the dead watches of the night. Next day the unsus- 
 ])ecting, pitiable wretches were tried by the Council of 
 Ten or the Council of Three, and condemned to death or 
 
300 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 a dungeon — guilty ever, as the tribunal chose to find them. 
 Here are the chambers where the inquisitors judged the 
 innocent, lined by a wealth of cunning marbles — beauty 
 tiiat enraptures the soul of the gazer by its sublimit}?^ one 
 moment, only to make the despair still more dark into 
 which it is plunged the next, by the frowning Bridge of 
 Sighs, that spans tlie narrow canal and connects palace 
 and })rison, and the tenebrious cells for the convicted, 
 where no ray of hope or sunlight entered; a rough-hewn 
 hole in the upper portion of the cell-wall served as an 
 aperture through which food was handed to the prisoner. 
 There was a mysterious glamour and an awful silence about 
 these subterranean dens that carried me back to the days 
 of shadowy confessors, secret doors, and sliding panels ; 
 I expected to see the four walls contract and crush me, or 
 a threatening firebrand appear in the darkness and vibrate 
 over my unoffending head, or seas of molten fire to flood 
 the cave and swallow me in their lurid depths, or the 
 ground upon which I stood to yawn and reveal hungry 
 beasts ready to devour me. It was not until I had shaken 
 off the damp and must in the outer air of heaven that I 
 felt fairly rid of the ghastly phantom. 
 
 The illustrious paintings of the palace relate the great 
 story of the ancient Yenetian Republic. Recollections of 
 big ships and glorious victories are all about us. On wall 
 and ceiling are the noble achievements of Tintoretto and 
 Paul Veronese, works that proclaim the dignity of the 
 doges as well as the immortality of the artists. The pal- 
 ace was a pronounced contrast to the prison, but even here 
 there was an aroma of arbitrary grandeur or autocratic 
 lustre that did not please my republican tastes, and cast a 
 sad reflection through the vivid pigments of fresco. The 
 poverty and thraldom of the masses were deplorably ap- 
 parent in contrast with lavish wealth and obtrusive pomp. 
 
 I had often read and listened to the anecdote of tlie 
 '* Pigeons of St. Mark." I will not say I disbelieved its 
 authenticity, but I thought there was some insidious hum- 
 bug or suggestio falsi^ so to speak, about the stor}^; and I 
 determined to convince mj^self of its truth, like Thomas, 
 by seeing with my own eyes and demonstrating with my 
 own hands. I was in one of the legion of photograph shops 
 of the piazza, overhauling the Italian Hebrew's stock of 
 blue pictures — three tones bluer than I ever saw the main 
 and sky. In the pictures everything is of the same tint, 
 cathedral, palace, custom-house, men, water, and boats; in 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 301 
 
 nature each object has a distinct color of its own, and the 
 representations that draw nearest to fact are those floatin^^ 
 in a pale, rosy haze or incense. However, to revert to our 
 Tiioutons ; as I was in the shop I noticed a vast number of 
 these birds flitting about the square and on the porches, 
 but then, said I, the communit3^ are feeding them, and it is 
 only natural that they should gather; but, at the tolling of 
 two from the clock-tower, a dense cloud of them hovered 
 over the piazza, and made the ground, the eaves of the 
 Campanile, and every sill, buttress, projection, and capital, 
 black as they fluttered down, and army after army crowded 
 upon the others so closely that I could not escape grati- 
 fying conviction. 
 
 Venice has less attraction in its churches, perhaps, than 
 an}'^ other Italian capital. Its topographical paradoxes are 
 the cynosure, and, being a seaport town, it loses all drowsy 
 religious odor in the bustle of its traders. St. John and 
 St. Paul is worthy of consideration, as it served as the 
 Westminster of Venice, inasmuch as the vaults of the 
 doges are here, and here their funeral service was ever sol- 
 emnized. The Frari is attractive as containing the mau- 
 solea of Titian and Canova, and, indeed, every temple of 
 divine worship in the noiseless city is a treasure-house of 
 art. But what have I to do with art and architecture here 
 in the presence of the Bride of the Adriatic, where the sea 
 flows all around? — the sea, that was wedded by the duke 
 nine centuries ago, and yet continues in its joyous current, 
 no older, no feebler ; the sea, that crawls about the churches, 
 and palaces, and prisons, leaving the saliva of its salty 
 tongue upon their foundation-stones; the sea, that floats 
 one into dreams and nurses sweet memory in its murmur. 
 
 26 
 
302 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER LX. 
 
 On Como's lake the snnset fell, 
 
 Then passed away in golden flame, 
 And fair o'er vine and olive dell 
 
 The star through purple shadows came, 
 "While far o'er leagues of twilight gloom, 
 
 The Alps still burned in rosy glow, 
 And mirrored back, like scattered bloom, 
 
 Lay, shining in the wave below." 
 
 Milan. Cadenabbia on Lake Como, June, 1878. 
 
 I DO not s£iy that there is notliing interesting in Milan 
 save the Cathedral ; but that it is nri}' only vivid impression. 
 ] saw it first at the twilight hour, when tlie shadows of 
 iiiglit had softened evei'y line of its thousands of statues 
 (some authorities say over 2000, others 8000, I did not 
 pause to count them), mellowed each Gothic turret that 
 crowns the roof, and cast a gauze of tenderness over the 
 entire structure as it couched against the witching blue 
 sky, where its graceful lineaments were traced in a fret- 
 work of stone as airy and delicate as the finest lace. I rode 
 round and round to gratif}^ the passion its etliereal beauties 
 had kindled into life, and at every wing and buttress the 
 marvel grew. The myriads of marble angels, saints, sol- 
 dieis, and statesmen, also popes, painters, and sculptors 
 mingled amongst its many folds and interw( aviug lines, 
 seemed the work of celestial art. Its many pierciug spires 
 looked the ephemeral pinnacles of some fairy palace. In 
 the holy dusk and sombre decline of day it resembled a 
 frozen poem, an anthem, or a drama in marble. The ex- 
 terior had reduced me to a state of revery, so my mood 
 was in harmony with the religious glamour and haze of 
 incense within, when I pushed back the great doors, and 
 found myself incontinently yielding to the bewildering in- J 
 fluence. While it lacks all of the ostentatious adornment i 
 of the great 8t. Peter's in Rome, it is this very chastity that 
 lends the grace of sanctity that the greatest Roman cathe- 
 dral can never claim with its garish glory. The one is a 
 trorcreous palace, where art and wealth have been exhausted, 
 the other a classic temple that inspires prayer. I no longer ^ 
 wonder at the armies of papal devotees in this Catholic 
 countrj' ; the religion is so [ileasing, calm, and restful. As 
 1 stood a few feet within the portals, upon the ricli mosaic 
 floor, the lofty vaulted roof above and the regal banners 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 303 
 
 and paintings hanging upon every pillar of i2:ronpe(l columns, 
 I was spellbound by the spirit of lioliness enthroned in ray 
 bosom, and as I unconsciously obeyed the promptings of 
 my heart and knelt, I could have sighed m}' soul away in 
 one eternal apostrophe to my God. 
 
 There are no jewelled shrines nor frescoed panels, no 
 Russian marbles nor Eastern alabaster here. The arches 
 of the roof, the altar, and capitals of the pillars, from which 
 start hundreds of statues, are wrought in an interminable 
 filigree of stone, so pure, so cold, so hoary, that the golden 
 light that falls in semitones through the great colored glass 
 window over the entrance euphonizes all into one oratorio. 
 1 said, " This must be the mansion of the All-merciful, the 
 peace and rest of Heaven is upon me." The cause of my 
 supreme content seemed something palpable, and inadver- 
 tently I groped the air for a tangible influence ; a maze of 
 holy incense was absorbing and bearing off my earthiness 
 in its mesmerism, when I was aroused to a sense of chill 
 and darkness. As I passed out I longed for the morrow 
 when I might return. 
 
 But with the dawn came Corpus Domini. High solemni- 
 ties were to be celebrated, the city was in gala-day garb, 
 and thousands of every class thronged the streets. There 
 were militarj^ and ecclesiastical parades, crowds of people, 
 bands of music, clouds of incense ; the shops were closed 
 and a general spirit of frolic prevailed. The Cathedral did 
 not seem the holy of holies in which I had meditated the 
 nigiit before ; the crowd desecrated it, and so fearing the 
 subtleties of tlie j^esterday might be quite undone by the 
 imi)ending ceremonies and thickening throng, I hurried 
 away. 
 
 Milan is so pure and clean and elegant one might readily 
 be persuaded he had passed out of Italy, proverbial for dirt. 
 The white houses and gay shops lencl to it a Parisian ap- 
 ])earance. But there are ample recollections of Italy in the 
 Victor Emanuel Galler}^, the statue of Cavour, and the 
 many monuments to local celebrities. 
 
 This gallery is a palatial arcade of shops in the form of 
 a Latin cross, connecting the Cathedral piazza with the La 
 Scala opera-house. The fa§ades of the stores are florid with 
 scrolls and jalousies and caryatides, the overarching canopy 
 of glass admits the light of da3', and by night the dome 
 looms out like some southern meteor, dazzling in its two 
 thousand gas-jets, casting a resplendence over the great 
 frescoes of the rotunda, and a radiance over the archetypes 
 
304 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of tlie presiding artistic and political genii. The great ser- 
 vices of the late Eiiii)eror, Garibaldi, and Cavoiir, are com- 
 memorated throughout Italy bj statues, galleries, paintings, 
 and edifices. As I write Cavour is looking at me with his 
 bronze face from his pedestal of granite, where Fame sits 
 carving his name witii an indelible st3'lus. 
 
 The La Scala is closed for the summer, but I went to 
 enjoy its vast proportions, the majesty of the Emperor's 
 box, and the stage where Adelina Patti has achieved her 
 greatest triumphs. Tiie immense auditorium, and stage as 
 large as a circus arena, somewhat modifies the oppressive 
 ornamentation of the tiers and boxes. Directly op[)osile 
 the stage, situated in what we call the balcony, is the royal 
 loge, bearing the crown and princel}^ crimson hangings ; in 
 the vestibule are statues of Malibran, Rossini, and Doni- 
 zetti. But it was at the La Verme tliat I passed such a 
 delightful evening with " La Sonnambula," and though a 
 second-class opera house was exceedingly capacious. Jt 
 is evidently a summer establishment, where all the gentle- 
 men smoke, and the ladies attend in ordinary street cos- 
 tume. After the oi)era proper came a protracted ballet, — the 
 opera in Italy is generally succeeded by a ballet, — I may 
 call it a pantomime ballet, "Discovery of America by Co- 
 lumbo." Very unique, interesting, and instinctive. The 
 dancing was the poetry of motion, and the dumb show the 
 eloquence of graceful silence. Without the aid of speech 
 their gestures were so intelligible as to make a language by 
 itself. 
 
 All the Italian cities boast of fine parks and drives. That 
 of Milan is very beautiful, the course for the carriages and 
 horsemen being ovei; the ramparts ; the top of the original 
 militar^^ wall that hemmed in the desirable city from for- 
 aging despoilers. Here the nobility and gentry come to 
 ventilate their regality in the soft Italian gloaming. To 
 vie with each other's crests and liveries seems their heaven, 
 and as the dimensions are limited, they ride round and 
 round the park like pupi)ets in a toy circus. The Milanese 
 may dress plainly, he may live economically, he may even 
 dine without macaroni, but not to own an equipage and 
 drive upon the bastions is a sign of shameful impecu- 
 niosity. 
 
 I dreaded visiting other churches in the fear of dispel- 
 ling the enthusiastic thraldom of the Cathedral, but I could 
 not leave Milan without seeino- Leonardo da Vinci in his 
 most inspired work. My only errand to the S. Marie delle 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 305 
 
 Grazie was to this enrl. I cannot rhapsodize here, as the 
 noted fresco of the Last Supper is so vilel}'' defaced as 
 almost to obliterate all original lines. I have heard of 
 travellers being lost in admiration of the master-touches 
 of this glorious composition, and transported by grief at 
 the passion portrayed. I freely confess I saw only the dust 
 and ashes of a once noble monument, and if there were a 
 shade of sad regret, it was for the shameful purpose to 
 which the apartment had been devoted by Napoleon, and 
 the ravages perpetrated by the monks. There were copy- 
 its there by the dozen, seemingly to portray the conception 
 of the great master with pleasing skill. As I quitted its 
 presence, children who could scarcely articulate their first 
 syllables had been taught to ask charity at the very church 
 door, and to glorify your soul in choice Italian if you re- 
 fused them largess. 
 
 But the episode to be most earnestly remembered was 
 my experience at St. Ambrose, originally a heathen temple 
 of Bacchus; old in history, Oriental in form, and odorous 
 of incense. There was a sti'ange combination of pagan 
 and Christian antiquities. It was a Testa da^^ and the 
 faithful worshippers were gathered about a glittering casket 
 behind the high altar, extending their rosaries, prayer- 
 books, bandannas, and other articles to a priest, who passed 
 the objects over the sides of the glass and brass bindings, 
 returned them to their owners, and received pennies for 
 polishing off the sacred cabinet with the handkerchiefs of 
 the children of Light. 1 dropped three coppers into the 
 'plate, and had my Protestant linen rubbed over the holy 
 brass, and now I am afraid to have it washed, as I am not 
 sure but the pi'ocess will destroy the odor of sanctity, so 
 it must be enshrined amongst my sacred relics. 
 
 It seems incongruous to emerge from such a ceremonj'- 
 in a temple hung with ancient tapestry, to a street where 
 American trapaways are as familiar as signs of Singer's 
 and Howe's sewing machines ; and these are whizzing from 
 the Seine to the Tiber, and fiom the Ural Mountains in 
 White Russia to the Jura Hills in Switzerland. 
 
 At the northwest marginal line of the city stands the 
 Arch of Peace, proud troph}^ of Napoleon's occupation.. 
 The marked contrast of the springing bronze horses mount- 
 ing the snowy arc, on the one side, to tjq^ify the glory 
 of the Great Captain of his age, with the modern trophy 
 in honor of his successor, the last emperor's Italian cam- 
 paigns, was suggestive and painful. 
 
 26* 
 
306 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 The town of Como, distant from Milan by rail about one 
 hour and three-quarters on one of the most beautiful lakes 
 in the north of Italy, was extolled by Yirgil before the 
 birth of Christ. Passing up the lake it is one succession 
 of transcendent panoramas. The mountains rise to a 
 height of seven thousand feet from tiie extreme margin of 
 the lake, which is kept constantly full in summer by the 
 melted snows from the various altitudes by which it is 
 hemmed in, and abounds in fish. The trout have none of 
 the delicac}^ of the American or English fisii ; the immense 
 size to which they grow frequently equals twenty pounds, 
 rendering them tough and tasteless. 
 
 It is a declining manufacturing town, dusty and smoky, 
 where the industrious inhabitants are engaged at the silk- 
 loom. 
 
 Como is the Newi)ort of Milan, and lying on both banks 
 of the lake are the luxurious residences of the Milanese 
 aristocracy. They look like fairy abodes, swinging be- 
 tween the olive heights and azure mirror, embowered in 
 densest pine and wreathing vines. There is a spiritual ex- 
 istence about all these southern French and Italian towns; 
 the air, the water, the sk3', the stars, the vegetation, and 
 tlie flowers are all sacred or semi-tropical. The hamlets of 
 the Lake of Como are to me the last expression of this 
 thought. It is an olla p(drida of aristocratic villas, gar- 
 dens, vineyards, mountains, and defiles, and seated by its 
 waters I tind myself unconsciously murmuring the words 
 of Melnotte in the "Lady of Lyons," when he pictures 
 Como to his sweetheart as his earthly paradise. 
 
 My first impressions of Como left me destitute of power 
 to describe them. I saw the lake first in tlie twilight hush 
 of June, from the iron balcony of the Belle View on the 
 western side in the exquisite town of Cadenabbia. Sailing 
 up the lake from the dirty capital of the province on a 
 crowded local steamer, if you were apt to believe Bulwer's 
 rhapsod3^of the inland water supply an innocent falsehood, 
 his entrancing picture would be sublimated into a sublime 
 reality upon locating at one of the many beguiling settle- 
 ments. 1 can easily conceiA^e his exact emotions writing 
 as 1 do now in the sweet subjection of this transcendent 
 spot. 
 
 The lake seems mountain-liound on four sides without 
 any visible outlet. The day in Milan was as hot as Africa; 
 the evening at Cadenabbia as mild as the close of an Ame- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 301 
 
 rican autumn day. It is like a painted picture in a glow- 
 ing melodrama ; and so perfect is it in all the minutiye of 
 scenic effect, that it seems to have been rehearsed for my 
 special delectation. Below me a i)icturesque pageant; the 
 lake lies as still and waveless as a baby in its earliest softest 
 slumber, save the starting and flashing oars of the tiny 
 boats sent out at intervals with their gayly dressed freight. 
 One of these little shells has for its oarsman a beautiful 
 girl, carrying out her Mged, white-haired motlier on tiie 
 tranquil water ; another floated from its prow the emblem 
 of mj'^ own dear country, with its bright red stripes and 
 its sparkling stars ; another has a company of English 
 peoi)le, the women in their heavy ulsters, the men sutibcat- 
 ing under the Turkish towel veils wound about their hats. 
 A mile across the lake is a cluster of white cottages, where 
 the starry lights, coming out one by one, and trebled in the 
 glass}' waters of the Itike, are touching in their silent beauty, 
 while across the old hills sound the audible throbbings of 
 distant church chimes. It is a scene of pensive and sooth- 
 ing and consoling majesty, and if any influeuce were needed 
 to make it more impressive it is furnished by the alternate 
 changes of the mountains as the afternoon sobers into 
 evening, and as the evening darkens into night. First the 
 "golden glow of the sinking sun, then the violet of the de- 
 parted god of day and the looming shadows of the hills in 
 the water, then the gra}^ shroud over the more distant Alps, 
 and finally night, with its ebon veil, gradually studded with 
 the same stars that have shone for ten thousand thousand 
 3'eais; and now nothing is seen except the flash of the light 
 in the boats like crimson and yellow fire-flies clancii.g in the 
 waves. 
 
 The hotel is evidently an old castle. Stone stairs, marble 
 and mosaic floors, frescoed salons, and a marvellously lovely 
 garden around it. Ultra neatness and elegance of style 
 pervade the establishment. Adjacent is the Villa Carlotta, 
 now the property of Duke George of Saxe Meiningen, 
 filled with magnificent statues by Thorwaldsen and Canova, 
 and adorned with costl}^ objects of virtu. 
 
 To describe Oadenabbia and the Villa Carlotta is to pic- 
 ture all the other hotels and villas bordering the lovely 
 expanse of water for thirty miles. All the lakes of Northern 
 Italy are sources of wealth to the great cities in their neigh- 
 borhood, and Maggiore and Lugano have the same peculiar 
 seductions of atmosphere, colors, foliage, and architecture. 
 To these miniature inland seas flock the culture and art 
 
308 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of all the word; and I met many of the Bonanza kings of 
 my own country in the trains and boats travelling in this 
 lovely region. All the shores of these mirrored waters are 
 gemmed with the places of titled and untitled millionaires, 
 and these are so beautiful and so finished, that if nature 
 were not herself still more so, one wonld take the whole 
 panorama for a painted and polished medallion ; but as it 
 is, though man excels himself in his inventions and his 
 expenditures, God is the rejd master, because His works 
 ai'e not only more lovely, but more lasting. 
 
 L E T T E R L X I . 
 
 " 'T was late, — the sun had almost shone 
 His last and best, when I ran on, 
 Anxious to reach that splendid view 
 Ijctbre the daybeams quite withdrew ; 
 'Twas at this instant — while there glowed 
 
 This last, in tensest gleam of light — 
 Snddenly, through the opening road, 
 
 The valley burst upon my sight ! 
 That glorious valley, with its lake, 
 
 And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling 
 Mighty and pure and fit to make 
 
 The ramparts of a Godhead's dwelling !" 
 
 Tom Moore. 
 
 Geneva, June, 1878. 
 
 The ride from Milan to Turin, the capital of Piedmont, 
 is through an exquisite teriitory of rice plantations, where 
 the fresh beryl stiletto-shaped leaf rises like a world of 
 miniature church si>ires above its bed of water — the Alpine 
 stieams that are turned through the fields to irrigate aiul 
 flood them. 1 enjoyed the beautiful vegetable more in the 
 fields than I did on the table, where it appeared in every 
 disofuise. 
 
 There are many historical monuments and memories by 
 the way, as Piedmont seems to have been the destined arena 
 of warlike action, and the focus of the struggles of the 
 nation with almost everj' power and in every epoch. But 
 these events appear to lose prestige in sight of the lovely 
 maize and rice of the plains, and the vines and cocooneries 
 of the hills, guarded by the uncouth crucifixes and heathen 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 309 
 
 symbols wliich still hold a conspicuous place ou the Italian 
 farms. 
 
 Turin is only a fraction smaller than Milan, but has none 
 of her gayety, lightness, nor delicacy. It is a dull city, and 
 had it not been for the pageant of St. John the Baptist 
 would have seemed a slow and slothful town. What im- 
 pressed me most were the number and excruciating atti- 
 tudes of the statues. With one or two exceptions these 
 marble and bronze monsters seem to have been taken at a 
 moment when they had been either too intimately asso- 
 ciated with Bacchus or writhing in an agony of mortal 
 pain. Their faces are contorted, and their forms distorted 
 and their postures to m}^ mind most awkward and ungainly. 
 
 There are fine sliops under the arcades in the Via di Po, 
 but they have a gloomy appearance and even in the Piazza 
 Victor Emanuel and the Piazza Castello life seemed to be 
 constrained and cold. 
 
 The ecclesiastical parade on the feast of the nativity of 
 John the Evangelist was the reigning religious festa. A 
 long file of nuns, monks, cardinals, bishops, old women, 
 boys chanting Latin verses and carrying lighted candles, 
 completed the demonstrating concourse, while thousands 
 of every denomination thronged the sidewalk, and as the 
 consecrated wafer passed the faithful Catholics prostrated 
 themselves in the dust. Down went the ladies in their 
 silks and laces on the pavements, curbs, and even in the 
 gutters; men followed their example regardless of their 
 paraphernalia, devotees to the mandate of the church. The 
 excess of these exhibitions has somewhat moderated since 
 the reforms of Victor Emanuel; previously, the credulous 
 flung themselves before the holy image whether in alley or 
 ditch, with the servility of the benighted Hindoo, who 
 threw himself under the wheels of his Juo^g^ernaut. The 
 Italian asks if unalloyed faith should pick nice occasioiis 
 and pleasing places for its worship? 
 
 To ride tlirough the pensive paths of the public gardens 
 and cross the long bridge that spans the Po, or ascend the 
 heights crowned b}- the Capucini monastery, from which 
 an extended view is gained of the winding waters and city 
 beneath, and its Alpine background, where the ancient 
 giants lean their snowy caps against the soft blue dome, 
 was the onl}'- sweet divertisement I enjoyed in Turin. 
 
 All that might be remembered of Turin is dwarfed by 
 the memorable journe}^ between that city and Geneva, the 
 passage of the Mont Cenis tunnel being the chief object 
 
310 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of interest There was a long succession of tunnels, with 
 here and there a glimpse of wild, rugged landscape from 
 the start. The Valley of the Dora lay sweetly peaceful 
 amongst its vine-clad hills, over-frowned by its lofty moun- 
 tains, where the goats and donkeys were skipping the crags 
 and trudging the rugged hills. 
 
 At the little village of Bardonchia the ascent of the ter- 
 rible height of the Alps began. It was over these hitherto 
 inaccessible mountain ranges that Napoleon seventy years 
 ago carried his armies and poured them down into the 
 plains of Piedmont and Lombardy, thus making himself 
 master of all Italy ; — these altitudes, through which I was to 
 penetrate in a few minutes, aided by the mighty modern work 
 b}' which these unattainable heights are pierced. Higher 
 and still higher we mounted, sometimes skimming along 
 the sharp ledge of a spur of rock, then hanging upon a 
 thread of straight oblique granite, and again i)erched upon 
 what seemed the culminating pinnacle of the stupendous 
 range, while, beyond, swift mountain streams wound their 
 waters like satin ril)bons about the gray rocks. At my 
 side foaming torrents gushed and leaped like angry mon- 
 sters, carrying everything in their course; the little white 
 cities of the plains seeming toy tovvns from the airy height, 
 while beneath, great chasms yawned, black and bottomless 
 as eternity. 
 
 The experience of passing through the tunnel was new 
 and unexpected. Tlie former tunnels had been close, 
 noisome, and dark, and in this most formidable of all I 
 anticipated awful possibilities; a collision, a caving in of 
 roof, perhaps suffocation. But this almost supernatural 
 construction, eight miles long, was so light and well ven- 
 tilated that the atmosphere was as pure as the air of a 
 lady's boudoir. Great windows were cut here and there 
 in the rocks, and large lanterns cast a pleasant glow 
 tliroush the Ions cavern. We entered from the south, 
 4163 feet above sea level, and maintained this height until 
 we gradually descended on the right at a level of 3802, so 
 that our mean averaije was 4093 feet below the surface of 
 the mountain. The amazing; feature of this wonderful ex- 
 cavation is the admirable manner in wiiich it is ligthed, 
 ventilated, and drained. The engineers started at oppo- 
 site sides, and so accurate was their survey that the woik- 
 men with their diamond-pointed drill met plumb in the 
 middle. It was the inspiration of genius defying time and 
 nature. » 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 311 
 
 Immediately upon emerging from the heart of the eternal 
 Alps we halted at Modane, the frontier town between Italy 
 and France, to submit to the annoying examination of 
 passports. Perhaps those who rave against our country 
 have not considered all these uneccessary vexations abroad. 
 While between our respective States we are one people 
 from zone to zone, and may travel from the Atlantic shore 
 to the Pacific slope without question or stoppage by gov- 
 ernment official or change of coin ; here there are official 
 customs and sentinels at every frontier, and as many coins 
 or currency as dialects. 
 
 Now we were in France again, and Gallic cleanliness, sanc- 
 tifying convent, and castle battlements were mingled with 
 the wild sublimity of Alpine scenery, luxurious vineyards, 
 and fashionable resorts, such as Aix les Bains; and the 
 azure cr3'stal lake, along the border of which the train 
 rushed rnpidly for twelve miles, following the blue flow of 
 the placid water. A short, heavenly ride in France; then, 
 3'ielding to another frontier pause, we were whisked into 
 Switzerland, the old curiosity shop of the Almight}' Crea- 
 tor, About fifty miles oft' lay Geneva, chief of the republic, 
 city of John Calvin, Rousseau, and Voltaire, whose envi- 
 rons are memorable for many interesting souvenirs. As 
 we approached, in the sweet, odorous sunset of June, I had 
 my first glimpse of Mont Blanc. The fading beams of the 
 sun gave to the distant snowpeaks first a glowing pink, mel- 
 lowing into a deep violet, and finally sobering into gray. 
 Nature's mysterious machinery was profoundly touching 
 by its awful manifestations. 
 
 1 found Geneva in a glow of preparation for the celebra- 
 tion of the centenary of the death of its great social re- 
 former, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Tiie city was in a regalia 
 of flags of the nations ; wreaths were suspended from street 
 to street, and triumphal arches in every square; surging 
 crowds bustled each other in the highways and on the 
 quays. The pageant, which I viewed from my window on 
 Sunday, was conspicuous only for the absence of military 
 of any description; a few of the bands were good, but the 
 long parade of trudging citizens was monotonous. Three 
 days were devoted to the festival, and evidently the whole 
 population joined in the demonstration. Rousseau had 
 none of the genius or courage of Voltaire, neither was he a 
 republican like the sage of Ferney ; but what recked the 
 people of Geneva, so the}' could extract a frolic from the 
 memory of the man who was born in their town the greater 
 
312 PICTURES AND TORTRAITS 
 
 part of two centuries ago? Wliat did the>' know of him ? 
 As little as they cared. The first day of joUit}^ tlie town 
 swam in a sea of glory — speeches, cannons, music, and 
 everything that was wild and exciting, nothing really clas- 
 sic or good. The women danced quadrilles and waltzes 
 in tlie streets to pul)lic music, and the country dames strut- 
 ted in tlie line with the men, while at night there was a 
 tolerable illumination of the cit}'^ ; the varied colors of the 
 lights, red, green, blue, and yellow, in long rows upon the 
 bridge, and shining from the boats npon the lake, contrived 
 to make a dazzling spectacle. Before midnight a pande- 
 monium of drunken Swiss choruses began that continued 
 till next morning, and, as 1 lay in my disturbed demi-slum- 
 ])er, I thought of their inevitable retribution for this foolish 
 dissipation, and then marvelled how many of these wild 
 bacchantes thought of Jean Jacques Rousseau. 
 
 I fear the good Svvitzers are not as graceful and success- 
 ful in art as the volatile French. Geneva, as a rule, I 
 should say, was a quiet town of manufactories — a town of 
 musical-boxes and watches. These greet us at every corner 
 and window, and demand attention. It has many of the 
 French and Italian characteristics of architecture and 
 topography, very little of the purely Swiss ; even the 
 market-women speak good French. There are many fine 
 hotels and cafes, rows of noble shops, and broad streets, 
 but the chief interest of the Swiss capital lies, not in the 
 city, but in its surroundings — its odorous wa3-side paths 
 and wildering waters. 
 
 On an eminence a few miles from the city I looked 
 down upon a lovely freak of nature, — the marriage of the 
 blue, arrowy Rlione and the gray, ashen Arve. The city 
 itself lay mapped out before me, a lovely queen seated in a 
 lap of hills, crowned with her snowy diadem of Mont Blanc, 
 while all around was green and peaceful. At the end of 
 the lake the two streams mingle and flow on in one course, 
 sleep in the same bed, and yet each preserving its own 
 peculiar color and character for many miles. I had wit- 
 nessed the amalgamation of other great streams wlicre they 
 V)lent naturally into one, but here the unexplained phe- 
 nomenon of two great tributaries of the ocean, flowing from 
 the same mountain sources, joining, yet forcibly two cur- 
 rents, set me to moralizing and making personal applica- 
 tions. It was nothing more than a symbol of the marriage 
 of man, where bodies, not souls, are united. A little vilhige 
 occupied the delta of land between the two waters, where 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 313 
 
 large henps of stone and sand lay on the banks, seeming 
 to liave been taken from the basin of the Arve, and on the 
 extreme shore sat an artist amidst the liandiwork of God. 
 The memory of the picture would be complete had not a 
 girl demanded a franc for the simple privilege for looking 
 at one of the municipal attractions of Geneva. It seemed 
 very like exactins; a fee from a strans^er for the ria^ht to 
 enjoy Fairmount Park. 
 
 Through a few miles of aromatic lanes we came to the 
 gates of Adolph Rothschild's imposing chateau at Pieghny, 
 but it was closed against visitors, so we could not even 
 peep over the great, granite fortifications that surrounded 
 the estate. In building these grim stone walls the object 
 is to exclude obtruders, and the effect is to create a depres- 
 sion and contempt in the minds of travellers. Such feudal 
 selfishness is particularly disgraceful in the towns of Eng- 
 land and the Continent. I have ever been of the opinion 
 that the dull stone walls around Girard College are an 
 insult to the people and to the memory of the illustrious 
 Frenchman ; these barriers are only for prisons and mad- 
 houses. So where I anticipated a revel amongst art and 
 wealth I met a dark disappointment, and obtained not a 
 glimpse of the many delicacies I had read of in books and 
 magazines. 
 
 We proceeded to Coppet, the home of the celebrated 
 Madame De Stael ; the home where her childhood was 
 passed when her father was a Parisian banker; the home to 
 which she retreated with her confidant, Benjamin Constant, 
 and here maintained a court of her own when Napoleon 
 banished her from her paradise in Paris, after having been 
 the nucleus of the highest diplomatic and intellectual cir- 
 cles, while her father was Minister of Finance to Louis 
 XYI. The estate is now tiie property of her grandson. 
 Due de Broglie, present reactionary member of the French 
 Senate, but in a little chapel hidden by a grove the body of 
 the French Pythoness is buried by the side of her father. 
 
 The vestibule of the house is pure white marble. A spa- 
 cious flight of glistening steps led to the entresol, where a 
 statue of M. Necker, with cynical nose and receding chin, 
 stands guard. The family portraits were hung in the main 
 sitting room. The fine painting, by David, of this goddess 
 of love, from which all the photographs and engravings are 
 struck that float the hemispheres, is three-quarter length. 
 Her hair is arranged in numerous little curls, lifted from her 
 neck and forehead by a band ; her dress white, embellished 
 21 
 
314 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 with gold embroidery, and a gaudy scarf carelessly thrown 
 over her shoulders ; in her hand she bears the inevitable 
 and significant myrtle sprig. There are various other 
 models of her scattered through the apartments, in curious 
 guises and character ; this bright constellation of intellect 
 had the fatal vice of her sex, vanity. Her husband and 
 son hang side by side; the first, though a man of rank, was 
 allowed to figure very little in her destiny. Her daughter, 
 afterward the Duchess de Broglie, was a superbl_y beau- 
 tiful woman, as shown by her statuette and portrait. The 
 library, containing few of the old books, is interesting on 
 account of its associations, and the portraits of herself as 
 Corinne ; Raphael, a cop3^ of the original painted by him- 
 self; Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the German poet Schlegel, 
 who acted as her good friend, adviser, and preceptor of her 
 children. Adj(^ining her library was her chamber. The 
 walls were upholstered in the old tapestries embroidered 
 lor her in her time. Her bed, desk, and other furniture are 
 used by the present duchess when she comes from Paris to 
 the lovely Swiss hamlet on the northern bank of Lake 
 Lenian. 
 
 How many times have these ancestral halls sparkled 
 with the wit and beauty of the eighteenth century ! How 
 many of life's romances and tragedies have been enacted in 
 sport and reality, no living tongue can relate! How many 
 times has the beautiful Recamier swayed in the poetry of 
 motion in these salons! How many times have the voices 
 of Constant, Talleyrand, and Schlegel vibrated in this re- 
 treat ! How many times have the powerful oratory and 
 dazzling energies of this woman turned to tears and moans 
 in these very halls ! 
 
 The beautiful borders of the lake, and the sweet shady 
 roads that intersect the neighborhood are punctuated by his- 
 torical chateaux and baronial estates. Far more interest- 
 ing to me was Ferney, the home of the cynic Voltaire, tlian 
 Nyon, where the celebrated adherents of Kapoleon I found 
 a refuge, and the chateau formerly the property of Joseph 
 Bonaparte, and that belonging to Prince Jerome Napoleon. 
 Through a bridle-path, where the wreathing vines of France 
 bordered our left, while the golden grain of Switzerland 
 waved on our right, we found Ferney, a village on the 
 Swiss frontier, in French territory; a beautiful hamlet full 
 of French habits, and although only divorced from its 
 Swiss consort by a narrow bar of highway, marked by all 
 the Gallic peculiarities. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 315 
 
 Need I say Yoltaire was a radical, an extreme republican, 
 a non-conformist, a deist, a free-thinker, and a special friend 
 of Washington and Franklin? On the 30th of May he 
 was dead one hundred years, and the Liberals of the Con- 
 tinent rose to do him honor, to the utter disgust of the 
 Catholics. Besides, to worship hira was to protest against 
 Rousseau 
 
 The grounds of the savanfs estate are preserved in all 
 their original beauty. Rose vines clamber over arbors and 
 form fairy retreats, separated from vast parterres of gaudy 
 flowers, planted in symbolic devices, by well-rolled gravel 
 w^alks. Voltaire's famous arched bower is a masterwork of 
 botanical art, where the evergreens interlace and form a 
 canopy roof, while at intervals windows are cut iifthe walls 
 of folia2:e to admit the light to this strano-e man's loved 
 snuggery. The rooms shown to visitors face a noble ter- 
 race, while there is an immediate plateau of small flowers 
 and box edging. Away off lies the city of Geneva, the 
 frosted-silver peak of Mont Blanc, and a circular range of 
 rude hills. 
 
