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THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF 
 THE RHINE. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD STRAHAN. 
 
 ; 
 
 &a 
 
 WITH OVER THREE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DESIGNS 
 BY GUST AVE DO RE AND OTHERS. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1875. 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 OF CONGRESS 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 5 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 $ 
 
 V 
 
 - 
 
 
NOTICE 
 
 This volume, committed to scenes connected with Mr. Longfellow's cele- 
 brated romance of Hyperion, travels over ground already made the common 
 property of various authors, native and foreign. 
 
 Among the best of these is M. Boniface, who in 1861 wrote a book of 
 Hyperion-\Sk.e adventures under his usual pseudonym of X. B. Saintine. 
 Where the pathway of this work coincides with his (and especially in cases 
 when the pictures by Dore made a special style of description imperative, 
 in which cases the frankest resemblance will be found) a very grateful obli- 
 gation is* acknowledged by '-The New Hyperion." Toward what author 
 could there be an obligation so agreeable, or lying so light, as toward the 
 author of Picciola ? 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART PAGE 
 
 I. PREAMBULARY 7 
 
 II. THE TWO CHICKENS 19 
 
 III. THE FEAST OF SAINT ATHANASIUS 36 
 
 IV. A DAY IN STRASBURG 49 
 
 V. IN PURSUIT OF A PASSPORT 62 
 
 VI. SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT? 78 
 
 VII. THE SEDUCTIONS OF BADEN-BADEN 96 
 
 VIII. THE MUSIK-FEST AT ACHERN 115 
 
 IX. ASTRAY IN THE BLACK FOREST , 130 
 
 X. A WALK TO WILDBAD 144 
 
 XL THE NECKAR REVISITED: OLD FRIENDS AT HEIDELBERG 
 
 AGAIN 155 
 
 XII. CONFLICTS AT HEIDELBERG 166 
 
 XIII. ON WITH THE OLD LOVE 1S0 
 
 XIV. AN AGREEABLE DUET AT FRANKFORT 194 
 
 XV. EN ROUTE AGAIN 205 
 
 XVI. EMBARKATION AND VOYAGE FROM MAYENCE 211 
 
 XVII. THE CURRENT OF FATE 229 
 
 XVIII. THE DIFFICULTY OF CATCHING UP 237 
 
 XIX. TYING UP THE CLEWS 251 
 
The New Hyperion 
 
 FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. 
 
 FJ^RT X. 
 
 PREAMBULARY 
 
 HE behavior of a 
 great Hope is like 
 the setting of the 
 sun. It splashes 
 out from under a 
 horizontal cloud, 
 s o diabolically 
 incandescent 
 that you see a 
 dozen false suns 
 blotting the heavens with purple in 
 every direction. You bury your 
 eyes in a handkerchief, with your 
 back carefully turned upon the 
 west, and meantime the spectacle 
 you were waiting for takes place 
 and disappears. You promise 
 yourself to nick it better to-mor- 
 row. The soul withdraws into its 
 
 depths. The stars arise (offering 
 
 two or three thousand more im- ;J - 
 practicable suns), and the night is i~ 
 ironical. 
 
 Having already conquered, 
 without boasting, a certain suc- 
 cess before the reading public, 
 and having persuaded an author 
 
 of renown to sign his name to my bant- 
 ling, my Expectation and Hope have 
 long been to surpass that trifling produc- 
 tion. You may think it a slight thing to 
 prepare a lucky volume, and, tapping 
 Fame familiarly on the shoulder, engage 
 her to undertake its colportage through- 
 out the different countries of the globe. 
 My first little work of travel and geog- 
 raphy had exceeded my dreams of a 
 good reception. It had earned me sev- 
 
 F.AKLY FAME. 
 
8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 eral proposals from publishers; it had 
 been annotated with "How true!" and 
 " Most profound !" by the readers in 
 public libraries ; its title had given an 
 imaginative air to the ledgers of book- 
 sellers ; and it had added a new shade 
 of moodiness to the collection of Mudie. 
 The man who hits one success by acci- 
 dent is always trying to hit another by 
 preparation. Since that achievement I 
 
 have thought of nothing but the creation 
 of another impromptu, and I have really 
 prepared a quantity of increments to- 
 ward it in the various places to which 
 my traveling existence has led me. That 
 I have settled down, since these many 
 years past, at the centre and capital of 
 ideas would prove me, even without the 
 indiscretions of that first little book, an 
 American by birth. I need not add that 
 
 ) ^. : i,;.'.;v'r 
 
 fc%^;:v^Kt ^% 
 
 >-• '-^c^h^/ 
 
 THE MECHANIC IN GREEN. 
 
 
 ^^~- 
 
 my card is printed in German text, $aul 
 jFItmmtitfl, and that time has brought 
 to me a not ungraceful, though a some- 
 times practically retardating, circumfer- 
 ence. Beneath a mask of cheerfulness, 
 and even of obesity, however, I continue 
 to guard the sensitive feelings of my 
 earlier days. Yes: under this abnormal 
 convexity are fostered, as behind a lens, 
 the glowing tendencies of my youth. 
 Though no longer, like the Harold de- 
 scribed in Icelandic verse by Regner 
 Hairy-Breeches, "a young chief proud 
 of my flowing locks," yet I still "spend 
 my mornings among the young maid- 
 ens," or such of them as frequent the 
 American Colony, as we call it, in Paris. 
 I still "love to converse with the hand- 
 some widows." Miss Ashburton, who 
 
 in one little passage of our youth treated 
 me with considerable disrespect, and 
 who afterward married a person of great 
 lingual accomplishments, her father's 
 late courier, at Naples, has been hand- 
 somely forgiven, but not forgotten. A 
 few intelligent ladies, of marked listen- 
 ing powers and conspicuous accomplish- 
 ments, are habitually met by me at their 
 residences in the neighborhood of the 
 Arc de Triomphe or at the receptions of 
 the United States minister. These fair 
 attractions, although occupying, in prac- 
 tice, a preponderating share of my time, 
 are as nothing to me, however, in com- 
 parison with that enticing illusion, my 
 Book. 
 
 The scientific use of the imagination 
 in treating the places and distances of 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Geography is the dream of my days and 
 the insomnia of my nights. 
 
 Every morning I take down and dust 
 the loose sheets of my coming book or 
 polish the gilding of my former one. It 
 is in my fidelity to these baffling hopes 
 — hopes fed with so many withered (or 
 at least torn and blotted) leaves — rather 
 
 than in any resemblance authenticable 
 by a looking-glass, that I show my iden- 
 tity with the old long-haired and nasal 
 Flemming. 
 
 Yet, though so long a Parisian, and 
 so comfortable in my theoretic pursuit 
 of Progressive Geography, my leisure 
 hours are unconsciously given to knit- 
 
 TRItlMPH OF APRIL. 
 
 ting myself again to past associations, 
 and some of my deepest pleasures come 
 from tearing open the ancient wounds. 
 Shall memory ever lose that sacred, that 
 provoking day in the Vale of Lauter- 
 brunnen when the young mechanic in 
 green serenaded us with his guitar ? It 
 had for me that quite peculiar and per- 
 sonal application that it immediately 
 preceded my rejection by Miss Mary. 
 The Staubbach poured before our eyes, 
 as from a hopper in the clouds, its 
 Stream of Dust. The Ashburtons, clad 
 in the sensible and becoming fashion of 
 English lady-tourists, with long ringlets 
 and Leghorn hats, sat on either side of 
 me upon the grass. And then that im- 
 placable youth, looking full in my eye, 
 sang his verses of insulting sagacity : 
 
 She gives thee a garland woven fair ; 
 
 Take care ! 
 It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear ; 
 
 Beware ! beware ! 
 
 Trust her not, 
 She is fooling thee ! 
 
 Meeting him two or three times after- 
 ward as he pursued his apprentice-tour, I 
 felt as though I had encountered a green- 
 worm. And I confess that it was part- 
 
 ly on his account that I made a vow, fer- 
 vently uttered and solemnly kept, never 
 again to visit Switzerland or the Rhine. 
 Miss Ashburton I easily forgave. The 
 disadvantage, I distinctly felt, was hers, 
 solely and restrictedly hers ; and I should 
 have treated with profound respect, if I 
 had come across him, the professional 
 traveler who was good enough to marry 
 her afterward. 
 
 But these bitter-sweet recollections are 
 only the relief to my studies. It is true 
 they are importunate, but they are strict- 
 ly kept below stairs. 
 
 Nor would any one, regarding the 
 stout and comfortable Flemming, sus- 
 pect what regrets and what philosophies 
 were disputing possession of his interior. 
 For my external arrangements, I flatter 
 myself that I have shaped them in tol- 
 erable taste. 
 
 My choice of the French capital I 
 need not defend to any of my American 
 readers. To all of you this consumma- 
 tion is simply a matter of ability. I 
 heartily despise, as I always did, all 
 mere pamperings of physical conveni- 
 ence. Still, for some who retain some 
 
10 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 sympathy with the Paul Flemming of 
 aforetime, it may be worth while to men- 
 tion the particular physical convenien- 
 ces my soul contemns. I inhabit, and 
 have done so for eight years at least, a 
 neat little residence of the kind styled 
 "between court and garden," and lying 
 (in the utmost permissible circumference 
 
 of the American quarter in Paris — say 
 on the hither side of Passy. For nearly 
 the same period I have had in lease a 
 comical box at Marly, whither I repair 
 every summer. My town-quarters, hav- 
 ing been furnished by an artist, gave me 
 small pains. The whole interior is like 
 a suite of rooms in the Hotel Clunv. The 
 
 only trouble was in bringing up the cel- 
 lar to the quality I desired and in select- 
 ing domestics — points on which, though 
 careless of worldly comfort in general, I 
 own I am somewhat particular. 
 
 No gentleman valets for me — rude 
 creatures presuming to outdress their 
 masters. What I wanted was the Cor- 
 poral Trim style of thing — bald, faithful, 
 ancient retainer. After a world of vex- 
 
 ation I succeeded in finding an artless 
 couple, who agreed for a stipulation to 
 sigh when I spoke of my grandfather 
 before my guests, and to have been 
 brought up in the family. 
 
 But I am wandering, and neglecting 
 the true vein of sentiment which so 
 abounds in my heart. All my pleasure 
 is still in mournful contemplation, but I 
 have learned that the feelings are most 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 refined when freed from low cares and 
 personal discomforts. I was going to cite 
 a letter I wrote to my oldest friend, the 
 baron of Hohenfels. It was sketched 
 out first in verse, but in that form was a 
 failure : 
 
 " 15th March. 
 
 "The snow-white clouds beyond my 
 window are piled up like Alps. The 
 shades of B. Franklin and W. Tell seem 
 to walk together on those Elysian Fields ; 
 for it was here (or sufficiently nigh for 
 the purpose) that in days gone by our 
 pure patriot dwelt and flirted with Ma- 
 dame Helvetius ; and yonder clouds so 
 much resemble the snowy Alps that they 
 
 remind me irresistibly of the Swiss. No- 
 ble examples of a high purpose and a 
 fixed will ! Do B. and W. not move, 
 Hyperion - like, on high ? Were they 
 not, likewise, sons of Heaven and Earth ? 
 " I wish I knew the man who called 
 flowers ' the fugitive poetry of Nature.' 
 That was a sweet carol, which I think I 
 have quoted to you, sung by the Rho- 
 dian children of old in spring, bearing 
 in their hands a swallow, and chanting 
 'The swallow is come,' with some other 
 lines, which I have forgotten. A pretty 
 carol is that, too, which the Hungarian 
 boys, on the islands of the Danube, sing 
 to the returning stork in spring, what 
 
 THE LYRE OF HYPERION. 
 
 time it builds its nests in the chimneys 
 and gracefully diverts the draft of smoke 
 into the interior. What a thrill of de- 
 light in spring-time ! What a joy in being 
 and moving ! Some housekeepers might 
 object to that, and say that there was 
 but imperfect joy in moving ; but I am 
 about to propose to you, as soon as I 
 have taken a little more string, a plan 
 of removal that will suit both us and the 
 season. My friend, the time of storms 
 is flying before the pretty child called 
 April, who pursues it with his blooming 
 thyrsus. Breathing scent upon the air, 
 he has already awakened some of the 
 trees on the boulevards, and the white 
 locust-blossoms in the garden of Rossini 
 are beginning to hang out their bunches 
 to attract the nightingales. He calls to 
 the swallows, and they arrive in clouds. 
 " He knocks at the hard envelope of 
 the chrysalis, which accordingly prepares 
 to take its chance for a precarious meta- 
 
 morphosis — into the wings of the butter- 
 fly or into the bosom of the bird. How 
 very sweet ! 
 
 "Strange is the lesson, my friend, 
 which humanity teaches itself from the 
 larva. Even so do I, methinks, feed in 
 life's autumn upon the fading foliage of 
 Hope, and, still feeding and weaving, 
 turn it at last into a little grave. A neat 
 image that, which, by the by, I stole 
 from Drummond of Hawthornden. Do 
 you recollect his verse ? — but of course 
 I should be provoked if I thought you 
 did— 
 
 For, with strange thoughts possessed, 
 
 I feed on fading leaves 
 
 Of hope — which me deceives, 
 And thousand webs doth warp within my breast. 
 And thus, in end, unto myself I weave 
 A fast-shut prison. No ! but even a Grave ! 
 
 "To pursue my subject : April, having 
 thus balanced the affairs of the bird and 
 the worm, proceeds to lay over the 
 meadows a tablecloth for the bees. He 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 opens all the windows of Paris, and on 
 the streets shows us the sap mounting 
 in carnation in the faces of the girls. 
 
 " My dear Hohenfels, I invite you to 
 the festival which Spring is spreading 
 just now in the village of Marly. My 
 cabin will be gratified to open in your 
 honor. May it keep you until autumn ! 
 Come, and come at once." 
 
 Having signed my missive, I tucked 
 it into an envelope, which I blazoned 
 with my favorite seal, the lyre of Hype- 
 rion broken, and rang for Charles. In 
 
 INFIRM1TI 
 
 nis stead, in lieu of my faithful Charles, 
 it was Hohenfels himself who entered, 
 fresh from the Hotel Mirabeau. 
 
 " Look alive, man ! Can you lend me 
 an umbrella ?" said he briskly. 
 
 I looked out at the window : it was 
 snowing. 
 
 The moment seemed inopportune for 
 the delivery of my epistle : I endeavored 
 to conceal it — without hypocrisy and by 
 a natural movement — under the usual 
 pile of manuscript on my table devoted 
 to Progressive Geography. But the bar- 
 on had spied his name on the address : 
 " How is that ? You were writing to me ? 
 There, I will spare you the trouble of 
 posting." 
 
 He read my sentences, turning at the 
 end of each period to look out at the 
 snow, which was heavily settling in large 
 damp flakes. He said nothing at first 
 about the discrepancy, but only looked 
 forth alternately with his reading, which 
 was pointed enough. I said long ago 
 that the beauty of Hohenfels' character, 
 like that of the precious opal, was owing 
 to a defect in his organization. The 
 
 baron retains his girlish expression, his 
 blue eye, and his light hair of the kind 
 that never turns gray : he is still slender, 
 but much bent. He went over to the 
 fireplace and crouched before the coals 
 that were flickering there still. Then he 
 said, with that gentle, half- laughing 
 voice, " Take care, Paul, old boy ! Chil- 
 dren who show sense too early never 
 grow, they say : by parity of argument, 
 men who are poetical too late in life 
 never get their senses." 
 
 " I have given up poetry," said I, "and 
 you cannot scan that communication in 
 your hand." 
 
 "But it is something 
 worse than poetry ! It is 
 prose inflated and puffed 
 and bubbled. You are 
 falling into your old 
 moony ways again, and 
 sonneteering in plain 
 English. Are you not 
 ashamed, at your age ?" 
 
 "What age do you 
 mean ? I feel no infirm- 
 ities of age. If my hair 
 is gray, 'tis not with years, as By — " 
 
 " If your hair is gray, it is because you 
 are forty-eight, my old beauty." 
 
 "Forty-five!" I said, with some little 
 natural heat. 
 
 " Forty-five let it be, though you have 
 said so these three years. And what age 
 is that to go running after the foot of 
 the rainbow ? Here you are, my dear 
 Flemming, breathing forth hymns to 
 Spring, and inviting your friends to pic- 
 nics ! Don't you know that April is the 
 traitor among the twelve months of the 
 year ? You are ready to strike for Marly 
 in a linen coat and slippers ! Have you 
 forgotten, my poor fellow, that Marly is 
 windy and raw, and that Louis XIV. 
 caught that chill at Marly of which he 
 died ? Ah, Paul, you are right enough. 
 You are young, still young. You are 
 not forty-eight : you are sixteen — sixteen 
 for the third time." 
 
 Hohenfels, whose once fine temper is 
 going a little, stirred the fire and sudden- 
 ly rose. 
 
 " Lend me an umbrella !" he repeated 
 imperatively. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 13 
 
 " Are you in such a hurry to go ? That is not 
 very complimentary to me," I observed. "Have 
 you done scolding me?" 
 
 What is called by some my growing world- 
 liness teaches me to value dryness in an old 
 friend as I value dryness in a fine, cobwebbed, 
 crusty wine. It is from the merest Sybaritism 
 that I surround myself with comrades who, like 
 Hohenfels, can fit their knobs into my pattern, 
 and receive my knobs in their own vacancy. 
 My hint brought him over at once into the 
 leathern chair opposite the one I occupy. 
 
 "Paul, Paul," he said, "I only criticise you 
 for your good. What have you done with your 
 three adolescences ? You are getting stout, yet 
 you still write poetically. You have some wit, 
 imagination, learning and aptitude. You might 
 make a name in science or art, but everything 
 you do lacks substance, because you live only 
 in your old eternal catchwords of the Past and 
 the Future. You can sketch and paint, yet 
 have never exhibited your pictures except in 
 ladies' albums. You profess to love botany, yet 
 your sole herbarium has been the mignonette 
 in sewing-girls' windows. You are inoffensive, 
 you are possessed of a competency, but in ev- 
 erything, in every vocation, you rest in the state 
 of amateur — amateur housekeeper, amateur 
 artist, amateur traveler, amateur geographer. 
 And such a geographer as you might be, with 
 your taste for travel and the Hakluyt Society's 
 publications you have pored over for years !" 
 
 This chance allusion to my grand secret took 
 me from my guard. Hohenfels, blundering up 
 and down in search of something to anathema- 
 tize, had stumbled upon the very fortress of my 
 strength. I deemed it time to let him into a 
 part of my reserved intellectual treasure — to 
 whirl away a part at least of the sand in which 
 my patient sphinx had been buried. 
 
 "I have indeed been a reader," I said mod- 
 estly. "When a youth at Heidelberg, I perused, 
 with more profit than would be immediately 
 guessed from the titles, such works as the Hei- 
 den-Buchs and the Nibelungen-Lieds, the Saxon 
 Rhyme-Chronicles, the poems of Minnesingers 
 and Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and 
 Reynard Foxes, and Death-Dances, and Lam- 
 entations of Damned Souls. My study since 
 then has been in German chemistry from its 
 renaissance in Paracelsus, and physical science, including both medicine an 
 evolution of life. Shall I give you a few dozen of my favorite writers ?" 
 
 "Quite unnecessary," said the baron with some haste. "But I fancied you 
 going to speak of geographical authors." 
 
 d the 
 
14 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 "Are you fond of such writings yourself?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "Immensely — that is, not too scientific, you 
 know," said the baron, who was out of his 
 element here. " Bayard Taylor, now, or some 
 such fellows as the Alpine Club." 
 
 "My dear baron, the republications by the 
 Hakluyt Society are but a small part of the ref- 
 erences I have taken down for my Progressive 
 Geography. You admire Switzerland?" 
 "Vastly. Steep jump, the Staubbach." 
 "But the Alps are only hillocks compared 
 with the Andes of Peru, with the Cordilleras, 
 with Chimborazo ! Ah, baron, Chimborazo ! 
 Well, my dear boy, the system I elaborate 
 makes it a matter of simple progression and 
 calculation to arrive at mountains much more 
 considerable still." 
 "Such as — ?" 
 
 "The Mountains of the Moon !" 
 I then, in a few dexterously involved sen- 
 tences, allowed the plan of my newly-invented 
 theory to appear — so 'much of it, that is, as 
 would leave Hohenfels completely in the dark, 
 and detract in no wise from the splendor of my 
 Opus when it should be published. As science, 
 however, truly considered, is the art of dilapida- 
 ting and merging into confused ruin the theories 
 of your predecessors, I was somewhat more pre- 
 cise with the destructive than the constructive 
 part of my plan. 
 
 "Geographical Science, I am prepared to 
 show, is that which modern learning alone has 
 neglected, to the point of leaving its discoveries 
 stationary. It is not so with the more assidu- 
 ously cultivated branches. What change, what 
 advance, in every other department of culture ! 
 In geology, the ammonite of to-day was for 
 Chalmers a parody facetiously made by Na- 
 ture in imitation of her living conchology, and 
 for Voltaire a pilgrim's cockle dropped in the 
 passes of the Alps. In medicine, what prog- 
 ress has been made since ague was compared 
 to the flutter of insects among the nerves, and 
 good Mistress Dorothy Burton, who died but 
 in 1629, cured it by hanging a spider round the 
 patient's neck "in a nutshell lapped in silk"! 
 In chemistry, what strides ! In astronomy, what 
 perturbations and changes ! In history, what 
 do we not owe to the amiable authors who, dip- 
 ping their pens in whitewash, have reversed the judgments of ages on Nero and 
 Henry VIII. ! In genealogy, what thanks must we pay to Darwin ! Geographical 
 Science alone, stolid in its insolent fixity, has not moved : the location of Thebes 
 and Memphis is what it was in the days of Cheops and Rameses. And so poor in 
 
 AMERICAN 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 5 
 
 I 
 
 intellect are our professors of geodesic lore that 
 London continues to be, just as it always was, 
 in latitude 51 3o / 48" N., longitude o° $' 38" 
 W., while the observatory of Paris contentedly 
 sits in latitude 48 5o / 12" N. and longitude 
 2° 20' 12\" E. from the observatory of Green- 
 wich ! This disgracefully stationary condition of 
 the science cannot much longer be permitted." 
 
 "And how," said the baron, "will it be 
 changed?" and he poked the fire to conceal a 
 yawn. Excellent man ! his time latterly had 
 been more given to the investigation of opera 
 than of the exact sciences. 
 
 " Through my theory of Progression and Pro- 
 portion in geographical statistics, by which the 
 sources of the Nile can be easily determined 
 from the volume and speed of that current, 
 while the height of the mountains on the far 
 side of the moon will be but a pleasing sum in 
 Ratio for a scholar's vacations. Nor will any- 
 thing content me, my dear Hohenfels, till this 
 somewhat theoretical method of traveling is 
 displaced by bodily progression ; till these easy 
 excursions of the mind are supplemented by 
 material extensions ; till the foot is pressed where 
 the brain has leaped; and till I, then for the 
 first time a traveler, stand behind the lunar rim, 
 among the ' silent silver lights and darks un- 
 dreamed of !' " 
 
 " I am unable to appreciate your divagations," 
 humbly observed Hohenfels, "though I always 
 thought your language beautiful. Meantime, 
 my hat is spoiled in coming hither, and you 
 have the effrontery to write bucolics to me during 
 the most frightful weather of the year. Once 
 for all, do you refuse me an urn — " 
 
 He did not finish his sentence. A world of 
 sunshine burst like a bomb into the chamber, 
 and our eyes were dazzled with the splendor : a 
 sturdy beam shot directly into the fireplace, and 
 the embers turned haggard and gray, and quick- 
 ly retired from the unequal contest. I opened 
 the window. A warm air, faint with the scent 
 of earth and turf, invaded the apartment, and 
 the map-like patches of dampness on the as- 
 phaltum pavement were rapidly and visibly 
 drying away. 
 
 " I'm off!" said Hohenfels, with a rapid move- 
 ment of retreat. 
 
 "But you are forgetting your — " 
 
 " What, my gloves ?" lunar \ \ \ 
 
 "No, the umbrella." And I presented him the heaviest and longest and oldest 
 of my collection. He laughed : it was a hoary canopy which we had used be- 
 side the Neckar and in Heidelberg — "a pleasant town." as the old song says, 
 
i6 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 THE SILVER RIM. 
 