 Rooms burdened with luxuries, still there was the same 
 weird, mysterious spirit pervading them that always was 
 the grotesque expression of his features and life. In the 
 first apartment was the fac-simile of his mausoleum, finely 
 executed, a spectral ornament ; also a colossal bronze bust 
 of himself, with keen French face, and the walls were rich 
 with the originals of eminent artists. In his chamber were 
 gathered his literarj^ favorites and contemporaries. Over 
 his bed within shadow of the curtains, was a fine head of 
 LeKain, the celebrated actor. Above the mantel hung a 
 large^allegorical subject by Du Reissy, of Melpomene — muse 
 of Tragedy — leading Voltaire from the temple of Fame to 
 present him to Ai)ollo. At the base Humanity, Liberty, 
 all the virtues and graces paid court to the illustrious 
 French poet, while still lower Tyranny, Priestcraft, Bigotry, 
 and Hypocrisy were fljang in terror before his scathing de- 
 nunciations. Republican though he was, Catharine of 
 Russia and Frederick of Prussia were his nearest friends, 
 whose pictures are hanging above his bed, presented by 
 themselves. But greater powers than kings or queens were 
 there, — Washington presented by Lafayette, Franklin 
 painted in Paris, Isaac Newton, Milton, Racine, D'Alem- 
 bert, Diderot, and an embroidery executed by the honorary 
 maids of Qifeen Catharine, and presented by her. On tlie 
 side of the wall opposite the door hung a proof engraving 
 
316 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 of the coronation of A^oltaire in the Theatre Frangaise, 
 Marcli 30th, IttS, upon the occasion of the production of 
 one of his immortal tragedies. I must not be understood 
 as speaking of his religion, which was doubtful, nor of his 
 virtues which were disputed ; I only recall his eccentric 
 and dazzling genius. 
 
 LETTER LXII. 
 
 "I liad a dream, which was not all a dream." 
 
 ****** 
 
 "And dreams in their development have breath, 
 And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ; 
 They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, 
 They take a weight from off our waking toils, 
 They do divide our being ; they become 
 A portion of ourselves as of our time. 
 And look like heralds of eternity." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 ' Lausanne, July, 1878. 
 
 Mature makes amends to Switzerland for the stern 
 severity of her winters by the magnificent lakes which she 
 sets like so many emeralds among her luxuriant and gigan- 
 tic mountains and mysterious glaciers. With these words 
 upon my lips I stepped upon the deck of the clean and 
 graceful steamer Mont Blanc that was to carry me from 
 Geneva over the placid waters of Leman. I think that was 
 last week, but it seems ages ago; in the interval I have had 
 a strange dream that appeared to cover centuries. 
 
 The day was perfect; perhaps slightly cool for the season, 
 but so brilliantly transparent that life was a luxury with 
 the double attractions of earth and sky. I was just as 
 keenly sensible of all these beauties as I had ever been, 
 and when the unexplained lethargy overtook me, and I fell 
 asleep, I remember a little prancing greyhound at mj- side, 
 and its elongated shadow reflected in the sunshine on the 
 qua3^ My dream was not a fancy where all is deliciously 
 incoherent; nor a fine frenzy, where all is wildly romantic; 
 neither was it one of those flimsy somnambulistic vagaries 
 where scores of incidents and objects are thrust out of 
 sight — even the most attractive — to make place for equally 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 317 
 
 shadow}^ successors. It was not one of those ecstatic jum- 
 bles where phantom forms appear and vanisli in a will-o'-tlie- 
 wisp sort of way, and when we waken nothing remains but 
 a vague sensation akin to the memory of a haunting con- 
 science. Every episode of my strange trance was natural 
 and permanent, the only abnormal phase was the continual 
 growth of the past into the i)resent and the retrograde of 
 the [)resent into the past. There was a conglomerate of 
 eras that would have puzzled an ancient Egyptian magi- 
 cian. 
 
 I remember blue-blonsed porters wheeling baggage along 
 the banks of the beautiful quay under the shadow of the 
 chestnut trees, passengers coming on board, a clatter of 
 French tongues bidding adieu and au revoir^ and two hand- 
 some Frenchwomen in black and white striped silk dresses, 
 who tramped the deck like halberdiers. In my sweetly 
 drifting unconsciousness the striped dresses, martial tread, 
 and loud air of these women annoyed me. Just as oblivion 
 was wrapping about me and bearing me off to Elysium, 
 those dreadful linear robes that had grown into checkers 
 in my weakening vision, and the stalk of those recurring 
 four legs, interrupted the dolce far niente like some hor- 
 rible phantom of disordered reason. But my most vivid 
 recollection of this di'owsy period was of a French family 
 seated near me, the proprietors of the little dancing grey- 
 hound. 
 
 At last all confusion seemed to cease, and as the whistle 
 lilew and the boat dropped off the quay, J floated with it 
 into the peaceful waters of Lethe. For a short time all was 
 blank, but as I slept I dreamed, — dreamed of gliding easily 
 over a great blue breast of crj-stal water, bordered by lofty 
 banks, terraced and planted with vines of changing purple 
 and emerald. Pomegranates, figs, and laurel trees grew as 
 luxuriously as I had seen them in Italy, and great ridges 
 of pine added the element of- strength to all this brilliant 
 and romantic beauty. Here and there, in little dales of 
 tender sward, white cottages nestled like buds hidden from 
 the rude world by their hoods of moss, trains of steam cars 
 seemed to follow the course of our boat along the land's 
 edge, mountain goats and fantastically arrayed shepherds 
 trudged the ascending and winding paths over the rugged 
 hills. Large white stone hotels, standing upon the very 
 water's brink, blinding in the sun's bright rays, were du- 
 })licated in the crjstal world over which I seemed to be 
 travelling; everything — boats, people, mountains — was re- 
 
 27* 
 
318 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 fleeted in this odd azure cave over which I soared, until 
 they appeared sounding the very depths witii their mighty 
 shadows. The heaven above and the water below were of 
 a shade so marvellously harmonious that I wondered from 
 which each had borrowed its beauty. To add awe to this 
 enrapturing picture there was in the far background a 
 chain of snow-white mountains, and one peak loomed like 
 a mammoth iceberg, far above its compeers. Everybody's 
 attention was attracted to it, and in my dream 1 viewed it 
 through a lorgnette. There lie stood, the hoary monarch, , 
 wrapped in the unwrinkled folds of his snowy mantle. ' 
 iSaid I, is tliis the giant of the hills, or the evil genii of the 
 spot? So majestically cold and despotic did he look, that 
 J lurned from him with a chilling sadness, for as I gazed 1 
 traced upon the glacier's polished hips phantom skeletons, 
 grinning skulls, and ghostly forms of mortals who had 
 been shrouded in the folds of the icy drapery. In their 
 si)ectral hands they held scrolls whereon were written in 
 wierd characters sad tales of widowed wives and fatherless 
 orphans, and others bore extinguished torches of youthful 
 ambiticm; horrible chasms yawned grim and frigid, and in 
 their depths I seemed to see a mass of fleshless bones, 
 broken ladders, and tangled ropes, chastened by the hoar- 
 frost into a plaiting of silver. These were the remains of 
 philosophers and scientists who had sought to pluck out 
 the secrets of this m3^sterious creation for intellectual ad- 
 vancement; of aspiring young women who had an infirmity 
 f(jr lofty aciventure; of foolhardy travellers and over-trust- 
 ful guides. It was beguiling, and at the same time forbid- 
 ding, and I turned from it with a shiver of awe; yet I was 
 tempted to look and look again, and as I passed on I saw 
 on one side, engraven in letters fiercely visible by their 
 ultra whiteness and stoniness upon the ghastly entablature, 
 ' His Inclement 3Iajesty^ Mont Blanch 
 
 We were not the only occupants of this beautiful lake; 
 other boats steamed by, laden with passengers, trailing a 
 great column of gray smoke after them ; little skitfs hold- 
 ing one or two glided by rufl[ling the water with their oars, 
 and tiny sails started out from the shore like spotless 
 doves fanning with their wings the wave tops. 
 
 On and on we skimmed; chaste bridal towns smiled up- 
 on us from every side, ancient and modern poets' names \ 
 were written upon each hill, and as I leaned over the tatf- 
 rail I saw down in the mirrored waves the images of those 
 who, through the inspiration of these same scenes in the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 319 
 
 perished j'-ears, have left us their records upon canvas aud 
 parchment. We paused at towns that seemed to lie along 
 the lake border and closed in by an amphitheatre of rocks 
 piled one on the other to an immense lieight. Sometimes 
 a long handsome pier extended far out into the lake to 
 which the boat moored, and again we coursed up to the 
 very mountain side and anchored by a flight of stone steps 
 cut in the rocks, which led to the hotel that seemed to 
 hang to sterile crags- and jutting elbows; fairy pavilions 
 standing isolated from the mainland on spurs of rock 
 were in impressive contrast with the formidable towers 
 perched on lofty altitudes, by which they were overlooked. 
 At length, after making many insignificant pauses, we 
 stopped at a live town; the Alpine streets were filled w^ith 
 people, but they all seemed holiday people; there were no 
 signs of occupation, and no proletaires treading the paths ; 
 they were all well-dressed, well fed, and fat-pocketed pleas- 
 ure-seekers, would-be invalids fanned into comparative 
 vitality by the salubrious airs and congenial skies, and 
 picturesque rowers. On a great board suspended over tiie 
 pier gate I read "Ouchy," and this I heard them say was 
 the lake-port to Lausanne, which lay over a mile farther 
 up in the mountains. 
 
 We steamed off again, and passing exquisite hamlets 
 where titled villas fringed the lake I saw old and familiar 
 faces and forms at each and every stoppage. They were 
 not all people I had known, but many only the life copies 
 of well-remembered pictures ; each seemed to have some 
 important story in connection with his appearance. French, 
 English, German, Austrian, and Belgian nobility, men of 
 wealth, and men of letters had sought these sylvan retreats 
 as havens of rest or safety. The Bonapartes were all 
 there, from the "Little Cori)oral" to the young Prince 
 Lnperial, and in my dream, it did not seem strange that 
 the exile of St. Helena should be promenading with the 
 dethroned Empress Eugenie, nor that 1 should pass Mad- 
 ame de Sta'el and Rousseau within the same hour. All 
 the celebrities of the Old W^orld seemed clustered about 
 these enchanting spots. Byron followed me persistently 
 like some elfin sprite. The others I saw and lost again to 
 meet strange faces as I did their scenic surroundings, but 
 before, behind, above, below, and interweaving all else, was 
 that perpetuallj'^ recurring poet's face and name. It made 
 of my dream a horrible nightmare by its constant pursuit 
 and my fruitless efibrts to escape it. The rocks were 
 
320 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 girdled by tlie famous name; on the bine capitals of 
 heaven the minstrel's face was medallioned; as the waves 
 broke under our keel a hundred images shone in the eddies, 
 birds lisped his verses in their song, and the waters mur- 
 mured his words, while he Inmself, 1 thought, appeared in 
 every town following and pointing to his own glory. He 
 seemed defrauding Kousseau of his little wood at Clarens, 
 Voltaire of his residence at Feme}', and Madame de Stael 
 of Coppet. 
 
 We stopped at a plnce called Yevey. This, I saw, was a 
 fashionable summer resort by the host of flounced and 
 ribboned ladies, — Americans too, I could see by their deli- 
 cate beauty, and was sure of it when I heard one of my 
 fellovv-tiavellers exclaim, "Wiiat stylish young girls!" I 
 cannot say why, but even in my sleep I took this phrase as 
 a personal offence, as I knew "stylish" was only applied 
 to my countrywomen by foreigners, and then 1 vaguely 
 dreaded hearing voices pitched in the highest and thinnest 
 register float out from the shore where the bevy of crisp- 
 ruffled ladies were clustering. Indeed, it seemed as if I 
 were transported to Cape May or Long Branch; still, there 
 was a mingling of foreign elements that made it cosmo- 
 politan, in the slender fl3'ing flags, and the great signs of 
 ''hotel" and "pe??82on," and the well-drilled waiters, with 
 here and there scattered over the sloping sward an invalid 
 English matron or a languishing Russian countess silentlj'' 
 ignoring the nonchalent Americans. As we paused here f 
 thought 1 saw the dancing canine of the French family", 
 after sliding out of the laps of the ladies and capering 
 about the knees of the gentlemen with careless grace, glee- 
 fully skip on shore, believing we were to lose our compan- 
 ions, I found to my dismay his owners on board as the 
 boat backed into the water, while the poor little Italian 
 dog stood mournful l}'^ measuring the distance between the 
 wharf and the receding steamer. When the French family 
 discovered the melancholy fugitive, the dowager was 
 frozen into dignified and majestic surprise, the young hus- 
 band of her daughter was transfixed with amazement, 
 while his gentlemen friends gave vent to shrieks of laughter, 
 and last of all the suppressed anger -of the young wife, as 
 she flashed rebukes upon her culprit husband for neglecting 
 her pet, and fastened her indignant stare upon the loud { 
 merriment of her own friends, while disappearing in the 
 distance was the solitary form and piteous face of the 
 truant quadruped. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 321 
 
 All this I dreamed and move; — dreamed that we sailed 
 on and on, until I came to a place called Territet-Chillon. It 
 was a lovely laketown, that reminded me of similar ones I 
 had seen on the stage, with its fresh paint and varnish, and 
 granite hotels with shining floors, glowing frescoes and 
 Parian marbles. Tliere were neat green boats, with green 
 paddles, soft cushions, little flags flying to the fore, gayly- 
 dressed water-men, and sometimes young and handsome 
 women, pulling the little cockle-shells through the purple 
 waters. Surely it could not be all real, I thought ; yet nature 
 is as finished as art. Man comes to train the vine, to ter- 
 race the hills, to persuade the water down to the land, and 
 to set in uniform the olive ; but it is the Almighty that pre- 
 sides in awful dignity on these batllemented mountains, 
 wrapping their crests in the haze of the storm, lighting 
 them with the quivering fire of electricity, and agitating 
 them down to their deep foundations with the thunders of 
 His wrath. 
 
 T went ashore and commenced the ascent of an acclivity, 
 while the boat quitted the pier and continued its course. 
 I paused upon the path, for I felt weary, and looked out 
 upon the blue waters. Boats were moored to the shore, 
 and feluccas with gay-striped sails and canvas cabins were 
 carrying fishermen's and peasants' stores over the lake. A 
 large white hotel elevated upon a ridge of rock faced the 
 water, and awnings and matting shades drooped over bal- 
 conies bordered by branching plants at every story. A 
 neat little summer-house hung on to the last spur of land, 
 and flowers bloomed in profusion. I saw no town, no 
 shops; only a street levelled along the water where the hotel 
 and several Swiss chalets stood, and a little shanty post- 
 office where pens, ink, and paper, pins and thread, were 
 sold. Beyond this there were no visible means of human 
 existence. The well-wooded mountains rose abruptly in 
 rear of the contracted pathway, but slightly higher and 
 farther back workmen were cutting away foliage and re- 
 ducing sharp granite edges to a foundation level. 
 
 This retreat seemed some angel's nest, closed off from 
 the rude world by God's great walls, and I thought, in my 
 dream, what a beatitude to live in such a golden seclusion, 
 where no word of strife nor worldly sufi'ering might obtrude 
 to spoil supreme content and unclouded peace! But look- 
 ing beyond 1 saw a strange, dismal pile of building upon 
 an isolated rock in the lake. It had high towers and strong 
 walls ; feudal buttresses started out from the angles and 
 
322 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 hung from the corners of the eaves; little, ding}', deep-set 
 windows I saw too, here and there in the old stony fortress. 
 It inspired me with sorrow, and I turned from it with all 
 my human sympathies welling in my soul. Even this lovely 
 legion then was not free from sorrow and shame ! I went 
 into the hotel, and the}^ told me there it was a prison ; then 
 my heart sank and the world seemed darker, and nature, 
 that had only a moment before been throbbing with the 
 rapture of beauty, was stripped of her glorious plumes. I 
 inquired who languished in the living tomb, but there 
 seemed none to tell the story; then I wondered how long 
 I might remain at this halcj-on spot, for even in my dream 
 I had a vague dread of some unseen and uncontrollable 
 power interrui)ting my happiness. 
 
 The hotel had spacious apartments, but the larder must 
 have been scant}", for I remember a gnawing hunger tearing 
 at me that seemed insatiable, not because I was such a 
 prodigious gastronome, but because there was absolutely 
 nothing to eat. Night lowered her sable pall, and still 
 suffering from an unappeased desire I seemed to sleep ; then 
 a horrible phantom carried me to a banquet-hall where 
 tables, burdened with delicacies maddened me with tlieir 
 inviting aroma, and increased my ravenous appetite. 
 Sometimes great bowls of terrapin, })yramid8 of croquettes, 
 ravishing salads, pate-de-fois-gras, caviare, or barbecued 
 robins tempted me, and as I was about to propitiate m}*- 
 persistent enemy by one of these, they magically disnp- 
 jiearcd; then luscious fruit, for which I reached, receded 
 from my grasp, and as I followed the deceiver it ever kept 
 near enough to beguile me and far enough to escape ; last 
 of all I saw a bottle of champagne, frc^m which the cork 
 seemed to be rising spontaneously; ''Here," said I, " is 
 the unknown power to alleviate my suffering," and purs- 
 ing my lips for the life-giving draught, I heard the wine 
 flowing to the ground, and I thought I awakened with 
 frenzy at my heart. 
 
 The enervation of hunger and letiiargy was ui)on me, 
 3et I had an imaginary recollection of a grim tower they 
 called prison. Jt was day again, but veils of mist hung 
 over Jura's heights, and the water was black and foreboding. 
 I looked out upon all this from my window, then went down 
 to follow the rugged Alpine path to the fortress. It was 
 a short walk, and I only passed some wanderers, like my- 
 self, and a few mountain peasants. I stood and gazed upon 
 the cruel stronghold — with windows opening only upon the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 323 
 
 great waste of waters, where even the birds cliirped notes 
 of sorrow, and the waves heaved melancholy sighs for the 
 langMiishing victims — before crossing the crude bridge, the 
 solitary link between the lake-bound rock and the mainland. 
 ^J'here were other strangers there paying their francs to the 
 castellan, and buying neat little paintings of the historied 
 precincts from the artist at the door. 
 
 I was ushered through a dirty courtyard, where rats and 
 mice and miscellaneous vermin might gambol ad libitum. 
 Dungeons, 1 saw, where human slaves had perished and 
 human wolves had left their ineffaceable footprints; halls 
 where princes of Savoy had lodged, still hung with armor 
 of departed chieftains ; arsenals of artillery; halls of jus- 
 tice and columned and arched dining-chambers. At last I 
 came to the subterranean halls that are excavated from the 
 rock, far down under the walls of the stronghold, and yet 
 above the surface of the stream ; long narrow windows 
 were cut through the granite that reflected the light upon, 
 the water back upon the roof, making an ethereal glamour 
 through the dungeons; little dark holes intersticed the 
 several apartments where, ihey whispered, prisoners had 
 been executed. In the last of these dismal chambers I 
 saw the form of a man perched upon a foothold in the 
 rock}' wall and peering through the grated loophole. He 
 turned, when I entered, and coming forward in a raj' steri- 
 ons manner took my hand and said, "Do not fear. 1 am 
 onl}' a prisoner now, by self-imposed fetters. I have grown 
 to love bondage." I was not frightened, in my dream, at 
 being so familiarly greeted by a detenu^ but 1 looked up 
 and saw a man gray, stooped and weary, but not witii ao-e, 
 and retaining all the remains of strong physical beauty. 
 He spoke to me in a nebulous tone in consonance with our 
 surroundings, and said, " Come!" I followed him and he 
 conducted me to a small dark room on the ground floor. 
 It contained two other occupants — convict and escort ; a 
 trap of planks fixed to the floor by iron hinges was lifted, 
 and my new cicerone gave me the cue to look, but not to ven- 
 ture near the gap ; I saw a few steps like the beginnino- of 
 a contracted oblique stairway, all else was lost in intense 
 obscurity. I said nothing, but stepped back overawed, 
 imagining these steps to lead to a deepseated dungeon ; 
 then the condemned walked forward, and as he took his first 
 descending step a supernatural hush seemed to pervade the 
 hall. We all stood breathless, and, in my dream, I felt as 
 if a heavy weight was pressing upon my breast; another 
 
324 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 lie took, then all was still as death ; a plunge, a splash of 
 waves, and I knew a burdened soul was beinj carried out 
 to its submarine grave through the abyss. As my guide 
 led nie away he only said '' Ninety feet deep ;" but I under- 
 stood. He conducted me back to the hall of seven pillars; 
 he pointed to the fifth, with its cankering, clanging ring 
 snd chain, saying, " Here my ancestor, the brave knight- 
 errant Bonivard, languished ;" then to the third, where I 
 saw the name Byron, and my eye caught still other names 
 — Eugene Sue and Victor Hugo — that I had a m3'stic re- 
 membrance were filling the earth with glorj'. He told me 
 his pedigree and the sufferings of his ancestors for national 
 liberty, and the triumphs of the i)rior of Saint Victor more 
 than three centuries ago for the abatement of papal tyranny 
 and ecclesiastical degradation, and added, " There should 
 be no slaves of religion or government." No! 1 shook my 
 head dismally ; thinking we were all vassals to some mys- 
 terious authorit}'. 
 
 I do not know how many hours elapsed, but we walked 
 back through the vistas of time and seemed to see all the 
 episodes and characters that filled these historical halls 
 with fame. 
 
 He said, "Before you leave me I must tell 3 ou that I am 
 he of whom the poet speaks : — 
 
 " ' My hair is gray, but not with years, 
 Nor grew it wiiite ' " 
 
 I raised mj' hand with an expostulatory motion. " Oh, 
 mercy!" I cried; ''sj)are me, allow me to go in peace; 
 that inevitable fame and face and form have been pursuing 
 and preceding me for days." "But," he insisted, "3'ou 
 must hear, for it is the music of his melod3'^ and the halo 
 of his genius that have glorified this charnelhouse; the 
 romance of poetry has supplanted sober histor3\ Until he 
 poured the light of his intellect upon this prison, Lake 
 Leman was comparatively unknown; his poem has given 
 it a priceless value, and like the fabled music of the nymphs 
 attracts thousands of strangers to the island. Now," 
 said he, "it occurs to me that Byron's posterity should 
 have a legal claim to the royalty, just as playwrights or 
 patentees have their poundage. Of our thousands of visi- 
 tors they all leave a substantial token ; now if this is not 
 to prove a portion of the income of his descendants it 
 should at least he devoted to a monument to his memory. 
 But what voice have 1?" he continued; " I, who am only a 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 325 
 
 poor convict, who have learned to love my cavern home, 
 with the mice and spiders and toads, the smell of damp- 
 ness, and the graves of my fathers for my bed; they," with 
 a gesture of his head toward the outer door, "will not listen 
 to me, and protest as you may against his haunting influ- 
 ence, his inspiration flamed all over Switzerland, as it 
 flamed over Belgium and Italy, and wherever it touclied it 
 seemed to transmute every thing into gold, not only casting 
 a rosy haze over each spot, but adding to its intrinsic 
 value. When he showered these streams of radiance upon 
 my prison home he little thought he was contributing profit 
 to hotels, steamboats, railways, castellans, and conferring 
 fame upon me. Deemest thou me ungrateful now? Oh, 
 magic mental power! how thou outlivest the bravery of 
 the soldier, and even the sacrifice of the martyr," and as 
 he knelt at the shrine of his immortalizing bard, the spaces 
 grew darker, and the troubadour's image suspended in 
 vacancy shone with the glory of the mounted sun that 
 blinded my vision, filling the dungeon with a golden in- 
 cense that drowned my senses, and thus I drifted into 
 peaceful oblivion, until waking I found myself in the 
 Hotel Gibbon at Lausanne. 
 
 LETTER LXIII. 
 
 '* The clouds are on the Oberland, 
 
 The Jungfrau snows look faint and far ; 
 But bright are those green fields at hand, 
 And through those fields comes down the Aar." 
 
 Arnold. 
 
 Berne, July, 1878. 
 
 I ROSE on the Fourth to find m3^self mentally celebrating 
 the anniversarj^ of American independence in the quiet 
 little Protestant Swiss town of Lausanne. Although a 
 cultivated place,* with four or five newspapers, a great 
 library, a long . history, and the chief centre of one of the 
 provinces of Switzerland, no more account was taken of 
 our national holiday than if the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence had never been proclaimed or America never discov- 
 ered. 
 
 28 
 
326 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 T sat writing in the garden where the great English his- 
 torian, Gibbon, wrote the concluding portion of his pon- 
 derous book. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^ 
 ninety-one years ago. The Hotel Gibbon deserves a glori- 
 ous name, for it is a gem of its kind, and worthy of eulo- 
 gium as well for its unexceptional cuisine as for its moderate 
 prices. 
 
 The English were present in full force at the fine house 
 dedicated to tlieir learned countryman. A cold, reticent, 
 exclusive race are the}', and while Mrs. John Bull and her 
 gentle heifers are as easily distinguished for their charac- 
 teristics as Mrs. Brother Jonathan, John Bull is gener- 
 ally more loquacious and companionable than his sister. 
 Just here I am reminded that an American woman gener- 
 ally prefers the sterner sex — an aspersion to which 1 disdain 
 a reply. 
 
 Lausanne is a peaceful, picturesque town, built upon 
 crags and mountain-sides. Wherever a street or villa might 
 be hung, whetlier upon turret, spur, or pass, we find one. 
 Every road is a hilly path, and every house on an inclined 
 plane. The sloi)es are rigid and oftentimes circuitous. And 
 while my sisters were broiling at home, I was rolled in a 
 heavy shawl, for the air was colder than an American Octo- 
 ber, it is a curious town, with pretty shops of wood-carv- 
 ings, and great hills to climb, and a soothing influence, 
 where one might rest content and forget the world. 
 
 Above the city the paths twine about the Alps, over 
 which the peasants trudge in their coarse costumes, bearing 
 their burdens of wood and water upon their backs. Few 
 strong men I saw, mostly women; some shrivelled and bent 
 by the weight of years; others young, but rapidly passing 
 from the springtime of life into the autumn by theii double 
 trials. They carry the necessaries of existence up the rug- 
 ged ascents to their little Alpine huts, tucked nnder the 
 oranite edges. There are no individual hydrants and 
 wood-piles in each of these humble homes, as we have 
 across the water. Here the water must be drawn at the 
 public street-fountains, and carried in great wooden pails 
 strapped upon the back, and the kindling must be gathered 
 in mountain forests from the fallen brushwood. 
 
 This part of Switzerland is cultivated in the highest 
 degree. Every rood is utilized. The regions along the 
 lakes are a succession of villas and stone towns, the roads 
 being super-solid, thrift and cleanliness are joined to luxury 
 and taste. This little republic, sandwiched between great 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 32t 
 
 kingdoms, flourislios upon travellers. The long and rigor- 
 ous winters exhaust the garnered gains from the harvest of 
 summer tourists, so each year finds the hotel and shop- 
 keepers feeding upon the unsuspecting strangers like cor- 
 morants. The iron-roads are used little by the natives, 
 who are mostly industrious and frugal. Ingenious and 
 simple, the}' are happ}'- among " their future oils and vines,'' 
 in the skill of their exquisite wood-sculptures, and pretty 
 little paintings of mountains and lakes. I verily believe 
 every one in Switzerland is master of the brush and chisel; 
 and there they sit upon lake-shore or Alpine ledge, trans- 
 muting God's masterpieces into gold. 
 
 Nature has been prolific of beauty to Switzerland. To 
 the United States it has vouchsafed the wealth of the world. 
 Our country is a succession of climates and zones. With- 
 out passing beyond our own territory we may, with small 
 expense, live in perpetual spring and summer. This new 
 world, with all its gifts, seems a special dispensation of 
 Providence, as the final refuge and salvation of mankind. 
 Here, with comparatively few of these advantages, the long 
 winters and short summers, with the marvellous glaciers, 
 snow mountains onlj'- slightly elevated above fields green 
 with verdure, Alps on Alps, the absence of coal and iron, 
 make the people dependent upon their own industries or 
 the bounty of strangers. The whole face of the country is 
 w^rinkled, indented, and cut up into rocky mountains of 
 vast height; yet, by the law of compensation, the cavities 
 are translucent lakes, while their narrow shores are ex- 
 quisitely adorned by public resorts or elegant private resi- 
 dences. 
 
 Near Lausanne I saw the first genuine Swisser barns, a 
 combination of dwelling-house, kitchen, stable, and granary, 
 all under one roof, and not an unpleasant accumulation of 
 comforts, if the manure-heap was not invariably before the 
 dining-room window. 
 
 In the ride between Lausanne and Berne the Swisser 
 barns l)egan to multiply. French costumes gave wa}' to 
 the short petticoats of broad, awkward women and large- 
 footed men in brogans. Italian art recedes before German 
 industry. Catholic crosses disappear from the roadside. 
 Calvin and Luther push out the Pope and cardinals. The 
 shaven fields, comfortable homes, and broad, genuine faces 
 have a Lancaster or Berks Connt\^ air. The nause.ating 
 garlic of the Italian conductors is lost in the equally strong 
 odor of Limberger cheese and beer. The beggars of Italy 
 
328 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 are replaced b}' toiling women in the fields and on the high- 
 waj^s. 
 
 The railway-carriages of Switzerland are entered from a 
 platform front and rear, like our own ; not in parallel seats, 
 however, but divided into small sections, with connecting 
 doors and passages through the centre (the effect of this 
 arrangement is to make less space, and less comfort), and 
 every alternate section is devoted to smoking. 
 
 The cold climate of Lausanne has disappeared under a 
 summer sun in Berne, though there ia none of the intense 
 heat of an American July. 
 
 The first picture I met was a bevy of Swiss peasants at 
 the depot, in their picturesque costumes of coarse black 
 petticoat, plaited full at the waist and falling just above 
 the ankles; black velvet corsage, high in the back, cut in a 
 low square on the bosom, exposing a chemisette of crude 
 cotton cloth. Most of these mountain-bred women are 
 sliort, sturdy, and solid as pine knots. They are as utterly 
 graceless as if the}^ were sexless, and possess all the hardi- 
 hood of animals of burden. 
 
 Berne itself, the political capital of the Republic of 
 Switzerland, is not half so handsome and bright a city as 
 Reading, yet somewhat resembles it by the lofty mountain 
 in the rear. Here there is neither grace in the men, beauty 
 in the women, elegance in the streets, nor perfume in the 
 air. The women saw and split wood, clean highways, pull 
 heavy wagons up steep hills, haul their own moving, and of 
 course bear all the ills entailed by nature upon the sex just 
 as if they were the petted darlings of royalty. But the 
 frame in which this ugly old town is placed is inconceivably 
 lovely; the fields are alternately green and golden; the 
 mountainous Alps are from seven to ten thousand feet in 
 height, covered with snow or shining with vines; while the 
 rivers, bright as jewel-beds, flow round the city, endless 
 streams of health. 
 
 My first impressions of Berne were that it was a clean, 
 calm, Dutch town, a striking contrast to France or Ital^' ; 
 after I had seen its public places and streets, tiiat it was a 
 very dull, very dirty, and very Dutch town, with a nomen- 
 clature in which Bigler, Baer, Baur, Ritter, Karnhaus and 
 Zugler frequently appear. True there is an amplitude of 
 squalor in Italy, but all is hallowed by their superlative 
 art. 
 
 I was about to say the}' had no art or music in this 
 ancient burgh. Yes, they have the Tj^'olese airs, and their 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 329 
 
 photographs, engravings, and paintings are pre-eminently 
 Dutch, with a jirominent attempt at something more dilet- 
 tante, just as their language is a patois. There is a pro- 
 nounced indisposition of the natives to speak the mother 
 tongue; they aspire to French, which being adulterated 
 makes a perfectly incomprehensible jargon, understood 
 only by the population of the Canton. Should they feel dis- 
 honor at the language of Luther, Schiller, Goethe, Liebig, 
 and the great religious, political, and poetical writers of 
 the past? 
 
 I walked to the Cathedral terrace, a public resort beauti- 
 fully situated overlooking the winding river Aar. There 
 were shady walks, bronze statues, and jutting pavilions at 
 the corners overhanging the dismal town below; but it was 
 crowded with old men smoking bad pipes, and coase sauer- 
 kraut and pork women drinking beer, How different is all 
 this from the ga3^ throngs along the boulevards of Paris, 
 or the voluptuous Roman maidens in their tawdry but daz- 
 zWiKjr costumes clusterin;^ on the steps that lead from the 
 Piazza di Spagna at the hour of sunset. p]ven the ruined 
 Cathedral is bare and desolate after the rich fulness of 
 Catholic temples. 
 
 There are a number of so-called attractions in Berne 
 which beguile the stranger into a visit. They are all frauds 
 of the most flagrant odor, from the grotesque Kinderfresser, 
 or child-eater, to the bear-pits. This awkward cormorant, 
 in his Oriental costume, is perched upon the lofty height 
 of a street fountain, evidently enjoying his evening meal 
 of youthful progeny that peep out from his pockets in the 
 most appetizing way. Ask a Bernese the attractions of his 
 town, and he will enumerate them, alvvaj^s beginning with 
 the Kinderfresser as the cynosure, and ending with the clock 
 tower, which is a superlative fraud. The former has only 
 the merit of being an oddity, and with its accompan3'ing 
 bears, which are the heraldic emblem of the city, refers to 
 an old tradition. 
 
 The savage tribes were proverbial for worshipping ani- 
 mals. The Persians adore the sun; in Pagan eras the 
 white bull was s'acred ; in scriptural epochs the lamb, sheep, 
 and rams were holy sacrifices. In India the white elephant, 
 in Constantinople the dog, in Venice the picongs and 
 winged lions, and in many climates the serpents have 
 homage done them. In Berne the bear is the ubiquitous 
 symbol. If I desired to make a pun, and a very bad one, 
 I would say, for a decent town it is the bearest one 1 ever 
 
 28* 
 
330 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 saw. The awkward animal is everywhere. Four living 
 bears are kept at the municipal expense in a pit in t!ie 
 very heart of the cit}^, and very offensivelj* kept in addi- 
 tion ; to add disgust to the repel lant den dirty boys and 
 bloated men overhang the iron railing tossing food to the 
 rank animals. Two granite bears, badly executed, keep 
 guard over the Abertiiun — main gate to the city. Others 
 support the shield of the Cornhall ; a whole troop of bears 
 go through a series of genuflexions at the clock tower. 
 There are bear photographs innumerable, bears in wood as 
 ornaments, bears in gold and silver as charms or trinkets, 
 bears dancing, bears fighting, bears cooing, bears at bil- 
 liards, baby bears, mother bears, and father bears, in a 
 word, a community of bears, and for a quiet people a bare- 
 faced community. Indeed the ancient Egyptians had not 
 a greater reverence for Ibis than these people have for their 
 tutelary emblem. 
 
 The clock tower is another hideous curiosity, if I may 
 honor the structure by such an epithet. It was originally 
 erected as a watch-tower in 1191, and renovated in 1770. 
 It is now poorly preserved, as if to perpetuate the habits 
 of the old Bernese. The value of vigilance seems to be 
 the apothegm entailed by its curious mechanism. Three 
 minutes before every hour a wooden cock claps its wings 
 and crows; a minute later the bears march around in a 
 circle; a Dutch clown strikes the hour on a bell as the 
 hands of the clock point to the hour; an old man counts 
 the time by turning a glass and raising a sceptre with each 
 stroke; and a bear on his right accompanies him by incli- 
 nations of its head. This silly spectacle attracts a number 
 of visitors hourly, and when I saw it, to add to my dis- 
 comfort, the entire square was filled by a stifling and name- 
 less odor, that I presume arose from the gutter that flowed 
 through the middle of the street. 
 
 Yet Berne may claim a genuine sentiment, as a recent 
 incident which I gathered from a resident here proves. The 
 well-known Jubilee Singers, who have been making a tour 
 of Europe for some months in the interest of the Fisk 
 University at Nashville, Tenn., seven females and four 
 males, gave their first concert at Berne on the evening of 
 the 15th of last May, in the French church. A colored 
 person in Switzerland is as rare as a Turk in America, 
 and so, apart from their talent as musicians, was the ex- 
 citement created by their bronze faces. True, rumors of 
 their proficiency had preceded them ; they had electrified 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 331 
 
 the savants^ scientists, and artists of Berlin, Leipsic, Mag- 
 deburg, Lubeck, Hamburg, Cologne, Fi-ankfort-on-tbe-Main, 
 and some of the most distinguished professors of schools 
 and colleges yielded to the influence of their sweet, yet 
 weird and sacred melodies. In London, eminent persons, 
 . — the Duchess of Sutherland, Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of 
 Devonshire, while the Duke of Argyle paid tribute to their 
 genius by inviting them to his castle. In Holland they 
 roused a perfect enthusiasm. Queen Victoria, the Crown 
 Prince and Princess of Germany, and Emperor of Austria 
 attended their concerts and testified to their extraordinary 
 abilities. 
 
 At the close of their first exhibition in Berne, Mr. Yan 
 Bui'en, President of the city, invited them to return for a 
 Sf'cond concert, and placed the Cathedral at their disposal. 
 To enaiile those residing at a distance to attend, the con- 
 cert was fixed for the afternoon, and in the evening they 
 dined with their patron at the " Enge," a celeltrated res- 
 taurant in the suburbs, to meet such persons as had evinced 
 intense interest in their history. This concert in the Catli- 
 edral was a greater success than the former, when they 
 were welcomed to Switzerland by Mr. Van Buren, who 
 sp(>ke of the great sympathy their wonderful genius and 
 their deliverance from slavery had excited among his 
 l)e<)ple. The response was made b}?- Mr. F. J. Loud in, one 
 of the minstrels, with touching eloquence. At the "Enge," 
 the musical Societies of Berne came to honor the Jubilee 
 Singers with Moody and Sankey melodies, and, fatigued 
 as tiiey were, they replied to the eulogistic serenade in 
 their famous song of "The Bells." 
 
 An impressive incident shows how these colored artists 
 arouse all nations with their harmonies and their sufferings. 
 An English lady, Madame de Watteville, ?i^e O'Connor, was 
 so much moved by the thrilling fervor of their music that she 
 invited them to her elegant villa near Thoune to pass a 
 week with her. 
 
 Berne preserves more thoroughlj^ts old eccentricities than 
 any other Swiss city. It is true to its ancient liquor and 
 legends — beer and bears, though there is a wine-cellar with 
 hogsheads containing sixty-two thousand quarts of wine. 
 There are a few really imposing public buildings, but the 
 simplicity of repul)licanism is severely maintained in the 
 city of the Swiss Congress. Yet even here, in the very 
 heart of republicanism, we find a rich and poor aristocracy. 
 The families with a long pedigree are as exclusive as tiiey 
 were a thousand years ago. 
 
332 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 While in Rome I heard curious stories of the poverty 
 and pride of titled families. Man}' of them reside in the 
 cellars of their own palaces and live upon the rentals ; while 
 frequently the upper floors of the old castles are occupied 
 by wealthy Americans and English, and the Italian dukes 
 and counts are content to iiide their own destitution by 
 sharing the same floor with the pigs and poultry. But it 
 was even more interesting to me, who had not looked for 
 blue blood amongst the German Swiss, to find that there 
 was so much of the miserable pride of ancestry heie. 
 
 There is some excuse, however, for this foolifsh arrogance 
 in Europe, and we tolerate it when we remember that these 
 narrow souls were not ()n\y born to, but have inherited the 
 V)elief of their especial superiority ; still there is no apology 
 for Americans who are either ashamed of their ancestors or 
 overly fond of boasting of them. 
 
 Such a course is ever a confession of personal inferiority. 
 He who has won his own title to nobilily never points to 
 his pedigree, whether his grandfather be a saint, a sover- 
 eign or a scav^enger. His individual patent of royalty is 
 too apparent to need the advertising medium of his pro- 
 genitor's dust. He never resurrects his grandfathei''s ghost 
 to heave at you twenty times in an hour as the family crest 
 of herakhy. 
 
 On an elevation beyond the botanical gardens stands a 
 beautiful residence, the home of the American Minister, 
 Nicholas Fish, son of the late Secretary of State. The 
 highly-cultivated oflficial and his family reflect grace and 
 credit upon our country, and form the contrasting and re- 
 deeming link in the chain of ministers and consuls who 
 force themselves into positions for which they are neither 
 qualified by nature or education by a too elaborate perso- 
 nal canvass, or as the reward for partisan zeal. This in- 
 trigue on the part of the politicians, and cowardice on the 
 part of the appointing power at Washington, has meiited 
 for our country and some American ambassadors at foreign 
 courts many mortifying slurs. 
 
 My task is done, my notes of Berne are taken, and now 
 at the close of the sweet Sabl)ath J look from ni^^ windovv 
 upon a broad expanse of glorious landscape where nature 
 reigns supreme. God has done so much to embellish this 
 exquisite picture that art seems to have been awed into 
 silence by the stroke of the master-hand. The Aar is flow- 
 ing swiftly in its course this quiet Sunday afternoon, dash- 
 ing against the stone piers of a little bridge, while farther 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 333 
 
 on it foams and plunges over a rock into a milk}^ cataract, 
 where the color of the water changes from a pale blue to 
 emerald. The white roads wind through the luxuriant 
 fields of grass and golden grain. The little white farm- 
 houses across the stream, with great crimson roofs, are 
 closed and silent. Dutch peasants are walking in the cool 
 shad}^ lanes, and little boats are moored to the river's brink 
 under the tall poplars that stand motionless in the summer 
 twilight. The picture is vitalized by a tiny black dog 
 standing upon the delta of sandy soil. 
 
 How rich and picturesque the grand plateau of land op- 
 posite, touched by the afterglow — the peculiar phenomenon 
 of the Bernese Oberland. Phoibus has gone to rest behind 
 the Alps, and pale Cynthia swings her silver crescent over- 
 head, and as the eternal dome gradually changes her robes 
 of vivid orange, intense blue, and dazzling crimson for the 
 sombre hues of gray and slate, I hear the Tyrolese songs 
 of cottagers coming in nebulous strains through the valley, 
 the river tide as it rolls and dashes like the mighty waves 
 of ocean, the screeching of the hawks as they fly round and 
 round in circles on the mountain peaks, and tlie report of 
 the sportsman's gun in the distance, all blent into one 
 heavenly harmony. A circlet of gold binds the western 
 zone, and a hazy blue-and-white flecked veil hangs over- 
 head as I sit in the mystic afterglow of the Bernese Alps. 
 
 LETTER LX I Y. 
 
 " There is a light in darkness which the soul 
 Can seldom know, until the sense have crept 
 From height to height across the shadowless peaks 
 Which sentinel thy valley ; there are deeps 
 In thy green hollows, wliere still thought could lie 
 Through summer noons unending, glad with dreams." 
 
 Annie Fields. 
 
 Interlaken, July, 1878. 
 
 When T was a wee little girl my school-teacher told 
 me to write a composition on Interlaken. I really do not 
 recollect whether I iiad ever heard of the superb to}^ Swiss 
 town, with its crystal lakes and ice mountains, until that 
 minute; however, from the name I had a mystic idea that 
 
334 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 it was someTvhere in the East, but this did not liinl wlint I 
 should say of it, as I had not the most ambiguous concej)- 
 tion of its geographical situation or its physical aspt^cts. 
 Points were given upon which the class were to elaborate. 
 Now the points of a composition for a class of 3^oung 
 children are generally the complete article with the addi- 
 tion of several stilted adjectives interjected here and there 
 to heighten the glow of the scenes. I began to elaborate^ 
 and described a storm on the lake, — I was told there was a 
 lake, — spoke of tinj' skiffs, fantastically dressed peasants, 
 and thundering heights. This composition made an in- 
 effacealtle impress on my mind, for the paradoxical reason 
 that I had not the vaguest knowledge of what I was writing. 
 I finished the production and handed it in to our smnll 
 board of education for inspection, without being sure of 
 tlie national position of the village in question. Now that 
 I have seen Interlaken, I long for those early sheets that f 
 might insert tiiem just here as a much truer approacli to 
 nature than any picture I am now able to draw. The 
 realization of this fact saddens me as I feel that the sense 
 of genuine inspiration — the inspiration that emanates from 
 the muse, not from knowledge — lies buried under the ashes 
 of years. 
 
 The district between Berne and Interlaken is like a leaf 
 taken from a story-book. Into a sweet valley of not more 
 than twenty-five miles is crowded a combination of beauties. 
 The ride from Thun is across a level meadow-garden, be- 
 tween two chains of mighty Alpine hills, interspersed with 
 vast Swisser barns, and animated by throngs of men and 
 women laboring in the fields, with the overshadowing pre- 
 sence of the Bernese Oberland, that fragment of Switzer- 
 land famous for weird and romantic scenery, dangerous 
 passes, shining lakes, and rivers full of melted snow, that 
 pours and plunges in torrents from the hills. 
 
 All this section is controlled by the Protestants, and 
 everywhere the presence of Protestant influence is percepti- 
 ble. There are about 1,000,000 Catholics in Swiizerhind, 
 and 1,500,000 Protestants, but in the Cantons of Berne and 
 Zurich the Papists number five to one. 
 
 Thun is a dull, uncleanly town, with large and costly 
 hotels. The main street is built in arcades, where the 
 fronts of the houses projecting about ten feet above the 
 ground form magazines. On the roof of these is the pave- 
 ment for foot-passengers. There are many busy shops, and 
 residences looking as archaic as the hills by which they are 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 335 
 
 inclosecl. But in the midst of all this antiquity are almost 
 countless fresh and gorgeous hotels: Hotels whose deco- 
 rations are something altogether foreign from our Ameri- 
 can establishments in the mere matter of frescoes, gilding, 
 carving, stucco, statuary, mosaic and parqueterie floors, 
 arbors, walks, fountains, cascades ; in a word, of infinite 
 variety and skill. The construction and improvement of 
 these hotels prove two facts: the boundless resources of tiie 
 capitalists of Europe, and the enormous profits gathered 
 at European summer resorts. They abound in every re- 
 gion. They are not confined to the great cities, but in 
 every little French, Italian, German, Swiss, and Dutch 
 town, on every romantic plateau, or mountain summit, or 
 lake border, and in every nook and corner that history or 
 poetry has immortalized, tiiere are these resplendent tempta- 
 tions to the purses of the wealthy stranger. 
 
 Every new hotel is a fresh marvel to me, and a new one 
 rises every year in every availal)le spot; but there is no 
 surprise more startling than the apparent scarcity of guests 
 even in the most successful season. These hotels are never 
 crowded, and just now the superior magnet of the Pai-is 
 Exposition is drawing away their patrons and exhausting 
 their exchequers. I have wondered that a journalist does 
 not undei"tnke to record the statistics of the expense, in- 
 come, and ownership of this continental hotel system. 
 
 We dined at the Bellevue, just beyond the city boundary, 
 perched on an edge of land overhanging the valley of the 
 Aar. The food was good, plain and inexpensive, but when 
 we attempted to contract for a carriage to drive us to some 
 of the castles and villas on the hike while we tarrieci for the 
 boat to Interlaken, we discovered that the schedule of prices 
 exceeded those in Philadelphia or !New York; so this 
 j)leasure was abandoned — reluctantly — as we had no aspi- 
 rations to become the benefactors of the Thun livery 
 stables. 
 
 About one mile from the city proper, at the head of the 
 lake, we took the boat for Interlaken. All along the shore 
 there were enchanting glimpses of Swiss nature and modern 
 art. It was neat and trim, clean and beautiful, yet different 
 from the Lake of Como with its glamour of tradition and 
 romance. The superb scene iiad a peculiar fascination of 
 grim majestic heights blended with cosy rest and youthful 
 jollity. The banks were studded with picturesque villas 
 and glowing gardens, but everywhere there were chateaux 
 and hotels and home attractions for travellers ; everywhere 
 
336 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 brilliant parterres, emerald terraces, and blooming slopes, 
 little boats dancing on the translucent waves, the jocund 
 voices of tourists, with the ringing laugii of children and 
 young girls mingling like silver bells in the chorus. 
 
 As our boat advanced over the path it ploughed for itself 
 in the serene waters, the colossal liills seemed to close over- 
 head in an arch of granite ; they bowed their majestic 
 pinnacles before us and barred our way. Just at the mo- 
 ment when all egress was apparently cut off the granite 
 cliffs opened, and we glided through as providentially as 
 the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea when the waters 
 heaved into two great walls on either side of them ; and, 
 indeed, our path between the frowning rocks seemed as 
 miraculous. All was so wild, inscrutable, mysterious, and 
 silent, that toil seemed to have died out of the world ; yet 
 among these rocks and ravines labor's hands are sore, and 
 woman drudges like a slave while she discharges the double 
 duties of wife and mother. 
 
 See yonder she is piling the sheaves of wheat upon the 
 wagon, sweeping the sc3'the through the bending grain, 
 pulling heav}^ loads upon the mountain- side ; and farther 
 on are four sturdy, muscular peasant women straining at 
 tlie oars of a boat burdened with ha}^ and pushing it into 
 the neighboring shore ; and over on the roadside is a girl, 
 not more than sixteen, and her aged mother splitting granite 
 with a pick for a turnpike. 
 
 Where are the fathers, the brothers, the husbands, or the 
 lovers? Such creatures must exist in this region, else how 
 the wives and the daughters? And these slaves are the 
 creatures to whom men refuse suffrage, because such an act 
 would entail upon them an unsexing servitude, and subject 
 them to degrading positions or hazardous exposure; these 
 are they against whom men bar their university doors, be- 
 cause the}'^ are too fragile to bear the travail of arduous 
 study, or too rose-like and beautiful to come in constant 
 contact with a promiscuous crowd of men, or too delicate 
 and fair and cliaste to listen to learned discussions on 
 pathology and anatomy. These are the creatures upon 
 whom even the more favored of their own sex say it would V 
 be a demoralizing and degenerating influence to allow them 
 to take part in the science of government and the higher i 
 professions with their brothers! Let us be logical if we i,-* 
 cannot be just. At least in these old countries, if women 
 must work, and men must fight, let the burdens of life be 
 equalized. Do not say that those we call in America the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 33t 
 
 feel)lest should here be made to do the heaviest of all human 
 toils. 
 
 After leaving the boat, a small line of railway — a ten 
 minutes' ride — took me to the little show town presided 
 over by that callous young lady, arrayed in her glistening, 
 icy garments, Jungfrau. I rode up a long street that 
 seemed to extend itself far bej'ond my vision, until it was 
 lost in the water or cut off' by the rocks. This street was 
 bordered by double rows of walnut trees, and on either 
 hand were shops of wooden sculptures and paintings of 
 Alpine scenery ; as I proceeded handsome hotels with os- 
 tentatious fagades and gaudy flower-gardens took the place 
 of the magazines on one side, and on the other lovely 
 stretches of emerald turf shone in pronounced contrast with 
 the gray rocks and frozen mountains. These hotels seemed 
 to have been erected overnight, so modern in architecture 
 and fresh in paint were they. On and on we rode until [ 
 marvelled how many of these sinking funds the town 
 owned. I had settled upon my own hostel, which I found 
 was rather far up-town, having, however, two advantages. — 
 that of being directly opposite the chaste and silent bride, 
 where I might gaze upon her shining robes and feel her 
 frozen smile in return ; then, the second benefit was, to 
 reach the business centre 1 was obliged to pass an infinite 
 variety of rich and picturesque stores. Half way down 
 the long street I turned off to my right and found the 
 Cursaal, where the whey from the mountain goats' milk 
 is sold to complaining invalids. It is a beautiful open 
 garden, situated half on the ground level, and tilted slightly 
 on the mountain ascent, where summer-houses and flower 
 beds framed in odd devices, a restaurant, and a platform 
 for the band are the interesting features. Farther up to- 
 ward the Lake of Brienz, on the opposite bank of the Aar, 
 I could see the peasants of Unterseen treading the steep 
 paths. It was a sweet picture, and as I stood enraptured 
 the one question pushed itself into prominence: Is the life 
 1 see here as fascinating in practice as it is in ideal ? 
 
 Interlaken is a purely show place, — neat and clean as a 
 young woman dressed for a fair ; but how the shopkeepers 
 and landlords subsist is a marvel. Said I to the waiter at 
 table this morning, " You have many hotels here ; can you 
 tell me how many ?" " Oh, yes," he replied in very bad 
 English, "we have quite five hundred." "Whatl" I. ex- 
 claimed in startled amazement ; then I added calmly, " Oh, 
 ™y good man, you are mistaken." But he assured me it 
 29 
 
338 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 was true, so my next question was ; "Have you any idea of 
 your population ?" For a few moments tie had a far-away 
 expression, and then replied " Five hundred." Then said 
 I, " You have as many great hotels as you have people ;" 
 and he replied with supreme complaisance, " Yes, just as 
 many." 1 did not solicit further knowledge from this young 
 person ; but as he walked away I thought what a clever 
 hyperbole the poor fellow had unconsciously achieved. 
 
 The Victoria is the best filled, has a better cuisine^ and 
 has equally moderate rates with the others, but I was 
 frightened away from it by the expensive flower-pots, and 
 concluded not to help the landlonl defray the florist's bill 
 from my bank account. But there is nothing cheap at In- 
 teilaken. The place is too fine, and every stranger is fair 
 game to pluck. Cab hire is just doubled here, and when I 
 attempted to invest in photographs I was astounded at the 
 tariff. But how exhilarating the air, how sweet the flowers, 
 how green the grass, how like mighty fortifications the 
 mountains, and how like a white-robed Goddess of Peace, 
 the Jungfrau looks down from her snowy throne upon the 
 tranquil vale ! 
 
 And why has this exquisite town to complain of a dearth 
 of patronage ? Simply because people are getting tired of 
 Inqiosition, and I predict a speedy downfall for those extor- 
 tionate proprietors in the near future. 
 
 My stay at Interlaken was hallowed by a sweet experi- 
 ence with the old lady in the English library. 1 do not 
 know what in my face or manner struck the confidential 
 and pathetic cord of her organization ; however, she told me 
 her stor3', which was neither an ordinary nor unromantic 
 one. Said she : " My grandfather established a newspaper 
 in Thun eighty years ago, which is still printed by my 
 family. We have several editions, a daily and three week- 
 lies issued from the same office, and you know," she added, 
 " Thun is a small town fenced in by a rocky and thinly 
 populated neighborhood, but ray family have been prosper- 
 ous printers, and proud am I to say dev^oted heart and soul 
 to liberalism. My life," she said, '^ has been an easy, happy 
 one on the whole, though like all others I have had my 
 cross to bear. M^^ little grandson, who was destined to 
 become a printer and so honor and prolong the family name 
 was suddenly called away in the spring. Now I feel as if I 
 had nothing more to hold me to earth." The old lady's 
 library is a rendezvous for intelligent travellers, and she 
 herself a great and deserved favorite. 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 339 
 
 In Interlaken stands a tree, a great tree, the monarch of 
 the wood, only less majestic than the Alps themselves, with 
 its lordly branches, and great coronal of emerald, and deep 
 cool shade, and as I saw the forest giant hemmed in by 
 small houses my soul cried aloud for room to let the noble 
 mammoth breathe, by making it free and unconfined, instead 
 of suffering it to languish and to die surrounded by stifling 
 limits. Mark it well, stranger. The dear old lady^ Mrs. 
 Christian, will point it out to 3'ou, and will doubtless tell 
 you how the American praj^ed with her to ask the authori- 
 ties to give the lordly monarch air. 
 
 Interlaken is the chief centre for wood sculptures and 
 the exquisite little paintings which preserve and perpetuate 
 the lovely Swiss lakes and mountains. These two voca- 
 tions and keeping hotels seem to fill the winter and summer 
 of the inhabitants. Without these resources hundreds 
 would scarcely know how to exist, and without strangers 
 Switzerland would be almost a solitude. Strike out the 
 Americans, English, Russians, and Germans in the tide of 
 travel that sweeps over the Continent, and the country 
 would become bankrupt. American tourists are much 
 more numerous than other travellers, with the exception of 
 the English, and more generous and appreciative than any 
 other nation. Tliere are more American artists in Rome 
 than French, Russian, or English, and when we come to 
 such places as Abbotsford and Stratford-on-Avon we find 
 more Americans worshipping at the shrines of Shakespeare 
 or Scott than Englishmen. We have great oceans to cross, 
 yet year after yeRV in all seasons we penetrate every cranny 
 of the Old World. Americans are at once the most enter- 
 prising, liberal, inquisitive, inventive, and interesting people 
 on the face of the globe. Wherever we turn our steps we 
 meet them, yes ! and their contrivances, their dollars, and 
 their books. 
 
340 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 LETTER LXV. 
 
 "I've roamed amonest the eternal Alps. I've stood 
 And gazed on the diminished world below ; 
 Marking, at frightful distance, field and flood, 
 And spire and town, like things of pigmy show, 
 Shrink into nothing : while those peaks of snow. 
 While yet the winds themselves but seldom climb, 
 Arose like giants from the void below." 
 
 Bryan Waller Procter. 
 
 Luzerne, July, 1878. 
 
 Nature lias written a wonderful language in the topog- 
 raph}' of Switzerland ; a language weird, mysterious, and 
 inscrutable. These masses of rock, moulded into vast 
 mountains and hurled into strange shapes ; these vast gla- 
 ciers, extending continuously eighteen hundred miles, crop- 
 ping out in perpetual snow, and again sparkling in solid 
 masses of azure and iridescent ice, deep down in the earth ; 
 these indescribable lakes of pure water; and then the abun- 
 dant and dashing cascades flowing in glittering rivulets from 
 the hills into the valleys, create altogether a region of cease- 
 less and bewildering fascination. The Supreme ordinance 
 has made of Switzerland an inexhaustible curiosity-shop to 
 baffle modern science; and man has converted the mighty 
 museum into a machine for speculation and show. Every- 
 where we must render unto man tribute, to enjoy what 
 nature gave us for nothing ; but he is no more an owner in 
 these phenomena than myself. 
 
 A short line of rail took me from Interlaken to the boat 
 station on the Lake of Brienz, over which we glided to the 
 Giessbach, the Niagara of Switzerland. This startling fall 
 of water plunges from an altitude of eleven hundred and 
 fort3'-eight feet into Lake Brienz in a series of seven cas- 
 cades, bounding from rock to rock, and casting back its 
 rainbow spray in jewels on the brown crags and bowlders. 
 We halted at a rude plank landing, with only a shanty 
 ticket-office, built against a projection of granite. There 
 were many American and British tourists and a host of 
 savage-looking old men with palanquins to carry delicate 
 travellers to the mountain summit, — the only point from 
 which the waterfall could be seen with satisfaction ; and as 
 this was the chief thing to be seen in these wild mountains, 
 those who would not submit to be conveyed by a couple of 
 creatures who looked very like brigands, Alpine banditti, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 341 
 
 or gypsy blnoklegs, must stride up a mountain that seemed 
 to lose its head in tlie clouds. I preferred tl«e hitter course 
 to resigning myself into the care of these chevaliers- d'' In- 
 dustrie. 
 
 The path was good, but steep and narrow, and often dark, 
 where the brown stone crags and walls came so thick and 
 fast that not a fugitive glimmer falls athwart the track ; but 
 there was ever the rush and crash of waters heard in the 
 weird retreat. Sometimes the windings brought me out 
 upon a sharp ledge, where, looking upward, I could see the 
 great height from which the torrent sprang, and below the 
 yawning and rock}^ chasm into which it plunged. I could 
 feel the force of its flow, and the irresistible whirl of death 
 in its terrible forces. The wind howled al»out me, and 
 seemed to play with its power to hurl me into eternity. 
 The higher 1 mounted the more of the light and warmth of 
 God's hospitality shook from neaven into the narrow moun- 
 tain defiles gladdened my way. I walked along, therefore, 
 charmed by the thundering waters mingling in the wild 
 saturnalia. 
 
 Once upon the elevated plateau the scene was ineffably 
 sweet, solemn, sublime, and picturesque; indeed, a divine 
 crystallization of all the beauties I have described. 
 
 A flight of steps led to the hotel ; of course there was a 
 hotel (^where can we escape one ?). Seated on its emerald 
 terrace, commanding a complete view of the Giessbach, 
 which is invested with a peculiar interest, as well from the 
 great volume of water that rushes, as it were, from an in- 
 visible fountain into the green lake below, as from the rich 
 and variegated foliage in which they are framed ; small 
 tables and natty waiters stood ready to accommodate the 
 weary climbers ; the gardens were thronged with visitors, 
 and Alpine peasants, and bonnes; troubadours, and jugglers, 
 too, joined the inelee. A gargon asked me if I would re- 
 main all night? 1 turned upon the man with sudden sur- 
 prise and said, " What ! remain here all night to sleep ? Do 
 people ever stay here with that (pointing to the torrent) 
 thundering machine opposite the window?" ''• Oh, yes !" 
 he replied, with the provoking nonchalance that only an 
 ignorant foreigner can assume , " the beobles say it make 
 shleep ; or, if you object, we give you a back room ; but, ol» ! 
 dat is de glory;" and then, as he drifted into an apostrophe 
 to the cataract, I told him JSo! and ordered a slight lunch. 
 
 On the left, far below, a lovely Swiss village slept amongst 
 the hills, despite the hellish racket, like a freshly washed 
 
 29* 
 
342 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 baby in its first slumber. It was green, and golden, and 
 vvliile; and over the roads came neat peasants from their 
 cottnge homes. It was a scene of niighlj^ majesty and do- 
 cile domesticity that I rested upon until the veil of night 
 unfurled its first gauzy folds. 
 
 After the sharp edge of novelty produced by the crashing 
 and splashing, and gleaming and streaming, and flushing 
 and gushing torrent was dulled, I studied an American 
 family' around me. There was the lord supreme, — to be con- 
 ventional I begin with him, — a man rapidly approaching the 
 vale of years, — and his wife and j)rogeny as distinctive and 
 peculiar as the new civiLzation from which they came. He 
 was a cotton, a woolen, or a railroad king, for he moved as 
 if he had made his millions with sudden success. 1 liked 
 him because he had the easy submissive conscious money 
 air that spoke of complete content ; he seemed to care no 
 more for Europe than for some impossible story of rabbini- 
 cal lore. He was a resigned sacrifice on the altar of his 
 wile's ambition and his children's desire, and that is why 
 he had all my sympathy. Tlien, there was the wife and 
 mother, a |)lump, pretty little woman about forty-five, ar- 
 rayed in all the laces and feathers denied her in earlier 
 (inys ; she was now supping bounteously upon the harvest 
 feast of his investments ; she must be carried over the steep 
 rough path in a palanquin ; how could she walk, and why 
 should she? Having run barefoot over the thorny and 
 stony ways of life, she now soothes away the memory of 
 sharp cuts and weary pulls amid downy cushions. There 
 was the first born, — a daughter of twenty-two, — a prim lit- 
 tle person who assumed dilettante ways and tastes, and 
 knew only enough to feel sure that the eldest of a rich 
 house should tnke on herself much stale. Tlien there was 
 the prince imperial to this noble line, say twenty ; he as 
 their heir apparent had been pampered and petted until he 
 was an annoyance to himself; he called for a dozen differ- 
 ent dishes and drinks, and with oversateil palate and as- 
 sumed fastidiousness dismissed them almost as rapidly as 
 they were set before him. He was one of those miserable 
 striplings at whose constitution premature disease was 
 gnawing like a canker-worm. Besides the physical indis- 
 position, he had contracted an insufferable ego. physi- 
 cian! is there no vaccine to cheek the ravages of this hideous 
 malady ? 
 
 There was the younger daughter, a graceful girl of eigh- 
 teen. She made her debut u[;on this " mortal coil" just in 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 343 
 
 time to be taught her own insignificance in contrast with 
 her elder sister and brother. The result was beneficial ; 
 in place of an inflated pigmy she was a sweet sensible 
 woman with the aroma of the seminary clinging to her 
 skirts and a lingering love of books and nature ; she sat 
 apart busily writing a description of the exquisite scene. 
 Her two younger sisters, just at the age when girls do not 
 know what to do with themselves, and nobody knows what 
 to do with them, completed the family [mrty. 
 
 And now my eyes fell upon the father, and my pity and 
 tenderness were all his; out of the six dependent upon 
 him, there was only one who was returning an atom of 
 happiness after his long struggle. This is only one pic- 
 ture of thousands of originals. 
 
 The terrace seemed to be a rendezvous of the nations, 
 including a band of wretched strolling minstrels, a con- 
 glomeration unconsciously photographed. John Bull, al- 
 ways in white towel as a headgear and reading Murray ; 
 Mrs. Bull, rubicund and beery ; two Miss Bulls in long 
 gray ulsters, "all buttoned down before;" the entire party 
 silent and sour. The French gracefully attired and chat- 
 tering like magpies. The Germans smoking long pipes 
 and sketching the falls, while their tawny hair fell in 
 "gust}' flow." A Swiss family, grandfather, grandmother, 
 sons, daughters, and grandchildren, attended by fancy- 
 costumed peasant women, made a beautiful little group in 
 the rocky platform. Withal, the American family was the 
 most attractive, genteel, and intelligent. But, is it not 
 natural that we should search for the faidts of our own 
 children, because we are ambitious they should rise above 
 the ordinary level ? 
 
 The Giessbach is frequently compared to Niagara, but 
 the simile is as preposterous as likening the Thames to the 
 Mississippi. If Niagara were on the Continent it would 
 be turned into as many sources of profit by speculators as 
 if the Europeans had discovered and brought down be- 
 tween heaven and earth a new celestial world. 
 
 At 8 P. M. the falls were to be illuminated, for which I 
 did not wait, as it is a sad fraud, like many other things 
 in this land of natural marvels and hollow artifices. But 
 descending the gray and ghostly paths, followed and 
 flanked bv elves and wraiths, to the music of roarino; 
 waters and reverberating shouts on the higher heights, I 
 reached the lake, where I was importuned by a brigade of 
 ruffian boatmen to cross in their little skiffs and under 
 
344 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 their protection, an honor I declined, and waited for the 
 steamer for Brienz, which lay modestly waiting across the 
 lake. 
 
 Brienz is a little village of wooden houses stretched 
 along the mountain base, with a quaint hotel — " La Croix 
 Blanche" — where we had a capital supper at 9 P. M. In 
 the twilight the peasants were driving home the goats and 
 mules, while their tinkling bells made silver music between 
 the hills. Some came with their wood sculptures, others 
 laden with food, for the morrow would be Sunday, and 
 little mouths must be fed in these tall, bleak mountains. 
 -Ah! what a life it seemed as I gazed upon the broad hon- 
 est-faced women and burly men, with no thought of the 
 great world beyond. All looked so simple and sweet and 
 arcadian, yet human passion and human vices rage even 
 here. Where there is life there is sin. 
 
 A natty femme-de-chambre in the hotel spoke English 
 with such an unmistakable American accent that I was 
 tempted to ask her wiiere she was l)orn, and she answered 
 in the State of Missouri ! On account of business reverses 
 her father had returned to his native valley. Now 1 en- 
 deavored to extract philosophy from the stor}', but I 
 failed. However dark the times, however degenerate and 
 torpid the town, there could be no spot in America so ut- 
 terly destitute of wa^s and means of existence as this 
 Alpine dell. 
 
 Next morning, bright and early, really too early to pro- 
 mote good temper, I was wakened by the jingling bells of 
 the diligence that was to carry me over the Brunig Pass. 
 Now crossing the Alpine pass in a Federal post was some- 
 thing new, and mj' sensations were those of ecstasy as I 
 looked down upon the cumbrous establishment fashioned 
 after those of the English systetn of old-time travelling. 
 Five spirited steeds stood neighing, impatient to be off on 
 their mountainous jaunt, whips cracked and horns blew, 
 while my spirits rose in consonance with the new and joy- 
 ous sounds about me. So after breakfasting at 6.^0 A.M., 
 we started on the hazardous journey. The day was 
 glorious ! No dust, no flies, no heat, and the sun as mod- 
 erate as in September; and though I wrapped a heavy 
 shawl about me as we set off, the advancing day soon 
 equalized the chilly temperature. I must needs have the 
 choice seat at the banquet — on the top of the diligence, so 
 I mig^ht miss no mite of the phenomenal panorama. 
 
 Thoughts of crossing the Brunig had always excited my 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 345 
 
 fanc3^, but T liad formed no conception of its singular exor- 
 cism. I met nature in her grandest and gentlest moods. 
 I have never seen the Rocky Mountains, but those who 
 have, describe the Brunig and the mighty chain of granite 
 fastnesses of which it is a link, as far more imposing and 
 complicated ; not so vast and comprehensive, but closer, 
 more involved, and marvellous. Here even the untrained 
 mind realizes the difficulty of constructing railroads in 
 Switzerland. 
 
 We came to little villages amongst the rocks ; hamlets 
 that were only a handful of shanties squatted down on no- 
 body's land; and here people lived and were happy. Yet 
 how did they exist ? Only through Nature's providence. 
 