 " when it has done raining." We sealed 
 a compact over the indestructible Ger- 
 man umbrella. I agreed to defer for a 
 fortnight my departure for Marly : on 
 his side he made a solemn vow to come 
 there on the first of May, and there re- 
 ceive in full and without wincing the 
 particulars of my Progressive Geography. 
 As he passed by the window I took care 
 that he should catch a glimpse of me 
 seated by accident in a strong light, my 
 smoking-cap crowded down to my spec- 
 tacles, and my nose buried in my old 
 geographers. 
 
 For the next few days the weather sup- 
 ported the side of Hohenfels. It scatter- 
 ed rain, sunshine and spits of snow. At 
 last the sun got the upper hand and re- 
 mained master. The wisterias tumbled 
 their cataracts of blue blossoms down 
 the spouts ; rare flowers, of minute pro- 
 portions, burst from the button-holes of 
 the young horsemen going to the Bois ; 
 the gloves of the American colony be- 
 came lilac ; hyacinths, daffodils and 
 pansies moved by wagon-loads over the 
 
 A THEORETICAL GEOGRAPHER. 
 
 streets and soared to the windows 
 of the sewing-girls. Overhead, in 
 the steaming and cloud - marbled 
 blue, stood the April sun. " Apelles 
 of the flowers," as an old English 
 writer has styled him, he was col- 
 oring the garden - beds with his 
 rarest enamels, and spreading a 
 sheet of varied tints over the steps 
 | of the Madeleine, where they hold 
 the horticultural market. 
 
 This sort of country ecstasy, this 
 season at once stim- 
 ulating and enervat- 
 ing, tortured me. It 
 disturbed my bibli- 
 ophilist labors, and 
 gave a twang of 
 musty nausea even 
 to the sweet scent of 
 old binding-leather. 
 I was as a man 
 caught in the pangs 
 of removing, unat- 
 tached to either 
 home ; and I bent 
 from my windows 
 over the throngs of 
 festal promenaders, 
 taciturn and uneasy. 
 I fancied that wings 
 were sprouting from 
 my brown dressing- 
 robe, and that they 
 were the volatile 
 wings of the moth 
 or dragon-fly. But 
 to establish myself 
 at Marly before the baron, would not 
 that be a breach of compact? 
 Would he not make it a casus 
 \^d>^ belli? Luckily, we were get- 
 y : f ting through April : to-morrow 
 it would be the twenty-eighth. 
 
 On that memorable morning 
 the sun rose strong and bright, 
 and photographed a brilliant 
 idea upon my cerebellum. 
 
 I would undertake a pedes- 
 trian attack upon Marly by 
 winding my way around the 
 suburbs of the capital. What 
 more appropriate, for a pro- 
 found geographer and tourist, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 17 
 
 than to measure with my walking-stick I 
 that enormous bed of gypsum, at the 
 
 INCREDULITY. 
 
 centre of which, like a bee in a sugar- 
 basin, Paris sits and hums ? 
 
 The notion gained upon me. Per- 
 haps it was the natural reaction from the 
 Mountains of the Moon ; but in my then 
 state of mind no prospect could appear 
 more delicious than a long tramp among 
 the quiet scenes through which the city 
 fringes itself off into rurality. Those 
 suburbs of blank convent walls ! those 
 curves of the Seine and the Marne, 
 blocked with low villages, whose walls 
 of white, stained with tender mould and 
 tiled with brown, dipped their placid re- 
 flections into the stream ! those droll 
 square boats, pushing out from the 
 sedges to urge you across the ferry ! 
 those long rafts of lumber, following, 
 like cunning crocodiles, the ins and outs 
 of the shallow Seine ! those banks of 
 pollard willows, where girls in white caps 
 tended flocks of geese and turkeys, and 
 where, every silver - spangled morning, 
 the shore was a landscape by Corot, and 
 every twilight a landscape 
 by Daubigny! How ex- 
 quisite these pictures be- 
 came to my mind as I 
 thought them forth one by 
 one, leaning over a grimy 
 pavement in the peculiar 
 sultriness of the year's first 
 warmth ! 
 
 " Quick, Charles ! my tin 
 botany-box." 
 
 I could be at Marly on 
 the first of May at the din- 
 ner hour as punctually as 
 Hohenfels — before him, 
 2 
 
 maybe. And after what a range of de- 
 licious experience ! How he would envy 
 me ! 
 
 " Is monsieur going to travel all alone ?" 
 said keen old Charles, taking the alarm 
 in a minute. " Why am I not to go along 
 with monsieur?" 
 
 The accent of primitive fidelity was 
 perfect. I observed casually, " I am go- 
 ing on a little journey of thirty-six hours, 
 and alone. You can pack everything 
 up, and go on to Marly as usual. You 
 may go to-morrow." 
 
 " Shall I not go along with monsieur, 
 then?" repeated Charles, with a turn 
 for tautology not now for the first time 
 manifested. 
 
 " What for ? Am I a child ?" 
 
 "Surely not — on the contrary. But, 
 though Monsieur Paul has a sure foot 
 and a good eye, and is not to say getting 
 old, yet when a person is fifty it is not 
 best for a person to run about the streets 
 as if a person was a young person." 
 
 It was Josephine who did me the hon- 
 or to address me the last remark. 
 
 I confess to but forty-five years of age ; 
 Hohenfels, quite erroneously, gives me 
 forty - eight ; Josephine, with that raw 
 alacrity in leaping at computations pe- 
 culiar to the illiterate, oppressed me with 
 fifty. Which of us three knew best ? I 
 should like to ask. But it is of little 
 consequence. The Easterns generally 
 vaunt themselves on not knowing the 
 day of their birth. And wisdom comes 
 to us from the East. 
 
 I decided, for reasons sufficient to my- 
 self, to get out of Paris by the opposite 
 
i8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 side. I determined to make my sortie by 
 way of the Temple Market and the Belle- 
 ville abattoirs. On the thirtieth of April, 
 
 FAREWELL ! 
 
 at an ambitiously early hour, wearing 
 my gardening cap, with my sketch-book 
 sticking out of my pocket, my tin box 
 in one hand and my stout stick in the 
 other, I emerged among the staring 
 porters of the neighboring houses, and 
 it was in this equipment that I received 
 the renewed lamentations of Charles 
 and Josephine. 
 
 "Will you dare to go along the Boule- 
 vard looking like that, sir?" said Jo- 
 sephine. 
 
 " A gentleman in a cap ! They'll take 
 you for a bricklayer — indeed they will, 
 
 sir," said Charles; "or rather for a 
 milkman, with his tin can. I can't 
 stand that : I will carry it rather myself, 
 though I feel my rheumatics on these 
 damp pavements." 
 
 " Monsieur Paul must take a cab — at 
 least to the barrier : it will not be pleas- 
 ant to make a scandal in the street." 
 
 "Who will tend Monsieur Paul these 
 two days, now ?" This was uttered with 
 manly grief by Charles. 
 
 "And whoever will cook for him along 
 the road ?" It was Josephine who asked 
 the question. with a heavy sigh. 
 
 To make an end of this charming 
 scene of Old Virginia faithfulness, I put 
 my best leg out and departed with gym- 
 nastic sprightliness. An instant after I 
 turned my head. 
 
 Charles and Josephine were fixed on 
 the doorstep, following me with their 
 regards, and I believed I saw a tear in 
 the left eye of each. What fidelity ! 1 
 smiled in a sort of indulgent and baro- 
 nial manner, but I felt touched by their 
 sensibility. 
 
 Come on ! It is but a twenty - four 
 hours' separation. 
 
 Go forth, then, as I remember saying 
 long ago, without fear and with a manly 
 heart, to meet the dim and shadowy 
 Future. 
 
X^J^RT XX. 
 
 THE TWO CHICKENS 
 
 THE FLOWERS OF ,VAR. 
 
 " r I ^HOU art no less a man because 
 J- thou wearest no hauberk nor mail 
 sark, and goest not on horseback after 
 foolish adventures." 
 
 So I said, reassuring myself, thirty 
 years ago, when, as Paul Flemming the 
 Blond, I was meditating the courageous 
 change of cutting off my soap -locks, 
 burning my edition of Bulwer and giving 
 my satin stocks to my shoemaker : I 
 
 mean, when I was growing up — or, in 
 the more beauteous language of that day, 
 when Flemming was passing into the age 
 of bronze, and the flowers of Paradise 
 were turning to a sword in his hands. 
 
 Well, I say it again, and I say it with 
 boldness, you can wear a tin botany- 
 box as bravely as a hauberk, and fool- 
 ish adventures can be pursued equally 
 well on foot. 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION, 
 
 Stout, grizzled and short-winded, I am 
 just as nimble as ever in the pretty ex- 
 ercise of running down an illusion. Yet 
 I must confess, as I passed the abattoirs 
 of La Villette, whence blue - smocked 
 butcher-boys were hauling loads of dirty 
 sheepskins, I could not but compare my- 
 self to the honest man mentioned in one 
 
 of Sardou's comedies: "The good soul 
 escaped out of a novel of Paul de Kock's, 
 lost in the throng on the Boulevard 
 Malesherbes, and asking the way to the 
 woods of Romainville." 
 
 Romainville ! And hereabouts its tufts 
 of chestnuts should be, or were wont to 
 be of old. I am in the grimy quarter of 
 
 THE INVADERS OF ROMAINVILLE. 
 
 Belleville. Scene of factories, of steam- 
 works and tall bleak mansions as it is 
 to-day, Belleville was once a jolly coun- 
 try village, separated on its hilltop from 
 Paris, which basked at its feet like a city 
 millionaire sprawling before the check 
 apron and leather shoes of a rustic beau- 
 ty. Inhabited by its little circle of a few 
 thousand souls, it looked around itself 
 on its eminence, seeing the vast diorama 
 of the city on one side, and on the other 
 the Pres-Saint-Gervais* and the woods 
 of Romainville waving off to the horizon 
 their diminishing crests of green. A 
 jolly old tavern, the He d'Amour, hung 
 out its colored lamps among the trees, 
 and the orchestra sounded, and the feet 
 of gay young lovers, who now are skele- 
 tons, beat the floor. The street was a 
 bower of lilacs, and opposite the He 
 d'Amour was the village church. 
 
 Then the workmen of the Paris sub- 
 urbs were invaders : they besieged the 
 village on Sundays in daring swarms, to 
 be beaten back successfully by the du- 
 ties of every successive Monday. Now 
 they are fixed there. They are the col- 
 orless inhabitants of these many-storied 
 houses. The town's long holiday is over. 
 Where the odorous avenues of lilacs 
 
 stretched along, affording bouquets for 
 maman and the children and toothpicks 
 for ferocious young warriors from the 
 garrisons, are odious lengths of wall. 
 Everything is changed, and from the 
 gardens the grisettes of Alfred de Musset 
 are with sighing sent. Their haunts are 
 laboratories now, and the He d'Amour 
 is a mayor's office. 
 
 I, to whom the beer-scandals of the 
 Rhine and the students' holidays of the 
 Seine were among the Childe-Harold 
 enormities of a not over-sinful youth, 
 was sadly disappointed. Thinking of 
 the groves of an Eden, I ran against 
 the furnaces of a Pandemonium. For a 
 stroll back toward my adolescence, Belle- 
 ville was a bad beginning. I deter- 
 mined to console myself with the green 
 meadows of Saint-Gervais and the pretty 
 woods of Romainville. Attaining the 
 latter was half an hour's affair among 
 long walls and melancholy houses : at 
 Saint-Gervais, a double file of walls and 
 houses — at Romainville, houses and 
 walls again. In the latter, where for- 
 merly there were scarcely three watches 
 distributed amongst the whole village, 
 I was incensed to find the shop of a 
 clockmaker : it was somewhat consoling, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 21 
 
 though, to find it a clockmaker's of the 
 most pronounced suburban kind, with 
 pairs of wooden shoes amongst the 
 guard-chains in the window, and pots 
 of golden mustard ranged alternately 
 with the antiquated silver turnips. 
 
 Before the church I found yet stand- 
 ing a knotty little elder tree, a bewitched- 
 looking vegetable. A beadle in a blouse, 
 engaged in washing one of the large 
 altar-candles with soap and water at the 
 public pump, gave me the following his- 
 tory of the elder tree. I am passionate- 
 ly fond of legends, and this is one quite 
 hot and fresh, only a hundred years old. 
 Hear the tale of the elder of Romain- 
 ville. 
 
 The excellent cure of Romainville in 
 the last century was a man of such a 
 charitable nature that his all was in the 
 hands of the poor. The grocer of the 
 village, a potentate of terrific powers 
 and inexorable temper, finally refused 
 to trust him with the supply of oil neces- 
 sary for the lamp in the sanctuary. Soon 
 the sacred flame sputtered, palpitated, 
 flapped miserably over the crusted wick : 
 the cure, responsible before Heaven for 
 the life of his lamp, tottered away from 
 the altar with groans of anguish. Ar- 
 rived in the garden, he threw himself 
 on his knees, crying Med cidfta, and 
 beating his bosom. The garden con- 
 tained only medicinal plants, shaded 
 by a linden and an elder : completely 
 desperate, the unhappy priest fixed his 
 moist eyes on the latter, when lo ! the 
 bark opened, the trunk parted, and a 
 jet of clear aromatic liquid spouted forth, 
 quite different from any sap yielded by 
 elder before. It was oil. A miracle ! 
 
 The report spread. The grocer came 
 and humbly visited the priest in his gar- 
 den, his haughty hat, crammed with 
 bills enough to have spread agony 
 through all the cottages of Romainville, 
 humbly carried between his legs. He 
 came proposing a little speculation. In 
 exchange for a single spigot to be in- 
 serted in the tree, and the hydraulic 
 rights going with the same, he offered 
 all the bounties dearest to the priestly 
 heart — unlimited milk and honey, livers 
 of fat geese and pies lined with rabbit. 
 
 The priest, though hungry — hungry with 
 the demoniac hunger of a fat and 
 paunchy man — turned his back on the 
 tempter. 
 
 One day a salad, the abstemious rel- 
 ish yielded by his garden herbs, was set 
 
 
 
 STORY OF AN OLD MAN AND AN ELDER. 
 
 on the table by Jeanneton. At the first 
 mouthful the good cure made a terrible 
 face — the salad tasted of lamp-oil. The 
 unhappy girl had filled a cruet with the 
 sacred fluid. From that day the bark 
 closed and the flow ceased. 
 
 There is one of the best oil-stories you 
 ever heard, and one of the most recent 
 of attested miracles. For my part, I am 
 half sorry it is so well attested, and that 
 I have the authority of that beadle in 
 the blouse, who took my little two-franc 
 
 MERCHANDISE IN THE TEMPLE. 
 
 piece with an expression of much intel- 
 ligence. I love the Legend. 
 
 The environs of Paris are but chary of 
 Legend. I treasure this specimen, then, 
 
22 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 as if it had been a rare flower for my 
 botany-box. 
 
 But the botany-box indeed, how heavy 
 it was growing ! The umbrella, how 
 awkward ! The sun, how vigorous and 
 ardent ! Who ever supposed it could 
 
 ■5 ^ /-Ti^r~ Ji!i!^i. 
 
 FATHER JOLIET. 
 
 become so hot by half-past eight in the 
 morning ? 
 
 Certainly the ruthless box, which 
 seemed to have taken root on my back, 
 was heavier than it used to be. Had 
 its rotundity developed, like its mas- 
 ter's ? I stopped and gathered a flower, 
 meaning to analyze it at my next rest- 
 ing-place. I opened my box : then in- 
 deed I perceived the secret of its weight- 
 iness. It revealed three small rolls of 
 oatmeal toasted, a little roast chicken, 
 a bit of ham, some mustard in a cleaned- 
 out inkstand ! This now was the treach- 
 ery of Josephine. Josephine, who never 
 had the least sympathy for my botanical 
 researches, and who had small compre- 
 
 hension of the nobler hungers and thirsts 
 of the scientific soul, had taken it on her 
 to convert my box into a portable meat- 
 safe ! 
 
 Bless the old meddler, how I thanked 
 her for her treason ! The aspect of the 
 chicken, in its blistered and varnished 
 brown skin, reminded me that I was 
 clamorously hungry. Shade of Apicius ! 
 is it lawful for civilized mortals to be so 
 hungry as I was at eight or nine in the 
 morning ? 
 
 At last I saw the end of that dusty, 
 featureless street which stretches from 
 the barrier to the extremity of Romain- 
 ville. I saw spreading before me a 
 broad plain, a kind of desert, where, 
 by carefully keeping my eyes straight 
 ahead, I could avoid the sight of all 
 houses, walls, human constructions what- 
 ever. 
 
 My favorite traveler, the celebrated 
 Le Vaillant, to whom I am indebted for 
 so many facts and data toward my great 
 theory of Comparative Geography, says 
 that in first reaching the solitudes of 
 Caffraria he felt himself elated with an 
 unknown joy. No traced road was be- 
 fore him to dictate his pathway — no city 
 shaded him with its towers : his fortune 
 depended on his own unaided instincts. 
 
 I felt the same delight, the same lib- 
 erty. Something like the heavy strap 
 of a slave seemed to break behind me 
 as I found myself quite clear of the 
 metropolis. Mad schemes of unantici- 
 pated journeys danced through my head ; 
 I might amble on to Villemonble, Mont- 
 fermeil, Raincy, or even to the Forest 
 of Bondy, so dear to the experimental 
 botanist. Had I not two days before 
 me ere my compact with Hohenfels at 
 Marly ? And in two days you can go 
 from Paris to Florence. Meantime, from 
 the effects of famine, my ribs were sink- 
 ing down upon the pelvic basin of my 
 frame. 
 
 The walk, the open air, the sight of 
 the fowl, whose beak now burned into 
 my bosom's core, had sharpened my 
 appetite beyond bearing. Yet how could 
 I eat without some drop of cider or soft 
 white wine to drink ? Besides, slave of 
 convention that I have grown, I no 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 23 
 
 longer understand the business of eating 
 without its concomitants — a shelter and 
 something to sit on. 
 
 The plain became wearisome. There 
 are two things the American-born, how- 
 ever long a resident abroad, never for- 
 gives the lack of in Europe. The first 
 1 miss when I am in Paris : it is the 
 perpetual street-mending of an Amer- 
 ican town. Here the boulevards, 
 smeared with asphaltum or bedded . 
 with crunched macadam, attain 
 smoothness without life : you travel 
 on scum. But in the dear old Amer- 
 ican streets the epidermis is vital : 
 what strength and mutual reliance in 
 the cobbles as they stand together in 
 serried ranks, like so many eye-teeth ! 
 How they are perpetually sinking into 
 prodigious ruts, along which the pon- 
 derous drays are forced to dance on 
 one wheel in a paroxysm of agony and 
 critical equipoise ! But the perpetual 
 state of street-mending, that is the crown- 
 ing interest. What would I not some- 
 times give to exchange the Swiss sweep- 
 ing-girls, plying their long brooms deso- 
 lately in the mud, for the paviors' ham- 
 mers of America, which play upon the 
 pebbles like a carillon of muffled bells ? 
 As for the other lack, it is the want of 
 wooden bridges. Far away in my na- 
 tive meadows gleams the silver Charles : 
 the tramp of horses' hoofs comes to my 
 ear from the timbers of the bridge. 
 Here, with a pelt and a scramble your 
 bridge is crossed : nothing addresses the 
 heart from its stony causeway. But the 
 low, arched tubes of wood that span the 
 streams of my native land are so many 
 bass-viols, sending out mellow thunders 
 with every passing wagon to blend with 
 the rustling stream and the sighing 
 woods. Shall I never hear them again ? 
 
 A reminiscence more than ten years 
 old came to give precision to my ram- 
 blings in the past. Beyond the rustic 
 pathway I was now following I could 
 perceive the hills of Trou-Vassou. Here- 
 abouts, if memory served me, I might 
 find a welcome, almost a home, and the 
 clasp of cordial if humble hands. Here 
 I might find folks who would laugh 
 when I arrived, and would be glad to 
 
 share their luncheon with me But — ten 
 years gone by ! 
 
 This computation chilled my hopes. 
 What family remains ten years in a spot 
 — above all, a spot on that fluctuating 
 periphery of Paris, where the mighty 
 
 THE TWO CHICKENS. 
 
 capital, year after year, bursts belt after 
 belt ? Where might they have gone ? 
 Francine ! — Francine must be twenty- 
 two. Married, of course. Her husband, 
 no doubt, has dragged her off to some 
 other department. Her parents have 
 followed. March, volunteer, and dis- 
 entangle yourself from these profitless 
 speculations ! 
 
 Ten minutes farther on, in the shade 
 of the fort at Noisy-le-Sec, I saw a red 
 gable and the sign of a tavern. As a 
 tourist I have a passion for a cabaret: 
 in practice , I find 
 Vefours to unite per- 
 haps a greater num- 
 ber of advantages. 
 
 Some soldiers of 
 the Fortieth were 
 drinking and laugh- 
 ing in a corner. I 
 took a table not far 
 off, and drew my 
 cold victuals out of 
 my box of japanned 
 tin, which they doubt- 
 less took for a new 
 form of canteen. The red-fisted garcon, 
 without waiting for orders, set up before 
 me, like ten-pins, a castor in wood with 
 two enormous bottles, and a litre of that 
 rinsing of the vats which, under the 
 
 " ■) 
 
 LOVE LEFT ALONE. 
 
24 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 name "wine of the country," is so dis- 
 tressingly similar in every neighborhood. 
 Resigned to anything, I was about draw- 
 ing out my slice of ham, the chicken 
 seeming to me just there somewhat too 
 proud a bird and out of harmony with 
 the local color, when my glance met 
 
 two gray eyes regarding my own in the 
 highest state of expansion. The lashes, 
 the brows, the hair and the necklace of 
 short beard were all very thick and 
 quite gray. The face they garnished 
 was that of the tavern-keeper. 
 
 "Why, it is you, after all, Father Jo- 
 
 liet !" I said, after a rapid inspection of 
 his figure. 
 
 "Ah, it is Monsieur Flemming, the 
 Americain - flamand !" cried the host, 
 striking one hand into the other at the 
 
 P& M : IP!! 
 
 
 Huyin 
 
 THE WIFE. 
 
 imminent risk of breaking his pipe. In 
 a trice he trundled off my bottle of rins- 
 ings, and replaced it by one of claret 
 with an orange seal, set another glass, 
 md posted himself in front of me. 
 
 I asked the waiter for two plates, and 
 with a slight blush evoked the chicken 
 from my box. The soldiers of the For- 
 tieth opened a battery of staring and 
 hungry eyes. 
 
 "And how came you here?" asked I 
 of Joliet. 
 
 " It is I who am at the head of the 
 hotel," he replied, proudly pointing out 
 the dimensions of the place by spreading 
 his hands. "My old establishment has 
 sunk into the fosses of the fort : it was a 
 transaction between the government and 
 myself." 
 
 "And was the transaction a good one 
 for you ?" 
 
 "Not so bad, not so bad," said he, 
 winking his honest gray eyes with a 
 world of simple cunning. " It cannot be 
 so very bad, since I owe nothing on the 
 hotel, and the cellar is full, and I am 
 selling wholesale and retail." 
 
 The vanity which a minute since had 
 expanded his hands now got into his 
 legs, and set them upright under his 
 body. He stood u*pon them, his eyes 
 proudly lowered upon the seal of the 
 claret. A pang of envy actually cross- 
 ed my mind. I, simple rentier, with my 
 two little establishments pressing more 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 25 
 
 closely upon my resources with every 
 year's increase of house-rates, how could 
 I look at this glorious small freeholder 
 without comparisons ? 
 
 "So, then, Father Joliet," said I, "you 
 are rich ?" 
 
 "At least I depend no longer on my 
 horse, and that thanks to you and the 
 government." 
 
 " To me ! What do you mean ?" 
 "Why, have you forgotten the two 
 I chickens?" 
 
 THE LONE CRUSADE. 
 
 At the allusion to the chickens we 
 caught each other's eye, and laughed 
 like a pair of augurs. But the myste- 
 
 TENDEK CHAKITY. 
 
 rious fowls shall be explained to the 
 reader. 
 
 I need not explain that I have cast 
 my lot with the Colonial Americans of 
 Paris, and taken their color. It is a 
 sweet and luxurious mode of life. The 
 cooks send round our dinners quite hot, 
 or we have faultless servants, recom- 
 mended from one colonist to another : 
 these capital creatures sometimes be- 
 come so thoroughly translated into Amer- 
 ican that I have known them shift around 
 
 from flat to flat in colonized households 
 of the second and third stories without 
 ever touching French soil for the best 
 part of a lifetime. At our receptions, 
 dancing -teas and so on we pass our 
 time in not giving offence. Federals 
 and Confederates, rich cotton-spinners 
 from Rhode Island and farmers from 
 thousand-acre granges in the West, are 
 obliged to mingle and please each other. 
 Naturally, we can have no more polit- 
 ical opinions than a looking-glass. We 
 entertain just such views as Galignani 
 gives us every morning, harmonized 
 with paste from a dozen newspapers. 
 
 NECESSITY KNOWING LAW. 
 
 Our grand national effort, I may say, 
 the common principle that binds us to- 
 gether as a Colony, is to forget that we 
 are Americans. We accordingly give 
 our whole intellects to the task of ap- 
 
26 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 pearing like Europeans : our women 
 succeed in this particularly well. Miss 
 Yuba Sequoia Smith, whose father made 
 a fortune in water-rights, is now afraid 
 to walk a single block without the at- 
 tendance of a chambermaid in a white 
 cap, though she came up from Cali- 
 
 fornia quite alone by the old Panama 
 route. Everybody agrees that our ladies 
 dress well. Shall I soon forget how 
 proud Mrs. Aquila Jones was when a 
 gentleman of the emperor's body-guard 
 j took her for Marguerite Bellanger in the 
 I Bois ? Our men, not having the culture 
 
 THE FERRY. 
 
 of costume to attend to, are perhaps a 
 little in want of a stand-point. Still, we 
 can play billiards in the Grand Hotel 
 and buy fans at the Palais Royal. We 
 go out to Saint-Cloud on horseback, we 
 meet at the minister's; and I contend 
 that there was something conciliatory 
 
 JOVE S THUNDER. 
 
 and national in a Southern colonel offer- 
 ing to take Bigelow to see Menken at the 
 Gaite, or when I saw some West Point- 
 ers and a nephew of Beauregard's light- 
 ing the pipe of peace at a handsome to- 
 bacconist's in the Rue Saint- Honore. 
 The consciousness that we have no 
 longer a nationality, and that nobody 
 respects us, adds a singular calm, an 
 elevation, to our views. Composed as 
 our cherished little society is of crumbs 
 
 from every table under heaven, we have 
 succeeded in forming a way of life where 
 the crusty fortitude and integrity of pa- 
 triotism is unnecessary. Our circle is 
 like the green palace of the magpies in 
 Musset's Merle Blanc, and like them 
 we live"de plaisir, d'honneur, de ba- 
 vardage, de gloire et de chiffons." 
 
 I confess that there was a period, be- 
 tween the fresh alacrity of a stranger's 
 reception in the Colony and the settled 
 habits I have now fallen into, when I 
 was rather uneasy. A society of migra- 
 tors, a system woven upon shooting par- 
 ticles, like a rainbow on the rain, was odd. 
 Residents of some permanency, like my- 
 self, were constantly forming eternal 
 friendships with people who wrote to 
 them in a month or two from Egypt. In 
 this way a quantity of my friendships 
 were miserably lacerated, until I learn- 
 ed by practice just how much friendship 
 to give. At this period I was much oc- 
 cupied with vain conciliations, conces- 
 sions and the reconciling of inconsist- 
 encies. A brave American from the 
 South, an ardent disciple of Calhoun, 
 was a powerful advocate of State Rights, 
 and advocated them so well that I was 
 almost convinced; when it appeared 
 one day that the right of States to in- 
 dividual action was to cease in cases 
 where a living chattel was to escape 
 from the South to the North. In this 
 case the State, in violation of its own 
 
THE NEW HYPERION, 
 
 27 
 
 laws unrecognizant of that kind of own- 
 ership, was to account for the property 
 and give it back, in obedience to gen- 
 
 eral Congressional order and to the most 
 advanced principles of Centralization. 
 Before I had digested this pill another 
 was administered to me in that small 
 English section of our circle which gave 
 us much pride and an occasional son- 
 in-law. This was by no less a person 
 than my dear old friend Berkley, now 
 grown a ruddy sexagenarian, but still 
 given to eating breakfast in his bath-tub. 
 The wealthy Englishman, who had got 
 rich by exporting chinaware, was sound 
 on the subject of free commerce between 
 nations. That any industry, no matter 
 how young might be the nation prac- 
 ticing it, or how peculiar the difficulties 
 
 of its prosecution, should ever be the 
 subject of home protection, he stamped 
 as a fallacy too absurd to be argued. 
 The journals venturing such an 
 opinion were childish drivelers, 
 putting forth views long since ex- 
 ploded before the whole world. 
 He was still loud in this opinion 
 > when his little book of epigrams, 
 5 The Raven of Zurich and Other 
 i~$ Rhymes, came out, and being 
 gg bright and saucy was reprinted in 
 America. The knowledge that he 
 could not tax on a foreign soil his 
 own ideas, the plastic pottery of 
 his brain, was quite too much for 
 his mental balance, and he took 
 to inveighing against free trade in 
 literary manufactures without the 
 slightest perception of inconsist- 
 ency, and with all the warmth, if not 
 the eloquence, of Mr. Dickens on the 
 same theme. The gradual accumula- 
 tion of subjects like these — subjects taboo 
 in gentle society — soon made it apparent 
 that in a Colony of such diverse colors, 
 where every man had a sore spot or a 
 grievance, and even the Cinderellas had 
 corns in their little slippers, harmony 
 could only be obtained by keeping to 
 general considerations of honor, nobil- 
 ity, glory, and the politics of Beloochis- 
 tan ; on which points we all could agree, 
 and where Mr. Berkley's witty eloquence 
 was a wonder. 
 
 It is to my uneasy period, when I was 
 
 ON WITH THE DANCE 
 
 sick with private griefs and giddy with 
 striving to reconcile incompatibilities, 
 that the episode of the Chickens be- 
 longs. I was looking dissatisfied out 
 of one of my windows. Hohenfels, dis- 
 appointed of a promenade by an after- 
 noon shower, was looking dissatisfied 
 out of the other. Two or three people, 
 
 waiting for four o'clock lunch, were 
 lounging about. I had just remarked, 
 I believe, that I was a melancholy man, 
 for ever drinking "the sweet wormwood 
 of my sorrows." A dark phantom, like 
 that of Adamastor, stood up between me 
 and the stars. 
 "Nonsense, you in grate !" responded 
 
28 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 the baron from his niche, " you are only 
 too happy. You are now in the precise 
 
 ENDYMION. 
 
 position to define my old conception of 
 the Lucky Dog. The Lucky Dog, you 
 know, in my vocabulary, is he who, free 
 from all domestic cares, saunters up and 
 down his room in gown and slippers, 
 drums on the window of a rainy after- 
 
 noon, and, as he stirs his evening fire, 
 snaps his fingers at the world, saying, 
 ' I have no wife nor children, good 
 |& or bad, to provide for.' " 
 
 I replied that I did not willingly 
 give way to grief, but that the main- 
 spring of my life was broken. 
 
 " Did you ever try," spoke up a 
 buxom lady from a sofa — it was the 
 Frau Kranich, widow of the Frank- 
 fort banker, the same who used to 
 give balls while her husband was 
 drugged to sleep with opium, and 
 now for a long time in Paris for 
 some interminable settlement with 
 Nathan Rothschild — "Did you ever 
 try the tonic of a good action ? / 
 never did, but they actually say it re- 
 juvenates one considerably." 
 
 I avowed that I had more faith in the 
 study of Geography. Nevertheless, to 
 oblige her, I would follow any sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 >'■ o- 
 
 HOW THE MODERN DOG TREATS LAZARUS. 
 
 " Benefit the next person who applies 
 to you." 
 
 "Madame, I will obey." 
 
 At this moment a wagon of singular 
 appearance drew up before my windows. 
 I knew it well enough : it was the ve- 
 hicle of a handy, convenient man who 
 came along every other morning to pick 
 up odd jobs from me and my neighbors. 
 He could tinker, carpenter, mend har- 
 ness : his wife, seated in the wagon by 
 his side, was good at a button, or could 
 descend and help Josephine with her 
 ironing. A visit at this hour, however, 
 was unprecedented. 
 
 As Charles was beginning a conver- 
 sation under the hood of the wagon, I 
 
 opened the window. " Come into the 
 room," I said. 
 
 Hohenfels maliciously opened his. 
 " Come in," he added — " Monsieur Flem- 
 ming is especially anxious to do you a 
 benefit." 
 
 The man, uncovering, was now stand- 
 ing in the little garden before the house 
 — a man with a face at once intelligent 
 and candid, which is unfortunately rare 
 among the poor rascals of his grade. 
 Although still young, he was growing 
 gray : his blouse, patched and re-sewed 
 at all the seams, was clean and whole. 
 Poverty had tested him, but had as yet 
 picked no flaws in him. By this time 
 my windows were alive with faces. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 29 
 
 The man, humble but not awkward, 
 made two or three respectful bows. 
 " Monsieur," he said to me, " I hope you 
 are fond of chickens. I am desirous to 
 sell you a fine pair." 
 
 Chickens for me! and what was it 
 supposed I should do with them ? At 
 
 THE LAUGHING LACKEY. 
 
 this point the voice of the Frau Kranich 
 was heard, clear and malicious : " It is a 
 bargain : bring them in." 
 
 At the same time the canvas cover of 
 the wagon puffed outward, giving issue 
 to a heavy sigh. 
 
 The man went to a sort of great cage 
 in lattice-work occupying the back of 
 the vehicle. Then he backed his wagon 
 up to the sidewalk, and we saw, sitting 
 on the cage and framed by the oval of 
 the wagon-cover, a young woman of ex- 
 cellent features, but sadly pale. She 
 now held the two chickens in her lap, 
 caressing them, laying their heads 
 against her cheek, and enwreathing 
 them in the folds of her great shawl. I 
 could only close the bargain with the 
 utmost speed, to be safe from ridicule. 
 
 "Your price?" I asked. 
 
 "Fix it yourself, sir," said the man, 
 determined to confuse me. " You are 
 doubtless thoroughly acquainted with 
 poultry." 
 
 "The nankeen - colored one," spoke 
 up again the bell-like and inexorable 
 voice from the other window, "is a yel- 
 low Crevecceur, very well formed and 
 
 lively-looking : the slate-colored one is 
 a Cochin-China, with only a few of the 
 white feathers lacking from the head. 
 They are chef-d'ceuvres, and are worth 
 fully forty francs apiece." 
 
 " Only look, sir, at their claws and 
 bills, see their tongues, and observe un- 
 der their wings : they are young, whole- 
 some and of fine strain — " 
 
 He was running on when I stopped 
 him : " Here are a hundred francs for 
 you, brave man." 
 
 The patchwork blouse cut a caper, a 
 look of lively joy shot from the man's 
 eyes, where a tear was gathering, and 
 the wagon, from its bursting cover, gave 
 utterance to a sob. 
 
 "Why sell them," I asked, touched in 
 spite of myself, "if you are so attached 
 to them ? Is the money indispensable 
 to you ? I might possibly make an ad- 
 vance." 
 
 "Ah, you are a real Christian — you 
 are now," said the honest Joliet, polish- 
 ing his eyeball with his coat-cuff. " The 
 good woman holds by them, it is true. 
 Holy Virgin ! it's she that has raised 
 them, and I may say brooded over them 
 in the coop. The eggs were for our 
 
 
 THE PRESENT. 
 
 salad when we had nothing better than 
 nettles and sorrel. But, day in and 
 night in, we have no other lodging than 
 our wagon, and the wife is promising to 
 give me a dolly .; and if we don't take 
 out the cage, where will the cradle go, 
 sir?" 
 
3° 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 The calculation appeared reasonable. 
 I received the birds, and they were the 
 heroes, in their boudoir under the piano, 
 of that night's conversazione. 
 
 How hard it is for a life cast upon the 
 crowded shores of the Old World to re- 
 gain the place once lost is shown by the 
 history of my honest friend Joliet. Born 
 
 in 1812, of an excellent family living 
 twenty miles from Versailles, the little 
 fellow lost his mother before he could 
 talk to her. When he was ten years old, 
 his father, who had failed after some 
 land speculations, and had turned all he 
 had into money, tossed him up to the 
 lintel of the doorway, kissed him, put 
 
 THE CONVALESCENT. 
 
 a twenty-franc gold-piece into his little j 
 pocket, and went away to seek his for- 
 tune in Louisiana : the son never heard 
 of him more. The lady-president of a 
 charitable society, Mademoiselle Marx, 
 took pity on the abandoned child : she 
 fed him on bones and occasionally beat 
 him. She was an ingenious and in- 
 ventive creature, and made her own 
 cat-o'-nine-tails : an inventor is for ever 
 demonstrating the merits of his imple- 
 ment. Soon, discovering that he was 
 thankless and unteachable, she made 
 him enter, as youngest clerk, the law- 
 office of her admirer and attorney, Con- 
 stabule. This gentleman, not finding 
 enough engrossing - work to keep the 
 
 lad out of mischief, allowed him 
 sweep his rooms and blacken his 
 ^oots. Little Joliet, after giving a 
 volatile air to a great many of his 
 employer's briefs by making paper 
 chickens of them, showed his im- 
 perfect sense of the favors done 
 him by absconding. In fact, proud 
 and independent, he was brooding 
 over boyish schemes of an honor- 
 able living and a hasty fortune. 
 He soon found that every profession 
 required an apprenticeship, and 
 that an apprenticeship could only be 
 
 to 
 
 bought for 'money. He was obliged, 
 then, to seek his grand fortune through 
 somewhat obscure avenues. If I were 
 to follow my poor Joliet through all his 
 transmigrations and metempsychoses, as 
 I have learned them by his hints, allu- 
 sions and confessions, I should show him 
 by turns working a rope ferry, where the 
 stupid and indolent cattle, whose business 
 it is to draw men, were drawn by him ; 
 then letter-carrier ; supernumerary and 
 call-boy in a village theatre ; road-mend- 
 er on a vicinal route ; then a beadle, a 
 bell-ringer, and a sub-teacher in an in- 
 fant school, where he distributed his own 
 ignorance impartially amongst his little 
 patrons at the end of a stick ; after this, 
 big drum in the New Year's festivals, 
 
 THE DIVIDED BURDEN. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 31 
 
 and ready at a moment's opportunity to 
 throw down the drumstick and plunge 
 among the dancers, for Joliet was a well- 
 hinged lad, and the blood of nineteen 
 years was tingling in his heels. After 
 fluttering thus from branch to branch, 
 like the poor birdling that cannot take 
 its flight, discouraged by his wretched 
 attempts at life, he plunged straight be- 
 fore him, hoping for nothing but a turn 
 of luck, driving over the roads and fields, 
 lending a hand to the farmers, sleeping 
 in stables and garrets, or oftener in the 
 open air ; sometimes charitably sheltered 
 in a kind man's barn, and perhaps — oh 
 bliss ! — honestly employed with him for 
 a week or two ; at others rudely repulsed 
 
 SHARE MY CUP. 
 
 as a good-for-nothing and vagabond. 
 Vagabond ! That truly was his profes- 
 sion now. He forgot the charms of a 
 fixed abode. He came to like his gypsy 
 freedom, the open air and complete in- 
 
 dependence. He laughed at his misery, 
 
 provided it shifted its place occasionally. 
 
 One day, when Hazard, his ungener- 
 
 . -J*. 
 
 BREAKING STONES. 
 
 ous guardian, seemed to have quite for- 
 gotten him, he walked — on an empty 
 stomach, as the doctors say — past the 
 lofty walls of a chateau. A card was 
 placed at the gate calling for additional 
 hands at a job of digging. Each work- 
 man, it was promised, had a right to a 
 plate of soup before beginning. This 
 article tempted him. At the gate a 
 lackey, laughing in his face, told him 
 the notice had been posted there six 
 months : workmen were no longer want- 
 ed. "Wait, though," said the servant, 
 and in another minute gave the appli- 
 cant a horse ! — a real, live horse in blood 
 and bones, but in bones especially. 
 
 SICKNESS AND COURTSHIP. 
 
3 2 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 "There," said the domestic, "set a beg- 
 gar on horseback and see him ride to 
 the devil !" And, laughing with that 
 unalloyed enjoyment which one's own 
 wit alone produces, he retired behind 
 his wicket. 
 
 The horse thus vicariously fulfilling 
 the functions of a plate of soup was a 
 wretched glandered beast — not old, but 
 shunned on account of the contagious 
 nature of his disease. Having received 
 the order to take him to be killed at the 
 
 abattoir, monsieur the valet, having bet- 
 ter things to do, gave the commission to 
 Joliet, with all its perquisites. 
 
 Joliet did not kill the steed : he cured 
 it. He tended it, he drenched it, he 
 saved it. By what remedy ? I cannot 
 tell. I have never been a farrier, though 
 Joliet himself made me perforce a poul- 
 terer. Many a bit of knowledge is pick- 
 ed up by those who travel the great 
 roads. The sharp Bohemian, by play- 
 ing at all trades, brushing against gentry 
 
 THE WAGON. 
 
 of all sorts and scouring all neighbor- 
 hoods, becomes at length a living cyclo- 
 paedia. 
 
 Joliet, like Democritus and Plato, saw 
 everything with his own eyes, learned 
 everything at first hand. He was a 
 keen observer, and in our interviews 
 subsequent to the affair of the chickens 
 I was more than once surprised by the 
 extent of his information and the subtle- 
 ty of his insight. His wits were tacked 
 on to a number of remote supports. In 
 our day, when each science has become 
 so complicated, so obese, that a man's 
 lifetime may be spent in exercising round 
 one of them, there are hardly any gen- 
 eralizes or observers fit to estimate their 
 relativity, except among the two classes 
 called by the world idlers and ignorants 
 — the poets and the Bohemians. 
 
 Joliet, now having joined the ranks of 
 the cavalry, found his account in his 
 new dignity. He became an orderly, a 
 messenger. He carried parcels, he trans- 
 ported straw and hay. If the burden was 
 too heavy for the poor convalescent, the 
 man took his own portion with a good 
 grace, and the two mutually aided each 
 other on the errand. Thanks to his 
 horse, the void left by his failure to learn 
 a trade was filled up by a daily and reg- 
 ular task : what was better, an affection 
 had crept into his heart. He loved his 
 charge, and his charge loved him. 
 
 This great hotel, the world, seemed to 
 be promising entertainment then for both 
 man and beast, when an epoch of dis- 
 aster came along — a season of cholera. 
 In the villages where Joliet's business 
 lay the doors just beginning to be hos- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 33 
 
 pitable were promptly shut against him. | nized Assistance in his person, they now 
 Where the good townsmen had recog- | saw Contagion. 
 
 DINNER-TIME ! 
 
 If he had been a single man, he could 
 have lain back and waited for better 
 times. But he now had two mouths to 
 feed. He kissed his horse and took a 
 resolution. 
 
 He had never been a mendicant. 
 "Beggars don't go as hungry as I have 
 gone," said he. "But what will you 
 have ? Nobility obliges. My father 
 was a gentleman. I have broken stones, 
 but never the devoirs of my order." 
 
 He left the groups of villages among 
 which his new industry had lain. The 
 cholera was behind him : trouble, beg- 
 gary perhaps, was before him. As night 
 was coming on, Joliet, listlessly leading 
 his horse, which he was too considerate 
 to ride, saw upon the road a woman 
 whom' he took in the obscurity for a 
 farmer's wife of the better class or a 
 decent villager. For an introduction 
 the opportunity was favorable enough. 
 On her side, the quasi farmer's wife, 
 seeing in the dusk an honest fellow 
 dragging a horse, took him for a "gen- 
 tleman's gentleman" at the least, and 
 the two accosted each other with that 
 easy facility of which the French people 
 3 
 
 have the secret. Each presented the 
 other with a hand and a frank smile. 
 
 Joliet, whom I have erred perhaps in 
 comparing to Democritus, was never- 
 theless a laugher and a philosopher. 
 But his grand ha-ha ! usually infectious, 
 was not shared on this occasion. The 
 wanderer could not show much merri- 
 ment. A sewing-woman with a capacity 
 for embroidery, her needle had given 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 her support, but now a sudden warning 
 of paralysis, and symptoms of cholera 
 added to that, had driven her almost to 
 
 A LITTLE VISITOR. 
 
 despair. She was without home, friend 
 or profession. 
 
 Joliet set her incontinently on horse- 
 back, and walked by her side to a good 
 village cure's two miles off — the same 
 who had assisted him to his first com- 
 munion, and for whom he subsequent- 
 ly became a beadle. The kind priest 
 opened his arms to the man, his heart 
 to the woman, his stable to the horse. 
 For his second patient my Bohemian 
 set in motion all his stock of curative 
 ideas. In a month she was well, and 
 the cure no longer had three pensioners, 
 for of two of them he made one. 
 
 Two poverties added may make a 
 competence. Monsieur and Madame 
 Joliet were good and willing. The man 
 began to wear a strange not unbecoming 
 air of solidity and good morals. The 
 girls now saluted him respectfully when 
 he passed through a village. 
 
 One thing, however, in the midst of 
 his proud honeymoon perplexed him 
 much. Hardly married, and over head 
 and ears in love, he knew not how to 
 invite his bride to some wretched gar- 
 ret, himself deserting her to resume his 
 former life in the open air. To give up 
 the latter seemed like losing existence 
 itself. 
 
 One morning, as he asked himself the 
 difficult question, a pair of old wheels at 
 the door of a cartwright seemed of their 
 own accord to resolve his perplexity. 
 He bought them, the payment to be 
 made in labor : for a week he blew the 
 
 wheelwright's bellows. The wheels were 
 his own : to make a wagon was now the 
 affair of a few old boards and a gypsy's 
 inventiveness. 
 
 Thus was conceived that famous es- 
 tablishment where, for several years, 
 lived the independent monarch and his 
 spouse, rolling over the roads, circulating 
 through the whole belt of villages around 
 Paris, and carrying in their ambulant 
 home, like the Cossacks, their utensils, 
 their bed, their oven, their all. 
 
 From town to town they carried pack- 
 ages, boxes and articles of barter. At 
 dinner-time the van was rolled under a 
 tree. The lady of the house kindled a 
 fire in the portable stove behind a hedge 
 or in a ditch. The hen-coop was opened, 
 and the sage seraglio with their sultan 
 
 FKANCINE. 
 
 prudently pecked about for food. At the 
 first appeal they re-entered their cage. 
 
 At the same appeal came flying up 
 the dog of the establishment, a most 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 35 
 
 piteous-looking griffin, disheveled, moult- 
 ed, staring out of one eye, lame and 
 wild. For devotion and good sense his 
 match could be found nowhere. Like 
 his horse, his wife, his house and the 
 pins in his sleeve, Joliet had picked the 
 collie up on the road. 
 
 The arrival of a tiny visitor to the Bo- 
 
 hemian's address made a change neces- 
 sary. Little Francine's dowry was pro- 
 vided by my humorous acquisition of 
 the yellow and slate-colored chickens. 
 
 With his savings and my banknote 
 Joliet determined to have a fixed resi- 
 dence. He succeeded of course. The 
 walls, the windows, the doors, every- 
 
 don't wring my heart!' 
 
 thing but the garden-patch, he picked 
 up along the roads. 
 
 Buried in eglantine and honeysuckle, 
 soon no one would suspect the home- 
 made character of Joliet's chateau. It 
 became the Centre of my botanizing ex- 
 cursions. Francine grew into a fair, 
 slim girl, like the sweetest and most in- 
 nocent of Gavarni's sketches, and sold 
 flowers to the passers-by. 
 
 Such were the souvenirs I had of this 
 brave tavern-keeper in his old capacity 
 of roadster and tramp. Now, after an 
 hiatus of years, I found him before me 
 in a different character at the beginning 
 of my roundabout trips to Marly. 
 