 The public highway wound like like a petrified serpent 
 along the sides of these primitive formations ; as I looked 
 down from the cool heights where the eagle eyries, my brain 
 fairly reeled to see the people dwindling to manikins, and 
 their habitations into tiny black spots. Our chariot hung 
 at times, on the rocky ledges as if held thereby some mag- 
 netic power. Higher and higher we rose, rougher and 
 steeper the road at each advance, until we attained an alti- 
 tude of 6581 feet above sea level. Having reached the top- 
 most point of our route we began gradually to descend 
 toward lovely Lucerne. 
 
 All along these deserted coils I found Swiss chalets large 
 enough to accommodate two or three families, whose only 
 source of livelihood is wood-carving. Their sheds, attached 
 to the house, were well stocked with the requisites of their 
 art. And so they pass their days in their forest homes. 
 In winter the}" carve, and in summer they sell in the near- 
 est towns the fragile wares that find their way into every 
 American home. Whenever we passed toy or blackberry 
 venders, with their scanty store spread in an alcove of rock, 
 and overshadowed by great hanging craggy canopies, it 
 was the herald to our approach to a town, — towns where 
 we saw only a hotel that seemed slack of guests and~enter- 
 tainment at the same time, and only a stopping place to 
 gather the mails and water our horses. 
 
 In the sweet Sabbath morning the Catholic peasants 
 thronged the paths in vast numbers on their way to Mass ; 
 and though rather well dressed, judging by their habitations 
 among the hills the}' were miserably poor. Nothing could 
 be more deplorable than the most of their homes, and I 
 shuddered as I tiiought of their privations in this dismal 
 region during the long, cheerless winters. Men, women, 
 
346 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 and children, like mountain chamois, climbed the rough 
 roads, and greeted the Federal post with passing smiles. 
 
 What ghastly and indescribable battlements this rocky 
 region presents to the strangerl At times the coach plunged 
 into deep valle3's, from which I looked up to the stony forts, 
 that pierced the very clouds ; then we crawled along tiie 
 crest of a precipice, from which 1 gazed into an almost un- 
 fathomable abyss. 
 
 jt was a six hours' journey over the hills, and in the in- 
 terval we passed other lakes, considerable towns, and many 
 beautiful valleys. But of all the dales for sweet salubrity, 
 gentle and thriving domesticity, luxuriant pastures, and 
 glowing orchards, give me the Valley of Sarnen, lying side 
 by side with its azure lake abounding in finny food. Oh, 
 what a wealth of nature was there ! Gr^t Phoebus poured 
 his lusty light with double force upon the fair undulations 
 of the sapphire lake by being closed out of the gray cran- 
 nies beyond, and kissed all about him into a glow of beauty. 
 8i)arkling waters lost themselves in the clefts of rocks, 
 while the old groined hillsides shone in girdles of jewels. 
 
 In the town I found a better civilization, a higher degree 
 of comfort, and more intelligence was revealed. The peas- 
 ants of Sarnen have a peculiar and picturesque costume; 
 all the women interlace the plaits of tiieir hair with white 
 ribbons fastened with a unique spoonlike silver buckle. 
 But how few were comely! even the youngest were hard- 
 featured and prematurely wrinkled. Sunday, as it was, 
 everywhere many were working in the fields, and generally 
 not a man to be seen. All this district is under Romish 
 influence ; Catholic churchyards. Catholic churches, crosses, 
 and wayside shriiics, nuns and children saying their rosa- 
 lies and Ave Maria predominated, and as we approached 
 the Lake of Lucerne, the papal preponderance became more 
 and more apparent ; but there was not a beggar on the 
 route. 
 
 Descending my lofty throne on the back of the diligence, 
 I stepped upon the pretty steamer at Alpnach and sailed 
 up the lovely lake. Inconceivably grand was the scene as 
 we proceeded along the famous water, with its jutting prom- 
 ontories and vast mounds of alluvial deposit. On our left 
 Bigi, and to the right Pilatus escorted us, both shores in- 
 dented with handsome villas and antique towns, while many 
 of the heights were crowned with military and medical in- 
 stitutions. The water was a level sheet of emerald, and as 
 I leaned over the taffrail 1 saw in the little crevices of the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 34t 
 
 liills iirtificial fountains casting up their silver spray, while 
 pushed out from the coast were wharves which sent forth 
 and received passengers. Neat boats were gracefullj^ gli<^- 
 ing over the waveless main, and as if to harmonize with 
 the Sundaj' panorama a band of Protestant singers blended 
 their voices in the touching sacred melody of the '" Sweet- 
 By-and-By." The familiar strains carried my memory to 
 my own dear home, so far away. 
 
 1 had been among other charming scenes before — in the 
 majestic harbor of New York, Delaware Bay, Boston Bay, 
 the unrivalled ocean home at Martha's Yineyard, Chesa- 
 peake Bay, the Potomac at Washington, and I have lin- 
 gered in the glamour of the Gulf of Genoa, the Gulf of Lyons 
 at Marseilles, the Mediterranean at Nice, tlie Neapolitan 
 Bay, the beautiful Seine, and the slug:^ish Thames in its 
 sweetest resting-places, but never was I so affected as by 
 the superlative influences of the quiet Sabbath noon on the 
 waters of Lucerne. 
 
 LETTER LXYI. 
 
 "E'en now, where Alpine solitudes ascend, 
 I sit me down a pensive hour to spend ; 
 And placed on high aoove the storm's career, 
 Look dow^nward where an hundred realms appear ; 
 Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide, 
 The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride." 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 Lucerne, over the Rigi, July, 1878. 
 
 Apart from the unrivalled position of Lucerne on the 
 lake, lovingly placed in the amphitheatre formed by sur- 
 rounding mountains, the most impressive feature of the 
 city is its consistent and singular cleanliness and the 
 superexcellence of its hotels. All along the Schweizerhof 
 Quay, fronting the lake, there is such a cordon of these 
 gorgeous palaces, that one wonders how they are sup- 
 ported in this town of 14,500 ; and as we drove out on the 
 more sequestered roads leading to Kussnacht and the 
 great mountains there were more of these same superb 
 structures. The season is short, but the influx of visitors 
 
348 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 increases each day from the middle of June until the last 
 of August, when there is a general stagnation. Yet, at 
 Lucerne, the charges are moderate, and the entertainment 
 surpasses most of the other mountain cities. 
 
 Lucerne is held in the protecting arms of the strongest 
 Swiss battlements, some rearing their desolate heights in 
 solitary splendor, others bound peak to peak by iron road 
 orbrkfge; and again, those that stand in all the virginal 
 iciness of purity. Lucerne may truly boast of its position 
 and environs, perhaps of its legendary associations, but in 
 the city there is little of artistic beauty or interest. 
 
 The famous Lion of Lucerne, cut in the solid sandstone, 
 in a romantic corner of the town, after a model by the 
 illustrious Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen, in memory of the 
 Swiss officers and soldiers who fell in defence of the ex- 
 piring French monarchy of Louis XYL, in their noble 
 efforts to save the Tuileries, August, 1792, is onl}' interest- 
 ing by the story it relates. The art may be marvellous, 
 chiselled as it is from the fixed bowlder of sandstone, but 
 it is illy kept, and a spring above it drips its everlasting 
 trickle into a stagnant pool, which does not represent the 
 picture we sometimes see of the expiring beast reflected in 
 a crystal green lake. The royal lion, while writhing in the 
 agonies of death, protects the French shield and jieur de lis 
 with its paw. True, the ex{)ression of unuttered suffering 
 of the colossus is effective, and when I first saw it I ex- 
 claimed, " Oh, the dying gladiator." This was the first 
 and strongest impression the work made upon me ; so has 
 it remained. It seems a curious memento for a republic 
 to hold amongst its choice treasures, but the work is con- 
 sidered a supreme achievement, and it is in this light that 
 it is cherished for posterity, and also to perpetuate the 
 bravery of the Swiss Guard of the unfortunate Louis and 
 his queen. 
 
 The " Gladiator" is shown gratis, but as if to express 
 regret for the liberality one franc is charged admittance to 
 the glacier garden adjoining. Now a glacier breathes vol- 
 umes of wonderful and reverential things to me. So, this 
 so-called phenomenon I must see, if, like Prometheus, I 
 must filch the fire from heaven to obtain entrance. There 
 were no such violent means required, however, and I do 
 not believe I was ever tricked by so poor a cheat. There 
 were no glaciers, some bad statuary — which might have 
 been petrified in ice — a number of inexplicable aerolites, 
 several sickl}' fountains, a long hysteric stair of rustic logs 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 349 
 
 ascending to a cupola, a catchpenny model of the sur- 
 rounding lake and mountain system, and a few dilapidated 
 birds. What it all meant I could not conceive ; my expec- 
 tations soared to a glorious height of iridescent hills and 
 azure caves. When these beauties did not burst upon my 
 vision I was disappointed ; still, I considered them worth 
 hunting, though I had not thought that would be required 
 of me, but having searched and not found them 1 went 
 away sore and sorrowing, and consoled myself by trying 
 to extract comfort out of the long scientific account in the 
 guide-book of all that I could not interpret. 
 
 Across the Ruesse, whose green waters divide the city, 
 are several superannuated bridges, that are quite as ridicu- 
 lous as municipal shows. They are profusely decorated 
 with paintings; every crossbeam and arch, every panel 
 and post, is covered with pigments and portraits from 
 startling designs ; it seems as if some artist of unappre- 
 ciated genius had passed his days in this shabby work for 
 the love of it, for certainly no authorities could ever have 
 so disgraced the city property. One contained a hundred 
 and fifty-four paintings, representing events from the lives 
 of the patron saints of Lucerne ; the other " the Dance of 
 Death," and here the artist had an open field to indulge 
 his passion for the horrible and hideous. They were bad 
 originally, judging by the sad remains left by the ravages 
 of time. Nevertheless the hotel architecture of Lucerne is 
 superlative. Art seems to have made its best work there. 
 
 It is generally and habitually asserted that wherever 
 Catholicism prevails in Switzerland, there is lack of thrift, 
 order, and enterprise ; but here the accusation fails. The 
 town and population are models of propriety, gentility, 
 and cleanliness. Mendicity is also charged against the 
 Continental Catholics, and it is fully verified in Southern 
 Italy, but I did not meet a beggar in Lucerne, and impo- 
 sitions were scarce. 
 
 To see Altorf and William^Tell's chapel, once at Lucerne, 
 was like visiting Yersailles from Paris. As we put out from 
 shore en route to the spot commemorated by that wonder- 
 ful feat of archery, so long ago that we begin to doubt the 
 apple story (not but that we know there were apples at the 
 time, for the apple is at the bottom of all mischief, but 
 then you see another apple story, of national fame, has 
 succeeded it in America), we saw brightly painted boats to 
 the memory of Tell and Winkelreid and other Swiss re- 
 publican heroes. Every point, whether promontory or 
 30 
 
350 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 island, eveiy hill and valley, is planted with trees and 
 flowers, decorated with little white shrines, where wooden 
 virgins pray in gentle peace. The little towns along 
 the lake were crowded with tourists, and gayly dressed 
 strangers thronged about the quays to welcome the in- 
 comers, or wave farewell to the departing guests. The 
 scene was full of harmony with the silence of nature and 
 the repose of man. The lake-border seemed in holiday trim, 
 but on the boat humanity was industriously satisfying the 
 inner hunger. 
 
 A Swiss lake steamer is a new study of the habits of 
 travellers. Eating and drinking is the universal pastime. 
 It begins early and continues througli the entire tour. As 
 soon as the boat drops oif the quay the Swiss families who 
 have come for an outing, order the rations, but whether 
 the eating was a labor or a pleasure I could not discern. 
 My first conception was that it was a pleasure; but when 
 it ran through hours I concluded it had grown into a sort 
 of duty. The Swiss are as successful in the practice of 
 eating cheese and drinking beer as the English, who never 
 travel by land or sea without five full meals a day. 
 
 Tell's i)latte at Fluelen/was our destination ; a very poorly 
 painted, fragile little hut, covered with awkward frescoes, 
 and scrawled over with vulgar pencilled names and designs 
 to keep alive the doubtful tradition of the dramatic patriot 
 of Switzerland, which Schiller and Sheridan Knowles have 
 lauded into enduring fame by their glorious pla^'^s. Then 
 why should we cherish these ambiguous memories when 
 Switzerland has a stronger hold on the respect of man in 
 its real poets, heroes, and statesmen ? By the names of 
 Winkelreid, Freliegrath, and Zwingle, on the boats and 
 penaioiis^ I felt compensated for the disappointment at 
 TelPs chapel and its destitution of historical foundation. 
 
 Next day a steamer carried us from Lucerne to Yitznau, 
 a mountain village with a new and elegant station, whence 
 the railway starts over the Rigi, that formidable and 
 hitherto insurmountable granite barrier. I do not know 
 which contemplation had for me the most fascination, 
 crossing the Brunig or ascending and descending the Rigi. 
 The former was invested with all romance and ecstas}'' but 
 no fear, while Rigi inspired me with horrible forebodings 
 of being suddenly precipitated from a cloudy pinnacle into 
 an abysmal ravine with a mass of broken bones and man- 
 gled flesh closing the last struggle for life. The railway 
 that traverses and connects this series of lofty peaks is 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 351 
 
 Gonstructed in imitation of the iron road which brings the 
 White Mountains of New England into communication 
 with the heretofore isolated sky-world of that region. 
 
 It is only since 1848 this mysterious and interesting com- 
 bination of rock and ice, lying between Lakes Lucerne and 
 Zug, arrested the serious attention of men of science and 
 generous governments. Before that period this vast moun- 
 tain system was only a district of cowherds, pastnre-lands, 
 and a colony of degenerate peasants' huts. Before then 
 pilgrims made the tour of these steep, and rugged, and de- 
 serted paths with much labor and fatigue. The railway 
 gauge is constructed after the model of the ordinary Ame- 
 rican road, but it has rails within rails provided with teeth 
 on which a cog-wheel under the locomotive catches with 
 each revolution. The locomotives are of one hundred and 
 twenty horse-power, having upright boilers, and the pas- 
 senger carriages are placed always above the engine, from 
 which it is disconnected by couplings, and can be stopped 
 instantaneously in case of accidents ; and although I per- 
 fectly understood the system and was doubly assured of 
 the impossibility of danger, yet as the train began to crawl 
 ui) the hill backward like a little iron crab, and I felt the 
 car sloping away from me till my sensation was akin to that 
 of hanging on the inclination of the roof of some high 
 building, a thrill of terror convulsed me, which was not 
 decreased as I looked from my starry height into the 
 frightful vacancy below. 
 
 Being the height of tiie season the little station platform 
 was staggering beneath its human freight that surged and 
 scrambled for places as the train came up to our side. Our 
 ascent through the beautiful little pastoral village was 
 gradual, and after passing a few of the loftier altitudes an 
 exquisite view of the green lake, the spires and towers of 
 Lucerne, and tiien one by one the famous Alpine summits 
 dawned upon us, and lastly, as a frame to the picture, came 
 the undulating yet unbroken wave-line of the Bernese 
 Oberland. A half an hour on our airy tour and we pene- 
 trated a tunnel through conglomerate rock as suddenly as 
 a lightning flash, and only emerged to cross a fragile 
 trestle bridge spanning a dark and awful gorge, seventy- 
 five feet deep. At this perilous point in the flight the reck- 
 less passengers rushed to the right of the car to gaze ifito 
 the gap below, and made the air hideous with exclamations 
 about its imposing beauty, while the little car swayed and 
 shook with the overbalancing weight. Step by step we 
 
352 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 penetrated forest and rocky wastes at an easy gradient, 
 passing peasants and tourists making the journey, some on 
 foot, others astride tiieir braying beast. The sensations 
 may have been something like those experienced in a rising 
 balloon, with this difference, the earth did not recede fro;n 
 us ; we gradually seemed to be melting into illimitable 
 space. Desi)ite the possible calamities, it was glorious to 
 rise like a bird in air, and floating among azure clo*uds and 
 misty mountain-tops gaze into the heart of the valleys be- 
 low, the shimmering lakes, and mountains of glowing ver- 
 dure, hemmed in by dazzling ridges of ice, unmelted by the 
 fiery glance and scorching breath of the sun, and to hear 
 the sweet tinkle of cow-bells coming from the deep vales, 
 mellowed and mingling in the nebulous air and perfumes of 
 the sweet Jul}'. 
 
 The two intermediate stations, Kaltbad and Staffel, were 
 busy scenes of tourist life; but why rest at the gate or 
 vestibule when we might mount to the cupola of the 
 Nymphs and Satyrs' glorious mansion ? So we pushed on 
 to Rigi-Kulm, where, pausing on the minaret of the granite 
 temple, I turned my eyes upon the marvellous panorama 
 around me. Various emotions struojorjed for utterance and 
 choked each other in their rapid succession. First, the 
 boundless power and majesty of God ; the daring confidence 
 and ingenuity of man ; the sad and benighted story related 
 by the antediluvian homes perched on these inaccessible 
 towers by generations passed away, who trod these paths 
 and knew only of earth what tliey could see far, far beneath 
 them ; like the crows, they had grown old and died in the 
 trees where they were born. 
 
 The lower dales lay at our feet with the lines of the farms, 
 and streams, and roads, fain* by the distance, greatly re- 
 sembling a to3' miniature of some distant metropolis. Few 
 of the pioneers of the granite hills ever trod the earth at 
 the base of the Rigi, but worshipped God and nature 
 among their own fields and herds. Close by was the more 
 pretentious modern civilization ; the outgrowth of the rail- 
 road and the course of intelligent travel attracted from all 
 parts of the world. 1 seemed to be standing on the edge 
 of a great planet, with all the marvels, air, sky, and water 
 and land spread out below and around me. Then again I 
 felt suspended in the atmosphere like the fairy on the great 
 bird in the Arabian Nighti>^ when the snow-clad Alps, one 
 hundred and twenty miles in length, burst upon my aston- 
 ished gaze : the chain began in the far east, and growing 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 353 
 
 noarer and nearer I saw the hnge snowy crests of the bleak 
 Glarnisch range, with their long white lines connecting 
 with the other ice giants of the series ; then my eyes 
 travelled to the Bernese Alps and tlieir shining peaks, the 
 A¥etterhorn and Jungfrau standing out in all the sub- 
 limity of silent and solitary majesty. The lakes shone 
 like silver mirrors below, the villages were painted pictures, 
 and the rivers meandered through the green campagna like 
 silken cords. Away beyond were the battlements and 
 towers of Lucerne, of schoolhouse and hospital, dense wood- 
 lands of the Black Forest, and the overguarding serrated 
 peaks of sombre, weird Pilatus. 
 
 Bej'oud and above all these glories is the sunrise and 
 sunset seen from the majestic peaks. All that I saw from 
 the car window is exhibited in the dawn in new lights and 
 cooler radiance ; as bright day advances the lakes seem to 
 rise near enough that we may see the ripples caused by 
 tossing in a stone, the beauties of the landscape flash upon 
 us in duplicated colors, and the ice, that has a cold stony 
 glitter under the rays of the full-risen sun, is at this hour 
 suffused in warm ros3' haze. 
 
 The motley groups gathered upon Kulm to watch for 
 the superb coming of the sun make of it a sort of Tower of 
 Babel, a conglomerate of dialects. There is no intimacy 
 between the various elements of this cosmopolitan camp- 
 meeting. Strangers they are and strangers they remain. 
 Strangers they come and strangers they go. One bond 
 only have they, that of curiosity, and it evaporates with the 
 dissolving tints of the mountain pageant. 
 
 Having risen to the clouds from Lake Lucerne, the enter- 
 tainment ended, we prepared to reach the mundane sphere 
 over the route leading to Arth, on the opposite side of the 
 great pile from V^itznau. Not nearly so perilous, wild, or 
 lengthy was our line of descent. The district was very 
 much like the Allegheny section of [Pennsylvania, and in a 
 fraction more than an hour we fouud ourselves on the bor- 
 ders of Lake Zug. Yery peaceful, and fruitful, and rural 
 is this famous vallej^ Harvest and ha3'making are close 
 neighbors in these mountain solitudes, and pretty valleys 
 are sent like compensations for the sterilit}'- of the ravines 
 of the higher latitudes. While Providence sends Alps on 
 Alps to Switzerland, and countless marvels of lakes, it 
 vouchsafes insuflScient harvests; neither gold, nor coal, nor 
 silver is among the treasures of these mountains. So, 
 the poor mountaineer must buy his fuel from Germany, his 
 
 30* 
 
354 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 food from the Baltic, and his light from the petroleum of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 The Valley of Arth, the Lake of Zug, and its city form 
 an elaborate and glowing entry to the city of Zurich. 
 
 LETTER LXVII. 
 
 *' On Zurich's spires, with rosy light, 
 
 The mountains smile at morn and eve, 
 And Zurich's waters, blue and bright, 
 The glories of those hills receive." 
 
 Thomas Buchanan Read. 
 
 Zurich, July, 1878. 
 
 Although it was an intensely tropical afternoon when 
 I came into Zurich, yet I marked the absence of dust and 
 insects. Its position at the head of its lake, bisected as it 
 is by several small streams and rivers, may be the antidote 
 to the former pest, while it would be only reasonable to 
 suppose these very causes would prove hotbeds of mos- 
 quitos and vermin. 
 
 Zurich is fascinating from its resemblance to Venice in 
 the color of sky and water toward sunset, and this impres- 
 sion is enhanced by the rosy haze that hangs from and 
 partly veils the distant mountains, and the expression of 
 the clear perspective of the rushing lake tributaries, that 
 seem drifting far away to some distant ocean. Still, trans- 
 formed into an almost Italian-looking city by the influ- 
 ences of color and climate, and by its busy life about 
 the quays, the preponderance of German elements weighs 
 down the whole place. There are the heavy, graceless 
 lines of Teutonic art, the broad awkward physique of the 
 women, the stolid bearing of the men. Indeed, the bridges, 
 boats, public institutions, and monuments all speak of a 
 race of beer drinkers and spec consumers. There are 
 indeed some modern squares, some glittering shops, and 
 other transcripts of Parisian prototypes, but they are 
 sad hybrids among the heavy crumbling stones of the 
 Sweitzer antiquities. 
 
 Even the villas bordering the water-edges seem to have 
 lost their beauty of outline, being neither French nor Ger- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 355 
 
 man ; 3'et here again the wonderful natural points of grace 
 and sublimity in all the vicinage fully compensate for the 
 defects of human creation. 
 
 Switzerland lacks entirely the palatial inland steamers 
 of the United States. Indeed, from the Mersey to the 
 Mediterranean, no such superb floating hotels are ever 
 met as adorn our great American rivers. But Switzer- 
 land, like Venice, is a marvellous architect of the graceful 
 smaller craft which pi}'- like butterflies up and down her 
 narrow streams. 
 
 Zurich being a learned city — a city of schools, semina- 
 ries, societies, and libraries — is also a musical cit}^, and 
 every evening in the Tonhalle, a fine open saloon on the 
 lake, are excellent concerts, and sometimes balls, where all 
 classes mingle. Seated around little tables, they eat, 
 drink, and decorously make merry, while out on the glit- 
 tering starlit water, hundreds of the more exclusive resi- 
 dents or travellers linger in their dancing boats and enjoy 
 the music of one of the finest orchestras I have met since 
 I left Paris. Thougii our position on the lake was satis- 
 factory, by paying twelve cents admission fee we changed 
 it for a seat in the temple of harmony, where the audience 
 was wholly genteel, consisting for the most part of trades- 
 men and their families enjo3ing wine and waltzes in true 
 domestic fashion. Unlike such amusements in America, 
 these concert gardens partake of no feature of the variety 
 show, and are tlierefore ever the resort of the refined. 
 Curiously, this tabernacle of Erato is transformed every 
 Friday into the scene of a discordant body by tlie sessions 
 of the Zurich Exchange or Bourse, where hundreds and 
 thousands of cotton dealers, silk manufacturers, railway 
 kings, and expatriated ex-sovereigns, eagerly congregate to 
 risk their fortunes upon the turbulent waters of barter, 
 here frequently most violently agitated, especially among 
 the silk merchants. But the hall of mellifluous cadences 
 will not long be defiled by the money-changers after the 
 new Bourse is completed, now constructing, which is to be 
 not only an imposing adornment to the city, but an epitaph 
 in stone to the generous citizen who bequeathed several 
 millions of francs as a tribute of gratitude to the town in 
 which he accumulated his fortune ; and his grand gift pays 
 for the new exchange. 
 
 Zurich is the centre of varied and conflicting theories, 
 and I was much surprised to find in this republican centre 
 so many sympathizers with monarchy, and to hear of a 
 
356 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 succession of discrowned German noblemen among its 
 Jtabitues. But disturbers of the peace, enemies of .kings 
 and murderers of royalt}^, lilve Nobling and his associates, 
 make this a point also of rendezvous and convergence. 
 The community is of pronounced sentiments and strong 
 attachments to republican institutions ; and free speech is the 
 motto of the little rei)ublic as it is of our greater one. The 
 Zurich hotels are indifferent after enjoying the superiority 
 of those of Lucerne. They are costly, and while the Baur au 
 Lac may boast an unrivalled position at the confluence of 
 the lake and the Limmat, with extensive wooded gardens, 
 that seem to float in the stream, the Bellevue, on the oppo- 
 site quay, adds poor fare and bad attendance to excessive 
 charges. Carriage hire is double in republican Zurich 
 what it is in imperial Korae. The charming simplicity of 
 the better classes is shown by their willingness to walk in 
 Zurich, while in the southern and sleepy cities of Italy 
 even the lazzaroni must ride. 
 
 In the suburbs of Zurich, upon an elevation overlooking 
 the city and a noble stretch of country, there is a charming- 
 resort. Wear}' merchants ride out here in summer after- 
 noons to dine under the shade of great trees, and travellers 
 leave the city without enjoying one of its greatest luxuries 
 unless they have, as we had, resident friends to conduct 
 them thither. Little tables are spread on the brow of the 
 hill in the open air, and all around the grounds are old 
 ladies knitting, young ones reading, with their children 
 jjlaying at their side or rocking in the swings ; here and 
 there family parties dining upon frugal cake and red wine. 
 There was no idle curiosity, as is always the case with too 
 many of the hollow pretenders who infest the great hotels; 
 no vulgar staring crowds, and no whispered comment. No 
 sooner does a stranger take a seat than he becomes one of 
 the domestic circle at the lowly Beau Sejour ; humble and 
 unostentatious it was, but had it been more aristocratic 
 and costly, it could not have been maintained without the 
 presence of, what is called at home, the fast class. Here 
 the light wines and modest charges repress intoxication, 
 and the meretricious element, even if it were allowed, would 
 not patronize its plain domesticity. 
 
 From this lofty seat the city lay compact and smoky be- 
 neath; great columns of gray and white steam issued from 
 the chimneys of the factories, while broad avenues of trees 
 gradually insinuated themselves through blocks of houses 
 and old streets, until all circumscribed city line was dis- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 35t 
 
 solver! in vineyards and orchards, or mazes of shrubbery. 
 The city was divided into two sections, and bordered upon 
 an outer margin by the waters of the Limmat and the Sihl, 
 like roads of shining crystal, until they joined and flowed 
 in one channel. Dark ridges of rock bound the city and 
 its environs, and these were again bound by the succession 
 of snowy crests of the beautiful Glarnisch range, that 
 rested their silver peaks in clear outline against the ever- 
 changing and duplicating colors of the clouds. These per- 
 spectives were as lovely as those of the Jungfrau — the pre- 
 siding divinity of Interlaken. 
 
 Although there is no communication between Switzerland 
 and the ocean, yet her fresh-water seas, her crystal lakes, 
 and the blue and arrowy mountain currents, furnish forth 
 a varied feast of fancy and of food ; a feast for the imagina- 
 tion in matchless landscape, and endless supplies for the 
 inner man ; and eagerly do the Swiss seize these attractions 
 and convert them into wealth. Their best hotels are placed 
 upon the quays. Again we note the strange similarity be- 
 tween these silent streams and the quiet monotony of the 
 Grand Canal at Venice. The pure waters of Lake Zurich 
 and the wedded streams adjacent promote the health of 
 the hordes of stalwart men and women, and are the uncon- 
 scious contributors to the exquisite quality of its silks, 
 which create the local nabobs and millionaires. 
 
 There is no better place to study and satisfy one's self 
 as to the existence of a prehistoric world than in the anti- 
 quarian department of the town library at Zurich. If I, 
 with the rest of mankind, fell a victim to the popular fal- 
 lacy of regarding all we read of the mammoth epoch 
 amusing extravaganzas, coined from an exceedingl}'^ fertile 
 but erratic brain, has the fault rested with the community 
 of readers, or with the few who knew or assumed to know 
 of what they wrote? Why should whole lives be passed 
 in scientific experiments or explorations if it be not to en- 
 rich and instruct mankind ? For years every atom of self- 
 existent matter, relative to the ages preceding written 
 tradition, culled from the earth by the archjeologist and 
 cherished by the antiquarian, has been woven into a fairy 
 tale for small boys. These works were not only perused 
 with doubt by the masses, but, literally, with the feeling 
 that there was not a word or line of them that the author 
 had intended to be believed. But these very works set 
 forth some years ago as conglomerates of trash, to-day 
 take fresh hold upon the best minds of the world. It is 
 
358 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 certainly not to the advancement of mankind to have new 
 discoveries presented as vagaries. Theadbare historical 
 facts may serve as a basis to scores of romantic tales, but 
 paradoxical theories treated in a like manner can exert 
 none other than an evil influence. 
 
 Now, in this museum, there is abundant proof of the lake 
 dwellings which existed in these territories through the 
 epoclis of stone, bronze, and iron, thousands of years be- 
 fore the birth of Christ ; here are the relics of the wonder- 
 ful discovery of a people more or less civilized living in tlie 
 water valleys between the Alps in houses, or rather huts, 
 erected upon piles driven in the bottom of the lake. 
 
 " In the winter of 1853-54 the Swiss streams and lakes 
 were lower than they had ever been known. At Meilin, on 
 Lake Zurich, some workmen took advantage of the receded 
 waters to excavate earth from the lake beds, for the pur- 
 pose of filling in additional garden spots on the shore ; 
 while thus engaged they were astonished by striking their 
 spades into wliat proved to be the tops of many wooden 
 piles, arranged in clusters and in rows." This is the key- 
 note to the whole amazing revelation. 
 
 Before me were spread miniature model plans of the 
 homes of these antique and mysterious people, built upon 
 piles driven in the early lake-beds, until rotting away by 
 the slow progress of time they formed peat, upon which 
 other similar piles were erected, and new villages grew up 
 upon tiie homes and graves of those who had gone centu- 
 ries before. Their implements of labor, the ornaments 
 they wore, their cooking utensils, the vestiges of their 
 clothing, and the remains of their food, tell only half the 
 secret of the unravelled mystery. Here are the evidences 
 of cities that were old when Pompeii was in its inftincy. 
 Strongest amongst the proofs is the number of cubes of 
 peat formed under the water. The known period it re- 
 quires to grow this substance being calculated, if we could 
 tell nothing of the era of their existence by the relics of 
 stone and bronze, is the one fact of nature to destroy all 
 incredulity. Those who might have been doubters at home 
 can be so no longer, after such a personal experience as I 
 had in the presence of performed facts. 
 
 Science is quietly assuming the ascendency all over the 
 universe, and presently, that is, in the course of a century 
 or two, there will be no mile of sky, no spot of earth, and 
 no rood of water, that will not be probed by the chemist, 
 the astronomer, the geologist, the geographer, the anato- 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 359 
 
 mist, or the explorer. What all such processes will do, 
 we can foretell by what they have done. The outlook is 
 very interesting, and we may fondly hope that if man has 
 entered upon so grand a career, he may improve himself as 
 he improves the face of the world in which he lives. 
 
 LETTER LXYIII. 
 
 The Temple builders, where are they ! 
 The worshippers most passed away ; 
 Who came the first to offer there 
 The song' of praise, the heart of prayer ! 
 Man's generation passes soon- 
 It comes and changes like the moon. 
 He rears the perishable wall, 
 But ere it crumble he himself must fall. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Strassburg, July, 1878. 
 
 Switzerland is so small a country in comparison with 
 the rest of Europe, that despite her beautiful lakes, great 
 mountains, and brave people, one is compelled to wonder 
 why she has not been ground to powder by the great nations 
 ranged about her. So, when I left Zurich, bidding farewell 
 to Switzerland, for Constance, a German town in the prov- 
 ince of Baden-Baden, it was very like leaving a village for 
 the broader sights of a vast city. 
 
 There was the usual array of Alpine heights and glens 
 flush with the fragrant flowers of rural rest until we came 
 in sight of the Rhine Falls, whose foaming flow varied the 
 German-Swiss picture. This cataract, a tame transcript of 
 the white thunders of Niagara, is a cascade of greater vol- 
 ume than any other in Europe. Erom tlie car window I 
 could enjoy in quiet dignity the voluminous efl^ux of the 
 upper waters and the agitation of the lower stream, as the 
 torrent after leaping over three unequal ridges of rock 
 plunged into its channel, fermenting the glassy green surge 
 into a broil of creamy froth, and rushing away down the 
 tide in a variegated foam. There were little skiffs, driven 
 around in the whirlpool by the waves, that seemed about to 
 be rifled of their human freight, while numerous rainbows 
 formed above them in arches of spray. Perhaps it would 
 have been a proof of my own intrepidity had I risked 
 
360 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 my life in one of these cockle-shells that I miglit gaze from 
 the pavilion on the summit of the central rock into the 
 wliirl below, or traced the man}'' footpaths to the iron 
 platform overhanging the roaring abyss, or mounted the 
 terraces and parapets near the sluices left and right, but 
 1 relinquished all these delights in favor of the pleasanter 
 memories of a safe inside situation. 
 
 I do not know if one may say he has seen a town by 
 merely riding through its streets and along its wharves, but 
 1 feel sure I saw as much of the municipality of Schaff- 
 hausen in my desultory rambles as if I had lived there 
 several weeks. I saw that it retained all the deformities 
 and none of the beauties of its mediaeval origin. The build- 
 ings were, without exception, tall and flat, with a garish 
 showing of rude mosaic fa§ades and flashy frescoes, with 
 florid Dutch cornices and buttresses and rude adornments 
 in startling places. They were dimmed and blackened by 
 age, and seemed falling to decay, while the streets were un- 
 cleanly ; and the fierce rays of the sun which fell over and 
 among all this moth-eaten, rusty community of drones, only 
 exaggerated the deficiencies. In the tropical summer noon 
 the windows and shutters were all closed, the city was 
 asleep, and the atrocious statuary of the old town stood 
 boldly forth in hideous ugliness. 
 
 A boat that would have been a disgrace to a Pennsylva- 
 nia canal before railroads were dreamed of lay at the crum- 
 bling, worm-eaten wharf to carry us up the Rhine, and over 
 Lake Constance. It was little larger than the old-fashioned 
 passenger craft employed between Harrisburg and Wil- 
 liarasport, but without a single convenience of those tor- 
 toise conveyances, with one exception : it was propelled by 
 steam. First and second class passengers were carried on 
 the upper and only deck, and indeed, when cattle were 
 brought aboard at some of the lake stations, thej^ too occu- 
 l)ied a corner of the same floor. There were long benches 
 of rude slats alternated with spaces, through which the 
 occupants were in imminent danger of falling, if the utmost 
 care was not practised when disposing of the body. Per- 
 forated and ventilated backs are in a way a blessing in sum- 
 mer, but upon the comfort of such accommodations 1 need 
 not dilate. Fortunately, I had my inevitable cushion, which 
 I used as a throttle to the yawning gap beneath. As the 
 boat shoved off the superannuated quay, a begrimed awning 
 was stretched over the heads of the highest price payers, 
 the other poor devils were left to melt in the African tem- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 361 
 
 peratnre. The mercury stood at 95°, and I suffered as 
 much in the fervent glow as I had in the caloric of the 
 fiimous Centennial summer in Philadelphia. The unfurling 
 of the canvas I hailed, at least, as a humane act, and had 
 just commenced to feel partly compensated for my suffer- 
 ing upon the benches, resembling the tortures of the In- 
 quisition, when our only shelter was deliberately removed, 
 and in the fierce fire of the tropical afternoon we rode and 
 roasted for four hours. Umbrellas and sun-shades were 
 vainly raised to screen the passengers from the white flame. 
 Protests would have been futile ; suffering was inexorable 
 and, indeed, the German gentlemen seemed rather to enjoy, 
 or to say the least, they were indifferent to the ordeal, look- 
 ing clean and cool in their immaculate linen, while 1 was in 
 a glow of perspiration. 
 
 The whole experience was a horror : in the manners of 
 the passengers, in the customs of the attendants, in the 
 suffocating steamer. How many complaints are scored 
 against my countrymen ; j^et, taking them as a mass, where 
 do we find greater delicacy of conduct? For example: a 
 rather tine-iooking German woman, suffering from the com- 
 mon affliction, sprawled herself out at full length regardless 
 of her pedal extremities, and slumbered all through the 
 fabled shores of the Rhine, and upon the lauded bosom of 
 Lake Constance. At every low bridge, and there were 
 many, the smoke-pipe was lowered, belching forth a supple- 
 mental volcano upon the unoffending, yet much offended, 
 heads of the barbecued pilgrims ; and to complete the out- 
 rage, a mammoth steer was lugged on deck amongst the 
 terrified company. Was there ever an American organiza- 
 tion that attempted such a studied outrage upon the travel- 
 ling community ? Among the thousands of transatlantic 
 tourists is there no one to censure ? Is there not one voice 
 raised in protest from our travelling representative men ? 
 Why does not Thomas Cook fulminate against the entire 
 affair ; his tickets are used upon the line, and his general 
 system I cannot too honestly commend ; but in such a case 
 he should interfere to protect his own interests, if not to 
 secure the comfort of his patrons. 
 
 But, despite these wretched drawbacks, both shores were 
 interesting throughout the narrow course of the Rhine. 
 
 There was much that was shabby, ragged, and sterile. 
 
 There was none of the rugged Alpine scenerj'-, and it was 
 
 not until we drifted into Lake Constance with its blue 
 
 waters and storied villas, gleaming white through the lofty 
 
 31 
 
302 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 forests, that something of an Italian glamour surrounded 
 me. 
 
 In Germany 1 The buzz of the broad guttural verna- 
 cular, and the demands of custom-house officers to ex- 
 amine baggage, told the potent truth. By the treaty of 
 Presburg in K'-OS Constance was adjudged to Baden, and 
 when Germany was unified in 1866 its own local sovereign, 
 together with all the host of little dukes, was swept away 
 by the stern iron arm of Bismarck, and now Germany is 
 like the United States, one harmonious people. 
 
 We came into the harbor of the Bay of Constance in 
 the sweet evening, after our day of damnable basting on 
 the water, and as we neared the long curved pier the quaint 
 old German city lay calmly l)eautiful in the opaline glory 
 of the falling sun on the distant snow peaks. The reflec- 
 tion on the mounds of ice, and their colors duplicated 
 against the sky, had so blended cloud and mr)uutaiu that 
 where the crystal ridges ended and the ethereal dome 
 began was utterly indiscernible, until as the sun disappeared 
 entirel}', the dark rocks drew their own profile against the 
 heavens. 
 
 Early the next morning — Sunday — I was awakened by 
 a German military band coming over the bridge, discours- 
 ing the march from "Fatinitza;" what with the transcen- 
 dent music of the brass instruments, the hush of the new 
 day, and the pellucid reverbation of sound as it fell on the 
 water, the whole produced an effect I shall never outlive, 
 and wherever or whenever I hear the same strains again, 
 but one thought will be suggested, one code of events re- 
 produced — Constance and its memories. 
 
 The flourish of trumpets and beat of drums meant a 
 parade of the Constance fire brigade. So I looked from 
 my window in the warm Sabbath and saw in the arid 
 streets below a crowd and display ver^^ like our own 
 pageants of a similar character, with the one exception of 
 the Sunday frolic. Here again we had Paris. I had been 
 so long amidst the rigid Catholicism of Italy, and so full 
 of the provincialism of Swiss forests, that this saturnalia 
 was ver}' like sacrilege. The streets and broad squares 
 were alive with military melody and surging populace, but 
 shortly after twelve o'clock the revellers retired, sober, 
 subdued, and satisfied. There were no Swiss costumes in 
 the throng ; the odd dress of the German burgher and his 
 homely wife is gradually assuming its authority, as is the 
 German silver mark. The Helvetian coins and Italian lira 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 363 
 
 are no more, though the French franc has been with us 
 from Paris, it too lias disappeared and we are to learn a new 
 money table of marks, pfennigs, florins, thalers, and kreut- 
 zers. It seems only yesterday since the French currency 
 ruled all ; now the hand of this powerful government over- 
 spreads its entire domain ; the broad German mark and 
 the ubiquitous soldier vindicate the master intellect that 
 dominaites the great state through all its borders. 
 
 The characteristics of the German in America are tyi)i- 
 cal of them on their native heath. The Sunday noon being 
 fair, the railway carriages were filled by the better classes 
 travelling in family parties on little pastoral jaunts, as 
 well as by third class the same as the working people. In 
 all this broad extent of country there was not a beggar; 
 the poorest were clean and decorous ; the higher degrees 
 robed in the Parisian fashions ; but there were many 
 strange uniforms amongst the peasantr3\ In the district 
 of Romberg the women wore black petticoats, scarlet 
 bodices, broad-brimmed straw hat, setting around the face 
 like a nimbus, ornamented with black or red rosettes ; 
 while the men trudged by their sides in black coats lined 
 with crimson, and very curious was the effect they pro- 
 duced ; as the sun went down on the gray hills they shone 
 like fireflies in the deepening shadows. Sunday as it was, 
 the fields were full of laborers of both sexes. Have I not 
 said enough of the way in which the females are burdened 
 here ? With the hauling, and moving, and sawing, and 
 being harnessed with dogs and donke3'S, they are so un- 
 sexed that all the higher feminine faculties and fascinations 
 seem to have faded, leaving the animal nature paramount. 
 Yet we have been taught, and still there is an effort afoot 
 to sustain the doctrine, that all connection with science, 
 philosophy, and logic, energizes the female mind beyond its 
 circumscribed limits, — once having drifted into the channel 
 of the deeper arts there is an irresistible undercurrent that 
 carries her out and out beyond her delicate status, and 
 eventually makes her virile, prosaic, and unsentimental. 
 But which is to make the most utter devastation with the 
 spiritual and carnal beauty of woman, brutish labor or 
 mental exercise ? True, the latter may, in time, deprive 
 her cheek of some of its exquisite contour, or reduce the 
 blooming flesh tints to a tone less dazzling, and the eye 
 may be restless instead of soft and lustrous ; but, the light 
 of intellect sheds a glorious halo over all personal defi- 
 ciencies. 
 
 % 
 
304 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 Assuredly, this practice of extreme manual labor rnnst 
 account for the absence of beauty among the lower orders 
 of women in Continental Europe. I scanned the crowds 
 coming and going in the cars, and save that they were 
 clean, sober, and apparently happy, there was not a comely 
 woman in the throng. The men were far better looking as 
 a class; their fresh blonde complexions and hair, and erect 
 bearing, rather indicated tliat while the women were reared 
 to work the men were educated to war. I had ample op- 
 portunity to study the German faces and phases, as there 
 liad been an industrial exhibition at Triberg in the very 
 heart of the Black Forest, and here the peasants came in 
 droves from their various little hamlet-homes, where their 
 lives are passed in making watches and clocks, to be sent 
 far out in the great world of which they know so little. 
 
 Our way through the Black Forest was marked by many 
 of the impressive features of the borders of the Mediter- 
 ranean or the Alpine districts; first, in the number of 
 tunnels, and then in the wild scenery and the herculean 
 labor of the forest-workers. Sweeping plains, awful chasms, 
 and flinty mountain-ranges, flew by us like shadows across 
 a brilliant mirror. Yet it was indeed Germany, dark, 
 heavy, impenetrable, and stolid; Germany without excuse 
 or qualification. Very like the riotous luxuriance of 
 southern French or Italian-Swiss landscape, still lacking 
 all of their indescribable charm that is their mysterious 
 fascination. The landscape had a Bismarckian outlook. 
 
 The tunnelling of the Black Forest is another revelation 
 in railway science. Until I had seen the Italian lines, my 
 ideas, like most untra veiled Americans, were that the rail- 
 roads of the United State?, especially those across the 
 Rocky Mountains, were unparalleled in the difficulties of 
 construction, as the}' are known to be unequalled in the 
 extent of country they traverse ; but all these preconceived 
 notions faded before the over two hundred tunnels of Italy, 
 eight consecutive miles under Mont Cenis, and finally by 
 the nine continuous miles of St. Gothard, now construct- 
 ing jointly' by Italy, Germany, and Switzerland ;' and the 
 revelation of the Black Forest, seemed to me a more 
 stupendous work than any of the others. Vast mineral 
 treasures la}^ in the ridges of these granite hills. Timber, 
 coal, and water mingle with incredible varieties of agricul- 
 ture and a long catalogue of diversified manufactures. In 
 one hundred miles of travel there was a series of tunnels, 
 carriage-roads, bridges, and viaducts that followed each 
 other in marvellous and rapid succession. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 365 
 
 All through the Black Forest there are thousands of 
 archaic relics of every description. Old abbeys, castles, 
 and chateaux recall the ancient times when Germany was 
 divided among many princes and priests; and as the train 
 flashes along its iron ways glimpses may be caught of tan- 
 neries, factories, wine-presses, sweet villages, and broad 
 fields, which attest the opulence and power of this mag- 
 nificent German Empire. Ruins are as frequent as in 
 Ital}^, and the appending tales as weird and romantic. The 
 Chateau of Ortenburg, which occupies an ancient site of a 
 stronghold destro3'ed in the seventeenth century, cannot 
 fail to attract the attention of the traveller; the vine-clad 
 hills nestled closely about its base, and in the tastefully 
 planted grounds where the patter of little feet and the 
 shout of happy childish voices, ringing as jubilantly on the 
 summer air as if the spot had never been harrowed by 
 bloody faction. Wherever we looked there was scenery as 
 wild and legends as spectral as those of Greece or Egypt, 
 and despite the repulsive guttural dialect of even the best- 
 educated German, I do not marvel at the desire of tiie 
 English to travel through the Black Forest, with its quaint 
 old towns, its simple-hearted people, its impenetrable 
 wildernesses, its geological formations, all so much at va- 
 riance with the crowded cities, narrow limits, and dissi- 
 pated populace of their own boasted kingdom. 
 
 Had landscape and tradition alone been tlie surrounding 
 influences 1 might have imagined I was in some far-famed 
 land of the gods; but all this fair delusion was dissolved 
 by the continued and curious commotion of travel and the 
 disagreeable twang and jaw-dislocators of the passengers. 
 I picked up these few and then searched a German lexicon 
 for the translation : Donseuschingen, an ancient town ; 
 Nibelungenlied, a library ; Kilpenstrasse, a street: Ehlen- 
 bogenthal, Kinzigthal, Eberstienstrasse, Jugeehweiler, Geic- 
 senkopfchen, Gimmeldingen, Guncenbachthal, Schweppen- 
 hausen; now these are proper names, and I have not picked 
 the most abstruse either. As we go into the body of the 
 German speech ordinary terms are apparentl}'^ more incom- 
 prehensible ; yet, in this language Luther partly conquered 
 the Catholic Church, Goethe and Schiller electrified the 
 hemispheres by their verse, and to-day it creates a litera- 
 ture of magazines, newspapers, and every variety of books, 
 that even puts the pedantic English publisher to the blush. 
 Then to heap Ossa on Pelion was the shouting, horn-blow- 
 ing, and bell-ringing at every station, and I longed for the 
 
366 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 English silence and the promptitude of our own system, 
 but 1 remembered that England is a very small and com- 
 pact kingdom, and that American railways run in straiglit 
 lines with comparatively few branches, while the continent 
 of liurope is made complex by its various powers, coins, 
 dialects, religions, customs, and laws, and that its rail- 
 roads receive and discharge every day specimens of nearly 
 all the civilized travellers of the age. It is by these sounds 
 then that necessary communication is held between officials 
 and passengers. My theory was confirmed by the arrival 
 of a heavily laden train of cosmopolitan tourists, and their 
 amusing conflicts with the German kelners, guards, cab- 
 diivers, and hotel porters, when tiiey, speaking but one lan- 
 guage and the underlings not more than two, expected all 
 their questions to be answered immediately and intelli- 
 gently, whether ai)plied in Turkish, Greek, English, Chi- 
 nese, Russian, or Japanese, and then flew into the most 
 turbulent passion, while the Teuton preserved his stolid 
 equanimity. 
 
 At the historic town of Kehl — half an hour from Strass- 
 burg — I saw for the first time some of the scars left by the 
 war of 1870. This was indeed Germany, or Germany with 
 a French heart. Fortifications stretched all about ; as far 
 as the eye could reach, in every direction were those great 
 circular projecting mounds, and I could easily see traces 
 of the advancing columns of the mighty host that swept 
 down upon the French battalions. 
 
 Strasburg, the capital of Alsace and German Lorraine, 
 the headquarters of the 15th corps of the Teuton forces, is 
 German in speech, German in dress, and for two hundred 
 years German in the customs of its inhabitants, and yet as 
 thoroughly French, heart and soul, as the occupants of the 
 Rue de Rivoli or the Faubouro: St. Honor^ in Paris. 
 
 Strasburg is a quaint city of many gables, chimneys, 
 red-tiled roofs, and a mingling of French, German, and 
 Swiss architecture. I cannot say that any portion of it 
 impressed me as being pretty. There are some fine shops 
 in the business portion ; but the many platz of the city, 
 which were intended as adornment, had a scorched arid 
 appearance, and the dust seemed to have penetrated the 
 houses ; as was the fact at the hotel, where the cuisine was 
 unexcelled and the floors and furniture grimy, with a gene- 
 ral aroma in contradiction of the "sweet south breathing 
 o'er a bank of violets." There is no time spent in the cul- 
 tivation of taste for municipal erubellishmeuts. Structures 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. . 307 
 
 are colored yellow, or red, or blue, while multitudinous 
 chimneys start out from the most inconceivable points in 
 as great a diversity of shapes as in numbers, and facades 
 and eaves are florid with wood carvings. The building 
 called the Old House in Strasburg is highly ornate with 
 wooden sculptures, capitals and eaves, and gabled roof, 
 and very like an exalted edition of a Swiss chalet. It is 
 the oldest standing house of the cit}', and though its archi- 
 tecture is weird its looks of preservation belie its years. 
 
 One cannot speak of Strasburg and omit its Cathedral 
 with its seven hundred years of history, its mingled archi- 
 tecture, — Romanesque and Gothic, — its numerous sculp- 
 tures, its beautiful interior, and its dizzy tower, which I 
 did not ascend ; I am tired crawling up and down crooked 
 stairways to meet with nothing but aching limbs and un- 
 requited efforts, and peril mj'^ life through the stone fret- 
 work of the upper tower. Neither did I look upon the 
 embalmed bodies of a German Prince and his daughter, as 
 1 have tasted ad nauseam of canonized saints and apotheo- 
 sized sinners, dead priests raised to the empyrean, and 
 sublimated princes. 
 
 I turned away from all these attractive reminiscences of 
 distilled carnality into one of the many crami)ed crooked 
 streets, and was surprised at the vast quantity of sabots for 
 sale at an humble shop door. They were packed in barrels 
 and tubs, and heaped upon the sidewalk, where the peasants 
 were purchasing them at three marks (seventy-five cents) 
 per pair; one pair wears two years. Heavy, awkward, 
 cruel, tortuous inventions, ruder than the rudest l)rogans, 
 and confessing, as it were, the extreme destitution of the 
 proletaires. The poor toilers who wear these barbarous 
 wooden shoes were working on the highways, and difficult 
 it was to distinguish the sexes ; they looked like pictures 
 of a feudal age. 
 
 The cynosure of Strasburg is the barracks, which con- 
 stitutes a series of girdles to the city. One gate after 
 another, guarded by grim Teutons, we passed ; one moun- 
 tain of earth after another we rode over, until I surely 
 thought we must have passed the limitation of fortification, 
 and still again and again the strong outworks loomed before 
 me in the July twilight.. Thirteen ridges of defence, four 
 and five miles from the town, proved not only what the 
 French had constructed to debar the Germans, and built 
 in vain, but what the Germans have since erected as a pro- 
 tection should the French attempt to step in and renew 
 
308 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the dance which they so impulsively opened eight years 
 ago. 
 
 The driver of the hack was a thorough Alsatian, and the 
 volubility of his German confirmed the sincerity of his 
 French affections. He pointed out the extensive military 
 barracks of the various divisions of the German army corps 
 now quartered at Strasburg; the captured ammunition 
 and valuable bronzes, relics of the conquests of Napoleon 
 I. ; designated the portions of the city destroyed by the re- 
 sistless Germans in their terrific bombardment for five days 
 in August of 18*70. There seemed enough confiscated fire- 
 arms and balls to make war on the universe, and as the 
 poor fellow looked at these victorious trophies of the con- 
 querors, he related his story with all the gestures of an 
 excited Parisian, and not with the stolid austerity of the 
 victors. He had convinced himself that the French empire 
 was tlie only government for the working classes, and I 
 was impressed with the contrast between this plebeian Im- 
 perialist and the quiet, strong dignity of the oflHcer in 
 command of the fortifications, indicative, as it were, of the 
 difference between the volatile gasconade of the Alsatian 
 and the silent power of the German. 
 
 As we crossed the great bridge of boats over the Rhine 
 we were greeted by a swarm of mosquitos that boarded us 
 with spileful unanimity, vividly recalling home. We fled 
 from the assault in honest terror, but when we re-entered 
 the cit}' our myriad enemies had retreated ; they seemed to 
 confine themselves to the river precincts., 
 
 LETTER LXIX. 
 
 Noise less (\arlsriihe, grave of Dncal piide ! 
 
 Whose sileiil life is speechless boolis, 
 Tlie daily haven of the truant bride. 
 
 Or evening shelter of tlie noisy rooks. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Cablsruhe, July, 1878. 
 
 In passing from the mountains, glaciers, and lakes of 
 Switzerland, I miss the congenial climate, wild pictures, 
 and quaint dress of the peasant-women, with the white rib- 
 bons wound in the plaits of their brown hair ; but in Ger- 
 many I have found excessive heat, flies, and mosquitos, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 369 
 
 and these, if not exactly a compensation for the transcendent 
 pleasures of the Alpine Repul)lic, are, at least, sharp re- 
 minders of home. 
 
 The journey from Strasburg to Carlsrulie was a short, 
 pleasant one, despite the torrid heat. The Grand Duchy 
 of Baden is a lovely agricultural region, redolent of flowers 
 and trees and the fresh earth, and principally interesting 
 by our course through the former gambling town of Baden- 
 Baden. Stripped of its glittering robes of sin, its only at- 
 tractions are now its healing waters and lovely environs. 
 Tiiere was something of a Newport air about the station, 
 the fine hotels, the cosy restaurants, and shad}' avenues that 
 showed it to be a conservatory of attractions for those of 
 full pockets and aristocratic tastes ; yet Baden-Baden has 
 only a local population of 11,000, chiefly Boman Catholic. 
 Now that the sinners have gone since the Emperor William 
 whipped the money-changers from the brilliant temples of 
 Baden-Baden, all the sumptuous palaces erected with the 
 gamester's money are used by the moral multitudes, who 
 seem to have forgotten the pleasure of sin to which they 
 were long dedicated. Baden-Baden, with its groves, water- 
 falls, theatres, and even churches l)uilt by Mr. Benezet, the 
 late king gambler, has a decorous, sedate air, and a fair, 
 healthy appearance, where one might find the calm of rustic 
 refinement and happiness. The old paradise of hazard 
 seems to be given up to what claims to be a newer and 
 better generation. 
 
 Carlsruhe, capital of the Grand Duchy of Baden, is rather 
 a new town, a fact readily perceived by the modern and 
 unsoiled architecture, the outgrowth of the miniature town 
 erected by the prince about his hunting-grounds in 1*715, 
 since ruled by a succession of local monarchs of one family 
 until 1866, when all these petty feudalities were abolished 
 by order of Bismarck, after the German armies had defeated 
 the Austrians, and the many principalities of German}- lie- 
 came united under one sovereign head. It is a dismal siglit 
 to see the splendid palaces of the expatriated provincial 
 kings standing all around in grim solitude ; silent among 
 their own highly cultivated grounds, fountains, and stat- 
 uary, while their former possessors, who lived and revelled 
 in them, are now passing their days in foreign countries, 
 not daring to return to their own. The Grand Duke Fre^i- 
 erick William, having married the daughter of Kaiser Wil- 
 helm, was not one of the nobles obliged to flee, through 
 their allegiance to Austria ; he still reigns in the palace, 
 
370 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 from which the town radiates fan-shaded. The uprooting 
 of the host of smaller empires by which Germany was over- 
 run has proven immensely advantageous to the comfort of 
 the masses. 
 
 Carlsruhe seems more a town of wealthy burghers and 
 students than of manufactures. It is clean, and has a do- 
 mestic air not found in any of the Swiss-German cities. It 
 is a city of art schools, libraries, and a vast polytechnic, 
 with seven hundred students. What laborers I saw seemed 
 to be working leisurely' on expensive new houses; there is 
 a calm, sleepy, pulseless indolence in the place that invites 
 repose, yet the institutions of learning indicate exceptional 
 prosperity. These attractions and architectural wonders 
 of harmony and style loudly proclaim the difference be- 
 tween the simplicity of republics and the extravagance of 
 monarchies. The American city passenger cars that pass 
 ray window, the happy children on their way to school, with 
 their shining, morning faces, — carrying the same descrip- 
 tion of satchel we see at home, and whistling the same airs 
 we hear there, — and the well-dressed wayfarers recall keenly 
 similar sights in Philadelphia. There is less character in 
 dress and habits here than in Italy or Switzerland, yet 
 human costumes and customs are very much alike every- 
 where. Germany differs from France, as Berks County 
 differs from Philadelphia ; as, indeed, plain people differ 
 from polished ones ; 3'et for all this disparity there is infi- 
 nite grandeur in the palaces and parks of the old disman- 
 tled nobility, and in the great public edifices they erected 
 when they were lords and masters of the multiplicit}' of 
 German duchies and towns. 
 
 The estates of the present Grand Duke, that is the palace 
 and parks, may be said to occupy the acropolis or central 
 point of a district fram which the city diverges in front, 
 while the hunting-grounds of Hardwald spread out to the 
 rear. The castle and its appendages, — dining, banqueting, 
 and reception halls,-^sumptuously ap[)ointed, form a semi- 
 circle, with the stables on the east and the court theatre on 
 the right, which is still used for public amusements. Here 
 is another of those monuments of regal folh'' in a town of 
 limited population, with a highly finished exterior; the 
 ])ediment containing reliefs of Goethe, Schiller, Mozart, 
 Beethoven, and Gluck, while the interior is only a repeti- 
 tion of all those highly embellished public structures so 
 abundant on the Continent. The palace gardens are as 
 exquisite in fountains, statues, gay flower-plots, palm- 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 371 
 
 houses, and orangeries as a freshly painted scene in a glow- 
 ing play. The flag was flying from the turret to indicate 
 the duke's presence; a detachment of German soldiers was 
 at the main gate as we entered, and the sovereign's three 
 hundred servants at their many vocations, yet with all 
 there was a pronounced air of indolence about the palace 
 as we sauntered through tiie halls and art gallery enjo3^iug 
 the gems of the modern German school. Most of the paint- 
 ings are from the pencil of the former and present director 
 of the Carlsruhe Academy, though there are some few by 
 the older Dutch artists, Jan Steen and Rembrandt. But 
 Carlsruhe being an art city with an art quarter, and a 
 galax}^ of studios gathered in one corner of the town, pat- 
 ronizes and encourages principally the modern school and 
 the rising aspirants. Rhenish art is progressing rapidly 
 now in all the larger German cities, as we notice in the ar- 
 chitecture as well as in painting. 
 
 Military guards were stationed all about the vast palace 
 grounds, still there were no signs of activity, no guests, 
 and no evidences of a family. At length I came across one 
 of the young scions of the noble house playing with a ball 
 on a back porch, yet playing in a restrained way, as if he 
 had been imbued, by long and thorough instruction, with 
 the thought that to surrender himself to his impulses and 
 sportive desires would be to degrade his dignity ; and so 
 the boy grows up never to know what true, blithe, heedless, 
 unambitious childhood is ; childhood with mud and mire, 
 patched breeches and tops, scuffed boots and scarred hands. 
 The absence of all life and hilarity seemed to be the normal 
 condition of the regal home; yet there were other evidences 
 of high and luxurious living in the presence of the paper- 
 capped French chef and his corps. As the son-in-law of 
 the Emperor of Germany, and the descendant of the Grand 
 Dukes of Baden, he is perhaps entitled to exceptional ad- 
 vantages, but the visit made rather a sad impression. 
 Here was the throne-room of the Kaiser, when he came to 
 his daughter's palace, with a suite of luxurious apartments, 
 yet all deserted and silent, waiting as it were for the visit 
 that is not paid but once a 3'^ear. The Duke is fortunate in 
 his near relation to the reigning family of the empire, and 
 in his fidelity to the German cause which made its many 
 principalities one in the struggle twelve years ago. Others 
 fled to the side of Austria, or faltered, and suffered in con- 
 sequence of their defection, but the Grand Duke of Baden 
 remained true, and is novv rewarded by the confidence of 
 his king and the love of his people. 
 
372 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 What with his servants, and hundred carriages, and 
 eighty liorses, and contingent of invited guests, the Duke 
 must spend every year a large fortune. When we reflect 
 liow many such estal)lishments exist throughout the Conti- 
 nent and the British Jsles, do we longer doubt there is jus- 
 tice in the wail of those who demand a redistribution of 
 the accumulated wealth of the world? 
 
 LETTER LXX. 
 
 A blended glory spread around — 
 The workshop of imperial mind — 
 
 Goethe has made it holy ground, 
 And Luther sacred to mankind. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Frankfort-on-Main, July, 1878. 
 
 Our route from Carlsruhe to Frankfort carried us through 
 a country closely connected with the history of American 
 independence. And though Heidelberg was the first and 
 chief feature, the Grand Duchj'- of Hesse holds a dearer 
 place in the heart of my nation. They are both pregnant 
 of history. Heidelberg through its illustrious university ; 
 Darmstadt, capital of Hesse, has a different claim upon our 
 regard: the one has given us great scholars, lights to sci- 
 ence and art ; the other sustained an equivocal relation to 
 the American struggle for equality and iudependence. 
 
 Heidelberg is no longer an exclusive nursery of savants ; 
 it has been modernized by a brisk commerce, and has lost 
 much of its precious literary character. The aged dust of 
 centuried learning has been swept away b3' the besom of 
 trade, the clouds of golden lore have evaporated, mustj^ 
 professors have been pushed aside by bustling merchants, 
 and the odor of books has been replaced bj' the variety of 
 other manufactures. Tiie University, though still enjoying 
 an attendance of seven hundred students, is bereft of its 
 former prestige. The castle, a monument of the thirteenth 
 century, is like Kenilworth, a vast ruin; having been the 
 prey of vandal hordes for five hundred years, the victim of 
 great fires, and finally the target of the lightning bolt. 
 The student reads in it the progress of the feudal ages, and 
 in its ivy-hung remains contrasts the eternal rejuvenescence 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 313 
 
 of nature and the instability of the proudest monuments 
 erected by human hands to human glory. All the old in- 
 fluences seem to have died with the years. The embers 
 now only smoulder amongst the ashes of forgotten learning 
 and perished royalty. 
 
 Still the vicinity of Heidelberg is thronged by visitors in 
 the season, but the busiest places are the well-ordered 
 hotels. The sparkling waters and wooded heights and 
 green forests are like so many fresh maidens, with all the 
 exhilarating fascination of their pastoral home, still untar- 
 nished by the glare of metropolitan gaslight and the taint 
 of social familiarity, proving the eternal youth of a recrea- 
 tive world. 
 
 Now Darmstadt has a population twice the number of 
 Heidelberg, and as a natural sequence has quite a munici- 
 pal attraction. In its handsome streets, fine squares, noble 
 pleasure-grounds, valuable library, galleries of pictures, an- 
 tiquities, and coins, a theatre, a palace, and the usual ap- 
 purtenances of royal towns, it offers mostly the charm 
 sought by tourists in greater cities. The whole neighbor- 
 hood is crowded with the remains of the residences of no- 
 bility, reviving the harsh features of the olden time, when 
 the masses were ruled by a few famous families, who en- 
 joyed life without labor, and governed without brains. I 
 think Germany was more subject to the feudal S3^stem than 
 even France, at least there remain sterner evidences of the 
 fact. Can we speak of liberty in a government wiiere the 
 land is owned and dominion vested in a few, while the 
 people are ground to the earth by military exaction and 
 taxation ? 
 
 Modern Germany is a vast improvement on the past. 
 Its literature is more powerful, its music more penetrating, 
 its statesmanship more influential, its art more self-assert- 
 ing, its manufactures more stupendous, than at any former 
 period ; and, though still a huge military nation, and a 
 great barrack from Bohemia to the North Sea, still a 
 mighty force for good, more useful to civilization than Aus- 
 tria, more progressive than Russia, and, of course, a resist- 
 less opposite to the fading and enervated country of the 
 Turk. What struck me as I dwelt upon Darmstadt was 
 that the people of Hesse should have been willing to fight 
 for their old Grand Duke more than a hundred years ago, 
 not for the wages paid to themselves, but to fasten English 
 slavery upon the American colonies, and to let those wages 
 go into the pockets of their local chiefs, who sold them for 
 32 
 
374 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 SO much a head to the Hanoverian Georges. And yet from 
 these very Hessians, and tiie redemptioners that c^me after 
 them, our country received the founders of some of our 
 most useful families. Pennsylvania was particularly rein- 
 forced by this element. 
 
 With such reflections I came into Frankfort, with its 
 long and brilliant record as one of the free towns of the 
 German confederation. It dates from the time of Charle- 
 magne, and the atmosphere of wealth and dignity which 
 pervades it is not only an indication of its commercial im- 
 portance, but of its long continued financial ascendency 
 and political indejiendence. The influences that made 
 Frankfort what it is, are patriotism, wealth, industr3', 
 energy, and commerce. 
 
 Frankfort is a ro3^al garrison town set in a broad plain 
 in the very heart of the Taunus range, that seems to close 
 over it, and at the snme time affords a multitude of leafy re- 
 treats where the rich Frankforters pass their summers. The 
 city proper lies on the right bank of the Main ; on the left 
 is its suburb, that seems inhabited by quite another com- 
 munity. While the streets in the old portion of the town 
 are crooked, narrow, dark, and dirty, those in the newer 
 sections are broad, with an expression of perspective, 
 flanked by handsome structures, florid with the art of the 
 Renaissance, odorous and inviting by the many open 
 squares planted with trees, where the winds from the 
 bleak heights of the Taunus rustle among the full foliage and 
 beautiful shadowed avenues, where the belles petites of the 
 city saunter or linger under the great spreading branches, 
 closely resembling in face and costume our better-class 
 women at home. They are not walking advertisements like 
 the fast Frenchwomen or the painted houris of London. 
 Removed from the old cramped bywa3's of the city, with 
 their storied precincts, antique architecture, and commer- 
 cial wharves, is the new Opera House, with its wealth of 
 sculpture, columns and capitals, and its fine broad streets 
 and extravagant houses, occupied by the uppertendom and 
 foreign embassies. It is like a paradise, but it is very far 
 away from all that tells us of Guttenburg, Faust, Goethe, 
 or the Rothschilds. 
 
 Frankfort has many striking attractions, some of them 
 worthy of a far more pretentious city. Next to the new 
 Opera House, the Frankforter Hof, a hotel of fine propor- 
 tions, is the boldest example. The old streets are alive 
 with ancient story and renown. The house in which the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 3*75 
 
 original Rothschilds was born and lived, witli its high steps 
 and flat awkward fa9ade, opposite an open platz, wliere the 
 square-hipped women sold wilted vegetables in the twilight 
 as I rode by, had a tongue for ever}^ stone, telling tales of 
 the founder of the great Hebrew house of Mammon ; the 
 princes who deal with empires and kings as if they were so 
 many figures on the great political chessboard. I was 
 shown the house, 148 Judenstrasse, in which the progenitor 
 of the gold-coining race lived, in the days when the Jews 
 were closed within their own squalid purlieus every evening 
 at eight o'clock, and throughout the entire Sabbath and 
 holidays were not allowed to venture about the city under 
 penalty of a heavy fine. This nefarious custom prevailed 
 until the present century in the free city of Frankfort, and 
 now the Rothschilds, who once were prisoners in their own 
 city, not only wield sovereign power with their millions 
 and billions, but occupy their place in parliaments, while 
 their sons and daughters are gladly welcomed in marriage 
 with the noblest families. Protestant sentiments hold do- 
 minion in Frankfort, but the great number of resident He- 
 brews is readily seen by a visit to any of the public resorts, 
 where they compose the better part of the attendance. 
 This proscribed race now rank amongst the best musicians, 
 authors, painters, orators, statesmen, historians, scientists, 
 and philosophers, not only in these Teutonic districts, but 
 all over Europe. 
 
 In this same tumble-down, unswept, and ungarnished 
 quarter are mementos of greater ones than the lordly 
 mf)ney-changers. Opposite the northeast corner of the old 
 cathedral stands an archaic slate-covered house, bearing a 
 grotesque marble eflSgy and a Latin inscription upon its face. 
 From a window in this antique structure the celebrated re- 
 ligious reformer addressed the multitudes on his way to 
 Worms, and from the window still looks the face of Martin 
 Luther in all its quaint and ludicrous stoniness. The house 
 where the poet Goethe was born is more of an object of at- 
 traction than the superb colossal monument, with its alle- 
 gorical reliefs and its chaste illustrations of his poems, to his 
 glory, in the platz adjoining the Rossmarket, where is the 
 massive cenotaph of Guttenberg, holding his types and sur- 
 rounded by statues of other masters of the art preservative 
 of all arts. Here then were the four monarchs of their day 
 and time; Rothschilds, the father of the money kings ; Lu- 
 ther, father of Protestant reform ; Goethe, the father of 
 poetic philosophy ; and Guttenberg, the inventor of the 
 art of printing. 
 