 But what had become of my favorite 
 little rose- merchant ? 
 
 "Francine?" asked Joliet briskly, as 
 if he was wondering whom I could mean 
 by such a name. "You mean my wife ? 
 Poor thing ! She is dead." 
 
 "I am speaking of your daughter, Fa- 
 ther Joliet." 
 
 "Oh, my daughter, my girl Francine ? 
 She went to live with her godmother. 
 It was ten years ago." 
 
 "And you have not seen her since ?" 
 
 " Yes — yes — two years back. She has 
 gone again." 
 
 " To her godmother ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 "Her godmother would not receive 
 her. Don't wring my heart so, sir !" 
 
IF.AJR/I? III- 
 
 THE FEAST OF SAINT ATHANASIUS. 
 
 THE PAULISTS. 
 
 AS I parted from my stout old friend 
 Joliet, I saw him turn to empty the 
 last half of our bottle into the glasses of 
 a couple of tired soldiers who were suck- 
 ing their pipes on a bench. And again 
 the old proverb of Aretino came into 
 my head: "Truly all courtesy and good 
 manners come from taverns." I grasp- 
 ed my botany-box and pursued my prom- 
 enade toward Noisy. 
 
 The village of Noisy has made (with- 
 out a pun) some noise in history. One 
 of its ancient lords, Enguerrand de Ma- 
 rigny, was the inventor of the famous 
 gibbet of Montfaucjon, and in the poetic 
 justice which should ever govern such 
 cases he came to be hung on his own 
 36 
 
 gallows. He was convicted of manifold 
 extortions, and launched by the common 
 executioner into that eternity whither he 
 could carry none of his ill-gotten gains 
 with him. Here, at least, we succeed 
 in meeting a guillotine which catches 
 its maker. By a singular coincidence 
 another lord of Noisy, Cardinal Balue, 
 underwent a long detention in an iron- 
 barred cage — one of those famous cages, 
 so much favored by Louis XL, of which 
 the cardinal, as we learn from the rec- 
 ords of the time, had the patent-right 
 for invention, or at least improvement. 
 Once firmly engaged in his own torture 
 — while his friend Haraucourt, bishop 
 of Verdun, experienced a like penalty in 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 37 
 
 a similar box, and the foxy old king 
 paced his narrow oratory in the Bastile 
 tower overhead — we may be sure that 
 Balue gave his inventive mind no more 
 
 THE REWARD OF AN INVENTOR. 
 
 to the task of fortifying his cages, but 
 rather to that of opening them. 
 
 These ugly reminiscences were not so 
 much the cause of a prejudice I took 
 against Noisy, as caused by it. At Noisy 
 I was in the full domain of my ancient 
 foe the railway, where two lines of the 
 Eastern road separate — the Ligne de 
 Meaux and the Ligne de Mulhouse. 
 The sight of the unhappy second-class 
 passengers powdered with dust, and of 
 the frantic nurses who had mistaken 
 
 CARDINAL BALUE. 
 
 their line, and who madly endeavored 
 to leap across to the other train, stirred 
 all my bile. It was on this current of 
 thought that the nobleman who had 
 
 been hung and the caidinal who had 
 pined in a cage were borne upon my mem- 
 ory. "Small choice," said I, "whether 
 the bars are perpendicular or horizontal. 
 You lose your independence about equal- 
 ly by either monopoly." 
 
 I crossed the Canal de l'Ourcq, and 
 watched it stretching like a steel tape to 
 meet the Canal Saint - Denis and the 
 Canal Saint-Martin in the great basin at 
 La Villette — a construction which, fin- 
 ished in 1809, was the making of La 
 Villette as a commercial and industrial 
 entrepot. I meant to walk to Bondy, 
 and after a botanic stroll in its beauti- 
 ful forest to retrace my steps, gaining 
 Marly next day by Baubigny, Auber- 
 villiers and Nanterre. "The Aladdins 
 
 AN UNCIVIL ENGINEER. 
 
 of our time," I said as I leaned over 
 the soft gray water, "are the engineers. 
 They rub their theodolites, and there 
 springs up, not a palace, but a town." 
 
 "Who speaks of engineers?" said a 
 strong baritone voice as a weighty hand 
 fell on my shoulder. "Are you hereto 
 take the train at Noisy ?" 
 
 " Let the train go to Jericho ! I am 
 trying, on the contrary, to get away from 
 it." 
 
 " Do you mean, then, to go on foot to 
 Epernay ?" 
 
 " What do you mean, £pernay ?" 
 
 "Why, have you forgotten the feast 
 of Saint Athanasius ?" 
 
 "What do you mean, Athanasius?" 
 
 The baritone belonged to one of my 
 
3* 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 friends, an engineer from Boston. He 
 had an American commission to inspect 
 the canals of Europe on the part of a 
 
 -%.-.. 
 
 LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION. 
 
 company formed to buy out the Sound 
 line of steamers and dig a ship-canal 
 from Boston to Providence. The en- 
 gineer had made his inspection the ex- 
 cuse for a few years of not disagreeable 
 travel, during which time the company 
 had exploded, its chief financier having 
 cut his throat when his peculations came 
 out to the public. 
 
 "Are you trying, then, to escape from 
 one of your greatest possible duties and 
 one of your greatest possible pleasures ? 
 You have the remarkable fortune to 
 
 possess a friend named Athanasius ; you 
 have in addition, the strange fate to be 
 his godfather by secondary baptism ; 
 and you would, after these un- 
 paralleled chances, be the sole 
 renegade from the vow which 
 you have extracted from the 
 others." 
 
 The words were uncivil and 
 rude, the hand was on my 
 shoulder like a vise ; but there 
 floated into my head a recollec- 
 tion of one of the pleasantest 
 evenings I have ever enjoyed. 
 We were dining with James 
 Grandstone, one of my young 
 friends. I have some friends of 
 whom I might be the father, and doubt 
 not I could find a support for my practice 
 in Sir Thomas Browne or Jeremy Taylor 
 if I had time to look up the quotation. 
 We dined in the little restaurant Ober, 
 near the Odeon, with a small party of 
 medical students, to which order Grand- 
 stone's friends mostly belonged. We 
 were all young that night; and truly I 
 hold that the affectionate confusion of 
 two or three different generations adds 
 a charm to friendship. 
 
 At dessert the conversation happened 
 
 LE EA1NCY I THE CHATEAU. 
 
 to strike upon Christian names. I at- 
 tacked the cognomens in ordinary use, 
 maintaining that their historic signif- 
 icance was lost, their religious sentiment 
 forgotten, their euphony mostly ques- 
 
 tionable. Alfred, Henry and William 
 no longer carried the thoughts back to 
 the English kings — Joseph and Reuben 
 were powerless to remind us of the 
 mighty family of Israel. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION, 
 
 39 
 
 " I have no complaint to make of my 
 own name," I protested, "which has been 
 praised by Dannecker the sculptor. That 
 was at Wurtemberg, gentlemen. ' You 
 are from America,' the old man said to 
 
 CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX. 
 
 me, ' but you have a German name : 
 Paul Flemming was one of our old 
 poets.' The thought has been a pleas- 
 ant one to me, though I have not the 
 faintest idea what my ancient godparent 
 wrote. But in the matter of originality 
 my Christian name of Paul certainly 
 leaves much to desire." 
 
 I was gay enough that evening, and 
 in the vein for a paradox. I set up the 
 various Pauls of our acquaintance, and 
 maintained that in any company of fifty 
 persons, if a feminine voice were to call 
 out "Paul!" through the doorway, six 
 husbands at least would start and say, 
 " Coming, dear !" I computed the Pauls 
 belonging to one of the grand nations, 
 and proved that an army recruited from 
 them would be large enough to carry on 
 a war against a power of the second order. 
 
 "If the Jameses were to reinforce the 
 | Pauls," I declared, looking toward my 
 i young host, " Russia itself would tremble. 
 j — Are you to make your start in life 
 I with no better name ?" I asked him 
 maliciously. "Must you be for 
 ever kept in mediocrity by an ad- 
 dress that is not the designation 
 of an individual, but of a whole 
 nation ? Could you not have 
 been called by something rather 
 less oecumenical ?" 
 
 "You may style me by what 
 title you please, Mr. Flemming," 
 said Grandstone nonchalantly. 
 " I am to enter a great New York 
 wine-house after a little examina- 
 tion of the grape-country here. 
 Doubtless a Grandstone will have, 
 by any other name, a bouquet as 
 sweet." 
 
 The idea took. An almanac 
 of saints' days, which is often 
 printed in combination with the 
 menu of a restaurant, was lying 
 on the table. Beginning at the 
 letter A, the name of Ambrose 
 was within an ace of being cho- 
 sen, but Grandstone protested 
 against it as too short, and Atha- 
 nasius was the first of five sylla- 
 bles that presented. Our engi- 
 neering friend, who was present, 
 had in his pocket a vial of water 
 from the Dardanelles, which fouls ships' 
 bottoms ; and with that classic liquid 
 the baptism was effected by myself, the 
 bottle being broken on poor Grandstone's 
 crown as on the prow of a ship. 
 
 "You are no longer James to us, but 
 Athanasius," I said. "If you remain 
 moderately virtuous, we will canonize 
 you. Meantime, let us vow to meet on 
 the next canonical day of Saint Athana- 
 sius and hold a love-feast." 
 
 We drank his health, and glorified 
 him, and laughed, and the next day I 
 forgot whether Grandstone was called 
 Athanasius or Epaminondas. And my 
 confusion on the subject had not clari- 
 fied in the least up to the rude reminder 
 given by my engineer. 
 
 "I had quite forgotten my engage- 
 ment," I confessed. "Besides, Grand- 
 
40 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 stone is living now, as you remind me, 
 at Epernay — that is to say, at seventy 
 or eighty miles' distance." 
 
 "Say three hours," he retorted: "on 
 a railway line we don't count by miles. 
 But are you really not here at Noisy to 
 satisfy your promise and report yourself 
 for the feast of Saint Athanasius ? If 
 you are not bound for Epernay, where 
 are you bound ?" 
 
 " I am off for Marly." 
 
 " You are going in just the contrary 
 
 direction, old fellow. You can be at 
 Epernay sooner." 
 
 "And Hohenfels joins me at Marly 
 to-morrow," I continued, rather help- 
 lessly ; " and Josephine my cook is there 
 this afternoon boiling the mutton-hams." 
 
 " Fine arguments, truly ! You shall 
 sleep to-night in Paris, or even at Marly, 
 if you see fit. I have often heard you 
 argue against railroads — a fine argument 
 for a geographer to uphold against an 
 engineer ! Now is the instant to bury 
 
 your prejudice. Do you see that soft 
 ringlet of smoke off yonder ? It is the 
 message of the locomotive, offering to 
 reconcile your engagements with Grand- 
 stone and Hohenfels. Come, get your 
 ticket!" 
 
 And his hand ceased squeezing my 
 shoulder like a pincer to beat it like a 
 mallet. A rapid sketch of the situation 
 was mapped out in my head. I could 
 reach Epernay by five o'clock, returning 
 at eight, and, notwithstanding this little 
 lasso flung over the champagne-coun- 
 try, I could resume my promenade and 
 modify in no respect my original plan ; 
 and I could say to Hohenfels, "My boy, 
 I have popped a few corks with the 
 widow Cliquot." 
 
 Such was my vision. The gnomes of 
 
 the railway, having once got me in their 
 grasp, disposed of me as they liked, and 
 quite unexpectedly. 
 
 From the car-window, as in a pano- 
 rama of Banvard's, the landscape spun 
 out before my eyes. Le Raincy, which 
 I had intended to visit at all events on 
 the same day, but afoot, offered me the 
 roofs of its ancient chateau, a pile built 
 in the most pompous spirit of the Re- 
 naissance, and whose alternately round 
 and square pavilions, tipped with steep 
 mansards, I was fain to people with 
 throngs of gay visitors in the costume of 
 the grand siecle. Then came the cathe- 
 dral of Meaux, before which I reverently 
 took off my cap to salute the great Bos- 
 suet — "Eagle of Meaux," as they justly 
 called him, and on the whole a noble 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 4i 
 
 bird, notwithstanding that he sang his 
 Te Deum over some exceedingly ques- 
 tionable battle-grounds. Then there 
 presented itself a monument at which 
 my engineering friend clapped his hands. 
 It was a crown of buildings with extin- 
 
 - ^lCr%7_ 
 
 CHUKCH-DOOR, EPERNAY. 
 
 guisher roofs encircling the brow of a 
 hill, and presenting the antique appear- 
 ance of some chastel of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 " Do you see those round, pot-bellied 
 towers, like tuns of wine stood upon 
 end?" he said — "those donjons at the 
 corners, tapering at the top, and present- 
 ing the very image of noble bottles ? 
 There needs nothing but that palace to 
 convince you that you have arrived in 
 the champagne region." 
 
 "I do not know the building," I con- 
 fessed. 
 
 " Can you not guess ? Ah, but you 
 should see it in a summer storm, when 
 the rain foams and spirts down those 
 huge bottles of mason-work, and the 
 thunder pops among the roofs like the 
 corks of a whole basket of champagne ! 
 That fine castle, Flemming, is the cha- 
 teau of Boursault, apparently built in 
 the era of the Crusades, but really a 
 marvel of yesterday. It rose into being, 
 not to the sound of a lyre, like the towers 
 of Troy, but at the bursting of innu- 
 merable bottles, causing to resound all 
 
 over the world the name of the widow 
 Cliquot." 
 
 At length we entered the station of 
 Epernay. There I received my first 
 shock in learning that the only return- 
 train stopping at Noisy was one which 
 left at midnight, and would land me in 
 the extreme suburbs of Paris at three 
 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Our friend Grandstone, whom we 
 found amazing the streets of Epernay 
 with a light American buggy drawn by 
 a colossal Norman horse, received us 
 with still more surprise than delight. 
 He had relapsed into plain James, and 
 had never dreamed that his second bap- 
 tism would bear fruit. Besides, he proved 
 to us that we were in error as to the date. 
 The feast of Saint Athanasius, as he 
 showed from a calendar shoved beneath 
 a quantity of vintners' cards on his 
 study-table, fell on the second of May, 
 and could not be celebrated before the 
 evening of the first. It was now the 
 thirtieth of April. He invited us, then, 
 for the next day at dinner, warning us 
 at the same time that the evening of 
 that same morrow would see him on his 
 way to the Falls of Schaff hausen. This 
 idea of dining with an absentee puzzled 
 me. 
 
 THE BEGGAR WHO DRANK CHAMPAGNE. 
 
 We both laughed heartily at the en- 
 gineer's mistake of twenty-four hours, 
 and he for his part made me his excuses. 
 
 Athanasius — whose name I obstinate- 
 ly keep, because it gives him, as I main- 
 
42 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 tain, a more distinct individuality, — 
 Athanasius happened to be driving out 
 for the purpose of collecting some friends 
 whom he was about to accompany to 
 Schaffhausen, and whom he had invited 
 to dinner. He contrived to stow away 
 two in his buggy, and the rest assembled 
 in his chambers. We dined gayly and 
 voraciously, and I hardly regretted even 
 that old hotel-dinner at Interlaken, when 
 the landlord waited on us in his green 
 coat, and when Mary Ashburton was by 
 my side, and when I praised hotel-din- 
 ners because one can say so much there 
 without being overheard. 
 
 Dinner over, we went out for a stroll 
 through the town. The city of Epernay 
 offers little remarkable except its Rue du 
 Commerce, flanked with enormous build- 
 ings, and its church, conspicuous only 
 for a flourishing portal in the style of 
 Louis XIV., in perfect contradiction to 
 the general architecture of the old sanc- 
 tuary. The 
 environs 
 were little 
 note worthy 
 at the sea- 
 son, for a 
 vineyard- 
 land has this 
 peculiarity — its veritable spring, its pride 
 of May, arrives in the autumn. 
 
 One very vinous trait we found, how- 
 ever, in the person of a beggar. He 
 was sitting on Grandstone's steps as we 
 emerged. Aged hardly fourteen, he had 
 turned his young nose toward the rich 
 fumes coming up from the kitchen with 
 a look of sensuality and indulgence that 
 amused me. The maid, on a hint of 
 mine, gave him a biscuit and the re- 
 mainders of our bottles emptied into a 
 bowl. A smile of extreme breadth and 
 intelligence spread over his face. Open- 
 ing his bag, he laid by the biscuit, and 
 extracted a morsel of iced cake : at the 
 same time he produced an old-fashioned, 
 long-waisted champagne-glass, nicked 
 at the rim and quite without a stand. 
 Filling this from his bowl, he drank to 
 the health of the waitress with the easiest 
 politeness it was ever my lot to see. 
 Ragged as a beggar of Murillo's, cour- 
 
 ADMIKATION. 
 
 teous as a hidalgo by Velasquez, he 
 added a grace and an epicurism com- 
 pletely French. I thought him the best 
 possible figure - head for that opulent 
 
 MAC MEURTKIEK. 
 
 spot, cradle of the hilarity of the world. 
 I gave him five francs. 
 
 We proceeded to admire the town. 
 The great curiosities of Epernay, its 
 glory and pomp, are not permitted to 
 see the daylight. They are subterranean 
 and introverted. They are the cellars. 
 
 ii?i;iiP^Ui vl; 
 
 THE BLACK POMINO. 
 
 Those rich colonnades of Commerce 
 street, all those porticoes surmounted 
 with Greek or Roman triangles in the 
 nature of pediments, of what antique 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 43 
 
 religion are they the representations? 
 They are cellar-doors. 
 
 It was impossible to quit the city with- 
 out visiting its cellars, said Grandstone, 
 and we betook ourselves under his 
 guidance to one of the most renowned. 
 
 TAM O SHANTER S RIDE. 
 
 [ only thought of seeing a battle-field 
 of bottles, but I found the Eleusinian 
 mysteries. 
 
 In the temple-porch of Eleusis was 
 fixed a large pale face, in the middle 
 parts of which a red nose was glowing 
 like a fuse. Several other personages, 
 in company with this visage, received us 
 on our approach with a world of solemn 
 and terrifying signals. 
 
 Directly a man in a cloak and slouch- 
 ed hat, and holding in his hands a wire 
 fencing-mask, extinguished with it the 
 red nose. The latter met his fate with 
 stolid fortitude. All were perfectly still, 
 but the twitching cheeks of most of the 
 spectators betrayed a laugh retained 
 with difficulty. The cloak then ad- 
 vanced, like a less beautiful Norma, to 
 a bell in the portico, and struck three 
 tragical strokes. A strong, pealing deep 
 voice came from the interior: "Who 
 dares knock at this door?" 
 
 "A night-bird," said the man in the 
 | cloak, who took the part of spokesman. 
 "What has the night-bird to do with 
 the eagle ?" replied the strong voice. 
 " What can there be in common between 
 the heathen in his blindness and the 
 Ancient of the 
 Mountain throned 
 in power and splen- 
 dor?" 
 
 "Grand Master, 
 it is in that splen- 
 dor the new-comer 
 wishes to plunge." 
 After this imita- 
 tion of some Ma- 
 sonic mystery the 
 red-nosed man was 
 quickly taken by 
 the shoulders and 
 hurtled in at the 
 door, where a flare 
 of red theatrical fire 
 illuminated his sud- 
 den plunge. 
 
 "What nonsense 
 is this ?" I said to 
 Athanasius. 
 
 "The man in the 
 iron mask," he ex- 
 plained, "is in that 
 respect what we shall all be in a min- 
 ute. Without such a protector, in pass- 
 ing amongst the first year's bottles we 
 might receive a few hits in the face." 
 
 "And do you know the new appren- 
 tice ?" 
 
 "No: some stranger, evidently." 
 
 " It is not hard to guess his extrac- 
 
 
 THE CKOOKI.D MAN. 
 
44 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 tion," said one of our dinner-party. " In 
 the East there are sorcerers with two 
 pupils in each eye. For his part, he 
 seems to be braced with two pans in 
 each knee. He is long in the stilts like 
 a heron, square - headed and square- 
 shouldered : I give you my word he is a 
 
 Scotchman. For certain," he added, " I 
 have seen his likeness somewhere — Ah 
 yes, in an engraving of Hogarth's !" 
 
 The author of this charitable criticism 
 was a little crooked gentleman, at whose 
 side I had dined — a man of sharpness 
 and wit, for which his hunch gave him 
 
 THE GRAVITY ROAD. 
 
 the authority. As we penetrated finally 
 into the immense crypt, long like a 
 street, provided with iron railways for 
 handling the stores, and threaded now 
 and then by heavy wagons and Nor- 
 mandy horses, my interest in the sur- 
 rounding wonders was distracted by ap- 
 prehensions of the fate awaiting the un- 
 fortunate red nose. 
 
 The gallop of a steed was heard at 
 length, then a dreadful exploding noise. 
 I should have thought that a hundred 
 drummers were marching through the 
 catacombs. 
 
 Relieved of his mask, fixed like a dry 
 forked stick, wrong side foremost, on a 
 frightened steed which galloped down 
 the avenue, and pursued by the racket 
 of empty bottles beaten against the 
 wine-frames, came the Scotchman, like 
 an unwilling Tarn O'Shanter. At a 
 new outburst of resonant noises, which 
 we could not help offering to the general 
 confusion, the horse stopped, and as- 
 sumed twice or thrice the attitude of a 
 
 gymnast who walks on his hands. The 
 figure of the man, still rigid, flew up 
 into the air like a stick that pops out of 
 the water. The Terrible Brothers re- 
 ceived him in their arms. 
 
 Hardly restored to equilibrium, the 
 patient was quickly replaced in the sad- 
 dle, but the saddle was this time girded 
 upon a barrel, and the barrel placed 
 upon a truck, and the truck upon an 
 inclined tramway. His impassive coun- 
 tenance might be seen to kindle with in- 
 dignation and horror, as the hat which 
 had been jammed over his eyes flew 
 off, and he found himself gliding over 
 an iron road at a rate of speed contin- 
 ually increasing. 
 
 He was fated to other tests, but at this 
 point a little discussion arose among 
 ourselves. Grandstone, his fluffy young 
 whiskers quite disheveled with laughter, 
 said, " Fellows, we had better stop some- 
 where. There will be more of this, and 
 it will be tedious to see in the role of un- 
 invited spectators, and it is not certain 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 45 
 
 we are wanted. I always knew there 
 was a Society of Pure Illumination at 
 Epernay. It is not a Masonic order, 
 but it has its signs, its passes, its grips, 
 and in a word its secret. I have recog- 
 nized among these gentlemen some active 
 members of the order — among others, 
 notwithstanding his disguise, a jolly good 
 fellow we have here, Fortnoye." 
 
 "You cannot have seen Fortnoye," 
 said one of the party : "he is at Paris." 
 
 "And who is your Fortnoye, pray ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "The best tenor voice in Epernay; 
 but his presence here does not give me 
 an invitation, you see. The Society of 
 Pure Illumination has its rites and mys- 
 
 teries more important than everybody 
 supposes, and probably complicated with 
 board-of-trade secrets among the wine- 
 merchants. We have hit upon a bad 
 time. Let us go and visit another cel- 
 lar." 
 
 There was opposition to this measure : 
 different opinions were expressed, and I 
 was chosen for moderator. 
 
 " My dear boys," I said, "as the gray- 
 est among you I may be presumed to be 
 the wisest. But I do not feel myself to 
 be myself. I have received to-day a 
 succession of unaccustomed influences 
 I have been dragged about by an im- 
 pertinent locomotive ; I have been in- 
 duced to dine heavily ; I have absorbed 
 
 THE ANIMATED CELLS. 
 
 champagne, perhaps to the limit of my 
 measure. These are not my ordinary 
 ways : I am naturally thoughtful, studi- 
 ous and pensive. The Past, gentlemen, 
 is for me an un faded morning-glory, 
 whose closed cup I can coax open at 
 pleasure, and read within its tube legends 
 written in dusted gold. But the Present 
 to the true philosopher is also — In fact, 
 I never was so much amused in my life. 
 I am dying to see what they will do with 
 that Scotchman." 
 
 Athanasius submitted. At the end of 
 one of the cross galleries we could al- 
 ready see a flickering glimmer of torches. 
 There, evidently, was held the council. 
 We stole on tiptoe in that direction, and 
 ensconced ourselves behind a long file of 
 empty bottle-shelves, worn out after long 
 service and leaning against a wall. 
 