376 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 These monuments and their pendent historical incidents 
 suggested many pleasant reflections, but my visit to the 
 Romerl)erg and its market-place in front, and its collection 
 of wretched portraits in the kaisersaUe, was a dismal dis- 
 enchantment. I threaded my way through many dirty 
 streets until T came to a great open, dust}'', rusty, moth- 
 eaten square and an equally decaying temple, which had 
 lofty gables and broad doorways standing open. I entered 
 the gaping vestibule or arcades, — all damp and dark and 
 grimy. At first I thought it the rendezvous of rats, and 
 imagined lizards and loathsome fnsects playing in and out 
 the chinks of the pavement and walls after nightfall. I 
 ascended a broad stair to my right and entered the kaii^er- 
 salle or gallery of emperors, on the first floor. The por- 
 traits from the day of Charlemagne are without exception 
 bad, yet precious to the mind, as every individual who en- 
 tered that saloon was watched by two German women as if 
 each was a famous })rofessional thief. No one was allowed 
 to make his exit until he had contributed somethinfj to tlie 
 support of the sentinels of these travesties of the early 
 German rulers. The strategy was onlj^ another version of 
 the spider and the fly story. The Romerberg is tiie mar- 
 ket place of every public rejoicing, and another of the 
 former prescribed precincts of the Jews. 
 
 But there is one real work of art here, the inspiration of 
 genius, — the group of " Ariadne on the Panther." This 
 cliaste and artistic fancy of Danneker is shown in an alcove 
 of Mr. Bethman's museum. That gentleman purchased it 
 for the sum of twenty thousand florins, and preserves it and 
 several lesser casts and carvings in an addition to his own 
 residence. The crimson drapery of the tabernacle was 
 drawn aside by an old servant of the house, and the famous 
 group appeared like a frozen poem in a sort of transcendent 
 golden light, or fata morgana,, that enveloped it and floated 
 about it, 3^et every line and curve of the marble shone as 
 distinctly as if it were cut in the strange amber glare. It 
 had all the glow of life, and as the figure revolved upon the 
 pivot of the pediment 1 imagined I could see the sinews of 
 the limbs contract and relax, and the flesh quiver. The 
 easy and mobile pose of the figure, tiie graceful lines, the 
 almost sentient stone, the double poetry of life and beauty, 
 the varied phases of expression, prove not alone the idealism 
 of ihe artist, but the growing influence of his work. It has 
 the great and enduring virtue that even the most celebrated 
 conceptions of our modern artists lack, — it is not too large 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. STT 
 
 for a perfect type of womanhood. The limbs of the divinity 
 are rather small and round, with that expression of luscious 
 pliancy that we expect as the chief charm of the ideal 
 woman. We never find the old marbles of the Greeks with 
 rigidly curved limbs and a nether jaw that proclaims deter- 
 mination of purpose. Praxiteles and Phidias never made 
 their Venuses and Junos after the pattern of an Amazon. 
 The Goddess of Love, or the Angel Purity, the muses of 
 Art and Music, were not created to fight wars and harrow 
 up vast fields of agriculture. We must come to the later 
 works to find conceptions of herculean strength and limbs 
 that seem to have been developed in a calisthenic school. 
 
 LETTER LXXI. 
 
 The gambler with his dice has fled, 
 
 And pure and sweet now lies the land, 
 Where sweetest flowers their fragrance shed, 
 
 And grape vines wreathe in gold and purple band. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Wbisbaden, July, 1878. 
 
 Here is another exquisite offspring of the gaming sys- 
 tem. A fashionable German spa, a finished watering- 
 place, a modern cluster of luxurious homes and lazy re- 
 sorts, with none of the soft shadows of a pastoral retreat 
 and with none of the gray tone that comes with age. A 
 city that has sprung up since the era of electricity and 
 sleam ; that looks as if it had l)een expressly constructed 
 to please the tastes of the meretricious element that took 
 possession of it before the fraternity of hazard was expelled 
 from the kingdom, and as if its cost had been paid for out 
 of their pockets. And though there is no bustle in the 
 streets, everything looks new and garnished like a decora- 
 tion for a holiday. Every one passes by with an invalid or 
 indolent air, and many of the men on the streets have the 
 easy, audacious, well-dressed, well-fed look of gamblers ; 
 such men as we have all seen at great stations and hotels; 
 loungers, with an inert, supine expression ; grand in flashing 
 diamonds, glazed shirt-fronts, flashy neckerchiefs, hair oiled, 
 and arranged after the latest tonsorial st3de, exquisitely 
 trimmed finger-tips, and as they pass, the atmosphere is 
 
 32* 
 
378 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 rife with the subtleties of frangipanni, ylangylang, or 
 musk. 
 
 There are great hotels, parks where the ladies sun them- 
 selves after thermal baths, and sweet, secluded walks over 
 an iron portico to the Trinkhalle, and Cursaal grounds 
 glowing in flowering parterres, that are apt to chase away 
 all morbid or immoral reflections ; yet 1 cannot help the 
 conviction that there is still a substratum of the old social 
 composite underlying the present quiet affectation of con- 
 valescence. 
 
 Still there are many beautiful villas bordering the town, 
 and excursions to the adjacent heights of Sonnenberg, 
 Neroberg, and the Platte; or to the sanitary baths and 
 waters of Schlangenbad and Schwalbach, both lying in 
 green valle^^s noted for their medicinal and curative pro- 
 perties. The air at all of these health spas is clear and in- 
 vigorating, though situated in dales richly wooded; and 
 the bridle and carriage paths of the mountains afford rare 
 views of the Rhine and Main, and the surrounding countr}^, 
 as we rise and fall with the undulations of the road ; now 
 in a narrow valley with comfort and plenty about us; and 
 then on the hilltop, where the vines are trained to the sum- 
 mit, and the road cut through the fruitful vineyard, held at 
 figures that would appear enough to purchase the rich acres 
 tliemselves. 
 
 The ride from Frankfort to Wiesbaden is a short jour- 
 ney of an hour and a quarter, through a district literally 
 bursting with the varied wealth of a bounteous and bounti- 
 ful nature. The railway is one of the oldest in Germany, 
 and its branches are numerous, reaching many historic 
 towns and Roman settlements in the time of tiie Caesars. 
 A good story is afloat of General and Mrs. Grant while at 
 Homberg, the most jjopular watering-place in tlie Rhine- 
 land. There are many remains of the Roman occupation 
 before the Christian era; on a wooded height about one 
 and three-fourths miles from the resort there is what once 
 w^as an arcliaic cemetery. A number of tombs were ex- 
 cavated in the presence of the ex President, and the urns 
 containing the human ashes found in excellent preserva- 
 tion ; the Roman coin placed on the lid of the burial vase 
 according to Pagan custom, to pass the body of the de- 
 ceased over the river Styx, still remained, and as the ex- 
 humer handed it to General Grant, he quietly remarked to 
 his friend. General Badeau, " They are evidently not tak- 
 ins: toll down there now." 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 379 
 
 JVTany amusing paragraphs are told of the soldier-Presi- 
 dent's visit to Europe. He has been highly and constantly 
 honored. Kings, courts, parliaments, and great communi- 
 ties have been spontaneous in their tributes, yet through 
 them all he has remained the same unaffected and unobtru- 
 sive republican. His reticence has been at times painful 
 in the midst of noisy speeches, high-flown compliments, and 
 the blaz(m of pageantry. Jt has even given offence to 
 those who expected some demonstration in return for 
 their loud welcome. 
 
 In passing from the red wines of Southern France and 
 Italy to the white wines of the Rhine and Moselle, there is 
 as great a difference in the growth and training of the 
 vines as there is in the juice they yield. \n the Hock- 
 heimer district, where the celebrated sparkling hock is 
 manufactured, the vine is grown on tall arbors more closely 
 resembling the American plant; and so valuable is this par- 
 ticular species that when the railroad was surve3ed through 
 the section, the contractors agreed to pay over two dollars 
 and a quarter for each vine removed or destroyed during 
 the necessary excavations. This was over forty years 
 ago ; to-day the wine ranks among the finest growths of tiie 
 Khine. So Wiesbaden is a prosperous, elegant town, and 
 the centre of a region of surpassing fertility and loveliness. 
 The climate is more perfect — that is, more healthful — than 
 the southern countries, but it has nothing of the feverisli, 
 intoxicating influence of the regions bordering the Medi- 
 terranean and Ionian waters. Here we have an atmos- 
 jjhere that energizes and nerves the natives to labor ; south, 
 the world-famed salubrity enervates and renders slothful 
 not only the sons of the soil but all who linger within its 
 shadow. 
 
 Here orchards, vineyards, and mineral springs are the 
 gifts of generous nature, while wide and sweeping roads, 
 white and glittering palaces, and ranks of gigantic broad- 
 spread trees encircling green squares, radiant flower- 
 patches, and silver}'' fountains are the achievements of 
 man. 
 
 Everj'where one may turn in Wiesbaden there is lavish 
 proof of the gambler's liberality. Before the Emperor Wil- 
 liam closed them out they had already beautified the little 
 German resort in many ways, and the monuments of their 
 affluence are not only preserved, but supplemented by the 
 city with new splendors. 
 
 In tiie grand hall of the Cursaal there are instrumental 
 
380 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 concerts every Friday, and dancing every Saturday. But 
 the park adjoining the long building is a much more popu- 
 lar rendezvous than the conversation hall. I walked among 
 its gay parterres in the darkness of night, with nothing but 
 the groups of lamps along the lake margin and the twink- 
 ling stars overhead to light up the glistening waters, where 
 the white swans paddled and floated like animated snow- 
 d lifts, and the complete combinations of floriculture rose 
 in mounds of bloom. The skill displayed in weaving the 
 flowers by the scientific process of sowing the seed in par- 
 ticular devices has been reduced to the elegance of written 
 characters; and as I passed away from the perfumed alleys 
 the strains of the delicious music in the adjacent building 
 came floating through the pines and dropped into the 
 water like the melodious tinkle of liquid bells. I crossed 
 the way, and under the shadow of the laurel and oleander, 
 in large green tubs that stand close to the windows of the 
 great hotels, I watched the pedestrians. Where were they 
 all going ? Very few females, but battalions of male strag- 
 glers fashioned after the model I have already presented. 
 
 Through a beautiful valley in the full flush of the summer 
 afternoon I sought the Greek chapel. It is midway up tiie 
 Neroberg, and we rode through vineyards, with here and 
 there a little group of white cottages, like a flock of 
 doves nestled in a dale between the hills, making a minia- 
 ture world and community of its own. Then upon the 
 summit of an elevation, over which the ripe fruit clambered 
 in riotous confusion, stood a spacious stone mansion, the 
 home of the princely owner of the rich lands it overlooked. 
 It was very regal and exclusive in its majestic solitude, 
 but it seemed cold and isolated at its height, while the 
 cluster of humble homes below shone in the warmth of 
 happy domesticity. 
 
 The chapel, erected by theDuke of Nassau in commemora- 
 tion of his Muscovite wife, containing her mausoleum, 
 stands alone upon a smoothly-shaven mound. In the form 
 of a Greek cross, it is surmounted by five mosque domes or 
 minaret towers, sparkling in golden contrast to the pallid 
 facade. The interior is dazzling with decorations and the 
 rich stuflfs of White Russia. The floors, walls, and ceilings 
 of pure white marble glow in stained glass and precious 
 stones, enamelled screens from the native home of the 
 duchess, and in a recess reclines the full-length monumen- 
 tal figure of the princess herself. Upon either side of the 
 sarcophagus are statuettes of the twelve apostles, and at 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 381 
 
 the corners sit tlie holy quartette, Faith, Hope, Charity, 
 and Immortality; in the circle above soar angels, while 
 between the arches stand the propliets and evangelists, — 
 a costly, chaste, and highly suggestive combination of 
 royal wealth and taste, and a fitting tribute to the pure 
 daughter of the house of Romanoflf. Yet the Duke married 
 again and espoused the cause of Austria in 1866, and is 
 now a fugitive in a foreign land, though still esteemed by 
 the community to which he left a perennial source of profit 
 in the souvenir to his dead spouse. 
 
 LETTER LXXII. 
 
 " I saw the blue Rhine sweep along — I heard, or seemed to hear, 
 The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear, 
 And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill, 
 The echoing chorus sounded through the evening calm and still." 
 
 Caroline Norton. 
 
 Cologne, August, 1878. 
 
 The sweetest memory I have of Wiesbaden is the odor- 
 ous path over which we rode to Biebrich-on-the-Rliine. 
 Although the first of August the air was as fresh and ex- 
 hilarating as the last of September; for in these conser- 
 vative countries we have all the glorious refocillating tone 
 of autumn while our American friends are languishing in 
 the lassitude of the so-called dog-days. With our baggage 
 in a comfortable carriage we posted across a level highway, 
 flanked by full-leaved chestnut trees, heavy with half- 
 ripened fruit The scene was not so picturesque and 
 graceful as the French, nor so glowing and spirituelle as 
 the Italian, nor so wild as the Swiss, but every rood was 
 marked by the same German care and thrift. The ride 
 was not long enough to prove tedious, and, when I reached 
 the steamer station at Biebrich, I was eager to obtain my 
 introduction to the much-sung stream of poets and trouba- 
 dours. Mounting the upper deck of the "Merkins," that 
 came puflSng and propelling its huge and ungainly carcass 
 through the dark waters, I was brought face to face w'ith 
 another magnificent estate of the Grand Duke of Nassau. 
 
 The deserted palace, and vast demesne stretching along 
 the river shore, and extending far back into farm-lands and 
 
382 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 forests, is another proof that, until the consolidation of 
 Germany, he was the good shepherd of all this district ; he 
 gave much and when expatriated he left much, as if to 
 show that even in his banishment he desired to be remem- 
 bered in his solitary gardens and vacant palaces. The 
 terraces of the long barracks of buildings overlook the 
 Rhine, while for a mile rearward a well-kept park grows 
 into a mammoth picture, with its majestic timber and 
 dense foliage lighted up by glowing flower-beds, where 
 smooth walks and drives dissect well-shaven lawns, mur- 
 murous with the silver harmony of cascades and fountains, 
 and sparkling with the glisten of marbles. And these, 
 with the interior beauties of the mansion, are left alone to 
 gladden the senses of strangers, in care of the servants and 
 workmen retained by the luxurious exile. 
 
 The day, that had been cool and rayless as we rode 
 through the sweet chestnut groves, had settled into a dull, 
 disagreeable drizzle as we coursed up the Rhine. Perhaps 
 the dismal atmosphere exercised a pronounced influence in 
 disenchanting me with the historied water; or, perha])s, 
 my expectations had swollen unreasonably with the ebulli- 
 tion of my fancy; but the afternoon was -bad, the waters 
 black, and the expected beauty vanished. I looked in vain 
 for the sapphire blue in the stream over which I sailed; 
 but, alas ! 1 discovered no tone or shade that I might ethe- 
 realize in even my wildest flights of imagination. The 
 waters were not only dark with storm, but had a gray and 
 grimy tone, as if full of alluvium, or a mountain deposit 
 constantly drifting down from the Swiss Alps, borne in the 
 torrents from St. Gothard's, or carried in the wake of the 
 Riieinwald glaciers. 
 
 There is no beauty of flow nor majesty of volume to lend 
 dignity to the stream. Strip it of its legends, its ruins 
 standing on every side like grim skeletons of faded glory, 
 its unequalled vines of Rheingau, its forests of Neiderwald, 
 its castled crags of Drachenfels, and we would have nothing 
 but a very contracted, sluggish current, crawling like a 
 torpid serpent through a country really tropical in its pro- 
 fuse growth of the grape. The river seems as if it had 
 drunk itself stupid with the juice of the seductive vine. 
 
 The course of the iron road follows the water's edge on 
 either side ; now and then we see the great mechanical fiery 
 horse vanish into wiiat I at first supposed to be the remains 
 of some regal home of the centuries, — of wiiich only a Gothic 
 arch and a few towers remained, — and, being lost to us for 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 383 
 
 a few seconds, emerge on the opposite side, and after pass- 
 ing a succession of these pretty cathedral domes and tur- 
 rets, I discovered they were the entriances and exits to the 
 tunnels through mountains jutting into the water. They 
 are fresh and ornate with a vast deal of architecture, and 
 seem a fitting place of worship for the limited population 
 of the wine district. One little town after another studs 
 the shore like white dots upon a green and golden snrface ; 
 — hamlets of 600 to 1000 vine-growers and wine-makers. Yet 
 the homes of the humble and the continuity of the small 
 tracts in which the precious and costly Rhine wine is grown, 
 seemed scarcely more frequent than the great estates of the 
 German nobility, — alternately decaying and blossoming. 
 
 The boats are pleasant, — when I say pleasant, I do not 
 mean that they approach the fresh-water steamers of Amer- 
 ica, but an improvement on the transport that brought me 
 from Schaffhausen to Constance. The travellers of the 
 best class Germans, largely interwoven with foreign tour- 
 ists, were as well dressed, polite and deferential as the 
 French, but the absence of the Gallic gabble and the all- 
 pervading guttural Teuton spoken by cultivated women 
 and men proclaims the perponderance of the classic German 
 domination at Berlin, and the bold self-assertion of the 
 German race. 
 
 The ride upon the Rhine was a revelation and a peren- 
 nial fount of study, meditation, and speculation ; from the 
 chief lower erabarkature at Mayence to Cologne it is crowd- 
 ed with incident and history and novelty to the stranger, 
 and while my mind wandered and w^ondered over each con- 
 secutive event, the Germans between whom 1 was mortised 
 were indifferent to their own traditions. Though I had 
 read much of the mystic origin of the Rhine, and of its 
 equally abstruse termination, — as no drop empties into the 
 sea, — of its varied and rich products, and of its feudal 
 castles and battlements, yet 1 had the craving curiosity for 
 a more intimate knowledge of the historic locale. 
 
 The slopes of Johannisberger and Steinberger are small 
 stretches, where the vines are grown upon terraced rocks 
 and tended principally by monks ; and the vineyards over- 
 looked by the gray and rugged towers of the castles. Each 
 small town has its special vine territory, but these two 
 are the rival deities of the bacchanalian area. The old fort, 
 '• Cat," and the Mouse Tower, may be interesting objects 
 to the average traveller, but this marvellous wine-yielding 
 country can never lose point to the student. 
 
384 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 The linfht white wines of the vicinasre are the beveraofe, 
 and while many have gained po[)ularity from their intrin- 
 sic value, many owe much of their exalted reputation to 
 their name. The Leibfraumilch, a Rhenish-Hessen wine, 
 sells here for figures it no more commands by its superior- 
 ity of quality alone than the Lachryma Christi of Italy. 
 The Moselle wines, — and the sparkling ones are really fine, 
 — are chiefl}^ cultivated among the slate rocks. Cham- 
 l)agne is a rare product of the Rhine, though there is a 
 mammoth establishment in the environs of Wiesbaden. 
 Sparkling wines are grown at Mayence, Hockheim, Rude- 
 sheim, Coblentz, and, indeed, in all the wine country, but 
 the vintages are always small, and must of necessity be 
 very far below the quantity that floods the different countries 
 and is consumed under the original label sold here. 
 
 But this universal and plenary adaptation of the grape- 
 juice has a beneficial effect upon the community. The 
 light French, German, and Italian wines are procured 
 for a trifle by the lower classes in their districts; they in- 
 vigorate, but do not inebriate, and in these countries there 
 is little or no intoxication. Brandy is rare wherever wine 
 is the growth of the neighborhood, and even beer is reject- 
 ed by the laboring classes. Those two busy Bs, that have 
 wrought so much havoc and anguish in Eno;land and at 
 home, are here unable to work their mischief side-by-side 
 with the pure juice of the fruit, distilled from the fair fields 
 of the Rhine, the Moselle, the Rhone, and the classic 
 streams of Illyria. The climate is so conservative and 
 healthful, tlie inhabitants so moderate, industrious, and 
 frugal, that the wild emotions engendered bj' brandy, or 
 the phlegmatic indolence born of beer, find no more con- 
 stituency here than riotous saturnalias found among the 
 Arcadians. 
 
 Tiie Rhine abounds in pleasant retreats and villas of 
 wealthy foreigners, old as the Mediterranean and the Alpine 
 lakes. Dismantled castles and ruined fortresses are not 
 alone the features of the celebrated stream ; and had I 
 never heard through poet or author or historian of the 
 trascendent country, with its gentle vales lying between 
 projecting rocks and fierce heights, the literature sold upon 
 the boat and at the stations, as profuse as the tracts with 
 which the passengers are bombarded en route to Monte 
 Carlo, would have told me the most flattering tales of the 
 enchanted region. Byron, Bulwer, and the Hon. Mrs. 
 Norton are still conspicuous and popular. Here arc the 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 385 
 
 castles, and here the poets and poems glorifj^ing the castles, 
 each with its history, and each with its romance, each in 
 the midst of a valuable region, each with its neighborhood 
 nobility, and all photographed ad nauseam. 
 
 We came into Coblentz just as the Catholic church bells 
 were chiming six, and in the sweet evening the melody fell 
 over the water and rang through the hills as harmoniouslj- 
 as it had upon the holy lakes of Italy. At the confluence 
 of the Rhine and Moselle, backed by hedging vineyards 
 mountainward, the little Romish town lies in a triangular 
 basin. Before me, on the opposite bank of the river, rose 
 the massive and formidable fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. 
 Rock upon rock was piled in the air, and fortification 
 upon fortification reared their gray watches higher and 
 higher, until mountain and stronghold seemed to have 
 been created at one birth. I looked at the mighty bul- 
 warks, and I looked at the guard, and I saw nothing else 
 until the misty veil of twilight wrapped all nature in clouds. 
 
 Four miles from Coblentz, on a summit above the ham- 
 let of Capellen, rise the spires and towers of Stolzenfels, 
 palace of the Empress Augusta. On a beautiful Sabbath I 
 rode over hill and dale; through vine arbors and golden 
 wheat-fields; over broad table-lands, where not even car- 
 riage-wheels nor horses' hoofs had marked a path ; over 
 stretches of emerald herbage and by the rugged mountain- 
 base, higher and further until the Rhine and Moselle lay 
 sparkling beds of crystal below, while we were within the 
 wall of the Fort Kaiser Alexander, where the guards were 
 taking their humble meal of porridge, or washing their 
 white jackets upon the rough stones. The village of Cap- 
 pellen is a straight row of houses facing the railway. The 
 ascent of Stolzenfels is made from here either on foot 
 or "mit de donkeys," as the guard in charge informed us. 
 The donkej^s are miserable, browbeaten little creatures, 
 decked as gayly as Alpine shepherdesses, and trot over the 
 precipitous paths on their spindle-legs regardless of sharp 
 corners, deep gorges, or perilous ledges. It does not re- 
 quire any particular equestrian talent to ride one of these 
 tasselled and rosetted animals, as a neat little chair is 
 fastened to his back for the tourist, and a peasant boy, to 
 tickle the creature into wakefulness, acts as guide. The 
 path was good, and as it was a gradual ascent of 810 feet 
 above the Rhine I confidently depended upon Shank's mare. 
 The pull was arduous, but I managed to keep pace with 
 the visitors who preferred the mules. At last the plateau 
 33 
 
386 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 crowned by the machicolaterl battlements, and the honiy 
 chapel steeples, was reached, and the doors opened unto us 
 b}^ the lady castellan; the baffled bullet of JSobling had 
 prevented the royal family from occupying their summer 
 home, so the brilliant chateau w^as left in the hands of the 
 seneschals. 
 
 1 entered a large vestibule, and in one corner saw twenty 
 or more pairs of white felt moccasins, which each of the 
 visitors was requested to don before entering the polished 
 floors of parquetry in the several banquet and reception 
 saloons. There are many historic suits of armor, the hal- 
 V)erds and matchlocks of a hundred kings, and paintings by 
 all the best Lowland artists. There are six memorial pic- 
 tnres relative to chivalry in the smaller salon, that could 
 not but impress the stranger; they are of the Rhenish 
 school, yet aglow with all the dazzling radiance of Rubens; 
 Faith, illustrated by Godfrey de Bouillon at the Holy Sep- 
 ulchre; Justice, typified by Rudolph of Hapsburg sitting in 
 judgment on robber knights; Poetry, troubadours with 
 Philip of Swabia and his queen on a pleasure excursion on 
 the Rhine; Love, the Emperor Frederick welcoming his 
 bride; Loyalty, Hermann von Siebeneichen sacrificing his 
 life to save Frederick Barbarossa ; Bravery, blind King 
 John of Bohemia at the battle of Crecy ; but, above all 
 these, there is one, a fresco in the chapel, of Adam and Eve 
 whose memory, like the wrinkles of care, will grow deeper 
 with the years. 
 
 Stolzenfels overlooks the termination of the most roman- 
 tic and contracted valley of the Rhine, and all the beauty 
 of the section seems concentred at its feet and about its 
 top. Churches stand at the marriage of the waters; pil- 
 grim shrines upon rock-bound summits: quondam convents 
 upon isolated islands ; and back of all, beyond all, and above 
 all, the impenetrable Ehrenbreitstein frowning; formidable 
 in its proportions, sublime in its majesty. 
 
 The palace of the regal pair in the city is bowered in 
 groves and gardens, and surrounded in the flowery walks 
 thrown open to the people. Like most of the ro3'^al homes 
 it is maintained in silent and vacant grandeur. Still though 
 the monarchs cannot occupy their many castles, the many 
 pleasant tales of the benevolence of the empress to her sub- 
 jects somewhat temper the mad extravagance of this opu- 
 lent and aristocratic system. 
 
 Upon the bridge of boats leading to the portals of 
 Ehrenbreitstein 1 waited in the midday sun half an 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 38Y 
 
 lioiir while a succession of craft drifted up and down the 
 stream ; the ascent is tedious, and though tiie grim fortress 
 evokes a mingling of admiration and awe, it is sure to be- 
 come tiresome to the American because of the omnipres- 
 ence of military power. A fee for entrance goes to the 
 treasury of the disabled veterans, and after passing an os- 
 tentatious succession of bars and barricades, and foolisli 
 fanfaronade, we made the ascent of the vantage-ground, 
 where the young soldiers were drilling on the topmost 
 parade, while others were beating their clotiiing clean on 
 the crude stones near the pumps ; Sunday seems to be 
 wash-day in the garrisons. These poor fellows go tiirough 
 the dismal monoton^^ of their slavery to the Emperor, and 
 are remunerated with three or five cents a day for their 
 services ; while of such subjects as do not enter the 
 army, the males are obliged to pay a tax of twelve dol- 
 lars a year, and the females three. Well may we call our 
 country free, and well may the poor of foreign nations hail 
 it as a salvation wiiere we have no great army to eat away 
 the substance of the public weal, no tremendous forts 
 guarded by gangs of martial serfs, and no tax upon the 
 working classes, who cannot, either from their condition or 
 their sex, become soldiers. View Ehrenbreitstein from the 
 lower opposite onlj^ ; from that point it inspires every lofty 
 sentiment ; we see only what is grand and fascinating be- 
 cause seemingly unattainable, and like one of the enchanted 
 watch-towers of a fairy tale that might only be approacheil 
 by supernatural aid ; but having scaled its height and 
 viewed its military discipline, there is a poison of impera- 
 tive rule making the whole atmosphere a pestilence. 
 
 Waiting for the boat to go to Cologne, I studied a group 
 of peasants on the quay. In all these countries the lower 
 classes adhere to the dress of their station with apparent 
 pride. Whether it be a white riblx)n twisted in their hair, 
 a blue blouse, a silver clasp in their plaits, or a blue ker- 
 chief about their necks, it is universally and happily adopted 
 by the same damsel who would in America ape her mis- 
 tress's train, and puffs, and bangles, and bang, three weeks 
 after stepping from the emigrant ship. 
 
 From Coblentz to Cologne I found the country flatter 
 and less interesting than the first part of my Rhine jour- 
 ney, and marked by a strange geological formation of pum- 
 ice-stone. Many of the towns are attractive, but the nearer 
 one draws to Cologne the more evident becomes the fiict 
 that you are passing from the land of the vine. Soon after 
 
388 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 leaving Coblentz, the seven mountains, Drachenfels, and 
 other points made familiar by pen and pencil, showed them- 
 selves in undisputed position. Great crowds came on the 
 steamer from their summer holiday, again presenting to 
 view the better classes of Germany. Coming from their 
 day's outing as they were, there was no sign of dissipation, 
 nor the slightest degree of excess ; many ladies bore the 
 mark of high distinction, with all the grace of quiet dignity, 
 which is ever more attractive than idle volubilit3^ 
 
 As we approached Bonn, the university town, the trade of 
 the country seemed to be rather in slate and a peculiar white 
 stone, partaking of the volcanic character of the region, and 
 u.-sed largely for building purposes. In the twilight this inter- 
 esting city seemed much more populous than represented. 
 Near all these German towns there are old palaces, monu- 
 ments, extinct mines, and any number of ecclesiastical 
 remains. Bonn was one of the first Roman fortresses, and 
 is spoken of by Tacitus, and in its ancient minster several 
 of its early German kings were crowned. In science, art, 
 classical learning, and in general acquirement, this collegi- 
 ate city maintains a high celebrity. It has recently be- 
 come a favorite residence of the English, and now, lighted 
 by a young moon, the steamer, after depositing most of 
 her passengers, glided on to Cologne. 
 
 LETTER LXXIII. 
 
 " As I am rhymer, 
 And now, at least, a merry one, 
 
 Mr. Munis Rudisheimer 
 And the church of St. Geryon, 
 Are the two things alone, 
 That deserve to be known, 
 In the body- and soul-stinking town of Cologne," 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 Cologne, August, 1878. 
 
 Far off I saw the many lights of a great town, casting 
 their yellow glare out upon the water, and defining clearly 
 the contour of the semicircular city, — mirroring it against 
 the fervent sky and dark-purple water as it never could 
 have appeared to me had 1 not entered it by river and 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 389 
 
 by night. From its shore it seemed a wild, rollicking 
 place, and as 1 stepped upon its wharf — Sunday though it 
 was — my conjectures were confirmed ; the town was in 
 general carnival. The riotous clatter of the streets seemed 
 as if the entire population and its 14,000 troops in garrison 
 were indulging in fierce saturnalia. Across the Rhine I 
 heard the noisy brass band, and saw the moving figures in 
 the jocund booths through the glittering lamps, while from 
 the adjacent honses floated the hoarse voices of dissipated 
 men and the shrill shrieks of excited women, making night 
 hideous and our route a terror. In the military town the 
 wildest license prevailed. The quarter about the wharves, 
 through which we passed, was evidently infected by the 
 most degenerate part of the community, judging by the fra- 
 cas^ and the soldiers that should have preserved order only 
 added trumpet-tongued obscenity to the fray. It impressed 
 one rather as a city just invaded by a conquering host, 
 and in the hands of pillagers, than a quiet Grerman town 
 whose commerce had faded, where military rule reigns 
 supreme. Nor was it any better when we at last reached 
 the Hotel du Nord, a magnificent stone structure, with 
 towering portals, stone corridors and stairways like a 
 palace, and a busy court, with an odd boisterous medley of 
 soldiers, servants, tourists going and coming, and tiie con- 
 fusion of travel, like a world on wheels. Here I had gotten 
 into another pandemonium of anarch}^ and tempest ; a 
 whirlpool, where symmetry and system were utterly 
 iijnored. 
 
 The Hotel du Nord is to Cologne what the Fifth Ave- 
 nue is to New York, but the difference is as widespread as 
 a cathedral to a madiiouse. Porters in the act ol precipi- 
 tating huge burdens upon travellers, waiters rushing to 
 and fro, and the manager screaming in a jargon of tongues, 
 whilst in the midst of the imbroglio stands the startled 
 guest tired and tossed and stunned. The architecture of 
 the hotel is fresh and florid, seeming a work of the period 
 when Cologne was in the flush of enthusiasm for Gothic 
 art; while the upholstering decorations of the best cham- 
 bers are as beautiful and expensive as palace adornments. 
 But witii all this prodigality and culture of art there was 
 the plebeian tone that comes with indecorum, and the mer- 
 cenary management of a proprietor who a few years ago 
 was head-waiter, and who now " runs" it, not for the com- 
 fort of his guests but to fill his own coffers. The house 
 crowds the profits of a year into three months, and hence 
 
 38* 
 
390 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the wild caravnnsera of Cologne. Its motto is: rapidity 
 of action ; the result : inattention, disorder, ill-manners, 
 and interminable delay. The riotous scene at table d^hote 
 yesterday was a subject for Hogarth, and the ludicrous 
 opposite to the graceful courtesy and refined plenty of 
 the splendid establishment, the Cavour in Milan. There 
 is a classic elegance pervading Northern Italy and the 
 shores of Southern France met in no other Continental 
 country. Be it only a flagon of Vesuvio or Capri for fifty 
 centimes, a kilo of black bread, a blade of garlic, or a wafer 
 of Bologna sausage, taken at the base of the volcano, or in 
 the stableyard of a roadside inn of the Appian Way, tliere 
 is an attic grace in the refined poverty, a mystic picturesque- 
 ness in the surroundings, which even the impurity and de- 
 generacy of the lower classes of Ital}'- cannot dispel, 
 'i'here is a certain luscious, luxurious ease and elegance 
 never attained or approached by the same orders in Ger- 
 many, where frolic is vulgar and poverty otfensive. 
 
 1 can look from my window at the interminable review 
 of military in the great square of the Cathedral, and then 
 watch the long line of plumed troops clatter over the iron 
 bridge and dissolve amongst the forests and mountains 
 across the Rhine. All day there are soldiers; and every- 
 where soldiers ; now a great revolving train of artillery that 
 shakes the earth like an earthquake, then a calvacade of 
 horsemen, their iron hoofs clattering over the stones, then 
 solid columns of infantry surging by; and all for what? 
 Why this pestilential presence of war in aland of peaceand 
 ])lenty ? And as 1 queried the kellner answered, " This 
 martial monster is only to tax the poor, to feed royalty, to 
 chill our hearts, to drive us from our Fatherland," and as 
 he spoke his face glowed and his voice rang with hatred of 
 the dark shadow of the omnipresent soldier. The gloomy 
 raven saddens and maddens them and makes them an in- 
 different and dissatisfied people. 
 
 The Cathedral at Cologne is the offspring of Gothic art 
 in the Middle Ages, which having passed through six cen- 
 turies of gestation, is still incomplete. It is called the 
 most magnificent edifice in the world ; yet the architecture 
 is not so complicated, nor has it the graceful airiness of the 
 superb Dom at Milan, that seems a creation of the purest 
 snow. It is the prime attraction, but its interior is most 
 unclean. Having passed through many ages and survived 
 revolutions it has grown old in its unfinished state. Of 
 course, in all these years it has had a number of architects, 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 391 
 
 but the scliools and periods have not been mixed, although 
 the rounded windows and doors, the groined and vaulted 
 roofs, and the arch-connected pillars of the purely Roman- 
 esque, have been preserved. Its low naves lend a mag- 
 nificent expression of distance, and its series of heights, 
 and arclies, and lofty domes a marvellous grace of altitude. 
 This religious bauble, that has been supported by royalty, 
 has been taken in hand by the government, and with pri- 
 vate subscriptions and the proceeds of a lottery, — that is 
 maintained specially to defra}^ the pounds yet to be paid, — 
 its completion, even to the topmost tower, is pledged within 
 three years. 
 