 Through the holes which had fixed 
 the bottles in position we could see ev- 
 
 erything without being discovered. The 
 grand dignitaries, sitting in a semicircle, 
 were about to proceed from physical to 
 moral tests. Before them, his red nose 
 hanging like a cameo from the white 
 bandage which covered his eyes, and 
 relieved upon his face, still perfectly 
 white and calm, stood the Scot. The 
 Grand Master arose — I should have said 
 the Reverend — his head nodding with 
 senility, his beard white as a waterfall : 
 he appeared to be eighty years of age at 
 least. He was truly venerable to look 
 at, and reminded me of Thor. He wore 
 a sort of dalmatica embroidered with 
 gold. Calmness and goodness were so 
 plainly marked on the aspect of this 
 worthy that I felt ashamed of playing 
 the spy, and felt inclined to return hum- 
 bly to the good counsel of Athanasius, 
 when the latter, pushing my elbow be- 
 hind the shelves, said, referring to the 
 
46 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Ancient of the Mountain, "That's Fort- 
 noye : I knew I couldn't be mistaken." 
 
 I was greatly mystified at discovering 
 the first tenor voice of Epernay in an 
 aged man ; but the catechism now com- 
 mencing, I thought only of listening. 
 
 "The barleycorns of your native 
 North having been partially cleaned out 
 of your hair by contact with the two en- 
 chanted steeds — the steed you bridled 
 without a head, and the steed that ran 
 away with you without legs," said the 
 Ancient — " we have brought you hither 
 for examination. We might have gone 
 much farther with the physical tests : we 
 might have forced you, at the present 
 session, to relieve yourself of those en- 
 velopes considered indispensable by all 
 Europeans beneath your own latitude, 
 and in our presence perform the sword- 
 dance." 
 
 " So be it," said the disciple, executing 
 a galvanic figure with his legs, his 
 countenance still like marble. 
 
 "If we demanded the head of 
 your best friend, would you bring 
 it in?" 
 
 " I am the countryman of Lady 
 Macbeth," replied the red nose. 
 "Give me the daggers." 
 
 " We would fain dispense with 
 that proof, necessarily painful to 
 a man of such evident sensibility 
 as yours." The red nose bowed. 
 " What is your name ?" 
 
 He pronounced it — apparently 
 MacMurtagh. 
 
 "In future, among us, you are named 
 Meurtrier." 
 
 " MacMeurtrier," muttered the Scotch- 
 man in a tone of abstraction. 
 
 " No ! Meurtrier unadulterated. Your 
 business ?" 
 
 "I am a homoeopathic doctor." 
 
 "Are you a believer in homoeopathy ? 
 Be careful : remember that the Ancient 
 of the Mountain hears what you say." 
 
 The Scot held up his hand : " I be- 
 lieve in the learned Hahnemann, and in 
 Mrs. Hahnemann, no less learned than 
 himself; but," he added, "homoeopathy 
 is a science still in its baby-clothes. I 
 have invented a system perfectly novel. 
 In mingling homoeopathy with vegetable 
 
 magnetism the most encouraging results 
 are obtained, as may be observed daily 
 in the villa of Dr. Mac Murtagh, near 
 Edinburgh — " 
 
 "Enough!" cried the Ancient: "cir- 
 culars are not allowed here. Forget 
 nothing, Meurtrier ! And how were you 
 inspired with the pious ambition of be- 
 coming our brother?" 
 
 "At the hotel table : it was the young 
 clerks from the wine-houses. I men- 
 tioned that I wished to be a Free Mason, 
 and the lodge of Epernay — " 
 
 "Silence ! The words you use, lodge 
 and Free Mason, are most improper in 
 this temple, which is that of the Pure 
 Illumination, and nothing less. Will 
 you remember, Meurtrier?" 
 
 "MacMeurtrier," muttered the novice 
 again. The last proofs were now tried 
 upon him, called the " five senses." For 
 that of hearing he was made to listen to 
 
 THE TRAVELER 
 
 a jewsharp, which he calmly proclaimed 
 to be the bagpipe ; for that of touch, he 
 was made to feel by turns a live fish, a 
 hot iron and a little stuffed hedgehog. 
 The last he took for a pack of toothpicks, 
 and announced gravely, "It sticks me." 
 The laughs broke out from all sides, 
 even from behind the bottle-shelves. 
 
 Alas ! on this occasion the laugh was 
 not altogether on my side of that fatal 
 honeycomb ! 
 
 They had made him swallow, in a 
 glass, some fearful mixture or other, and 
 he had imperturbably declared that it 
 was in his opinion the wine of Moet : 
 after this evidence of taste the proof of 
 sight was to follow, and the semicircle 
 
THE NE W HYPERION. 
 
 47 
 
 of purple faces was quite blackening I for departure was come, and I had not 
 
 with bottled laughter, when Grandstone a minute to spare. 
 
 touched me on the shoulder. My hour | Apparently, the last test of the red 
 
 PALACE AT STRASBURG. 
 
 nose resulted in a triumph : as we were 
 effecting our covert and hasty retreat we 
 heard all the voices exclaim in concert, 
 "It is the Pure Illumination !" 
 
 Gay as we were on entering the great 
 wine-cellar, we were perfectly Olympian 
 when we came out. The crypts of these 
 vast establishments, where a soft inspi- 
 ration perpetually floats upward from 
 the wine in store, often receive a visitor 
 as a Diogenes and dismiss him as an 
 Anacreon. 
 
 Our consumption of wine at dinner had 
 been, like Mr. Poe's conversation with 
 his soul, " serious and sober." In the cel- 
 lar no drop had passed our mouths. I was 
 alert as a lark when I entered : I came 
 out in a species of voluptuous dream. 
 
 All the band conducted me to the 
 railway-station, and I was very much 
 touched with the attention. It was who 
 should carry my botany-box, who should 
 set my cap straight, who should give me 
 the most precise and statistical informa- 
 tion about the train which returned to 
 Paris, with a stop at Noisy ; the while, 
 Ophelia-like, I chanted snatches of old 
 
 songs, and mingled together in a tender 
 reverie my recollections of Mary Ash- 
 burton, my coming Book and my theories 
 of Progressive Geography. 
 
 " Take this shawl : the night will be 
 chilly before you get to the city." 
 
 " Don't let them carry you beyond 
 Noisy." 
 
 " Come back to Epernay every May- 
 day : never forget the feast of Saint 
 Athanasius." 
 
 " Be sure you get into the right train : 
 here is the car. Come, man, bundle up ! 
 they are closing the barrier." 
 
 I was perfectly melted by so much 
 sympathy. "Adieu," I said, "my dear 
 champanions — " 
 
 I turned into an excellent car, first 
 class, and fell asleep directly. 
 
 Next day I awoke — at Strasburg ! The 
 convivials of the evening before, making 
 for the Falls of Schaffhausen on the 
 Rhine, had traveled beside me in the 
 adjoining car. 
 
 My friends, uncertain how their prac- 
 tical joke would be received, clustered 
 around me. 
 
4 8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 "Ah, boys," I said, "I have too many- 
 griefs imprisoned in this aching bosom 
 to be much put out by the ordinary 
 ' Horrid Hoax.' But you have com- 
 promised my reputation. I promised 
 to meet Hohenfels at Marly : children, 
 bankruptcy stares me in the face." 
 
 Grandstone had the grace to be a little 
 embarrassed : "You wished to dine with 
 me at the Feast of Saint Athanasius, but 
 you mistook the day. Your engineer is 
 the true culprit, for he voluntarily de- 
 ceived you. The fact is, my dear Flem- 
 ming, we have concocted a little con- 
 spiracy. You are a good fellow, a joyful 
 spirit in fact, when you are not in your 
 hibies about the Past and the Future. 
 We wanted you, we conspired ; and, Cat- 
 iline having stolen you at Noisy, Cethegus 
 tucked you into a car with the intention 
 of making use of you at Schaffhausen." 
 
 "Never! I have the strongest vows 
 that ever man uttered not to revisit the 
 Rhine. It is an affair of early youth, a 
 solemn promise, a consecration. You 
 have got me at Strasburg, but you will 
 not carry me to Schaffhausen." 
 
 He was so contrite that I had to con- 
 sole him. Letting him know that no great 
 harm was done, I saw him depart with 
 
 his friends for Bale. For my part, I re- 
 mained with the engineer, whose pro- 
 fessional duties, such as they were, kept 
 him for a short time in the capital of 
 Alsace. In his turn, however, the latter 
 took leave of me : we were to meet each 
 other shortly. 
 
 It was seven in the morning. This 
 time, to be sure of my enemy the rail- 
 road, I procured a printed Guide. But 
 the Guide was a soiry Counselor for my 
 impatience. The first train, an express, 
 had left : the next, an accommodation, 
 would start at a quarter to one. I had 
 five hours and three-quarters to spare. 
 
 One of the greatest pleasures in life, 
 according to my poor opinion, is to 
 have a recreation forced on one. Some 
 cherub, perhaps, cleared the cobwebs 
 away from my brain that morning ; but, 
 however it might be, I was glad of ev- 
 erything. I was glad the "champan- 
 ions " were departed, glad I had a stolen 
 morning in Strasburg, glad that Hohen- 
 fels and my domestics would be uneasy 
 for me at Marly. 
 
 In such a mood I applied myself to 
 extract the profit out of my detention in 
 the city. 
 
IP-AJR/T IV. 
 
 A DAY IN STRASBURG 
 
 TEARING UP THE PONTOON BRIDGE. 
 
 BEHOLD 
 around 
 
 me, then, with five hours 
 my neck, like so many- 
 millstones, in Strasburg, on the abjured 
 Rhine ! Had I not vowed never to visit 
 that bewitched current again ? Was it 
 not by Rhine-bank that I learned to 
 quote the minnesingers and to unctuate 
 my hair ? From her owl-tower did not 
 old Frau Himmelauen use to observe me, 
 my cane, and my curls, and my gloves ? 
 Did not her gossips compare me to Wil- 
 helm Meister ? And so, when he thought 
 he was ripe, the innocent Paul Flem- 
 ming must needs proceed to pour his 
 
 curls, his songs and his love into the 
 lap of Mary Ashburton ; and the dis- 
 creet siren responded, "You had better 
 go back to Heidelberg and grow : you 
 are not the Magician." 
 
 Yet before that little disaster of my 
 calf period I sighed for the Rhine : I 
 used its wines more freely than was per- 
 haps good for me, and when the smoke- 
 colored goblet was empty would declare 
 that if I were a German I should be 
 proud of the grape-wreathed river too. 
 At Bingen I once sat up to behold the 
 bold outline of the banks crested with 
 
 49 
 
;o 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ruins, which in the morning proved to 
 be a slated roof and chimneys. And 
 when at Heidelberg I saw the Neckar 
 open upon the broad Rhine plain like 
 the mouth of a trumpet, I felt inspired, 
 and built every evening on my table a 
 perfect cathedral of slim, spire-shaped 
 bottles — sunny pinnacles of Johannis- 
 berger. 
 
 And now, decoyed to the Rhine by a 
 puerile conspiracy, how could I best get 
 the small change for my five hours ? 
 
 STKASBUKG CATHEDRAL IN FLAMES. 
 
 Should I sulk like a bear in the parlor 
 of the Maison Rouge until the departure 
 of the Paris train, or should I explore the 
 city ? Some wave from my fond, foolish 
 past flowed over me and filled me with 
 desire. I felt that I loved the Rhine and 
 the Rhine cities once more. And where 
 could I better retie myself to those old 
 pilgrim habits than in this citadel of 
 heroism, a place sanctified by recent 
 woes, a city proved by its endurance 
 through a siege which even that of Paris 
 hardly surpassed ? One draught, then, 
 from the epic Rhine ! To-morrow, at 
 
 Marly, I could laugh over it all with 
 Hohenfels. 
 
 The Miinster was before me — the 
 highest tower in Europe, if we except 
 the hideous cast-iron abortion at Rouen. 
 I recollected that in my younger days I 
 had been defrauded of my fair share of 
 tower-climbing. Hohenfels had a say- 
 ing that most travelers are a sort of chil- 
 dren, who need to touch all they see, 
 and who will climb to every broken tooth 
 of a castle they find on their way, get- 
 ting a tiresome ascent and hot sunshine 
 for their pains. "I trust we are wiser," 
 he would observe, so unanswerably that 
 I passed with him up the Rhine quite, as 
 I may express it, on the ground floor. 
 
 I marched to the cathedral, deter- 
 mined to ascend, and when I saw the 
 look of it changed my mind. 
 
 The sacristan, in fact, advised me not 
 to go up after he had taken my fee and 
 obtained a view of my proportions over 
 the tube of his key, which he pretended 
 to whistle into. We sat down together 
 as I recovered my breath, after which I 
 wandered through the nave with my 
 guide, admiring the statue of the origi- 
 nal architect, who stands looking at the 
 interior — a kind of Wren "circumspect- 
 ing" his own monument. At high noon 
 the twelve apostles come out from the 
 famous horologe and take up their 
 march, and chanticleer, on one of the 
 summits of the clock-case, opens his 
 brazen throat and crows loud enough to 
 fill the farthest recesses of the church 
 with his harsh alarum. 
 
 A portly citizen was talking to the sa- 
 cristan. " I hear many objections to 
 that bird, sir," he remarked to me, " from 
 fastidious tourists : one thinks that a pea- 
 cock, spreading its jewels by mechanism, 
 would have a richer effect. Another 
 says that a swan, perpetually wrestling 
 with its dying song, would be more poet- 
 ical. Others, in the light of late events, 
 would prefer a phcenix." 
 
 The dress of the stout citizen an- 
 nounced a sedentary man rather than a 
 cosmopolitan. He had a shirt-front much 
 hardened with starch ; a white waistcoat, 
 like an alabaster carving, which pushed 
 his shirt away up round his ears ; and 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 5 > 
 
 a superb bluebottle-colored coat, with 
 metal buttons. It was the costume of a 
 stay-at-home, and I learned afterward 
 that he was a local professor of geogra- 
 phy and political science — the first by 
 day, the last at night only in beer-gar- 
 dens and places of resort. 
 
 HEST SPIKE IN EUROPE 
 
 "Nay," I said, "the barnyard bird is 
 of all others the fittest for a timepiece : 
 he chants the hours for the whole coun- 
 try-side, and an old master of English 
 song has called him Nature's ' crested 
 clock.' " 
 
 "With all deference," said the bour- 
 geois, " I would still have a substitute 
 
 provided for yonder cock. I would set 
 up the Strasburg goose. Is he not our 
 emblem, and is not our commerce swol- 
 len by the inflation of the _/<?/<? gras ? In 
 one compartment I would show him fed 
 with sulphur-water to increase his bil- 
 iary secretion ; another might represent 
 his cage, so narrow that 
 the pampered crea- 
 ture cannot even turn 
 round on his stomach 
 for exercise ; another 
 division might be ana- 
 tomical, and present 
 the martyr opening his 
 breast, like some tor- 
 tured saint, to display 
 his liver, enlarged to 
 the weight of three 
 pounds; while the 
 apex might be occur 
 pied by the glorified 
 gander in person, ex- 
 tending his neck and 
 commenting on the 
 sins of the Strasburg 
 pastry - cooks with a 
 cutting and sardonic 
 hiss." 
 
 You have not for- 
 gotten, reader, the 
 legend of the old 
 clock ? 
 
 Many years ago 
 there lived here an 
 aged and experienced 
 mechanic. Buried in 
 his arts, he forgot the 
 ways of the world, and 
 promised his daughter 
 to his gallant young 
 apprentice, instead of 
 to the hideous old 
 magistrate who a p- 
 proached the maiden 
 with offers of gold and 
 dignity. One day the youth and damsel 
 found the unworldly artist weeping for 
 joy before his completed clock, the won- 
 der of the earth. Everybody came to 
 see it, and the corporation bought it for 
 the cathedral. The city of Bale be- 
 spoke another just like it. This order 
 aroused the jealousy of the authorities. 
 
52 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 who tried to make the mechanic promise 
 that he would never repeat his master- 
 piece for another town. "Heaven gave 
 me not my talents to feed your vain am- 
 bition," said the man of craft : " the men 
 of Bale were quicker to recognize my 
 skill than you were. I will make no 
 such promise." Upon that the rejected 
 suitor, who was among the magistrates, 
 persuaded his colleagues to put out the 
 artist's eyes. The old man heard his 
 
 THE GREAT CLOCK. 
 
 fate with lofty fortitude, and only asked 
 that he might suffer the sentence in the 
 presence of his darling work, to which 
 he wished to give a few final strokes. 
 His request was granted, and he gazed 
 long at the splendid clock, setting its 
 wonders in motion to count off the last 
 remaining moments of his sight. " Come, 
 laggard," said the persecuting magis- 
 trate, who had brought a crowd of spec- 
 tators, "you are taxing the patience of 
 
 this kind audience." "Eat one touch 
 remains," said the old mechanic, "to 
 complete my work ;' ' and he busied him- 
 self a moment among the wheels. While 
 he suffered the agonies of his torture a 
 fearful whir was heard from the clock : 
 the weights tumbled crashing to the floor 
 as his eyes fell from their sockets. He 
 had removed the master-spring, and his 
 revenge was complete. The lovers de- 
 voted their lives to the comfort of the 
 blind clockmaker, and the 
 wicked magistrate was 
 hooted from society. The 
 clock remained a ruin until 
 1 842, when parts of it were 
 used in the new one con- 
 structed by Schwilgue. 
 
 I found my bluebottle 
 professor to be a Swiss, 
 thirty years resident in the 
 city, very accessible and 
 talkative, and, like every 
 citizen by adoption, more 
 patriotic than even the na- 
 tive-born. 
 
 " It was a cheerless time 
 for me, sir," said he as we 
 contemplated together the 
 facade of the church, "when 
 I saw that spire printed in 
 black against the flames of 
 the town." 
 
 I begged frankly for his 
 reminiscences. 
 
 "The bombardment of 
 1870," said the professor, 
 "was begun purposely, in 
 contempt of the Bonapart- 
 ist tradition, on the 15th 
 of August, the birthday of 
 Napoleon. At half-past 
 eleven at night, just as the 
 fireworks are usually set off on that 
 evening, a shell came hissing over the 
 city and fell upon the Bank of France, 
 crushing through the skylight and shiv- 
 ering the whole staircase within : the 
 bombardment that time lasted only half 
 an hour, but it found means, after much 
 killing and ruining among the private 
 houses, to reach the buildings of the Ly- 
 ceum, where we had placed the wounded 
 from the army of Woerth. While the 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 53 
 
 city was being touched off in every di- 
 rection, like a vast brush-heap, we had 
 to take these poor victims down into the 
 cellars." 
 
 " Do you think the bombs were pur- 
 posely so directed?" I asked. 
 
 "Don't talk to me of stray shots!" 
 said the burgher, hotly enough. " The 
 enemy was better acquainted with the 
 city than we were ourselves, and his fire 
 was of a precision that extorted our 
 admiration more than once. Cannons 
 planted in Kehl sent their shells high 
 over the citadel, like blows from a friend. 
 An artillery that, 3'fter the third shot, 
 
 found the proper curve and bent the 
 cross on the cathedral, cannot plead 
 extenuating circumstances and stray 
 shots." 
 
 " Was the greatest damage done on 
 that first night ?" 
 
 "Ah no ! The bombardment was ad- 
 dressed to us as an argument, proceed- 
 ing by degrees, and always in a cre- 
 scendo : after the 15th there was silence 
 until the 18th; after the 18th, silence up 
 to the 23d. The grand victim of the 23d, 
 you know, was the city library, where 
 lay the accumulations of centuries of 
 patient learning — the mediaeval manu- 
 
 CHURCH OF SAINT THOMAS. 
 
 scripts, the Hortus deliciarum of Her- 
 rade of Landsberg, the monuments of 
 early printing, the collections of Sturm. 
 Ah ! when we gathered around our pre- 
 cious reliquary the next day and saw 
 its contents in ashes, amid a scene of 
 silence, of people hurrying away with 
 infants and valuable objects, of firemen 
 hopelessly playing on the burned mas- 
 terpieces, there was one thought that 
 came into every mind — one parallel ! It 
 was Omar the caliph and the library of 
 Alexandria." 
 
 "And you imagine that this offence 
 to civilization was quite voluntary ?" I 
 argued with some doubt. 
 
 " It is said that General Werder acted 
 
 under superior orders. But, sir, you 
 must perceive that in these discretionary 
 situations there is no such dangerous 
 man as the innocent executant, the mar- 
 tinet, the person of routine, the soldier 
 stirled in his uniform. I saw Werder 
 after the capitulation. A little man, lean 
 and bilious. Such was the opponent 
 who reversed for us successively, like 
 the premisses of an argument, the bank, 
 the library, the art-museum, the theatre, 
 the prefecture, the arsenal, the palace 
 of justice, not to speak of our churches. 
 A man like that was quite capable of 
 replying, as he did, to a request that he 
 would allow a safe -conduct for non- 
 combatants, that ' the presence of wo- 
 
54 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 men and children was an element of 
 weakness to the fortress of which he did 
 not intend to deprive it.' The night il- 
 luminated by our burning manuscripts 
 was followed by the day which witness- 
 ed the conflagration of the cathedral. 
 Look at that noble front, sir, contem- 
 plating us with the hoary firmness of six 
 hundred years ! You would think it a 
 sad experience to see it, as 1 have seen 
 it, crowned with flames which leaped up 
 and licked the spire, while the copper 
 on the roof curled up like paper in the 
 
 heat ; and to hear, as I heard, the poor 
 beadles and guards, from the height of 
 yonder platform, calling the city to the 
 aid of its cathedral. The next day the 
 mighty church, now so imperfectly re- 
 stored, was a piteous sight. The flames 
 had gone out for want of fuel. We 
 could see the sky through holes in the 
 roof. The organ-front was leaning over, 
 pierced with strange gaps ; the clock 
 escaped as by miracle ; and the mighty 
 saints, who had been praying for centu- 
 ries in the stained windows, were scat- 
 
 "■^:T:H 
 
 BEAUTY S QUINTESSENCE. 
 
 tered upon the floor. On the 25th the 
 systematic firing of the faubourgs began, 
 and the city was filled with the choking 
 smell of burning goods : on the 28th the 
 citadel was kindled." 
 
 "And what opposition," 1 naturally 
 demanded, "were you able to make to 
 all this ? I believe your forces were 
 greatly shortened ? ' 
 
 "We were as short as you can think, 
 sir. Most of the garrison had been with- 
 drawn by MacMahon. The soldiers 
 still among us were miserably demoral- 
 
 ized by the entrance of the fugitives 
 from Woerth. Our defence was the 
 strangest of mixtures. The custom-house 
 officers were armed and mobilized : the 
 naval captain Dupetit-Thouars happen- 
 ed to be in the walls, with some of the 
 idle marine. Colonel Fievee, with his 
 pontoneers, hurriedly tore up the bridge 
 of boats leading over to Kehl, and united 
 himself with the garrison. From the 
 outbreak of the war we civilians had 
 been invited to form a garde nationale, 
 but never was there a greater farce. We 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 55 
 
 were asked to choose our own grades, 
 and when I begged to be made colonel, 
 they inquired if I would not prefer to be 
 lieutenant or adjutant. Most of us, those 
 at least who had voted against the im- 
 perial candidates, never received a gun. 
 Our artillery, worthy of the times of 
 Louis XIV., scolded in vain from the 
 ramparts against the finest cannons in 
 the world, and we were obliged to watch 
 the Prussian trenches pushing toward 
 the town, and to hear the bullets begin- 
 ning to fall where at first were only 
 bombs." 
 
 "The capitulation was then imminent." 
 
 " There were a few incidents in the 
 mean time. The deputation from Swit- 
 zerland, of ever-blessed memory, enter- 
 ed the city on the eleventh of September. 
 Angels from heaven could not have been 
 more welcome. You know that a thou- 
 sand of our inhabitants passed over into 
 Switzerland under conduct of the dele- 
 gate from Berne, Colonel Biiren, and that 
 they were received like brothers. From 
 Colonel Biiren also we learned for the first 
 time about Sedan, the disasters of Ba- 
 zaine and MacMahon, and the hopeless- 
 ness of the national cause. We learned 
 that, while they were crowning with flow- 
 ers the statue of our city in Paris, they had 
 no assistance but handsome words to 
 send us. Finally, we learned the procla- 
 mation of the French republic — a repub- 
 lic engendered in desolation, and so pow- 
 erless to support its distant provinces ! 
 We too had our little republican demon- 
 stration, and on the 20th of September 
 the prefect they had sent us from Paris, M. 
 Valentin, came dashing in like a harle- 
 quin, after running the gauntlet of a 
 thousand dangers, and ripped out of his 
 sleeve his official voucher from Gam- 
 betta. Alas ! we were a republic for 
 only a week, but that week of fettered 
 freedom still dwells like an elixir in some 
 of our hearts. For eight days I, a born 
 Switzer, saw the Rhine a republican 
 river." 
 
 "Give me your hand, sir!" I cried, 
 greatly moved. "You are talking to a 
 republican. I am, or used to be, a citi- 
 zen of free America!" 
 
 "I am happy to embrace you," said 
 
 the burgher ; and I believe he was on the 
 point of doing it, literally as well as fig- 
 uratively. " I, for my part, whatever 
 they make of me, am at least an Alsa- 
 tian. But I am half ashamed to talk to 
 an American. On the 29th I went to 
 see our troops evacuate the city by the 
 Faubourg National. I found myself el- 
 bow to elbow in the throng with the 
 consul from the United States : never in 
 my life shall I forget the indignant sur- 
 prise of your compatriot." 
 
 "Why should our consul be indignant 
 at disaster?" I demanded. 
 
 "Why, sir, the throng that rolled 
 toward the 
 grave Prus- 
 sian troops 
 was co m- 
 posed of des- 
 peradoes in- 
 flamed with 
 wine, flour- 
 ishing broken 
 guns and 
 stumps of sa- 
 bres, and in- 
 sulting equal- 
 ly, with many 
 a drunken 
 oath, the con- 
 querors and 
 our own loyal 
 general U h- 
 r i c h. The 
 American 
 consul, blush- 
 in g with 
 shame for our 
 
 common humanity, said, ' This is the 
 second time I have watched the capitu- 
 lation of an army. The first time it 
 was the soldiers of General Lee, who 
 yielded to the Northern troops. Those 
 brave Confederates came toward us si- 
 lent and dignified, bearing arms reversed, 
 as at a funeral. We respected them as 
 heroes, while here — ' But I cannot re- 
 peat to you, sir, what your representa- 
 tive proceeded to add. That revolting 
 sight," continued my informant, " was the 
 last glimpse we had of France our pro- 
 tector. When we returned to the city a 
 Prussian band played German airs to us 
 
 VOICI LE SAI 
 
56 
 
 iHE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 at the foot of Kleber's statue. We are 
 Teutonized now. At least," concluded 
 the burgher, taking me by the shoulders 
 to hiss the words through my ears in a 
 safe corner, "we are Germans officially. 
 But I, for my part, am Alsatian for ever 
 and for ever !" 
 
 Greatly delighted to have encountered 
 so near a witness and so minute a chron- 
 icler of the disasters of the town, I in- 
 vited the professor to accompany me in 
 
 STREET OF THE GREAT ARCADES. 
 
 exploring it, my interest having vastly 
 increased during his recital ; but he 
 pleaded business, and, shaking both my 
 hands and smiling upon me out of a 
 sort of moulding formed around his face 
 by his shirt-collars, dismissed me. So, 
 then, once more, with a hitch to my tin 
 box, I became a lonely lounger. I view- 
 ed the church of Saint Thomas, the 
 public place named after Kleber, who 
 was born here, some of the markets and 
 
 a beer establishment. In the church of 
 Saint Thomas I examined the monu- 
 ment to Marshal Saxe, by Pigalle. I 
 should have expected to see a simple 
 statue of the hero in the act of break- 
 ing a horseshoe or rolling up a silver 
 plate into a bouquet-holder, according 
 to the Guy-Livingstone habits in which 
 he appears 10 have passed his life, and 
 was more surprised than edified at sight 
 of the large allegorical family with 
 which the sculptor has endowed 
 him. In the same church I had 
 the misfortune to see in the boxes 
 a pair of horrible mummies, decked 
 off with robes and ornaments — a 
 count of Nassau-Saarwerden and 
 his daughter, according to the cus- 
 todian — an unhappy pair who, hav- 
 ing escaped our common doom of 
 corruption by some physical aridity 
 or meagreness, have been compelled 
 to leave their tombs and attitudi- 
 nize as works of art. In Kleber's 
 I square I saw the conqueror of Heli- 
 opblis, excessively pigeon-breasted, 
 dangling his sabre over a cowering 
 little figure of Egypt, and looking 
 around in amazement at the neigh- 
 boring windows : in fact, Kleber be- 
 gan his career as an architect, and 
 there were solecisms in the surround- 
 ing structure to have turned a better 
 balanced head than his. In the 
 markets I saw peasants with red 
 waistcoats and flat faces shaded 
 with triangles of felt, and peasant- 
 girls bareheaded, with a gilded ar- 
 row apparently shot through their 
 brains. I traversed the Street of 
 the Great Arcades, and saw the 
 statue of Gutenberg, of whom, as 
 well as of Peter Schoffer, the natives 
 seem to be proud, though they were but 
 type-setters. Finally, in the Beer-hall, 
 that of the dauphin, I tasted a thimble- 
 ful of inimitable beer, the veritable beer 
 of Strasburg. Already, at half-past eight 
 on that fine May morning, I persuaded 
 myself that I had seen everything, so 
 painful had my feet become by pound- 
 ing over the pavements. 
 
 My friend the engineer had agreed to 
 breakfast with me at the hotel. When 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 57 
 
 I entered the dining-room with the in- 
 tention of waiting for him, I found two 
 individuals sitting at table. One was no 
 other than the red-nosed Scotchman, the 
 Eleusinian victim whom I had watched 
 through the bottle-rack at £pernay. Of 
 the second I recognized the architectural 
 back, the handsomely rolled and faced 
 blue coat and the marble volutes of his 
 Ionic shirt-collar : it was my good friend 
 of the cathedral. Every 
 trace of his civic grief had 
 disappeared, and he wore a 
 beaming banquet -room air, 
 though the tear of patriot- 
 ism was hardly dry upon his 
 cheek. 
 
 As I paused to dispose of 
 my accoutrements t h e red 
 nose was saying, "Yes, my 
 dear sir, since yesterday I 
 am a Mason. I have the 
 honor," he pursued, "to be 
 First Attendant Past Grand. 
 It will be a great thing for 
 me at Edinburgh. Burns, 
 I believe, was only Third 
 Assistant, Exterior Lodge : 
 the Rank, however, in his 
 opinion, was but the guin- 
 ea's stamp. But the ad- 
 vantages of Masonry are 
 met with everywhere. Al- 
 ready in the train last night 
 I struck the acquaintance of 
 a fine fellow, a Mason like 
 myself." 
 
 " Allow me to ask," said the 
 cheerful bluebottle, " how you 
 knew him for a Mason like 
 yourself?" 
 
 "I'll tell you. I was unable to sleep, 
 because, you see, I had to drink Moet 
 for my initiation : as I am unaccustom- 
 ed to anything livelier than whisky, it 
 unnerved me. To pass the time I went 
 softly over the signals." 
 
 " What signals, if I may be so indis- 
 creet ?" 
 
 " Number one, you scratch the nose, 
 as if to chase a fly ; number two, you 
 put your thumb in your mouth ; number 
 three — " 
 
 " H'm !" said the professor doubtfully, 
 
 "those are singular instructions, scratch- 
 ing the nose and sucking the thumb. 
 It strikes me they have been teaching 
 you nursery signals rather than Masonry 
 signals." 
 
 "My good friend," said the Scot with 
 extreme politeness, yet not without dig- 
 nity, "you cannot understand it, because 
 you were not present. I received a Light 
 which burned my eyelashes. The sage 
 
 BEER-GAKDEN OF THE UAUPHIN. 
 
 always examines a mystery before he 
 decides upon it. My Masonic friend 
 will be here at breakfast to-day : he 
 promised me. Only wait for him. ile 
 can explain these things better than I, 
 you will see. The little experiments 
 with our noses and thumbs, you under- 
 stand, are symbols — Thummim and 
 Urim, or something of that kind." 
 
 "Or else nonsense. You have been 
 quizzed, I fear." 
 
 The North Briton bridled his head, 
 knitted his brows and pushed back his 
 
58 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 chair ; then, after a moment of pregnant 
 and stormy silence, he turned suddenly 
 around to me, who was enjoying the 
 comedy — " Hand me the cheese." 
 
 To be taken for a waiter amused me. 
 Never in the world would a domestic 
 have dared to present himself in a 
 hotel habited as I was. I was in the 
 same clothes with which I had left Passy 
 the morning previous : my coat was 
 peppered with dust, my linen bruised 
 and dingy, my tie was nodding doubt- 
 fully over my right shoulder. A waiter 
 in my condition would have been kicked 
 out without arrears of wages. 
 
 The professor, looking quickly around, 
 recognized me with a ludicrous endeavor 
 to relapse into the fiery and outraged 
 patriot. He expended his temper on 
 the red nose. "Take care whom you 
 speak to," he 
 cried in a 
 high, portly 
 voice, and 
 pointing t o 
 my japanned 
 box, which I 
 had slung 
 upon a cur- 
 t a in-h o ok. 
 "Monsieur is 
 not an a t- 
 Monsieur is doubt- 
 
 SUCKLED IN A CREED OUTWORN 
 
 tache of the house, 
 less an herb-doctor." 
 
 There are charlatans who pervade the 
 provincial parts of France, stopping a 
 month at a time in the taverns, and 
 curing the ignorant with simples accord- 
 ing to the old system of signaturis — 
 prescribing hepatica for liver, lentils 
 for the eyes and green walnuts for va- 
 pors, on account of their supposed 
 correspondence to the different organs. 
 I settled my cravat at the mirror to con- 
 tradict my resemblance to a waiter, threw 
 my box into a wine-cooler to dispose of 
 my identity with the equally uncongenial 
 herbalist, and took a seat. Nodding 
 paternally to the coat of Prussian blue, 
 I proceeded to order Bordeaux-Leoville, 
 capon with Tarragon sauce, compote of 
 nectarines in Madeira jelly — all super- 
 fluous, for I was brutally hungry, and 
 wanted chops and coffee ; but what will 
 
 not an unsupported candidate for re- 
 spectability do when he desires to assert 
 his caste ? I was proceeding to ruin 
 myself in playing the eccentric million- 
 aire when the door opened, giving en- 
 trance to a group of breakfasters. 
 
 "There he is — that's the man!" said 
 the homceopathist, much excited, and 
 indicating to the blue coat a brisk, ca- 
 pable-looking gentleman of thirty-two 
 in a neat silver-gray overcoat. The lat- 
 ter, after slightly touching his nose, nod- 
 ded to the Sotchman, who in return 
 drew himself up to his full height and 
 formally wiped his mouth with a napkin, 
 as if preparing himself for an oration. 
 Happily, he contented himself with rub- 
 bing his own nose with each hand in 
 turn, and bowing so profoundly that he 
 appeared ready to break at the knees. 
 
 " Kellner ! ' " said the silver -gray, 
 making a grand rattle among the plates 
 and glasses, "some wine! some water! 
 some ink ! an omelette ! a writing-pad ! 
 2i.filetala Chabrillant /" 
 
 The last-named dish is one which 
 sciolists are perpetually calling filet a la 
 Chateaubriand, saddling the poetic de- 
 fender of Christianity with an invention 
 in cookery of which he was never capa- 
 ble. I approved the new-comer, who 
 was writing half a dozen notes with his 
 mouth full, for his nicety in nomencla- 
 ture : to get the right term, even in 
 kitchen affairs, shows a reflective mind 
 and tenderness of conscience. My 
 friend the engineer arrived, and placed 
 himself in the chair I had turned up be- 
 side my own. I was ashamed of the 
 rate at which I advanced through my 
 capon, but I recollected that Anne Bo- 
 leyn, when she was a maid of honor, 
 used to breakfast off a gallon of ale and 
 a chine of beef. 
 
 My canal-maker interrupted me with 
 a sudden appeal. " Listen — listen yon- 
 der," he said, jogging my knee, "it is 
 very amusing. He is in a high vein to- 
 day." 
 
 The gray coat, who had already di- 
 rected four or five letters, and was clean- 
 ing his middle finger with a lemon over 
 the glass bowl, had just opened a lofty 
 geographical discussion with the blue- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 59 
 
 bottle. I cannot express how eagerly I, 
 as a theorist of some pretension in Com- 
 parative Geography, awoke to a discus- 
 sion in which my dearest opinions were 
 concerned. 
 
 "Geography," the active gentleman 
 was saying as he dipped his finger in 
 water to attach the flaps of his envelopes 
 — "geography, my dear professor, is the 
 most neglected of modern sciences. Ex- 
 cuse me if I take from under you, for a 
 moment, your doctoral chair, and land 
 you on one of the forms of the primary 
 department. I would ask a simple ele- 
 mentary question : How many parts of 
 the globe are there ?" 
 
 " Before the loss of Alsace and Lor- 
 raine," said the professor with plaintive 
 humor, "I always reckoned six." 
 
 "Very well : on this point we agree." 
 
 "Six!" said the Scotchman in great 
 surprise. "You are liberal : I make but 
 five." 
 
 "Not one less than six," said the pa- 
 triot, vastly encouraged with the support 
 he got : " am I not right, sir ? We have, 
 first, Europe — " 
 
 "Ah, professor," said the silver-gray, 
 interrupting him, "how is this? You, 
 such a distinguished scholar — you still 
 believe in Europe ? Why, my dear sir, 
 Europe no longer exists — certainly not 
 as a quarter of the globe. It is simply, 
 as Humboldt very truly remarks in his 
 Cosmos ; the septentrional point of Asia." 
 
 The surprise seemed to pass, at this 
 point, from the face of the Scot to that 
 of the Strasburger. After reflecting a 
 moment, " Really," murmured he, " I re- 
 collect, in Cosmos — But how, then, do 
 you reach six parts of the globe ?" 
 
 " Only count, professor : Asia, one ; 
 Africa, two ; Australia, three ; Oceanica, 
 four ; North America, five ; and South 
 America, six." 
 
 " You cut America in two ?" 
 
 "Nature has taken that responsibility. 
 Each part of the world being necessarily 
 an insulated continent, an enormous 
 island, it is too much to ask me to con- 
 found the northern and southern conti- 
 nents of America, hung together by a 
 thread — a thread which messieurs the 
 engineers" — he bowed airily to my com- I 
 
 Sw 
 
 panion — "have very probably severed 
 by this time." 
 
 The honest professor passed his hand 
 over his forehead. "The deuce!" he 
 said. "That is logic perhaps. Still, sir, 
 I think it is rather hardy in you to double 
 America and annihilate Europe, when 
 Europe discovered America." 
 
 "The Europeans did not discover 
 America," replied the young philoso- 
 pher. " The Americans discovered Eu- 
 rope." 
 
 The professor of geography remained 
 stunned : the homceopathist gave utter- 
 ance to a cry — one of admiration, doubt- 
 less. 
 
 "An American colony was settled in 
 Norway long before the arrival of Co- 
 lumbus in Santo Domingo : who will 
 contradict 
 me when 
 Hum boldt 
 says so? 
 Only read 
 your Cos- 
 mos V ' 
 
 "The 
 dickens ! 
 prodigious ! 
 prodigi- 
 ous!" re- 
 peated the 
 man of 
 blue. The young silver coat went on : 
 
 " I have been three times around the 
 world, professor. The terrestrial globe 
 was my only chart. I have studied in 
 their places its divisions, continents, 
 capes and oceans ; also the customs, 
 politics and philosophies of its inhabit- 
 ants. I have a weakness for learning ; 
 I have caused myself to be initiated in 
 all secret and philosophical societies ; I 
 have taken a degree from the Brahmans 
 of Benares ; I have received the acco- 
 lade from the emir of the Druses ; I 
 have been instructed by the priests of 
 the Grand Lama, and have joined the 
 Society of Pure Illumination, the sole 
 possessors of the Future Light. I have 
 just returned from Persia, where I re- 
 ceived the blessing of the great Bab ; 
 and, like Solomon, I can say, Vnnitas 
 vanitatuni /" 
 
 THE BLESSING OF THE BAR. 
 
6o 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 The red nose was by this time quite 
 inflated and inflamed with disinterested 
 pride. The blue was crushed, but he 
 made a final effort, as the silver-gray 
 made his preparations to depart and 
 adjusted his breakfast-bill. "Pardon 
 me, sir," he said, with a little infusion 
 of provincial pride. " I am not a cos- 
 mopolitan, a Constantinopolitan or a 
 Babist. But I enjoy your conversation, 
 and am not entirely without the ability 
 to sympathize in your geographical cal- 
 culations. I am preparing at the present 
 moment a small treatise on Submarine 
 Geography ; I am conducting, if that 
 gives me any right to be heard, the geo- 
 graphical department in the chief gym- 
 
 nasium here: in addition, my youngest 
 sister lost her ulnar bone by the ex- 
 plosion of an obus in the seminary on 
 the night of August 18th, when six inno- 
 cent infants were killed or maimed by 
 the Prussians, who put a bomb in their 
 little beds like a warming-pan." 
 
 "Never mind the warming-pan," said 
 the traveler kindly, seeing that the pro- 
 fessor was making himself cry, and un- 
 consciously quoting Pickwick. 
 
 " I will not dilate on my title to trouble 
 you for a few words more. I perceive 
 that I shall have a good deal to modify 
 in my modest treatise. I beg you to 
 give us your views on some of the modi- 
 fications now going on in the East, 
 
 especially the Turkish question 'and the 
 civilization of China." 
 
 "My dear professor," said the youth- 
 ful Crichton sententiously, "do not dis- 
 turb yourself with those problems, which 
 are already disposed of. In twenty years 
 the sultan will become a monk, to get 
 rid of the chief sultana, who has pester- 
 ed his life out with her notions of wo- 
 man's rights, and who wore the Bloomer 
 costume before the Crimean war. As 
 for the question about China, it is better 
 to let sleeping dogs lie : it has been a 
 great mistake to arouse China, for it is 
 a dog that drags after it three hundred 
 millions of pups. Only see the effect 
 already in Lima and San Francisco ! 
 Before a century has elapsed all Asia, 
 with Alaska and the Pacific part of 
 America, to say nothing of that petty 
 extremity you persist in calling Europe, 
 will be in the power of China. Your 
 little girls, professor, will be more liable 
 to lose their feet than their arms, for it 
 is a hundred chances to one but your 
 great-grand-nieces grow up Chinawo- 
 men." 
 
 "Astonishing!" murmured the pro- 
 fessor of geography. 
 
 "Admirable !" cried the doctor. 
 
 I had hitherto said nothing, though I 
 was capitally entertained. At length I 
 ventured to take up my own parable, 
 and, addressing the pretended disciple 
 of the Brahmans, I asked, " Can you en- 
 lighten us, sir, on the true reason of the 
 revolt of the slave States in America ?" 
 
 The cosmopolitan, by this time stand- 
 ing, turned to me with a courteous mo- 
 tion of acquiescence ; and, after having 
 given me to understand by an agreeable 
 smile that he did not confound me with 
 his pair of victims, he said pompously, 
 "The true cause was that each Northern 
 freeholder demanded the use of two 
 planters, now mostly octoroons, for body- 
 servants." 
 
 "You don't say so?" said the school- 
 teacher, profoundly impressed. 
 
 The Scotchman looked like him who 
 digesteth a pill. I decided quickly on my 
 own role, and briskly joined the conver- 
 sation. Fishing up my botany-box and 
 extracting the little flower, "Nothing is 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 61 
 
 more likely when you know the coun- 
 try," I observed. " I have lived in Flor- 
 ida, gentlemen, where I undertook, as 
 Comparative Geographer and as ama- 
 teur botanist" (I looked searchingly at 
 the professor, who had called me an 
 herb-doctor), "to fix the location of 
 Ponce de Leon's fountain and observe 
 the medicinal plants to which it owes its 
 virtue. America, I must explain to you, 
 is a country where proportions are great- 
 ly changed. The pineapple tree there 
 grows so very tall that it is impossible 
 from the ground to reach the fruit. This 
 little flower now in my hand becomes in 
 that climate a towering and sturdy plant, 
 the tobacco plant. The wild justice of 
 those lawless savannahs uses it as a 
 gibbet for the execution of criminals, 
 whence the term ' Lynchburg tobacco.' 
 You cannot readily imagine the scale 
 on which life expands. It was formerly 
 not necessary to be a great man there 
 to have a hundred slaves. For my part, 
 sixty domestics sufficed me" (I regard- 
 ed sternly the homceopathist, who had 
 taken me for a waiter) : " it was but a 
 scant allowance, since my pipe alone 
 took the whole time of four." 
 
 " Oh," said the Scotchman, " allow me 
 to doubt. I understand the distribution of 
 blood among the planters, because I am'a 
 homceopathist ; but what could your pipe 
 gain by being diluted among four men ?" 
 
 "The first filled it, the second lighted 
 it, the third handed it and the fourth 
 smoked it. I hate tobacco." 
 
 The witticism appeared generally 
 agreeable, and I laughed with the rest. 
 The cheerful philosopher in the gray 
 coat passed out : as he left the room, fol- 
 lowed subserviently by his interlocutors, 
 he bowed very pleasantly to me and shook 
 hands with my guardian the engineer. 
 
 "You know him ?" I said to the latter. 
 
 "Just as well as you," he replied : "is 
 it possible you don't recognize him ? »It 
 is Fortnoye." 
 
 " What ! Fortnoye — the Ancient of the 
 wine-cellar at Epernay ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " In truth it is the same jolly voice. 
 Then his white beard was a disguise ?" 
 
 " What would you have ?" 
 
 " I am glad he is the same : I began 
 to think the mystifiers here were as dan- 
 gerous as those of the champagne coun- 
 try. At any rate, he is a bright fellow." 
 
 " He is not always bright. A man with 
 so good a heart as his must be saddened 
 sometimes, at least with others' woes, and 
 he does not always escape woes of his 
 own." 
 
 This sentiment affected me, and irri- 
 tated me a little besides, for I felt that it 
 was in my own vein, and that it was I 
 who had a right to the observation. I 
 immediately quoted an extract from an 
 Icelandic Saga to the effect that dead 
 bees give a stinging quality to the very 
 metheglin of the gods. We exchanged 
 these remarks in crossing the vestibule 
 of the hotel : a carriage was standing 
 there for my friend. 
 
 "I am sorry to leave you. I have a 
 meeting with a Prussian engineer about 
 bridges and canals and the waterworks 
 of Vauban, and everything that would 
 least interest you. I must cross imme- 
 diately to Kehl. I leave you to finish 
 the geography of Strasburg." 
 
 " I know Strasburg by heart, and am 
 burning to get out of it. I want to cross 
 the Rhine, for the sake of boasting that 
 I have set foot in the Baden territory. 
 By the by, how have I managed to come 
 so far without a passport ?" 
 
 " This did it," said my engineer, tap- 
 ping the tin box, which a waiter had re- 
 stored to me in a wonderful state of 
 polish. " I put a plan or two in it, with 
 some tracing muslin, and allowed a 
 spirit-level to stick out. You were asleep. 
 I know all the officials on this route. I 
 had only to tap the box and nod. You 
 passed as my assistant. Nobody could 
 have put you through but I." 
 
 "You are a vile conspirator," said I 
 affectionately, "and have all the lower 
 traits of the Yankee character. But I 
 will use you to carry me to Kehl, as 
 Faust used Mephistopheles. By the by, 
 your carriage is a comfortable one and 
 saves my time. I have two hours before 
 I need return to the train." 
 
 " It is double the time vou will need." 
 
ZF-AJaT 1 "7". 
 
 IN PURSUIT OF A PASSPORT. 
 
 THE SIGN OF THE " STORK.' 
 
 ,,r T^HE Strasburgers have a legend — " 
 -L We were rolling along very com- 
 fortably in the engineer's coach. From 
 pavement to bridge, and from bridge to 
 pavement, we effected the long step 
 which bestrides the Rhine. 
 