 A walk through the new quarter of Cologne vividly re- 
 calls Paris; revealing a classic taste in domestic furniture, 
 fashionable costumes, photographs, paintings, and engrav- 
 ings, fully equal to the local reputation for arciiitecture 
 and music. Long streets stretch away from the Cathedral 
 that compare favorabl}', in point of shops, with Chestnut 
 Street or Broadway, and the vast galleries making Mal- 
 tese and Grecian crosses in the centre of the city, glowing 
 in painted glass and florid capital, have cafes and bijou- 
 terie establishments that would put the gay metropolis to 
 the blush. And in all these magazines tall bottles of the 
 original Eau de Cologne of the old Farina firm stare one 
 out of countenance. It is a pestilence — a sweet pestilence, 
 nevertheless a pestilence — the way strangers are besieged 
 by this historic manufacture from all quarters. It is the 
 first thing thrust upon a new guest in the hotels ; if he call 
 for some personal necessity, from a pitcher of wasli-water 
 to a glass of beer. Seltzer, old rye, or Cognac, the Eau de 
 Cologne is brought in by the answering kellner^ sind a sale 
 is accomplished before the first desire is satisfied. Forever 
 after he dreads the sight of the tall bottles that dress the 
 shop-windows, or the little, wicker-covered flagons for sale. 
 He has been deluded once, and avoids a second betrayal. 
 There is much of the pure article to be obtained, but, like 
 the superfluity of wines of the famous brand that float 
 Germany, more than two-thirds of the deluge is spurious. 
 
 Cologne has, of late 3^ears, become the seat of scientific 
 music, and it was a high plume in Gilraore's bonnet that he 
 should have secured the applause of the citizen connois- 
 seurs when he came over here several years ago. What of 
 disappointment I experienced in the melody of Italy has 
 been more than compensated by the divine harmonies of 
 Germany. Not only is it a city of first-class musical 
 
392 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 societies and institutions, under the baton of such artists 
 as Weher and Dr. Hiller, but the inilitar}^ airs, exquisitely 
 rendered by the several bands of the German troops sta- 
 tioned here, are heard from reveille to tattoo ; so that witii 
 the incessant beat of the drum, toot of the fife, blare of 
 the trumpet, and tramp of armed men, there is a surfeit of 
 soldiers, and something too much of the whole fanfaronade. 
 Nor do I wonder at the apparent indifference of the resi- 
 dents to the interminable pageant, when it is supported by 
 the taxes and hard tasks of enforced servitude imposed 
 upon a reluctant people. 
 
 LETTER LXXIV. 
 
 " A country that draws fifty feet of water, 
 In which men live as in the hold of nature ; 
 A land that rides at anchor and is moored, 
 In which they do not live but go aboard." 
 
 Butler. 
 
 Holland, August, 1878. 
 
 T FELT as T left Cologne for Amsterdam that I was de- 
 scending to the seashore, and otlier characteristics could 
 not have been more marked tlian the houses, language, 
 dress, and currenc}' of the Dutch. I fully realized for the 
 first time the widespread difference between German and 
 Dutch. The great hills and blue waters of the Rhine are 
 lost in the low lands, the canals, the windmills, and the 
 squatty red-roofed houses. The language is grotesque and 
 ])ainfully guttural, and a no nearer relation to the German 
 than it is to the Danish or k-wedish. It is not a patois or 
 a hybrid of German as is popularl}'- and erroneously sup- 
 ]>osed, but a cultivated dialect of purely Teutonic origin, 
 with none of the ungrammatical features that constitute 
 the body of a half-caste tongue. Canals and windmills are 
 the objects of the low moorlands, and thongh there are 
 many barges to enliven the waters, which are invariably 
 covered by a green pestilential scum or stirred into muddy 
 pools, the scene was not a pleasant one. It is all Dutch 
 and heavy. 
 
 I was passing from the land of wine, but I was entering 
 the heaven of painters. Yes! this very nondescript coun- 
 
OP FOREIGN TRAVEL. 393 
 
 try almost gross and clownisli, has an art all its own. 
 With its other idiosyncrasies why should it not have an 
 individual genius in its history ? But the art is in pro- 
 nounced contrast to the utter unsentimental face of nature 
 in the Netherlands. 
 
 It seemed as if I had been transferred to another planet. 
 It was all Holland, nothing of Germany was left ; not even 
 a memory, a tradition, or a custom. At the first station 
 after crossing the Dutch frontier, the clerk in the railway 
 office could not recognize a German gold piece; liesitate(l, 
 and was obliged to call the entire official staff into council 
 before he consented to change it into Holland coin. I had a 
 similar adventure in a drug-shop at Amsterdam ; my pur- 
 chases made I offered the pharmaceutist a silver mark in pay- 
 ment, which he refused to accept for tlie reason that he did 
 not know what it was ! He turned it over as curiously in his 
 palm as if 1 had brought it from Kamtschatka, and yet it 
 was the currency circulating in the adjacent empire, not 
 five hours' distant! 
 
 In every old country there are odd spectacles to the vis- 
 itor; especially when the visitor is an American woman. 
 The peculiarities unnoticed by the opposite sex quickly at- 
 tract her attention. She sees and contrasts colors and 
 shapes, furniture and decorations, change of food, dresses, 
 and municipal mannerisms, that would pass utterly unre- 
 corded by her brother, husband, or father. 
 
 Amsterdam, which originated in a fevv fishermen's huts 
 on the Zuyder Zee, now the capital of Holland, is full of 
 these contrasts. 1 have always heard it compared to Ven- 
 ice, but to liken Dutch Amsterdam to the glamour-veiled 
 shores of Illyria is gross injustice. It has its labyrinthine 
 canals, its multiplied islands, and its numerous bridges; 
 but these are all stripped of the romance of their Italian 
 protoplast by the Dutch architecture, Dutch women, and 
 Dutch habits. 
 
 Still the pictures I took in by the wayside are the pretti- 
 est pieces of mosaic I have to store in my memor3% Low 
 fresh fields, with a pronounced inclination, sloped far away 
 on every side, undivided by an elevation of earth and un- 
 marred by a fence; the fair demesne of the prince is parted 
 from the little paddock of the peasant by a narrow ditch of 
 stagnant water that seems to breathe disease ; on the 
 broader channels boats and barges were plying their way 
 and flying their gay colors, which aided the crimson roofs 
 and long swaying arms of windmills to enliven the land- 
 
394 PICTURES AND TORTRATTS 
 
 scape ; a raultii)licit3' of cattle grazed in tlie soft summer 
 afternoon, many roaming at will or wading in the morass, 
 while hundreds were being milked by men or boys; yet, 
 when I called for a glass of cream in the hotel they said 
 they had none, from which I conceived what an article of 
 commerce milk must be. 
 
 Amsterdam I loved to traverse ; in the old and Jewish 
 quarters there are establishments and sections resembling 
 Chatham Street, New York ; Seven Dials, London, and the 
 Kue du Temple, Paris; then in the broader "streets I 
 studied the art and literature of the Lowlands. The houses 
 are spacious, and closely resemble the homely brick struc- 
 tures of Philadelphia, polished and scrubbed with ultra 
 care into painful cleanliness. The nurse and baby of an 
 f ristocratic family are not a more peculiar sight, and in 
 more characteristic uniform, than the housemaid of tlie 
 same domicile ; while the abigail is decked in quillings and 
 losettes like a circus mare, the infantile appendage lies 
 spread out dormant across her arms, the whole enveloped 
 in an immense bridal veil ; and the scrub girl or woman, 
 or man, whichever I may term those who do the general 
 labor of the household, for their dress ages them, and their 
 constant and unnecessary work unsexes them to such an 
 extent that I could make no estimate of age or gender, — 
 this creature is invariably in a short black skirt, and a pur- 
 ple chintz sacque fastened about the waist by an apron, and 
 white cap. 
 
 Tlie quays are exquisitely paved and shaded by long 
 columns of trees, while the boats and ships drift in the un- 
 dredged canals ; furnished with female cooks, washers, and 
 laborers to push the floating tenements through the slug- 
 gish water ; to manage the tiller or the helm ; to load and 
 unload, and in every case to mother the multitude of chil- 
 dren sprawled over the decks. 
 
 This, with the other Holland towns, are depositories of 
 Dutch art ; and, while the Rijks Museum is considered the 
 finest collection in the Netherlands, the array in the gallery 
 at the Hague seemed to be more choice, though not so 
 numerous. They are both truly national galleries, yet the 
 Kijks contains many representations of events of national 
 history. The two great j)ictures are the monographs, 
 so to speak, of ancient political symposiai. First, the 
 " Banquet of the Arquebusiers" is more remarkable for 
 the total effect produced by its vast size, and the aggre- 
 gate of figures clustered with the many other details, than 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 395 
 
 for beauty of outline. It celebrates the peace of Westphalia, 
 and the twenty-five convivial diners are life portraits. On 
 the opposite wall hangs Rembrandt's " Night-watch," a 
 companion to the former. It is superb, as all things are 
 that the pencil of that artist ever touched ; a wonderftd 
 creation of grouped figures, diversified pigments, and mys- 
 tic lights and shadows, which make it a whole gallery of 
 art in itself. But the most curious and fantastic work of 
 a very old Dutch master represents tlie Madonna in a 
 black velvet dress, embroidered in seed pearls, and a blue 
 velvet bodice, cut pompadour, while her wealth of shimmer- 
 ing crimped hair falls over her shoulders ; the infant Christ 
 lies upon her lap; he has a Chinese face; and two little 
 boys, curled at her feet like star acrobats, have banged 
 hair. To complete this ridiculous illustration one of the 
 female members of the holy family sits near with an open 
 Bible and a pair of eyeglasses! Now this was the first 
 time I had ever seen a traditional fashion-plate of the Vir- 
 gin's costumes, and thought the velvet and pearls rather 
 inconsistent paraphernalia for an obscure carpenter's con- 
 sort. 
 
 But the galleries of the Lowlands, like the dykes and 
 sand-hills, that repel the threatened invasions of the sea, 
 are numerous interesting old stories, and must be seen to 
 be enjoyed. Like the crowding commerce, tlie trade and 
 opulence, they are familiar pictures, never omitted by the 
 painstaking statistician or the plodding compiler of the 
 gazetteer. 
 
 I had been warned of the exorbitant prices of the Hol- 
 land hotels, and soon realized the admonition. The water 
 is execrable, indeed so offensive as to assert its potent odor 
 when transformed into soup. The necessity of imported 
 wines makes them equal the prices paid in America for the 
 same article. Perhaps this is the chief reason for the 
 marked sobriety of the Dutch as a race; while their excuse 
 for using intoxicating beverages is sufficient, their safety 
 may lie in the fact that they, like us, are obliged to pay 
 for their wines in the shape of protective duties. 
 
 It was moonlight ; my window overlooked a swamp, and 
 the hordes of mosquitos came in and fed upon me like cor- 
 morants, so I determined to leave the pretty Dutch city as 
 soon as I had visited the diamond polishing mills of Am- 
 sterdam. There are several of these establishments, but 
 the one of which I speak is the most important in the 
 densely settled Jewish quarter. A tall, vaporous, squalid 
 
396 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 structure loomed before us ; passing through an equall}' 
 impure courtyard filled by the mill employes, — male and 
 female, — we ascended lofty flights of steps and passed 
 through a succession of workrooms. Tlie polishers im- 
 ])ressed me more than the process, of which 1 only under- 
 stood enough to render my visit interesting, not instructive. 
 The machiner}^ of the mills is driven by steam power, and 
 tiie rough stone is polished b}^ being pressed against a 
 rapidly revolving iron disk dressed with a decoction of oil 
 and diamond dust. When the stones are cut or sawn, the 
 same mixture is used upon the hair wires, by which means 
 they are split. The stone to be split is pressed into the 
 top of a small stick covered with wax, and after a little 
 nick is made by a fine file, the sharp edge of another 
 diamond is pressed into the slight incision, until with 
 wonderful accuracy and brilliancy the stone evenly bisects. 
 
 Of the four hundred employed in the establishment fevy 
 had good faces. In consideration of the delicacy of their 
 work, it was amazing and saddening to note the wild and 
 dei)raved air of the girls, ranging from fourteen to twenty. 
 Thc}^ had a certain kind of Oriental, dark, unwashed beauty, 
 where more of the brutal than the spiritual was developed. 
 They evinced uncivilized pride in the tattooed decorations 
 on their hands and arms ; and where their brothers dis- 
 j)layed one of these jewels ; the}^, with a feminine love of ex- 
 travagant embellishment, brocaded themselves with almost 
 savage pride. 
 
 These mills are the estate of the Portuguese Jews of 
 Antwerp and Amsterdam ; they conduct the entire trade 
 in the precious stones which are gathered at the Cape of 
 Good Hope, and this must account for the eager avidity 
 with which they seek and horde the gems. Amsterdam to 
 the Hebrews is a second Jerusalem. 
 
 Rotterdam, the second commercial city of Holland, lies 
 one and a half hour below Amsterdam, over the same even 
 sandy country, presenting the same features of soil and 
 production. With only one-third the population of the 
 tbrmer city, it possesses treble its attractions in the life of 
 its floating community. The houses are more antique, the 
 architecture plainer, and the canals more populous. Most 
 of the structures have a downward grade following the 
 sinking earth to the sea, and on all the poorer avenues I 
 find signs of hot coals and boiling water for sale ; the lower 
 classes purchase just enough of these requisites to make 
 their tea and cook their potatoes for each repast. But 
 there is something inclfably charming to sit in one of the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 39*7 
 
 crumbling brick bow-windows overhanging the canals and 
 watch the aquatic life beneath. 
 
 What a medley and what a motlej'' of curious custom 
 and customers ; yet this commonwealth is not of to-day 
 nor yesterday ; it is the growth of centuries. Families pro- 
 create through ages, and never have other homes than the 
 cramped low-roofed cabins, nor other fields than brackish 
 inlets, nor other woodlands, than the forests of masts. 
 Sliortly after dawn this morning I rose to watch the prog- 
 ress of the day's domestic life. A family barge lay near; 
 the mother first ducked her babies into the grimy, briny 
 stream, that seemed to add only soil u re to the bedaubed 
 and beslobbered condition of the 3^outhful progeny, then 
 proceeded to perform her own ablutions by ducking her 
 head over the side of the boat, until I feared in her peril- 
 ous condition, not only for her life, but a sad exposee. 
 The baker, the milkman, and the market boats came drift- 
 ing in the tide, stopping at each of the floating homes at 
 anchor, and the habitants of the river crnft negotiated for 
 their provisions from the cruising costermongers. One 
 little transport has only a man and his canine companion 
 for occupants ; at evening he cooks his frugal meal with the 
 canal water dipped in a tincup, and his little dog keeps him 
 solitary company on deck while he smokes; in the morn- 
 inor the faithful animal is first on deck to watch for and 
 apprise his master of the approach of the truck vendor. 
 In the evening the families of the larger craft cluster on 
 deck, and to the music of a well-played accordeon sing the 
 religious refrains of the American Jubilee singers, who have 
 been passing through these sluggish canals, gathering 
 kreuzers for themselves and leaving their own quaint melo- 
 dies among these Dutch sea-birds. 
 
 The perfect religious toleration of Holland is refreshing 
 in contrast with the bigotry of the greater part of Europe ; 
 and while the artist ma}^ regret the fierce Puritan rage that 
 swept many beautiful works from the churches of Amster- 
 dam and the lesser towns of the Netherlands, there is ample 
 compensation in the preservation of the forms and features 
 of the victorious Dutch admirals, and the eminent cham- 
 pions of religious liberty portraj'cd by the immortal masters 
 whose master-pieces have reflected so much honor on the 
 Dutch Republic. 
 
 Here again I had a study in these exclusive people, with 
 their guttural dialect, their apparent simplicity, and their 
 real eccentricities, and a literature and art of their own. 
 34 
 
398 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 The Dutch schools are of immortal renown, the German 
 eminent, and the reflection surprising that this small king- 
 dom, with an unimi)ortant army, and comparatively small 
 navy, controls its increasing commerce, and its vast distant 
 possessions with all the quiet stolid determination of real 
 Dutchmen. 
 
 Out beyond the treetops of the Boompjes the canal is 
 thronged with vessels from ever}'^ sea. Many moored to 
 the wharf, and others moving in and out for or from foreign 
 stations. Multitudes of the names flying on the pennons of 
 these craft indicate their trading witii the Dutch colonies of 
 Samarang, Borneo, Sumatra, while their freight of sugar, 
 coflfee, spice, and rice strengthen the proclamation of the 
 banners. The craft connected with the interior trade is 
 largely manned, if I may he permitted the paradox, by wo- 
 men ; all populous with vociferous babyhood. 
 
 1 hadly leel that I may trust myself to speak of the 
 Dutch seat of government, the Hague, in my present state 
 of intense enthusiasm. Perhaps it was the recollection of 
 ti»e accounts of the melting heat at home in contrast with 
 the delicious atmosphere in this beautiful political capital, 
 and perhajjs the vast difference between the former com- 
 mercial towns, and this, the aristocratic rendezvous of re- 
 finement and culture. Not only the residence of the king, 
 the legislative centre, the favorite home of the Dutch nobil- 
 ity, and the choice resort of those moneyed princes who have 
 accumulated their fortunes by trading with the colonies in 
 Jndia, but the seat of art, and, by its nearness to the ocean, 
 the spot most sought for by th#se who delight in the pleas- 
 uies of the seaside ; thus it lias the double charm of metropo- 
 lis and pastoral resort. 
 
 It is a city of broad streets, splendid residences, impos- 
 ing squares, fine public buildings, and excessive and uni- 
 versal cleanliness. The canals are less numerous, and those 
 that adorn the streets are so embellished by white stone 
 quays and double colonnades of foliage as to render them a 
 cheerful adornment. Home and foreign customs are charm- 
 ingly interwoven, so I do not marvel that the rich come here 
 to spend their money, the old prefer to close out their lives 
 amid its enchanting surroundings and mystic memories, 
 the scholar loves to linger in its libraries, galleries, and 
 parks, and that the poor seem happier here in the air of 
 gentle improvement. For centuries it has been the Court 
 city, and though less absorbed in commerce, its great 
 artists, the products of its mechanics, the dress of the 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 399 
 
 better classes, and the evident superiority of the men, all 
 point to its commanding influence at home and abroad. 
 
 The jsjods of Dutch idolatry in the realm of art are Ru- 
 bens, Vandyke, Jordeans, Jan Steen, Rembrandt, Paul 
 Potter, and while scarcely daring as a connoisseur to dis- 
 cuss their works, I was naturally anxious to see something 
 of each in the region in which they lived, and labored, and 
 died. Rembrandt's "School of Anatomy," painted two 
 hundred and fifty years ago, and purchased by King Wil- 
 liam for the museum here, is a weird and wonderful work 
 of fore-shortening. Paul Potter's famous " Bull" and 
 Vandyke's "Magdalen," and Jan Steen's " Family Grroup," 
 are the most impressive works in the gallery. There are 
 many pictures vvith all the shaded and mellow gloom of the 
 Dutch school, gems in themselves to be studied, but so 
 startlingly beautiful and sad is the penitent Magdalen of 
 the Flemish artist, in all the magnificence of melancholy 
 loveliness, and vvith the dew of contrition lying like vapor- 
 ous pearls upon her cheeks, that all others seemed dwarfed 
 into insignificance by its omnipotence. Here begins a 
 plentitude of Rubens, an introduction to the endless proofs 
 of his genius. I mention these artists not to describe 
 them or their works so much as to pay a tribute to the 
 Flemish schools they represent with such exquisite finish 
 and fidelity. 
 
 The good Queen Sophia, being dead, the royal family 
 seems to be in bad odor with the people. The King is 
 controlled by an elective Parliament, and his renegade son, 
 Prince of Orange, riots his fortune away in the foreign 
 capitals. The city is aglow with bridal arches and plat- 
 forms and wreaths for the coming nuptial festivities of 
 Prince Henry and his bride, who it is confidently hoped 
 will succeed to the throne. 
 
 The late Queen's "home in the woods" is a healthy con- 
 trast to the sad state of royal morals. A mile and a half 
 from the city, the Huis ten Bosch lies in a beautiful park 
 completely- isolated from other habitations, with the excep- 
 tion of a pretty villa on the same estate formerlj'- occupied 
 by our own John Lothrop Motley, the best historian of 
 the Dutch republic. The ro^al residence was erected by 
 the widow of the late Prince William Henry Frederick of 
 Holland, in honor of his memory. The park is a laby- 
 rinth of shade, drive, wood, foliage, and waterfall; one of 
 those mementos which revive the lavish opulence of the 
 old Dutch princes and kings. As I came upon the palace 
 
400 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 I saw only a square, awkward, brick dwelling with a great 
 deal of wiiite about it; I was very mucii impressed by the 
 severe plainness, but surprise was changed to pleasure as 
 I passed into and through the interior, where the diversity 
 of apartments and decoration manifested a prodigality of 
 taste and expenditure. In all the superb palaces there is 
 a harmonious repetition of adornment. It is only tlie 
 novelties that impress me. In the dining-room there were 
 two mural oil paintings, executed in grisaille by De Witt, 
 one hundred and fifty years ago; so in unison were the 
 monotones of white and gray blent that they arrested and 
 held my admiration with greater strength than the bright 
 hues, dramatic attitudes, of more generally acceptal)le 
 works. So entirely bizarre in tone, sentiment, and natural 
 poise, though drawn and filled in upon canvas, they stood 
 in relief, like statuary or stucco, but, unlike marble, seemed 
 to breathe in the exquisite swell and motion of their pro- 
 portions. 
 
 The piece de renUtaiice of the late Queen's castle is the 
 orange salon ; an octagonal hall, adorned on the eight sides 
 and cupola with scenes from the life of Prince Henry, exe- 
 cuted by artisans of the Rubens school. The effect is fine, 
 but the figures are overcrowded, though boldly conceived 
 and portrayed. The lofty sides of this salon evince the 
 l)resence of careful preservation. But the potent attrac- 
 tion to an American is the faithful portrait of the New 
 England scholar and historian of the Dutch republic, 
 who endeared himself to the Queen and in the hearts of 
 the peoi)le by his marvellous annals ot their country. He 
 with his family stood in such high favor with the Queen 
 that the villa adjoining the royal residence was fixed for 
 their home, parted only by a wicker bri<lge, which the 
 American litterateur crossed every day to see his Queen; 
 a most singular coincidence, in connection, is the fact that 
 the amiable Queen and gentle historian, afterwards our 
 Minister to Great Britain, died within three days of each 
 other. 
 
 The Royal Bazaar at the Hague is a depository of bric- 
 a-brac, and nowhere may a better insight be gained of the 
 wealth of many of the ancestors of the richer Hollanders. 
 Trading as they did and do with the Dutch colonies, and 
 dealing with princes and potentates, vast sums were in- 
 vested in fantastic art, and gold and silver ornaments, and 
 various conceits in furniture. Many of the families still 
 hoard the archaic treasures, while others have been forced 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 401 
 
 to part with those collected into the four walls of the Ba- 
 zaar. Such mammon princes as the Rothschilds come here 
 and pay $10,000 for an ornament of silver, made seven 
 hundred years ago, and belonging to the ancient nobility. 
 An endless array of old Dutch potter}^, and such relics as 
 the prayer-books of Philippe le Bon, and Marie de Medici, 
 and Catharine of Aragon; coins, medals, and cameos, old 
 and i)riceless, extending far back into the Pagan eras. The 
 relics and canonized trophies collected here prove the assi- 
 duity with which the vanished ages gathered and valued 
 their souvenirs. Passing away from their original owners ' 
 they are now for sale to tlie fashionable world, who adorn . 
 their mantels and proclaim their centuried lineage by these 
 tanorible but false tokens. 
 
 1 [)assed a Sabbath day at Scheveningen, the fashionable 
 seaside of Holland. It was a lovely cold day in August, 
 and as I rode over the sand dykes to the North Sea the 
 populace was flocking out to enjoy the sanitary breath of 
 the ocean. A succession of dunes were passed resembling 
 the bulwarks upheaved to thwart the invasion of a rebelli- 
 ous force. Chain after chain of these earthworks protect 
 the cities of the Lowlands from the cruel sea. It is a town 
 of great and numerous hotels, expensive shops, and fash- 
 ionable cafes, especially in the region of the beach; but as 
 I walked up in the precincts of the fishers' cottages I ob- 
 served real frugal domesticity, and in the heart of the town 
 great comfort and happiness. 
 
 The gray surf of the North Sea came heaving and boil- 
 ing over the sands, which, as it receded, it left dry and 
 sterile ; a painful sight in remembrance of the verdure 
 which keeps our beaclies so fresh and bright. As 1 rode 
 over the northern sands the icy breath of Lapland swept 
 over the blue and scintillating waters of the far-out ocean. 
 'I'he bathers were in their hive-like straw basket or bathino- 
 boats and wagons, which were hauled into the surf on 
 wheels. Those in the watch-boxes were protected from the 
 counter-current of wind, that sweeps Over the Netherlands 
 like the mistral of Southern France, getting only the fra- 
 grance of the sea and sun. The absence of heat and non- 
 existence of insects seemed to render unnecessiary a salt- 
 water baptism, and was a chilly spectacle. The great dunes 
 impeded the mighty ocean from throwing its avalanche of 
 water over the Netherlands. 
 
 As I rode through the shaded avenue to the capital the 
 inhabitants of the antique village were out in Sunday rega- 
 
 34* 
 
402 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 lia, picturesque to the last degree; the granddanie was 
 attired as the grandchild of six, — a full short black petti- 
 coat, white chemisette and sleeves, a small purple and white 
 or blue and white plaid woollen kerchief folded over the 
 bosom, and an apron, completed the costume. But the 
 headgear is still more grotesque, and is called the 'Miocht- 
 dizer." A silver plate fits closely on the back of the head 
 and just above the nape of the neck; it is fastened by two 
 gilt horns or skewers on either side the face, and over all 
 is a lai'ge white muslin cap. 
 
 In fact it was very much like a scene in a play. These 
 happy, unpretentious peoi)le, in the stranoeohl-lime dresses, 
 as ihey passed in and out the odorous alleys of the magni- 
 ficent forest, seemed rather the actors in some prepared 
 festival than the simi)le laboring people of the antique 
 and unique fishing village. It seemed impossible that in 
 the immediate vicinitj' of the brilliant and costly modern 
 life of the capital the people should adhere so strictly to 
 the customs of their ancestors. 
 
 L E T a^ E R L X X y . 
 
 In Eubensland we find tbe dual fruit work, 
 
 Of master artist, and pupil Vandyke ; 
 Both now lie shrouded in glory niuto, 
 
 And both in history are beloved alike. 
 
 Akokymous. 
 
 Antwerp, August, 1878. 
 
 The wa}' from the Hague to Antwerp is througii a rich 
 and fruitful country. Notiiing in the topography differs 
 from the great expanse of lowland in Holland, except the 
 impenetrable forests of Belgium, with here and there little 
 white hamlets squatted down upon their borders, and be- 
 tween their glades and in their shadows, like a warren of 
 rabbits or flocks of quail; hamlets full of the romance of 
 an invisible life ; humble communes where the girls stitch 
 their lives into fragile laces, to be dragged in the dust by 
 the great lady who nothing knows or cares of the sorrow, 
 and sadness, and heart-pangs, contained in every sprig and 
 wreath of the woof she desecrates at night revels ; villages 
 where the youths tend the kine, while the old men are off 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 403 
 
 on the broad seas, and the old women hobble throngh life 
 in clatterinii: sabots, eonntinor their beads, and mumblinu: 
 Aves in their Flemish tongue, and ignorant, yet unsophis- 
 ticated bigotry to the Holy Motiier. They bow their knee 
 at the wayside slirine, invoke a pardon, lisp a hallelujah, 
 mutter a litany, and pass away as blindl}- confident in the 
 omnipotence of the Great Unknown as the Pagans were in 
 their Hermes. But these Brabant peasants often leave the 
 quiet shade of the gigantic forests, and through vale and 
 wood come, in their long-eared caps, silver ornaments, and 
 clicking, clashing, clapping, wooden shoes, beating a deviTs 
 tattoo over the rough cobbles, to the great cities, to sell a 
 bunch of violets, or a shred of lace, at the doors of the ma- 
 jestic Cathedral or under the florid portals of the Hotel de 
 Yille. They come and sell their bouquets to a stranger, and 
 lose the flow^er of their chastity, and the fragrance of their 
 innocence in the whirlwind of the cruel, flattering metropo- 
 lis ; and then go back in discontent, or remain to sink 
 deeper and deeper into the mire, seeking gayer flowers, and 
 more ecstatic, wildering aroma among the poisonous airs 
 of a false societ}'. 
 
 At the Belgian frontier the customs ofl[icers came to ex- 
 amine the baggage of passengers, and a solitary military 
 dignitarj^ loomed dark upon the platform, while the yellow 
 and green and red lanterns of the brakemen gleamed along 
 the meadows, following the line of rail, like fire-flies in the 
 sombre gloom. 
 
 We rolled into the only seaport of the flourishing king- 
 dom of Belgium on Sunday night, and at my first glimpse 
 1 suspected it of the same indecorous revels that greeted 
 meat Cologne. At the station I inquired for my hotel; 
 the porter said it was about two squares above, and in his 
 care I concluded to trust my luggage, and foot the short 
 distance. I walked seven or eight long blocks, which 
 seemed to be alive with the people from beyond the bas- 
 tions, eating and drinking in the cal'^s of this suburban 
 section, as 1 discovered it to be, as I continued inquiring 
 my way from pillar to post of the Flemish or Walloons 
 who understood little French. At last I got into a noble 
 street that looked as if there was a possibility of leading 
 me to my destination. Great structures of efflorescent 
 architecture lined the way, and on either side the foot 
 passages colossal lamps, in groups of three glaring pen- 
 dants, lighted the avenue that seemed to stretch out in 
 interminahle length. Jt was the Place de Meir, adorned by 
 
404 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 the statues and homes of great artists and rulers ; the Fifth 
 Avenue of Antwerp. In an abrupt curve to my left 1 found 
 my hotel in the midst of the tradiug quarter, and adjacent 
 to the network of narrow, dirty, antique purlieus leading 
 to the wharves of the Scheldt. 
 
 Antwerp is a port of vast commerce, mnch wealth, and 
 -some social prestige, and while the supremacy' it enjoj'ed 
 in the Middle Ages has faded with the years, its art re- 
 mains to proclaiui its mediaeval ascendency, and establish 
 its conceded influence. It is a fragment of a semicircle 
 npon a stream whicli forms its chief advantage; it has few 
 or no pavements, old market-places, trading shops of only 
 ordinary status; a great middle class, and maiine populace; 
 a population that rests with closed offices and shops three 
 hours in the middle of the day, and resumes business again 
 in the afternoon. Yet it possesses its fine homes, its aris- 
 tocracy, its zoological gardens, its parks, and above all its 
 art schools, and the choice treasures of its national gods. 
 
 Overwhehningly Catholic, it contains all the sacred gems 
 of the Flemish painter Rubens, and his pupil Vandyke, 
 whose flower of ripe genius endears it to the hearts of the 
 Romish societ}'^ of all countries. Master and protege glori- 
 fied the earlier part of the seventeenth century with their 
 successive and successful labors. Both tiie favorites of 
 princes, the elder pre-eminent for the excellence of his his- 
 torical and sacred subjects, the younger for his royal i)or- 
 traits, scattered through the courts of the entire Continent. 
 Rubens, though a Prussian b}^ nativity, made Antwerp his 
 residence and the theatre where he achie'ved his grandest 
 glory. I fear many of the stupendous works bearing his 
 signatnre, like the oceans of superior wines, are spurious. 
 He may have conceived the models, and left them to re- 
 ceive flesh and clothing, and coloring and life, from his 
 journeymen students, tlius leaving a bad impression of 
 some of the work said to be the great artist's. His inspi- 
 rations are ever of the most sublime and broadest char- 
 acter, though there was often little delicacy or consonance 
 of tone. Vivid coloring and brawny contortions — of the 
 Michael Angelo school — seem to have been his peculiar 
 talent, though his most celebrated disciple, Vandyke, ac- 
 quired all the weiKd grace and mellow beauty his patron 
 never possessed. In the works of the former there appears 
 to be a stream of garish sunlight, that carnalizes tiie most 
 })athetic theme; tiiose of the latter have a soft twilight 
 glamour that apotheosizes a profligate prince or sensuous 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 405 
 
 duchess. Rubens's principal deficiency seemed to be his 
 utter want of discrimination. Like all artists, whether 
 painters, authors, or dramatists, he was wont to reward his 
 favorites by placing them in the celestial spheres amongst 
 the angels, and to punish his enemies by condemning them 
 to the hottest flames of Gehenna. But, in that exquisite 
 work, — his articulate monument to jealousy, — which he ex- 
 ecuted to perpetuate his own hatred and the faithlessness 
 of his wife and scholar Vandyke, where he confines them 
 in the liquid fire of the Stygian cave, he portrays the fallen 
 angel with as much personal beauty as the deified Magda- 
 len at the foot of the cross. Rubens's have all the boM 
 flourishes and brilliant coloring of a liberal but crude mind ; 
 Vandyke shines brightest in his minutiae and dignity of 
 portraiture; a difference as widespread as the poles, yet 
 they were preceptor and pupil. 
 
 In the Museum we see Rubens at home, as it were. 
 Though the Cathedral claims his finest achievements, those 
 of the Museum display' greater accuracy of drawing. A 
 vast wall of the building is occupied by the whole colony 
 of Flemish artists, clustered in a group of fifty-two life-size 
 portraits, executed by De Keyser, still alive, and though 
 he steadily" refused to insert his ovvn figure upon earnest 
 solicitation of the corporation, on the plea that the others 
 were sanctified by death, when the composition was finishetl 
 and his own was missing, but after loud importunity he 
 consented to appear in the extreme background. 
 
 In an adjacent building was the exhibition of what 
 seemed a moie tangible proof of Belgian artistic enterprise 
 and glory than the remarkable products of the ancient 
 magicians. It was a specimen of the way in which the 
 corporation of Antvverp encourages young students to 
 emulate these immortal examples. In the school attached 
 to the academy, and encouiaged by the municipality, the 
 poorest Brabant may, for a small sum, prepare himself to 
 compete for the prize, which gives the winner the privilege 
 of being sent to Rome, at the ex[)ense of the guild, to com- 
 plete his education. The fruits of the labors of the six 
 present rivals hung before a criticizing throng. The touch- 
 ing parable of the "' Prodigal Son" was the subject under 
 treatment, and each one had been left to work out his idenl 
 alone, and when all were finished, a caucus of eminent 
 artists convened and pronounced judgment; and now the 
 victorious work hangs in the centre crowned with laurels. 
 