 " I knew you would prick your ears 
 
 up at the word. Well, I have found a 
 
 legend among the people here about the 
 
 original acquisition of Strasburg by the 
 
 62 
 
 French. You know Louis XIV. bagged 
 the city quite unwarrantably in 1 681, in 
 a time of peace." 
 
 I was much delighted with this begin- 
 ning, and told my friend that to cross 
 the storied Rhine and simultaneously 
 listen to a legend made me feel as if I 
 were Frithiof the Viking entertained on 
 his voyage by a Skald. 
 
 "The Alsatians will have it," said my 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 63 
 
 canal-digger, "that the Grand Monarch 
 was a bit of a magician. The depth of 
 what I may call his High-Church senti- 
 ment, which at last proved so edifying 
 to the Maintenon, has never convinced 
 them that he wasn't a trifle in league 
 with the devil. At the foot of his pray- 
 ing-chair was always chained a small 
 
 A GRAND MONARCH AND A LITTLE YELLOW IMP 
 
 casket of ebony, bound with iron. In 
 this he imprisoned a little yellow man, 
 a demon of the most concentrated struc- 
 ture, hardly a foot long. This goblin 
 ran through the air, on an errand or 
 with a letter, about as fast as a stroke of 
 lightning, and admirably filled the place 
 of the modern telegraph. For each meal 
 he took three seeds of hemp, which he 
 loved to receive from the king's hand. 
 By and by the little yellow man became 
 more of a gourmand. He demanded 
 seed-pearls, and the king was obliged 
 to rob the queen's jewel-boxes. Then 
 the yellow dwarf's appetite changed, 
 
 and he required stars, orders and gar- 
 ters : one by one the obedient monarch 
 gave him the decorations of count, mar- 
 quis, duke. The demon's name was 
 Chamillo. 
 
 "One day the small devil-duke of a 
 Chamillo hovered over the imperial free 
 city of Strasburg. Entering by key- 
 holes and doors 
 ajar, he stole into the 
 presence of the prin- 
 cipal magistrates, 
 and shortly after the 
 impregnable capital 
 of Alsace opened its 
 gates at a show of 
 French investment. 
 "For this import- 
 ant service Louis 
 XIV. fancied that 
 Chamillo would re- 
 quire the letters 
 patent constituting 
 him a prince. Not 
 at all. Chamillo was 
 tired of secular hon- 
 ors: he had seen the 
 bishop of Strasburg 
 officiating in scarlet, 
 and he insisted on 
 being made cardi- 
 nal. The king 
 could not make car- 
 dinals, and he doubt- 
 ed whether he could 
 induce the pope to 
 receive a devil 
 among the upper 
 clergy. He refused 
 absolutely. Chamillo left him in dud- 
 geon and went over to Prussia. Appa- 
 rently he has remained there. At any 
 rate, the French king's fortunes com- 
 menced at that epoch to decline, and 
 the Peace of Ryswick almost deprived 
 him of Strasburg, which the little yellow 
 man wanted to get back for Germany." 
 We had quitted Strasburg by the gate 
 of Austerlitz. While listening to my 
 friend I kept an eye open, and exam- 
 ined the present state of the fortress, the 
 incidents of the road to Kehl, and that 
 fairy He des Epis, a perfect little Eden in 
 the Rhine, where the tall trees and nod- 
 
6 4 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ding flowers bury the tomb of Dessaix, 
 with its inscription, "A Dessaix, l'Armee 
 du Rhin, 1800." This bright morning- 
 
 ride enchanted me, seasoned as it was 
 
 with a goblin -story. 
 
 • " Behind this tale, now, there must be 
 
 a fact," I said. "There is some bit of 
 history concealed there. The common 
 people never invent: they distort." 
 
 " It is possible," he answered. " I tell 
 you the story as it was told me by one 
 
 of my theodolite-bearers. You may find 
 out the rest : it is in your line." 
 
 Kehl has been bombarded or razed a 
 dozen times by French armies crossing 
 the Rhine. The last occasion when the 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 65 
 
 French ruined it, however, was not in 
 vain-glory, but in impotent malice. They 
 fired it on August 19, 1870, during the 
 horrors of the Strasburg bombardment. 
 
 It is a town formed of a single street — 
 But I will enter no further into topo- 
 graphic details. 
 
 I entered this town or street in haste. 
 
 BEGGARS AT BALE. 
 
 leaving my engineering acquaintance 
 talking to a Prussian general. The idea 
 had seized me of writing a line to Ho- 
 henfels at Marly, actually dated from the 
 grand duchy of Baden. Undoubtedly 
 I should reach Marly before my letter, 
 but the postal mark would be a good 
 proof of the actuality of my wanderings. 
 Clinging, then, to my childishness, as we 
 
 HOW THINGS FELL OUT. 
 
 do to most of our follies, with a fidelity 
 which it would be well to imitate in our 
 grave affairs, and feeling pressed for time, 
 I looked eagerly around for a resting- 
 place where I could procure ink and 
 5 
 
 paper, and entered at the sign of the 
 " Stork." I found a smoky crowd, peas- 
 ants and military, sucking German pipes 
 and drinking from a variety of glasses, 
 pots, syphons and jugs. I had taken up 
 my pen when an individual by my side, 
 at the next table, said to his opposite 
 neighbor, " The French will hardly take 
 Strasburg again by surprise, as they did 
 two centuries ago." 
 
 "It was not the French who took 
 Strasburg," replied the vis-a-vis, evident- 
 ly a native : " it was the little urchin in 
 yellow." 1 
 
 The expression, joined to what I had 
 just heard in the carriage, was sufficient 
 to attract my attention. My neighbor, 
 a Belgian by his accent, opened his eyes. 
 The man opposite, perceiving that he 
 had more than one auditor, narrated at 
 length, in substance and detail, not the 
 fairy legend of the Alsatians, but accu- 
 rately, and to my amusement, the his- 
 torical anecdote which I had imagined 
 to be wrapped up in that tale. So then, 
 while he spoke, I wrote — no longer to 
 Hohenfels, but to my own consciousness 
 and memory — these little notes on Cha- 
 millo, or rather Chamilly, and obtained 
 a trifling contribution to the back-stairs 
 history of the Grand Nation. 
 
 " The marquis of Chamilly, afterward 
 marshal of France, was often promised 
 
66 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 a good place for a young nephew he had 
 by the powerful Minister de Louvois. 
 Each time, however, that the youth pre- 
 
 "7? *- 
 
 THE LITTLE IMP IN YELLOW 
 
 sented himself the experienced minister 
 said, ' Bide your time, young man : I see 
 nothing yet on the horizon worthy of 
 you.' The boy sulked in the tortures of 
 hope deferred. One day in September, 
 1681, Louvois said, 'Young man, post 
 yourself at Bale on the 18th day of this 
 month, from noon to four o'clock : stand 
 on the bridge ; take a note of all you 
 see, without the least omission ; come 
 back and report to me ; and as you ac- 
 quit yourself so your future shall be.' 
 The young chevalier found himself on 
 the bridge at Bale at high noon. He ex- 
 pected to meet some deputation from the 
 Swiss cantons, with the great landam- 
 man at the head. What he really saw 
 were carts, villagers, flocks of sheep, 
 children who chased each other, men- 
 dicants who, with Swiss independence, 
 demanded alms rather than begged it. 
 He gave to each, imagining in each a 
 mysterious agent. An old woman cross- 
 ing the bridge on a bucking donkey, 
 who threw her, he picked up obsequi- 
 ously, not knowing but this fall might 
 be a manoeuvre of state, and the pre- 
 cipitate take the form of the landamman 
 in disguise : he had even the idea of 
 
 running after the donkey, but the animal 
 was already galloping with great relish 
 outside the assigned limits to his diplo- 
 macy. When tired of the sun, the dust 
 and the triviality of the panorama, Cha- 
 milly prepared to go. It was nearing 
 the hour fixed for his departure, and the 
 absence of all significant events vexed 
 him. As if to put a crown on his dis- 
 comfiture, toward the close of the last 
 hour an odd little urchin, grotesquely 
 dressed in a yellow coat, came to beat 
 old blankets over the parapet, and flirt- 
 ed the dirt and fluff into the young man's 
 eyes. Already angered, he was about 
 to hang the young imp for a minute or 
 two over the bridge, when four o'clock 
 sounded, his duty came to his mind, and 
 he departed. 
 
 "In the middle of the third night, tired 
 and humiliated, he reappeared before 
 the minister and 
 recounted his fail- 
 ure. When he 
 came to the little 
 page in yellow, 
 Louvois fell on 
 his neck and kiss- 
 ed him. Chamil- 
 ly was dragged 
 incontinently be- 
 fore the king. 
 Louis XIV., who 
 was snoring with 
 his royal nose in 
 the air, was waked 
 for the purpose, 
 and heard with 
 attention the story 
 
 of the beggars, the donkey and the little 
 monkey in yellow livery. At the appa- 
 rition of the Yellow Jacket, Louis XIV. 
 leaped over the ruelle and danced a 
 saraband in his night-gown. Chamilly 
 might perhaps have considered himself 
 sufficiently rewarded in being the only 
 man who ever saw the superb king 
 dancing with bare legs in a wig hastily 
 put on crosswise. But to this recom- 
 pense others were added. The monarch 
 named him chevalier of his orders, count 
 and counselor of state, to the grand 
 stupefaction of the young man, who un- 
 derstood nothing- about it. 
 
 / ,== t> 
 
 THE TRAIN IS STARTING. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 67 
 
 "The little yellow urchin, shaking his 
 blankets, announced to the king's envoy, 
 on the part of the perjured Strasburg 
 magistrates, that the city was betrayed." 
 
 I had now that rare complementing 
 pair, a legend and its historical founda- 
 tion. I had been obliged to cross the 
 Rhine to obtain my prize, but I did not 
 regret the journey. How far I was from 
 fancying the ill-natured turn that the 
 little yellow man was playing me ! 
 
 While my neighbor of the Stork was 
 talking, and I was taking down his 
 words with my utmost rapidity, Time 
 
 took advantage of me, and put double 
 the accustomed length into each of his 
 steps. On recrossing into Strasburg I 
 had before me barely the moments 
 necessary to regain the railway station. 
 
 The gate at the first-class passenger- 
 exit was about closing, fifteen minutes 
 in advance of the start, according to the 
 European custom. I pushed in rather 
 roughly. 
 
 The railway-officer or porter was at 
 the gate, barring my passage until I 
 could exhibit a ticket. I had not taken 
 time to purchase one : the train was 
 
 JUSTICE AND VENGEANCE PURSUING CRIME. 
 
 fuming and threatening the belated pas- 
 sengers with a series of false starts. Sur- 
 prised into rudeness, and quite forgetting 
 that my appearance warranted no airs 
 of autocracy, I made some contempt- 
 uous remark. 
 
 "Der Herr is much too hasty. Der 
 Herr is doubtless provided with the ne- 
 cessary papers which will enable him to 
 pass the French frontier." 
 
 It was not the porter who spoke now : 
 it was some kind of official relic or shad- 
 ow or mouchard left from the old cus- 
 tom-house, and suffered to hang on 
 the railway - station as an ornament. 
 His costume, half uniform and half fa- 
 tigue-dress, compromised nobody, and 
 was surmounted by a skull cap. His 
 pantaloons were short, his figure was 
 
 paunchy, authoritative and German. 
 His German, however, was spoken with 
 a French accent. As I mused in stupe- 
 faction upon the hint he had uttered, he 
 pointed with his hand. "The train is 
 starting," he observed. 
 
 The reader probably knows Prud- 
 hon's great picture in the Louvre, orig- 
 inally painted for the Palace of Justice, 
 and entitled " Divine Justice and Ven- 
 geance in Pursuit of Crime " ? This pic- 
 ture, which I had not thought of, I sup- 
 pose, for an age, suddenly seemed to be 
 realized before me, but the heavenly 
 detectives were changed into mortal 
 gendarmes. The porter and the nonde- 
 script threw back the gate, preventing 
 my passage. The terrors of Prudhon's 
 avenging spirits were all expressed, to 
 
68 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 my thinking, in the looks which these 
 two official people exchanged in my fa- 
 vor, and then bent on me. We stood in 
 a triangle. 
 
 "One moment: I propose a plan," I 
 cried in desperation. " I do not know a 
 soul in Strasburg, and the friend who 
 brought me here is gone, I cannot tell 
 whither. But I have an acquaintance 
 in the British consulate at Carlsruhe — 
 Berkley, you know," I explained with 
 an insane familiarity, "my old friend 
 Berkley's nephew. Admit me to the 
 train, and we will telegraph to him. His 
 reply will come in ten minutes, and will 
 show you my responsible character. I 
 have come fifteen minutes in advance 
 of the starting-hour." 
 
 "The wire to Carlsruhe," said the 
 porter, "is under repairs." 
 
 "The train to Paris," said the second 
 man, "is off." 
 
 Some fate was pursuing me. Rudely 
 rejected at the wicket, and treated as a 
 man without a nationality, I felt as if I 
 had but one friend now available on 
 earth — the friend who had come into 
 my head while conversing with the rail- 
 way guard. Old Mr. Berkley, Mr. Sylves- 
 ter Berkley and I had once breakfasted 
 together at Brighton, the first sitting in 
 a tub, the second eating nothing but 
 raw macerated beef, and I for my part 
 devouring toast and Icelandic poetry. 
 The nephew had since gone into diplo- 
 macy to strengthen his bile. I had not 
 seen him for years. 
 
 I approached the schedule of distances 
 hanging on the wall. My movements 
 were those of a man prostrated and re- 
 signed. I ran my forefinger over the 
 departures from Kehl to Carlsruhe. 
 
 In three hours I was in the latter city. 
 
 It was not in beggar's guise that Paul 
 Flemming would fain be seen in the 
 capital of the grand duchy — the most 
 formal capital, the most symmetrical 
 capital, the most monumental capital, 
 as it is the youngest capital, in Eu- 
 rope. Nor was it as a vagabond that 
 he would wish to appear in that capital, 
 before a friend who happened to be 
 a diplomatist. I recollected the engag- 
 ing aspect in which I had offered myself 
 
 to the reflections of the Rhine when last 
 beside that romantic stream — a comely 
 youth, with Stultz's best waistcoats on 
 his bosom and with ineffable sorrows in 
 his heart. Frau Himmelauen used to 
 say, at Heidelberg, that my gloves were 
 a shade too light for a strictly virtuous 
 
 SUSPICIOUS BAGGAGE. 
 
 man. The Frau has gone to her account, 
 and Stultz, the great Stultz, is defunct 
 too, after achieving for himself a baron- 
 etcy as the prize of his peerless scissors, 
 and founding a hospital here in Carls- 
 ruhe. Not to insult the shade of Stultz, 
 I determined to renew my youth, at least 
 in the matter of plumage. A shop of 
 ready-made clothing afforded me lav- 
 ender gloves, silk pocket handkerchief, 
 satin cravat, detachable collar and a 
 cambric shirt : the American dickey, in 
 which some of my early sartorial tri- 
 umphs were effected, is not to be had in 
 Rhineland. My ornaments purchased, 
 the trouble was — to change my shirt. 
 The great hotel, the Erbprinz, was no 
 place for a man without a passport and 
 without baggage : not for the world would 
 I have faced a hotel-clerk with his ac- 
 cusing register. Yet the street was not 
 to be thought of: only cats are allowed 
 by etiquette to freshen their linen on the 
 doorstep. 
 
 A resource occurred to me. In ran- 
 sacking the city for my ornaments I had 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 69 
 
 observed the castle-park, with its clumps 
 of verdure and almost deserted walks. 
 Hurrah for the leafy dressing-room ! 
 
 At the gate a sentinel stopped me. 
 Would he demand my passport? No: 
 
 he taps with his finger the lid of that 
 faithful botany - box, my sole valise. 
 Aware that it contained nothing contra- 
 band, I opened it innocently and demon- 
 stratively. At the sight of that resonant 
 
 CAKLSKUHE : THE GRAND-DUCAL PARK. 
 
 cavity, gaping from ear to ear and belch- 
 ing forth gloves, kerchiefs and minor 
 haberdashery, the dragon laughed : his 
 mirth took the form of a deep, guttural, 
 honest German guffaw. He still, how- 
 
 ever, rapped sonorously on my box. 
 shaking his head from side to side like 
 a china mandarin. In his view my box 
 was luggage, and luggage is not permit- 
 ted in any European park. Relieved to 
 
7° 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 find that my detention was not more 
 serious, my first thought was to comply 
 with the conditions of entrance. I beg- 
 ged to leave my package in the sentry- 
 box, to be reclaimed at departure. The 
 amiable Cerberus, smiling and nodding, 
 closed his eyes significantly : at this mo- 
 ment I recollected that my only motive 
 for entering the park lay in that feature 
 of my paraphernalia, and caught it up 
 again, with a gesture of parental . vio- 
 lence, in the very act of depositing it. 
 The sentry, watching with increasing 
 delight my evolutions and counter-evo- 
 lutions, evidently thought me a nimble 
 lunatic, Heaven-sent for the recreation 
 of his long watch. He no longer op- 
 posed any of my demonstrations, and 
 finally, with a hearty chuckle, saw me 
 slink past him into the groves, wardrobe 
 in hand. Most accommodating of sen- 
 tinels, why were you not in charge of a 
 Paris barrier during the siege ? 
 
 Once within the park, I found that my 
 sight had deceived me : the day was hot, 
 and the public, driven from the sunny 
 walks, were concentrated in the shade. 
 Not a bough but sheltered its group 
 of Arcadians. I wended from tree to 
 tree, describing singular zigzags on the 
 
 THE GENTLE CERBEKUS. 
 
 sward. The guardians began to eye me 
 with lively interest. Finally, Fortune 
 having guided me to a beautiful thick- 
 et, a closet curtained with evergreens, I 
 prepared to use it for my toilet, and re- 
 linquished a sleeve of my coat. At that 
 
 THE EYE OF ARGUS. 
 
 moment one of my watchmen suddenly 
 showed himself. 
 
 Looking at him with extreme serious- 
 ness, I slowly re-entered my sleeve, and 
 walked away with unnecessary dignity, 
 giving the guardian my patronage in 
 the shape of a 
 nod, which he 
 did not return. 
 
 Forbidden the 
 green-room, what 
 if I tried the bath- 
 room ? Hastily 
 making for the 
 Square of the 
 Obelisk, I took 
 a carriage, en- 
 gaging it by the 
 hour, and direct- 
 ing it to the near- 
 est bathing - es- 
 tabli's h men t. 
 The driver im- 
 mediately ran off 
 with me outside 
 the city. 
 
 Carlsruhe is an aristocratic construc- 
 tion, whose princely mansions are sup- 
 posed to be supplied with their own 
 thermal conveniences. The locality sug- 
 gested for my bath proved to be a vast 
 suburban garden, buried in flowers, with 
 amorous young couples promenading 
 the alleys, and tables crowned with 
 cylinders of beer, each wadded with its 
 handful of foam. At the extremity, on 
 a square building, five lofty letters spell- 
 ed out the word Baden. 
 
 A waiter showed me a handsome bath, 
 decorated with a tub like some Roman 
 mausoleum. I instructed him as to the 
 temperature of my desired plunge. He 
 nodded quietly, and left me. Twenty 
 minutes passed. I thought of my friend 
 Sylvester Berkley, of the document I 
 hoped to obtain by his aid, and, most 
 fondly, of the hour when I could return 
 from Carlsruhe. I thought of the little 
 group who at Marly were expecting and 
 reproaching me. Charles now, for the 
 twentieth time, would be brushing my 
 morning suit and smoking - cap : Jo- 
 sephine, in the act of whipping a may- 
 onnaise, would draw anxiously to the 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 7i 
 
 window. The baron, my galling and 
 indispensable old Hohenfels, would have 
 arrived and scolded. My home -circle 
 
 BIER UND BADEN. 
 
 was like a ring without its jewel, while 
 I, an undenominated waif in search of 
 a vise, was fluttering through the duchy 
 of Baden. Thirty minutes passed, and 
 the bath-house retained the silence of a 
 ruined monastery, while outside, among 
 the perfumes and shadows of twilight, 
 there began to arise strains of admirable 
 harmony. I looked out of the window. 
 Some lanterns placed among the trees 
 were already beginning to assert their 
 light among the shadows of evening. 
 A chorus of fresh and accurate voices 
 was pouring forth from the garden, the 
 pure young tenors and altos weaving their 
 melodies like network over the sustained, 
 vibrating, vigorous bass voices. It was the 
 antiphony of the youthful promenaders 
 to the drinkers, the diastole of the heart 
 above the stomach, the elisire d'amore 
 in rivalry with beer. Amid this scene I 
 recognized my waiter, illuminated fitful- 
 ly like some extraordinary firefly as he 
 sprang into sight beneath the successive 
 lanterns, and pouring out beer to right 
 and left. To my indignant appeal he 
 turned, lifting his head, and stood in 
 
 that attitude, finishing a musical phrase 
 which he was contributing to the chorus. 
 Then he told me that my bath was being 
 made ready. The Teutonic placidity of 
 this youth confounded me. Quite dis- 
 armed, I closed the shutter, changed my 
 linen in the dark, and drew on my gloves 
 over a pair of hands that decidedly need- 
 ed the disguise. The lateness of the 
 hour alarmed me, and I fled down the 
 stair in three jumps. At the bottom I 
 met my musical waiter, still tranquilly 
 singing, and armed with a linen wrapper 
 and a hairbrush. 
 
 "What do I owe ?" I asked. 
 
 " Is der Herr not going to take his 
 bath ?" asked this most leisurely of 
 valets. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Very well: it will be half a florin, 
 including towels." 
 
 I gave him the half-florin, and was 
 getting into my cab, when he came 
 rambling up. 
 
 "And the palm -greaser," he cried, 
 "the trinkgeld ?" 
 
 In ten minutes I was at the offices of 
 the national representative, but it was 
 now dark, and the porter, without wait- 
 ing for my question, told me that the 
 offices were closed and everybody gone 
 to the opera. 
 
 "The theatre!" I shouted to my 
 charioteer. 
 
 The ticket-seller was asleep in his box, 
 and was much astonished at my applica- 
 tion for an orchestra-seat. The last act 
 of some obscure German opera was being 
 
 AN EXHAUSTED TRAVELER. 
 
 shouted in full chorus. At Carlsruhe 
 the theatre opens at five o'clock, and 
 closes virtuously at half- past eight. 
 There was no sign of my friend, no in- 
 dication of a box for members of the 
 diplomatic body. I was very hungry, 
 and would willingly have re-entered the 
 boulevards in search of a supper ; but 
 
72 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 the express - train going toward Paris 
 would start at ten-fifteen, and I could 
 afford to think of nothing but my pass- 
 port. I drove to the national office 
 again, my new costume quite shipwreck- 
 ed and foundered in perspiration. 
 
 I was more explicit with the porter this 
 
 time. I asked if Mr. Sylvester Berkley 
 had returned from the opera. I was 
 answered by that functionary that Mr. 
 Pairkley was living at present in the city 
 of Heidelberg, where he was trying a 
 diet of whey for the benefit of his liver. 
 I became flaccid with despair. I was 
 
 THE SUNNY GROVE. 
 
 without a refuge on the habitable globe ; 
 my slender provision of funds would be 
 exhausted in paying for the carriage ; I 
 was unable even to seek the friend who 
 for the moment represented to me both 
 country and fortune. The driver, wit- 
 ness of my dejection and recipient of 
 my history in part, proposed to me a 
 temporary refuge in a private hotel on the 
 avenue of Ettlingen, where I would find 
 chambers by the day, and a family table. 
 The landlady, he believed, was a Belgian 
 and a widow. 
 
 We drew up before a small house of 
 neat appearance. I was shown a cham- 
 ber, where, no longer dreaming of sup- 
 
 per, I fell across a cushion like an over- 
 thrown statue. I felt as if a good month 
 must have passed since I possessed a 
 home. 
 
 I had in pocket about thirty sous. 
 The philosopher was right enough when 
 he said, "Traveling lengthens one's life ;" 
 only he should have added, " It shortens 
 one's purse." 
 