 There is scarcely a city or town of these old countries 
 
406 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 that docs not own such an institution, and yet with all our 
 boasted liberal education in America we have yet to learn 
 this great republican lesson. 
 
 Rubens's masterpieces in the Cathedral, the "Descent 
 from the Cross," the ^' Elevation of the Cross," and the 
 "Assumption" did not overcome nor impress me. There 
 may have been something of disappointment in these works 
 on account of my own inexperience, and something of too 
 lofty ex{)ectations from the burden of adulation showered 
 upon them; ort here may have been much in the counter- 
 acting radiance of the splendid decorations of the Cathe- 
 dral itself, which had just been fully dressed for one of the 
 numerous religious festivals, tiiat led me to turn from the 
 pictures to the body of the holy art-gal ler}'. 
 
 Here, again, I noted the pageantry of the Catholic Cluirch 
 and the influence it wields. It rules the masses with the 
 magic power of a caduceus, and whether the etfect be upon 
 the heart, the intellect, or the senses, if the result be bene- 
 ficial, the cause is good. The majority of Papists go to 
 church to enjoy the pictures, the exquisite stained glass 
 windows, the bronzes, the banners, and the sweet music, but 
 once having entered the sanctum they pray ; no irrepressible 
 longing to lay their hearts down before their Maker would 
 have guided their steps into the Holy of Holies had it not 
 been an art depository as well as the house of God. 
 
 The Cathedral is one of those Gothic fancies so prevalent 
 in the church architecture of Catholic Europe. A wilder- 
 ness of steeples and towers and flying buttresses. Inside, 
 apart from the Rubens pictures and the painted windows, 
 the amplitude of delicate and intricate wood carvings seem 
 to be the loadstar. The elaborate tracery of the superb 
 chapels, naves and chancels, is as marvellous and mystical 
 apiece of art as the exterior of the Milan duomo. Religi- 
 ous ensigns in the pontifical colors floated from every pillar 
 and post, and formed wreathed drapery from the dome; the 
 clouds of incense svmbolized a service which keeps itself 
 forever before its worshipi)ers. 
 
 The populace were out, like a great sea let loose, to wel- 
 come the Archbishop. It was a fine spree for them, but it 
 was a decorous, sober, sincere frolic. No sloth, nor intoxi- 
 cation, nor profanity characterized the herd that swarmed 
 through the lofty aisles of the Cathedral and filled the open 
 squares of the cit3\ Every age and station mingled in the 
 jubilee, the poorest and the smallest seeming to sympathize 
 with the event. The resplendent illumination in the even- 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 40*7 
 
 ing in lienor of the patron saint was the new ecstasy that 
 sup[)lemented the glory of the day. 
 
 What the Antwerpians call Mount Calvary deserves no 
 better title than the Chamber of Horrors. In the court 
 adjacent to St. Paul's a huge mound of rock and slag sur- 
 mounted by a crucified Christ represents the sacred hill. 
 Hideous prototypes of saints, angels, and ])atriarciis, stand 
 at varied heights upon the projections, and surround the 
 grotto intended to illustrate the sepulchre at Jerusalem, 
 behind wliich a delineation of Purgatory gleamed, where 
 the condemned stood neck-deep in flames behind iron bars. 
 The entire conception was the fantasy of some ignorant 
 bigot, and admirably disposed to make men turn back from 
 the Catholic Church, who might have beeen converted by 
 the other fascinations and displays, 'i he statues without 
 exception were repulsive, and the holy tomb, with all its 
 wretched and tawdry painting of purgatory for a back- 
 ground, forms a chief object to inspire benighted adherents 
 with awe, by a constant presentation of the terrors of eter- 
 nal damnation. To intensify the ghastly and misshapen 
 sight, several clothes-lines stretched from the tenement- 
 houses adjoining, floated all the repulsive rags, just wrung 
 from the washtubs, over the heads of the holy conclave. 
 
 LETTER LXXYI. 
 
 "And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 
 Dewey with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
 Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves. 
 Over the unreturning brave." 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 Brussels, August, 1878. 
 
 Not an hour's ride on the rails from Antwerp to the 
 little Paris, or hilly city of Brussels, as mountainous as a 
 Swiss town hung upon the Alpine crags, and all the way 
 is marked by the vagrant detachments of canals, the low 
 white lands stretching away from the dunes of the Nether- 
 lands, and the tall poplars of France, 
 
 " Whose only boughs 
 Are gathered round their dusky brows." 
 
408 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 There is little in the approach to these Lowland cities to 
 stimulate the imagination, and it is only upon entering 
 that I realized how it filled out the pictures of my fancy. 
 The political capital of Belgium is indeed Paris, l>ut Paris 
 epitomized, Paris curtailed of its originality^, and abridged 
 of its fertile and varied proportions. 
 
 An exquisite city is Brussels, of art and architecture, of 
 vast hotels, of marvellous manufactures, stations, cathe- 
 dral, gallery, and |)alace. A mongrel city, so to speak; 
 a half-cast, with French, Germans, and Dutch in its line- 
 age ; a court centre and an important commercial station ; 
 a city where the ducal pageants blend and harmonize 
 with the traffic of the Zuyder Zee, the ic}^ Baltic coast, and 
 the far Indies; where the crimson and gold pennons, ban- 
 ners, and gonfalons floating from palace capitals and 
 cathedral posts, seem a part of the national colors flying 
 from the lofty masts, and the white sails swaying in the 
 breeze of the canals and tributaries that flow away to the 
 Scheldt; a city where the lowly peasant or burgher life 
 drifting into the streets every morning from the forests of 
 Ardennes or the woods of Soignies, or the plains of Water- 
 loo, with its handful of violets and daisies, shred of lace, 
 or milk-cart drawn by a big yellow dog, is far more inter- 
 esting than the shrill-voiced bouffe singers at the Theatre 
 de la Monnaie cutting their ambiguous antics, or the 
 wealth in ihe Quartier Leopold, or the extravagant shops 
 of the rues Koyale, de la Regence, and de la Madelaine. 
 
 ]n the early morning the milk or bread wagons, drawn 
 by dogs and driven by broad, square, brown Walloon 
 women, clattering their sabots and Flemish tongues in 
 unison, fill the rugged hill}'^ streets. Two canine brutes 
 harnessed to the tongue and one under the miniature cart 
 })ull with all their might the burden up the hill, and 
 when the mistress halts in the vicinity of her trade, each 
 and every dog drops exhausted upon the white roads, but 
 with the true instinct of that intellectutd and faithful brute 
 springs to his feet at the sound of his particular mistress's 
 step. They serve their milk, flap the long tabs of their 
 white caps and jingle the silver j)endants in their ears, 
 enter the shady, holy recesses of St. Gudule and pray 
 to the Great Unknown, in the glow of the Belgian sun 
 streaming through the golden and crimson glass of the 
 marvellous windows, under the protection of the nim- 
 bussed cherubs, and in the seductive clouds of incense that 
 reverently veil the angels of the dome, and return to their 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 409 
 
 Brabant groves and brakes to rehearse on the morrow the 
 same programme that has been in course of action even 
 from their infancv, and will be repeated until the sun of 
 life is eclipsed behind the sorrowing shadow of death. 
 
 And these good Brabant people speak the Flemish or 
 Walloon dialect, which is as incomprehensible to a French- 
 man as it is to an Englishman, while the language of the 
 upper classes, of government, the municipal laws and the 
 literature, is French, and has been since the days Godfrey 
 of Brabant armed himself with the holy cross and led the 
 first crusade. There is some slight variation between the 
 Walloon and Flemish tongues, — the former spoken b}' the 
 northern Belgian, the latter bj' the peasants of the districts 
 south of Liejje and Brussels; but neither has a literature 
 except in religious publications for the exclusive use of the 
 nnder orders. The Walloons are an approach to the Irish, 
 Scotch, or Swedes, while the Flemish are akin to the real 
 Hollander, and the upper-tendom are French, or French 
 mannered and French educated. 
 
 On an abrupt slope below the noble esplanade of the 
 Rue Roy ale, where the military tramp and the royal car- 
 riages follow in close succession, with outriders and flying 
 colors through the long sultry days, there rises a Gothic 
 structure, with jutting angles and naves, ascended by vast 
 flights of stone steps, and crowned by massive, square, un- 
 finished towers, ornate with the florid intricate scrolls of 
 the Corinthian chisel. The stained glass windows are the 
 cynosure of the interior. They dale from every era of 
 time since the thirteenth century, and represent the suc- 
 cessive rulers of Belgium in those days of cabal and dis- 
 content when the kingdom threw off yoke after yoke of 
 foreign oppressors, and passed through a series of regimes, 
 choosing its chiefs from among strangers. Tliere are com- 
 paratively few sacred subjects portrayed upon these ex- 
 quisite windows that arrest the attention of the world ; 
 yet this is the cathedral where the women sell figures of 
 Christ within the vestibule, and the brown-eyed girl from 
 Hougomont or Mont St. Jean barters away her soul on the 
 steps without, under the eye of her Holy Mother and in 
 the presence of her God. 
 
 One of the chief charms of Brussels is the monumental 
 splendors of the streets. In this feature it seems almost 
 an envious rival of the white capital of France. Perhaps 
 it is because the little kingdom has so much of glory and 
 strife and combat to relate in its history, and perhaps be- 
 35 
 
410 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 cause the gallant citizens fancy this way of at once per- 
 petuating the fame of their great ones and adorning their 
 squares. Is not the equestrian statue of Godfrey de Bouil- 
 lon, erected upon the spot where he exhorted the Belgians 
 on to war for the Holy Sepulchre, a more fitting tribute to 
 the centuried hero than some fantastic allegorical marble 
 requiring inscribed explanation ? The Place des Martyrs, 
 back of the Rue Neuve, and approached through the Rue St. 
 Michel, contains the cenotaph of the brave who fell in the 
 autumn of '30. In a sunken gallery, or open tomb, are in- 
 closed stone slabs recording the names of the martyrs. The 
 figure of enfranchised Belgium surmounts a pediment guard- 
 ed by angels of mercy and consolation and prayer, while 
 Patria herself chronicles with her stylus the eventful days 
 that unlocked her gjves, unbound her pinions, and gave her 
 freedom ; the base contains reliefs of a nation's oaths, its 
 conflict, its gratitude, and its tombs. The Counts Egmont 
 and Hoorne still stand before the Maison du Roi in all the 
 stony calmness and majesty they displayed the day, three 
 centuries ago, the}^ met their treacherous fate, which really 
 was the initial scene of the thirty years' tragedy that ended 
 in bursting the Spanish halter. Opening from the Rue 
 Royale, and on a vertical line with the celebrated mansion 
 where sat " Brunswick's fated chieftain" on the calamitous 
 night when a thousand "lamps shone o'er fair women and 
 brave men," the Doric column of Congress loses its lofty 
 head in the clouds. The fact which the heaven-kissing 
 tower commemorates gave to Belgium its king, its liberty 
 of press, freedom of education, immunity of associations, 
 and latitude in public worship, and Belgium reciprocated 
 by giving the cloud-capped memorial to the city. 
 
 But with all these unfading testimonials to the indepen- 
 dence, valor, and genius of a country, the grotesque Foun- 
 tain of the Mannikin is a greater municipal attraction. It 
 is worshipped by the lower Flemish, and sought by stran- 
 gers ; it is pointed to b}* valets de place, and attired in 
 fitting costume upon j^olitical or religious festivals. The 
 Mannikin is a racy little diplomate, who changes his na- 
 tional sentiments with the springtide of public opinion, and 
 therefore is ever a faithful subject of the enthroned regime, 
 and dons a costume in consonance with his precepts. He 
 has been a Frenchman, a Brabant, an Orangeman, a Revo- 
 lutionist, and is now a loyal adherent of Leopold, of Saxe- 
 Coburg. He always courts the ruling power and by his 
 sycophant nature remains the favorite of the masses. 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 411 
 
 While Patrifi in her unloosed shackles, looking healthy 
 and holy, ma}' some day turn a green and sickly hue, or 
 Egmont in his gold lace and feathers may be torn down 
 from his pedestal and beaten into the defiling dust of the 
 streets by the ungrateful and forgetting posterity of those 
 for whom he suffered, and the Colonne du Congres frown 
 upon the threatening insurgents below, tlie Mannikin will 
 reign in state, for he will be a constituent of the stronger 
 faction. 
 
 The city is bathed in a sea of pomp and glee, for it is 
 the festal season of the silver wedding of Leopold and his 
 Queen Henrietta, and while the steeds from the royal sta- 
 bles, gay in gilt trapping and scarlet cloth, and the royal 
 guard climb the steep streets, and the silver chimes of 
 church towers make sweet melody, and the blare of trumpet 
 and beat of drum reverberate through the crowded ways 
 and galleries, and silks and laces and diamonds rival each 
 other in shimmer and texture and radiance in the palace 
 saloons, and orators endeavor to drown each other's voices 
 and convictions in the public halls and parks, the peasants 
 are trudging their leafy roads, where the shade of poplar 
 and pine cast a holy mist around, to the great city to join 
 in the pageant to their sovereign, a brilliant ovation where 
 I catch glimpses of celebrated characters and meet fre- 
 quent revelations of the manners and customs of the labor- 
 ing multitude. I watched the parade of the Belgian free- 
 schools and the Belgian Parliament, with their chiefs and 
 leaders of the realm, as it wound about the broad boule- 
 vards that form the town into an ill-shaped triangle, like a 
 brilliant-hued serpent, and passing before the royal family 
 under the portico of the palace was lost in the roads lead- 
 ing away to the suburbs. Detachments from the far-away 
 coal districts of Mons and Liege, the lace sections of Ma- 
 lines, the northern plains of Ghent and Bruges, and the 
 southern sylvan shades of Ardennes came in fantastic 
 dress to participate in the jubilee and offer precious gifts in 
 homage to their monarch. 
 
 The communal pupils formed a vast army of childhood, 
 and though the miijority are Roman Catholic they are all 
 instructed from a common fund, the trainins^ beino^ thoi'- 
 ough and practical, not religious. The girls flaunted their 
 white dresses, long panties, and ga}^ ribbons under the 
 scrolled and gilded balconies of the metropolis, perhaps for 
 the first and last time in life, and the boys marched like a 
 miniature battalion of freedmen, in their gala suits and 
 
412 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 high hats, as proud of tlioir introduction into their capi- 
 tal as an American oirl of her presentation at Victoria's 
 court. The future mothers and fathers of tlie kingdom 
 chorussed tiieir festive airs in exquisite iiarmony as they 
 j)roceeded under the goki and crimson flags from their 
 liomes at Antwerp, Liege, Lille, Bruges, Ghent, Malines, 
 Brabant, Luxembourg, Hainault, and Namur, cheered by 
 the enthusiasm of the rapturous crowds and stimulated by 
 the witchery of novelty ; but as the Liberal deputies lately 
 elected to the Belgian Parliament appeared they were 
 greeted witli a sterner and manlier ebullition of jo}'. And 
 these men had vanquished the Ultramontanists at the late 
 elections, — despite the overwhelming Catholicism of Bel- 
 gium, — and instructed their King to organize a liberal or 
 republican ministr^M 
 
 All through the long da\'S throngs of burghers pass to 
 and fro in the halls of the Hotel de Ville, where the lace 
 train and jewelled coronal to be presented to the Qjieeii by 
 her female subjects lay on exhibition, and all through the 
 sunlight hours fine music bands march and countermarch 
 in the glaring streets, white with the sand from the dunes 
 of Holland, — military bands, showing a proficiency in the 
 art such as I have heard in no other foreign capital, except 
 at German Cologne. 1l et, in the midst of this musical 
 supremacy, it was not displeasing to hear that our Gil- 
 more's orchestra fairly electrified the cultivated and cen- 
 sorious professors of music in the critical city of Brussels 
 not long since, and while many unjust critics claim that 
 the American leader's organization is composed of Ger- 
 mans, such has been the development of scientific music in 
 the United States that some of the most valuable contri- 
 butions to the operatic stage are native and to the manner 
 born. 
 
 The revels and holidays of Catholic countries are un- 
 equalled for brilliancy, abandon, and universal i)articipa- 
 lion. The inordinate love of dramatic effect, which has 
 been fed by the garish show and scenic attributes of their 
 church, creates a thirst for all attractions needing Jig ur ante a 
 or pulchinello. The illumination in the evening was a 
 grand sublimation or deification of the glories of the da3'. 
 Great wreaths of mammoth flowers bridged the highways 
 from pillar to post; arches of the national colors and vari- 
 ous devices of man3'-colored lanteins filled the open places; 
 bands and streamers of black and orange and crimson 
 hone3'combed the streets, floated from every window and 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 413 
 
 rail of the habitations, and hung in festoons — looped and 
 interwoven — over the fagades of public structure and pii- 
 vate home. The chalk}^ pavements glare in a hoary re- 
 splendence, the atmosphere is a mystic splendor of pris- 
 matic hues, and the human herd dip and float in a foam of 
 phosphorescence. 
 
 Among the honors extended to the Belgian King and 
 Queen, upon the fete of their silver-wedding, the concert in 
 the park of the Zoological Garden formed a conspicuous 
 feature. A crush of people I met at the gates clamoring 
 for entrance; there was a jostling and bustling of rude 
 burghers and o[)ulent citizens and under-officers of the 
 peace. After some delay and a good deal of discomfort 
 we accomplished our entrance within the pale, and, slowly 
 taking our place in the ponderously-moving line, began 
 the ascent of the jiath toward the radiant fa§ade of the 
 restaurant, under which the royal pair were to sit. It was 
 a weird, nocturnal combination of illumination and sere- 
 nade, with the lights shining in the grass like natural con- 
 stellations, and the red-lighted shells looking" down from 
 between the tree-branches like great eyes, and yellow lami)s 
 shining in arches of glory. The decorations of colored 
 fire were superb, but the pyrotechnical display did not sur- 
 mount mediocrit)^, at Ifeast to me, for the memory of how I 
 had feasted upon the supernal blaze of the Centennial Ex- 
 hibition, and the meteoric effulgence of St. Peter's at Rome, 
 was a bar to the enjojmient of lesser beacons. 
 
 The depots for the sale of India shawls and the brilliant 
 depositories of laces have nothing at the exterior to indi^ 
 cate trade but a large brass-plate at one side of the entrance 
 bearing the name of the firm, and at times the addition of 
 the word dentelles. Both these productions deserve to be 
 classed in the category of arts, as they take place with the 
 higher sciences of oil-painting, engraving, sculpture, and 
 hi^ic-a-hrac. The Netherlands have for centui'ies been in 
 direct communication with India, and the wealthy firms 
 own their manufactories of Cashmere shawls among the 
 dusky nations of the East. A long apartment, like a lady's 
 drawing-room, is used for the display, and the walls are 
 decorated by prints and paintings of the inhabitants of the 
 valleys of Northern Ilindoostan, engaged in the various 
 processes of the manufacture of the shavvls; some at the 
 looms, and some plying their wooden needles, and others 
 steeped in i*ich, warm dye-stuff of the Orient. Do we mar- 
 vel at the prices these goods demanded when we learn that 
 
 35* 
 
414 PICTURES AND PORTRAITS 
 
 it requires the fleece of ten goats and a year's work to pro- 
 duce a wrap of onl}- ordinary quality and under size? Yet 
 these goods may V)e purchased for a third less price here, 
 from the Compngnie des Indes, than at our emporiums. 
 
 My first experience in the lace-shops left me disappointed 
 and pei'plexed. They couhi not boast of the correspond- 
 ingly and amazingly low figures of the shawls. If there is 
 any one thing in which a woman may be said to possess 
 instinctive knowledge it is in costume, detail and entire; 
 therefore she is ever awake to the inconsistency of over- 
 rates. The aristocratic lace and shawl manufactory of 
 Brussels is never advertised ; there is ever the all-pervad- 
 ing presence of quietude and concealment. I had made my 
 purchase of Cashmeres and was consulting with a friend 
 how I should carr}' them home without paying duty, — the 
 adroit American female never pays impost, it is not in her 
 eode, — when the saleslady began to tell off" the cost of her 
 laces, like a Catholic counting her beads. What she threw 
 before me were of the finest tissue, but all beyond my price. 
 The attendant displayed a black thread mantle that ha<l 
 been ordered by one of the California money princesses, to 
 cost $8000, and the duty at fifty per cent, would add $4000 ; 
 but to escape this necessary imposition the garment re- 
 mains at the depository until the lady millionaire calls for 
 it and carries it home on her fair shoulders, and so cheats 
 poor old Uncle Sam out of his rightful tariff. A flounce 
 of point d'aiguille, costing two hundred and twenty-five 
 dollars a meter, had each spray elevated from the founda- 
 tion and the opening leaves of each rose consumed a day 
 of the laceworker's time; labor which requires an artist for 
 which she receives eighty cents per diem, while the workers 
 of less subtile portions receive ten or fifteen cents of our 
 mone3'. What I saw was instructive but admonitory, and 
 I hurried awtjy from the airy fabrics with the weighty 
 price. After many days' search 1 found the envied gossa- 
 mer in the Rue des Paroissiens, where the finest textures 
 may be procured at rates in moderate contrast to those of 
 the Indian importers. 
 
 On a mound of earth adjoining the Zoological Garden I 
 sought and found what looked to be an antique ruin. It 
 was the home and studio of the erratic artist Wiertz while 
 he lived, and is now the casket of his works and a national 
 property. I had heard of the fantastic vagaries of this 
 gifted man, and felt a natural hunger to feast upon the 
 fruits of his weird genius en maf<^f.. The paintings that 
 
OF FOREIGN TRAVEL. 415 
 
 hfive won the fame of this strange being are the creations 
 of a wild, imaginative brain, to which the owner seems 
 generally to have allowed nnlimited scope ; — to use an 
 Americanism, " let himself loose." He was an expert with 
 intervals of insanity; often working with genuine inspira- 
 tion, and oftener witli a reckless dash and gross extrava- 
 gance ; yet from his portrait, painted at various ages, I saw 
 a philosophical face, and far from an}^ evidence of inebriety 
 or insanitj^ The pictures in his gallerj^ are all interesting 
 and original emanations ; most of the conceptions colossal 
 and strongly indicative of developed personifications of 
 the mania-a potu. With the vivid coloring of Rubens, the 
 distorted and brawny anatomj'- of Michel Angelo, the pro- 
 digious conceits of Carlyle, and the fanatic illusions of 
 Foe, he was at once fascinating and spectral. It seemed 
 very like a lunatic gifted with supreme but momentar}'- 
 power, throwing off his dark and brilliant vagaries upon 
 canvas. Still there were some of his achievements that 
 manifested a soft and touching sentiment, mystical and 
 beautiful beyond expression. Many of his women seem to 
 have been coined out of the melted love of his heart. The 
 portrayed horrors of this man's frenzies are alone worthy 
 a trip to Brussels. 
 
 It is strange that the thickly settled kingdom of Bel- 
 gium, crowded with great events and numbers of distin- 
 guished artists, writers, and statesmen in its annals, w(xuld 
 be obliored to take its kinjrs from other countries. The 
 father of the present King was Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 
 son-in-law of Louis Philii)pe, of France, and liis wife was a 
 princess of the house of Austria; so it may be said that 
 neither are Belgians. Despite the disparit}"" of not one 
 J*rotestant to every five hundred Catholics, the Extremists 
 were conquered by a large majority at the last election by 
 the Liberals. The Queen is a Protestant, and her royal 
 spouse is a moderate Catholic, quiet and domestic in his 
 customs, while Henrietta is fond of the turf, horseflesh, 
 sawdust, spangles, rush lights, and legs, which is equalized 
 by her philanthropy, and though a grandmother, still 
 drives four-in-hand and frequents the American circus. 
 
 * Hi :^i ilfi :{c ^ 
 
 " The play is done, the curtain drops, 
 Slow falling to the prompter's bell ; 
 A moment yet the actor s'ops, 
 
 And looks around to say — Farewell." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 African slave trade, 15 
 
 A f'terglow of Bernese Oberland, 332 
 
 Alcester, 62 
 
 Alhambra, 83 
 
 AUumiiiation, May 1, 1878, 146 
 
 Altorf, 349 
 
 Amsterdam, 394 
 
 Antwerp, 402 
 
 Aquarium, London, 115 
 
 Arabs of London, 36 
 
 Arc de I'Etoile, 182 
 
 "Ariadne on the Pantlier," 376 
 
 Avenue de 1' Opera, 189 
 
 Avignon, 218 
 
 Beau Sejour, Zurich, 356 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 46 
 
 Beneficent organization, 35 
 
 Benevolence of a proprietress, 58 
 
 Beroy, 211 
 
 Berne, 325 
 
 Bernhardt, 191, 3 94 
 
 Bilton Hall, 21 
 
 Birmingham, 52, 56 
 
 Black Forest, 363 
 
 Boboli Grardens, 292 
 
 Bois du Boulogne, 183 
 
 Bond Street jewelry shops, 29 
 
 Bonivard, 324 
 
 Boompjes, 398 
 
 Borbonica, Museum, 290 
 
 Boulevards, 139 
 
 Brienz, 337 
 
 British Museum, 124 
 
 British patriotism, 84 
 
 British pauperism, 37 
 
 Brunig Pass, 344 
 
 Brussels, 407 
 
 Bull, John, taciturn, 20 
 
 Bull, Mrs. and her heifers, 27 
 
 BuUier, Jardin, 157 
 
 Burgundy vineyards, 211 
 
 Cahinet parliculier, 198 
 
 Cadenabbia, Lake Coiuo, 306 
 
 Cafe Royal, 23 
 
 Calais, 135 
 
 Campo Santo, 243, 245 
 
 Cannes, 229 
 
 Casino, 237 
 
 Catalans, 224 
 
 Catholicism in Switzerland, 349 
 
 Cave canem, 283 
 
 Chaillot Heights, '204 
 
 Champs Elysees, 181 
 
 Champs de Mars, 142. 200 
 
 Channel, crossing the, 134 
 
 Charlecote, 62 
 
 Chester, 52 
 
 " Chester Cup," 55 
 
 Chiffonnier, 147 
 
 "Christ leaving Prsetoriura," 33 
 
 Chr stoforo Col umbo, 241 
 
 Cimarosa, 81 
 
 "City of Richmond," 13 
 
 Claqueurs, 193 
 
 Coblentz, 385 
 
 Coifi'ure, English, past and pres- 
 ent, 28 
 
 Cologne, the city, 388 
 
 Constance, Lake, 360 
 
 Coppet,313 
 
 Corniche, 226 
 
 Costumes and Customs, English, 
 26 
 
 Cote (Tor, 212 
 
 Covent Garden, London, 78 
 
 Coventry, 74 
 
 Crewe, 21 
 
 Criterion, bar, 24 
 
 Criterion Theatre, 89 
 
 Crystal Palace, 112 
 
 Cyprian goddesses, 234 
 
 Demon, Ram^ the, 35 
 
 (4n) 
 
418 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dijon, 213 
 Diomed Inn, 281 
 Docks at Liverpool, 17 
 Docks at Marseilles, 224 
 Dore Galh'rj, 33 
 Dream of Chillon, 316 
 
 Eaton Hall, 53 
 Ehrenbreitstein, 386 
 Eniannletta. 294 
 English churchmen, salaries of 
 
 some, 46 
 English Literati, 105 
 English women, 27 
 Estates at Liverpool, 17 
 Ethelfleda, 70 
 Euston Square Station, 21 
 Euthanasia, 282 
 Evan's, 85 
 Exposition Universelle, a day at, 
 
 143, 205 
 P'xtract of Alderney, 63 
 
 Farrar, Canon, 46 
 
 Faubourg St. Antoine, 152 
 
 Ferney, 314 
 
 Figures of British pauperism, 37 
 
 Flaneurs, 139 
 
 Florence, 287 
 
 Fiuelen, 350 
 
 Fog, London, 30 
 
 Foiwood, reception of Mr. and 
 
 Mrs., 16 
 Foundling Hospital, 46 
 Frankfort-on-Main, 374 
 French charities, 199 
 
 caricatures, 151 
 
 flats, 138 
 
 labor, 148 
 
 milliners, 150 
 
 restaurants, 197 
 
 shops, 198 
 Frogmore, 119 
 
 Geneva, 308 
 
 Genoa, 240 
 
 Giessbach, 340 
 
 Gluck, 81 
 
 Godiva, 75 
 
 Goethe, 375 
 
 Gold, power of, 91 
 
 Greek Chapel, 380 
 
 Grisette, 155 
 
 Grosvenor, Marquis of, 53 
 
 Guidecca, 207 
 Guttenberg, 375 
 Guy's Cliff, 71 
 
 Hague, 398 
 
 Handel, harpsichord of, 41 
 
 Hansom, 15 
 
 Hastings, 108 
 
 Hathaway, Anne, 62 
 
 Heidelberg, 373 
 
 Herald's College, London, 48 
 
 Holland, 392 
 
 Home of Frenchmen, 195 
 
 Hotel des Invalides, 167 
 
 Hotel, London and Northwestern 
 
 at Liverpool, 15 
 House of Commons, 129 
 Huis ten Bosch, 399 
 Human intellect in Republican 
 
 France 209 
 Hyde Park, 120 
 Hyeres, 228 
 
 India House, 205 
 Interlakt^n, 333 
 Irving, Henry, 87 
 
 Jubilee Singers, 330 
 Judic, Madame, 193 
 Jungfrau, 337 
 
 Kaisersalle, 376 
 Kaltbad, 35- 
 Kenilworth, 73 
 Kulm, 353 
 
 Lake dwellings, 358 
 
 La Scala, 304 
 
 "Last Snpper," 305 
 
 Latin Quarter, 152 
 
 Lausanne, 326 
 
 Leamington, 73 
 
 Leicester Square, 82 
 
 Liberie, Eyulite et Fraternite', 146 
 
 Lion of Luzerne, 348 
 
 Liverpool, 13 
 
 «' Locked in and left,'' 20 
 
 London, 18 
 
 London, a walk through, 96 
 
 Lotteries of Marseilles, 221 
 
 Louvre, 173 
 
 Lully, 81 
 
 Lutetia, 152 
 
 Luther, 375 
 
INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 Luther, finp:er ore:an of Martin, 41 
 Lnxembonrg, 156, 176 
 Luzerne, 340 
 Lyceuna Theatre, 87 
 Lyons, croix-Rousse, 210 
 
 Mabille, Jardin, 159 
 
 Madame Michel, 151 
 
 Mannikin, 410 
 
 Marche du Temple, 154 
 
 Marine Aquarium, 112 
 
 Marseilles, 217 
 
 Marshall and Snellcrove, 29 
 
 Mausolea of Titiau and Canova, 
 
 301 
 Mendicants, scarred and scarified, 
 
 37 
 Mersey, 17 
 Milan, 302 
 Monaco, 231 
 Mont Cenis, 310 
 Mont-du-PieU, 1 54 
 Mont Pilat, 218 
 Monte Carlo, 231 
 Monte Pincio, 248 
 Motley, John Lotlirop, 399 
 Mount Vesuvius, 278 
 
 Netherlands, religion of the, 397 
 
 ISew Place, 58 
 
 Nice, 227 
 
 Notre Dame Cathedral, 156 
 
 Notre Dame de la Garde, 222 
 
 Notre Dame de Lorette, 140 
 
 Nouvel Opera, 189 
 
 Oak Lodge, 89 
 Opera, London, 79 
 Oxford Music Hall, 86 
 
 Paesiello, 81 
 
 Palace of the Doges, 299 
 
 Palais Royale, 141 
 
 Palestrina, 81 
 
 Paris, 132 
 
 Parliament Palaces, 128 
 
 Pauperism, English, 37 
 
 Pere la Chaise, 169 
 
 Peter Robinson, 29 
 
 Petrarch and Laura, 218 
 
 Phillips, J. 0. Haliiwell, 60 
 
 Piccini, 81 
 
 Pigeons of St. Mark, 300 
 
 Pitti Palace, 289 
 
 Pompeii, 279 
 
 Pont de Jena, 203 
 
 Ponte Vecchio, 291 
 
 Prince of Wales, pavilion, 202 
 
 Qua! d'Orsay, 203 
 
 Rajah Holapore, 292 
 
 Regent's Park, 121 
 
 Rest Roubion, 226 
 
 Restaurants, London, 91 
 
 Rhine Falls, 359 
 
 Riiine, from Biebrich to Cologne, 
 
 381 
 Riallo, 297 
 Rienzi, 219 
 Rigi, 350 
 Rome, 246 
 
 Rothschilds, home of, 375 
 Rotterdam, 396 
 Roulette, 238 
 Rue de la Roquette, 169 
 Rugby, 21 
 
 Salve, 283 
 
 Santa Croce, 289 
 
 Schaffhausen, 360 
 
 Scheveniugen, 40l 
 
 Seagulls, 13 
 
 Sefton Park, 17 
 
 Servant-girlism, 186 
 
 Shakespeare House, 57 
 
 Shakespeare's birthplace, 60 
 
 Shottery, 62 
 
 Silk factories of Lyons, 215 
 
 Slave trade, 16 
 
 Soap factories, 17 
 
 South Kensington Museum, 38 
 
 Staflfel, 352 
 
 Stanley, Dean, 43 
 
 Station bars and booking offices, 
 
 18, 19 
 Stoke Poges, 119 
 Stolzenfeis, 385 
 Stratford-on-Avon, 57 
 Strasburg, 3 9 
 St. George's Hall, 14 
 St. James Park, 121 
 St. James's Hall, 86 
 St. Leonards-on-Sea, 110 
 St. Lorenzo, 289 
 St. Marco, piazza and cathedral, 
 
 298, 299 
 St. Peter's Cathedral, 252 
 Sydenham Hill, 112 
 
420 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tapestry of Baypiix, 110 
 
 Tell's Chapel, *349 
 
 Thames, its course throiigh Rich- 
 mond, Kew, Hampton Court, 
 etc, 100 
 
 Theatres, London 90 
 
 Theatres, Paris, lb9 
 
 Thun, 334 
 
 I'oulon, 228 
 
 Tower Hill, 96 
 
 Travelline carriages. Ens^lish, 19 
 
 Trinity Chapel, Stratfoid-on-Avon, 
 59 
 
 Trocadpro, 200 
 
 Turin, 309 
 
 Tussaud, Madame, gallery and 
 career, 31 
 
 Underground railway, 30 
 
 Valley of Marne, 212 
 Venice, 293 
 Versailles, 178 
 
 Vesuvian Bay, 277 
 
 Vevay, 320 
 
 Villa Borghese, 240 
 
 Virtue and Vice, in London, 34 
 
 Vitznau, 350 
 
 Wales, poor of, 37 
 
 Walloons, 403 
 
 Warwick, 61, 64, 65 
 
 Wealth and poverty of London, 34 
 
 Weisbaden, 377 
 
 Westminster Abbey, 24, 25 
 
 Westminster Hall, 131 
 
 Westminster, Marquis of, 53 
 
 Westminster Palace Hotel, 22 
 
 Wiertz Gallery, 414 
 
 Windsor, — town and castle, 116, 
 
 117, 118, 119, 120 
 Wood sculptures, 339 
 
 Zug, Lake, 353 
 Zurich, 354 
 
 Ptl99/ 
 

 
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