 On awakening next morning the lin- 
 nets and finches communicated through 
 the window a pleasanter sentiment. Na- 
 ture was gay and inspiring on this lovely 
 May-day. By a perversity quite natural 
 with me, my letter to Berkley, which it 
 was my first care to write and post, con- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 73 
 
 tained but a slight reflection of my woes. 
 My need of a passport only appeared 
 in a postscriptum, wherein I begged him 
 to arrange that little affair for me in some 
 way by correspondence. The bulk of 
 my communication was a eulogy of 
 May, of youth, of flowers, of birds, all 
 
 THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 
 
 of which were saluting me as I scribbled 
 from the beautiful little grove outside my 
 casement. Treating the diplomate as 
 an intimate friend — a caprice of the mo- 
 ment on my part — I begged him to go 
 back with me to Marly, promising him 
 the joys described in old Thomas Ran- 
 dolph's invitation to the country : 
 
 We'll seek a shade, 
 And hear what music's made — 
 
 How Philomel 
 
 Her tale doth tell, 
 And how the other birds do fill the choir: 
 
 The thrush and blackbird lend their throats, 
 
 Warbling melodious notes. 
 We will all sport enjoy, which others but desire. 
 
 I engaged to furnish him his regimen of 
 whey, and did not omit to quote from 
 the same poem, apropos of that mild 
 Anacreontic drink, the lines which hap- 
 pen to introduce his name : 
 
 And drink by stealth 
 
 A cup or two to noble Barkleys health. 
 
 "The cup," I continued, "shall be at 
 once your toast and your medicine, and 
 the whey shall be fresh. If you want 
 
 to make a Tartar of yourself, and feed 
 on koumiss, I will have the milk fer- 
 mented." To the baron of Hohenfels I 
 wrote with equal gayety, begging him to 
 plant the stakes of his tent in my garden 
 until my own nomadic career should be 
 finished. A third letter, as my reader 
 may imagine, was 
 directed to the Rue 
 Scribe, and ad- 
 dressed to the 
 American banker, 
 the beloved of all 
 money-n eeding 
 compatriots — Mr. 
 John Munroe. 
 
 My letters com- 
 mitted to a domes- 
 tic, I felt absolutely 
 relieved from care. 
 I breathed freely, 
 and recovered all 
 my self-possession. 
 Sing loud, little 
 birds ! it is a com- 
 rade who listens to 
 you. 
 
 With two days, 
 perhaps three, of 
 enforced leisure before me, I undertook 
 in a singular spirit of deliberation the 
 criticism of my surroundings. I began 
 with my bed - chamber. It contained 
 both a stove and a fireplace. The fire- 
 place was like all other fireplaces, but 
 not so the stove. Stark and straight, 
 rising from floor to ceiling, it was fixed 
 immovably in the wall, a pilaster of 
 porcelain. No stove - door interrupted 
 its enameled shaft : only a register of 
 fretwork for the emission of heat, and 
 quite dissociated from the cares of fire- 
 building, relieved the ennui of this syb- 
 aritic length of polish. It was kindled 
 — and that is the special merit of this 
 famous invention — from without, in the 
 corridor which borders the line of rooms. 
 If you put the idea to profit, O overtoast- 
 ed friends of Flemming, I shall not re- 
 gret my forced inspection of Carlsruhe. 
 I would distinguish less honorably that 
 small oblique looking-glass inserted in 
 the bevel of the window-jamb, and com- 
 mon to all the dwellings of Carlsruhe — 
 
74 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 a handy article, an entertaining distrac- 
 tion, a discreet but immoral spy, which 
 places at your mercy all the mysteries 
 of the public street. This contrivance, 
 which enables you to see the world with- 
 out being seen, certainly gives you a 
 tempting advantage over the untimely 
 caller or the impertinent creditor; but it 
 encourages, in my opinion, a habit of vis- 
 ion better adapted to a sultan's seraglio 
 than to the discreet eyes of Western folk. 
 This reflection, by which I satisfied 
 my perhaps exalted moral sense, was no 
 sooner made than I found myself peep- 
 ing to right and to left in my double 
 mirror, not without a lively sense of 
 curiosity. At first I saw — what Flem- 
 ming, indeed, was wont to see when he 
 consulted the Fountain of Oblivion — 
 only streets and moss-grown walls and 
 trembling spires, like those of the great 
 City of the Past, and children playing 
 in the gardens like reverberations from 
 one's lost youth. Soon a nearer image 
 approached. From a troop of blond 
 girls, who dragged after them little cha- 
 riots resembling baby-wagons, one dam- 
 sel drew apart, allowing the others to 
 pass on. She neared my window. 
 Who is the maiden with the anachronic 
 baby-cart ? She is the milkmaid of the 
 country. Here 
 in Germany Per- 
 rette does not 
 poise her milk 
 upon her head 
 or weigh it in a 
 balance, in order 
 to afford by its 
 overthrow a fable 
 to La Fontaine. 
 She can dream at 
 her ease as she 
 draws it behind 
 her. My fair- 
 haired neighbor 
 paused. A tall 
 lad thereupon emerged from the neigh- 
 boring trees, and, replacing Perrette at 
 her wagon, he fitted himself dexterously 
 into her maiden dream and into the 
 shafts of her equipage. As the avenue 
 was deserted for the instant, his arm 
 enlaced her figure, with the obvious and 
 
 THE TALE OF BRICKS. 
 
 commendable purpose of sustaining her 
 in her walk, and with his lips close to 
 her smiling, rosy ones he contributed a 
 gentle note to the hymeneal chorus that 
 was twittered from the trees. 
 
 Who could remain long shut up from 
 such an out-of-doors ? Directly I was 
 in the open air, scenting the fresh breath 
 from the parks. I inspected the streets. 
 
 THE FLY-BRUSH. 
 
 the factories, the people, the houses. A 
 prolonged and deliberate examination 
 of Carlsruhe enables me to assert that it 
 is the most easy-going, slow-paced, loi- 
 tering, temporizing, procrastinating cap- 
 ital outside of Dreamland. 
 
 A young workingman was assisting 
 some bricklayers in an extension adja- 
 cent to the foundry of Christofle and 
 Company. I saw him going, with a slow 
 and lounging pace, toward the brick- 
 pile, stopping by the way to quench his 
 thirst at a hydrant, whose stream was so 
 slender that a good many applications 
 of the cup of Diogenes were necessary 
 to allay the heat concentred in the fel- 
 low's thick throat. Arrived finally at 
 the heap of bricks, the goal of his prom- 
 enade, he took up precisely six, and pro- 
 ceeded with a lordly, lounging step to 
 bear them back to the masons. Then, 
 folding his arms, he watched the imbed- 
 ding of those bricks in their plaster with 
 a sovereign calm like that of Vitellius 
 eating figs at the combats of the gladi- 
 ators. When he consented to take up 
 again his serene march, it was the turn 
 of the bricklayers to fold their arms. At 
 each errand he consulted the hydrant, 
 and the builders watched all his move- 
 ments with sympathy and approval. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 75 
 
 I photograph the moving figures in 
 the street with the same simple fidel- 
 ity which I have employed to represent 
 the trouble - saving conveniences of my 
 chamber. Take another hero, equally 
 worthy of Capua. The placid person- 
 age who assist- 
 ed me to a bath 
 in my room was 
 as happy a dull- 
 ard as my wait- 
 er in the Baden, 
 and both of 
 them caressed 
 their job as Nar- 
 cissus caressed 
 the fountain. 
 
 A large cart 
 drew up before 
 the knight of the bath, the door, con- 
 taining twelve 
 kegs, thoroughly bunged. Any stran- 
 ger would take the load for one of 
 beer, but a tub among the kegs acted as 
 interpreter. The young man from the 
 baths in the first place saw to his horse. 
 He walked around it : the drive having 
 heated the animal, he covered it with a 
 cloth, and guaranteed its head against 
 the flies with several plumes of foliage, 
 beneath which Dobbin, blinded but 
 content, showed only the paralytic flap- 
 ping of his pendulous, negro-like lips. 
 These indispensable cares despatched, 
 the young man from the 
 baths brought up the 
 tub after a short gossip 
 with the kitchen-maid, 
 who was going out to 
 market. He asked her 
 if there were a stable 
 attached where he could 
 put up the horse during 
 the taking of the bath : 
 being answered in the 
 negative, he then, with 
 an almost painful in- 
 consequence of argument, chucked the 
 girl under the chin. He next inquired 
 if she had any soap-fat. At length he 
 consented to lumber up the steps with 
 one of his little kegs : the tenacity of the 
 bung was so exemplary that a long time 
 was consumed in getting the advantage 
 
 GANYMEDE. 
 
 J over it, and the water on its part was 
 j but tardy in leaping toward the tub in a 
 I series of strangulations. This formula, 
 interrupted by minute attentions to the 
 horse, had to be repeated twelve times, 
 and the bath, which commenced as a 
 warm bath, received its guest as a cold 
 one. Such was the result when to the 
 languor of the individual was added the 
 national complication of apparatus. 
 
 The deliberate spectator — or, if you 
 will, the imprisoned spectator like myself, 
 with his artificial leisure — asks himself 
 how long a time was consumed by this 
 little country of Baden, by this people so 
 lumpish in its labor, so restricted in its 
 movements, so friendly to its own ease, 
 in building its elegant metropolis of 
 mansions and palaces? There is some- 
 thing piquant in learning that the city is 
 the hastiest construction on the conti- 
 nent. It only dates from the year 171 5. 
 Carlsruhe reminds the American trav- 
 eler of Washing- 
 ton. In place of 
 the tortuous plan 
 and picturesque 
 inconvenience of 
 the antique capi- 
 tals, it offers a pre- 
 determined and 
 courteous radia- 
 tion of broad streets from the grand- 
 ducal palace, much like the fan of av- 
 enues that spreads away from the Cap- 
 itol building. Formal as it is, and re- 
 cent as it is, Carlsruhe affords as pretty 
 a legend as any fairy-founded city of 
 dimmest ancestry. 
 
 The margrave Charles of Baden, hunt- 
 er and warrior, returned from victory to 
 bathe his soul in the sylvan delights of 
 the chase. One day, as he coursed the 
 stag in the Haardt Forest, he lay down 
 with a sudden sense of fatigue, and fell 
 asleep : an oak tree shadowed him with 
 its broad canopies. Dreaming, he saw 
 the green boughs separate, and in the 
 zenith of the heavens descried a crown 
 blazing with incredible jewels, and in- 
 scribed with letters that he felt rathei 
 than spelled : "This is the reward of the 
 noble." All around the crown, hanging 
 in air like sculptured cloudwork, spread 
 
 ARRESTED MOTION. 
 
76 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 a splendid city with towers : a noble 
 castle, with open portal and stairway 
 inviting his princely feet, stood at the 
 centre, and the spires of sacred churches 
 still sought, as they seek on earth, to 
 pierce the unattainable heaven. When 
 
 he awoke his courtiers were around him, 
 for they had searched and found their 
 lord while he slept. He related his 
 dream, and declared his ducal will to 
 build on that very spot a city just as he 
 had seen it, with a splendid palace for 
 
 '2^-tj. 
 
 THE PIPERS. 
 
 central point, and streets like the spokes 
 of light that spread from the sinking sun. 
 So he said, and gave his whole soul to 
 building this graceful capital and devel- 
 oping it with the arts of peace ; for here- 
 tofore he had thought only of war, and 
 had meant to patch up a seat of govern- 
 ment in the little town of Durlach. 
 
 The Haardtwald still spreads around 
 Carlsruhe ("Charles's Rest") to the 
 eastward, but the bracken and under- 
 brush have given way to beaten roads, 
 which prolong with perfect regularity the 
 fan of streets. An avenue of the finest 
 Lombardy poplars in Germany, the trees 
 being from ninety to a hundred and 
 twenty feet high, extends for two miles 
 to Durlach. Around the city spread 
 rich plum and cherry orchards, yielding 
 the "lucent sirops " from which is dis- 
 tilled the famous Kirschvvasser. 
 
 The reputation for drunkenness, in 
 my opinion, has been very erroneously 
 fastened upon the German population. 
 During my sojourn in Carlsruhe I have 
 paid many a visit to the beer-shops, from 
 the petty taverns frequented by the poor 
 to the lofty saloons where Ganymedes 
 in white skirts shuffled with huge tank- 
 ards through a perfect forest of orange 
 trees in tubs ; for, worse luck to my 
 
 morals, I have not seen a single frightful 
 example, not one individual balancing 
 dispersedly over his legs. In the grand 
 duchy of Baden the debauch is punish- 
 ed by a law of somewhat harsh logic, 
 which commits to prison both drunkards 
 and those who have furnished the where- 
 withal to excess. The common people 
 form a nation of drinkers, not drunkards. 
 The beer-tables are usually placed in the 
 open air, with shelter for the patrons in 
 case of bad weather. The out-door air 
 
 Wt 4 
 
 INCENSE AT THE ALTAR. 
 
 is almost indispensable to correct the 
 evils which might proceed from such an 
 artillery of pipes all fired in concert. 
 
 For Germany, if not a land of intoxi- 
 cation, is certainly one of fumigation. 
 The face of a German is composed in- 
 
THE NEW HYPE RIO X. 
 
 77 
 
 variably of the following features : two 
 eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a pipe. 
 Whichever of these features is movable, 
 the pipe at least is a fixture. Fortified 
 
 by this vital organ, he lives, loves and 
 moves. 
 
ZP^IR,T VI 
 
 SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT 
 
 MY first dinner in the avenue of 
 Ettlingen followed upon the 
 twelve -barreled bath, but was far 
 from being so glacial a refreshment. 
 As I descended, quite pink and glow- 
 ing, I found eight or ten individuals 
 in the dining-room. They were 
 French and Belgians, and exchanged 
 a lively conversation in half a dozen 
 provincial accents. The servants too 
 talked French in levying on the cook 
 for provisions : for this, as I have 
 since learned, the domestics of my 
 snug little boarding-house were 
 deemed somewhat pretentious by the 
 serving -people of the vicinity, who 
 considered the tongue of Paris a sort 
 of court language, for circulation 
 among aristocrats only, and supposed 
 that even in France the hired folk 
 all talked German. My reception at 
 the cheerful board was as cordial as 
 possible. 
 
 Placed opposite me, our ytfung hostess 
 was looking in my direction with an in- 
 tentness that struck me as singular. My 
 passport was uppermost in my mind. I 
 was not, however, very uneasy, for the 
 reply of Sylvester Berkley would soon 
 arrive and put an official seal upon my 
 
 78 
 
 THE REGISTEK. 
 
 standing. It occurred to me, however, 
 that I was a traveler accompanied by no 
 other baggage than a tin box and an 
 umbrella, and introduced by a coach- 
 man who had no reason whatever for 
 forming lofty notions of my respectabil- 
 ity. The landlady, whom I had scarce- 
 ly seen on my arrival, was pretty, neat 
 and quick, and an argument suggested 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 79 
 
 itself that seemed adapted to her sta- 
 tion and habits. I was base enough to 
 take out my watch, a very fine Poitevin, 
 and make an advertisement of that 
 pledge under pretence of comparing 
 time with the mantel-clock. This pre- 
 cious manoeuvre appeared quite suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Very soon my ideas of apprehension 
 and defiance were followed by other 
 thoughts of a very different kind. The 
 expression of the youthful housekeeper 
 was not only softened in continuing to 
 watch me, but it took on a look of great 
 kindness and good- humor — a look that 
 the finest watch in the world would never 
 have inspired. On my own side I fur- 
 tively examined this gentle yet scruti- 
 nizing physiognomy. Surely those gen- 
 tle glances and my own faded old eyes 
 were not entire strangers. 
 
 When Winckelmann was filling the 
 villa Albani with antiques, it often hap- 
 pened to him to clasp a fair Greek head 
 in his arms and go pottering along from 
 torso to torso till he could find a shoul- 
 der fit to support his lovely burden. 
 Such was my exercise with this pleasant 
 head in its neat cambric cap ; but in 
 place of consulting my memory with the 
 proper coolness, I am afraid I question- 
 ed my heart. 
 
 Immediately after the coffee my pretty 
 hostess, passing my chair, with a quick 
 motion in going out made me a slight 
 gesture. I followed her into a small 
 office or ante-chamber adjoining. The 
 furniture was very simple ; the indicator, 
 with a figure for every bell, decorated 
 the wall in its cherry-wood frame ; the 
 keys, hanging aslant in rows, like points 
 of interrogation in a letter of Sevigne's, 
 formed a corresponding ornament ; and 
 a row of registers on the desk completed 
 the furniture. One of these books she 
 drew forward, opened and presented for 
 my signature, still flashing over my face 
 that intent but benevolent glance. 
 
 "Monsieur, have the goodness to in- 
 scribe your name, the place you came 
 from, and that of your destination." 
 
 I took the pen, and, with the air of 
 complying exactly and courteously with 
 her demand, folded the quill into three 
 
 or four lengths, and placed it weltering 
 in ink within my waistcoat pocket. I 
 was looking intently into my hostess's 
 face. 
 
 I think no American can observe with- 
 out peculiar complacency the neat arti- 
 san ne's cap on the brows of a respectable 
 young Frenchwoman. This cap is made 
 of some opaque white substance, tender 
 yet solid, and the theory of its existence 
 is that it should be stainless and incapa- 
 ble of disturbance. It is the badge of 
 an order, the sign of unpretending in- 
 dustry. The personage who wears it 
 does not propose to look like a " dame :" 
 she contentedly crowns herself with the 
 tiara of her rank. Long generations of 
 unaspiring humility have bequeathed her 
 this soft and candid sign of distinction : 
 as her turn comes in the line of inherit- 
 ance she spends her life in keeping un- 
 sullied its difficult purity, and she will 
 leave to her daughters the critical task of 
 its equipoise. If she soils or rumples or 
 tears it, she descends in her little scale of 
 dignities and becomes an ouvriere. If 
 she loses it, she is unclassed entirely, and 
 enters the half-world. The porter's wife 
 with her dubious mob-cap, and the hard, 
 flaunting grisette with her melancholy 
 feathers and determined chapeau, are 
 equally removed from the white cap of 
 the "young person." To maintain it in 
 its vestal candor and proud sincerity is 
 not always an easy task in a land where 
 every careless student and idle noble- 
 man is eager to tumble it with his fingers 
 or to pin among its frills the blossom 
 named love-in-idleness : Mimi Pinson 
 has to wear her cap very close to her 
 wise little head. To herself and to those 
 among whom she moves nothing per- 
 haps seems more natural than the suc- 
 cessful carriage of this white emblem, 
 triumphantly borne from age to age 
 above the dust of labor and in the face 
 of all kinds of temptation ; but to the 
 republican from beyond the seas it is a 
 kind of sacred relic. The Yankee who 
 knows only the forlorn aureoles of wire 
 and greased gauze surrounding the saint- 
 ed heads of Lowell factory- girls, and the 
 frowsy ones of New York bookbinders, 
 is struck by the artisanne cap as by 
 
So 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 something exquisitely fresh, proud and 
 truthful. 
 
 My landlady's cap was as far removed 
 from pretence as from vulgarity. Her 
 hair was brown, smooth, old-fashioned 
 and nun-like. I looked at her hand, 
 which, having replaced the pen, was in- 
 viting me with a gesture of its handsome 
 squared fingers to contribute my auto- 
 graph. I made my note, pausing 
 often to look up at my beautiful 
 writing - mistress : " Paul Flem- 
 ming, American : from Paris to 
 Marly — by way of the Rhine." 
 
 I had not finished, when, lower- 
 ing her pretty head to scrutinize 
 my crabbed handwriting, she cried, 
 " It is certainly he, the americain- 
 flamand ! I was certain I could 
 not be mistaken." 
 
 " Do you know me then, ma- 
 dame ?" 
 
 " Do I know you ? And you, do 
 you not recognize me ?" 
 
 " I protest, madame, my mem- 
 ory for faces is shocking; and, 
 though there are few in the world 
 comparable with yours — " 
 
 She interrupted me with a ges- 
 ture too familiar to be mistaken. A 
 tumbler was on the desk filled with 
 goose-quills. Taking this up like a bou- 
 quet, and stretching it out at arm's 
 length to an imaginary passer-by, she 
 sang, with a mischievous professional 
 brio, " Fresh roses to-day, all fresh ! 
 White lilacs for the bride, and lilies for 
 the holy altar ! pinks for the button of 
 the young man who thinks himself hand- 
 some. Who buys my bluets, my paque- 
 rettes, my marguerites, my pensees ?" 
 
 It was strangely like something I well 
 knew, yet my mind, confused with the 
 baggage of unexpected travel, refused 
 to throw a clear light over this fascina- 
 ting rencounter. 
 
 The little landlady threw her head back 
 to laugh, and I saw a small rose-colored 
 tongue surrounded with two strings of 
 pearls : ' ' Very well, Monsieur Flemming ! 
 Have you forgotten the two chickens?" 
 
 It was the exclamation by which, in his 
 neat tavern, I had recognized my brave 
 old friend Joliet : it was impossible, by 
 
 the same shibboleth, to refuse longer an 
 acquaintance with his daughter. 
 
 My entertainer, in fact, was no other 
 than Francine Joliet, grown from a little 
 female stripling into a distracting pat- 
 tern of a woman. Twelve years had 
 never thrown more fortunate changes 
 over a growing human flower. 
 
 The acquaintance being thus renew- 
 
 A VIRTUOSO. 
 
 ed, I could not but remember my last 
 conversation with Joliet — his way of ac- 
 quainting me with her absence from 
 home, his mention of her godmother in 
 Brussels, and his strange reticence as I 
 pressed the subject. A slight chill, ow- 
 ing perhaps to the undue warmth of my 
 admiration for this delicate creature, fell 
 over my first cordiality. I asked a 
 question or two, assuming a kind, elder- 
 ly type of interest : " How do you find 
 yourself here in Carlsruhe ? Are you 
 satisfactorily placed?" 
 
 "As well as possible, dear M. Flem- 
 ming. I am a bird in its nest." 
 
 "Mated, no doubt, my dear?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You are not a widow, I hope, my 
 poor little Francine ?" 
 
 "No." She blushed, as if she had 
 not been pretty enough before. 
 
 "They call you madame, you see." 
 
 "A mistress of a hotel, that is the 
 usual title. Is it not the custom among 
 the Indians of America?" 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 8l 
 
 "The godmother who took care of 
 you — you perceive how well I know 
 your biography, my child — is she dead, 
 then ?" 
 
 " No, thank Heaven ! She is quite 
 well." 
 
 " She is doubtless now living in Carls- 
 ruhe ?" 
 
 "No, at Brussels." 
 
 "Then why are you here? why have 
 you quitted so kind a friend ?" 
 
 My catechism, growing thus more and 
 more brutal, might have been prolonged 
 until bedtime, but on the arrival of a 
 new traveler she left me there, with a 
 pen in my hand and a quantity of de- 
 licious cobwebs in my head, saying gen- 
 tly, " I will see you this evening, kind 
 friend." 
 
 The same evening, after a botanizing 
 stroll in the adjoining wood — a treat that 
 my tin box and I had promised each 
 other — I found myself again with Fran- 
 cine. Full of curiosity as I was con- 
 cerning her adventures, I determined 
 that she should direct the conversation 
 herself, and take her own pretty time 
 to tell the more personal parts of the 
 story. 
 
 The stage grisette is perpetually ex- 
 ploring the pockets of her apron. Fran- 
 cine, who wore a roundabout apron of 
 a white and crackling nature, adorned 
 her conversation by attending to the 
 hem of hers. When she asked about 
 my last interview with her father, she 
 ironed that hem with the nail of her rosy 
 little thumb ; when she fell into reminis- 
 cences of her mother, she smoothed the 
 apron respectfully and sadly ; when she 
 proposed a question or a doubt, she ex- 
 tracted little threads from the seam : at 
 last, perfectly satisfied with the apron, 
 she laid her two small hands in each 
 other on its dainty snow-bank, and re- 
 signed herself to a perfect torrent of re- 
 marks about the horse, the van, the little 
 cabin among the roses, the small one- 
 eyed dog and the two chickens. Con- 
 versation, a thing which is manufactured 
 by an American girl, is a thing which 
 takes possession of a French girl. 
 
 All the while I remained uninstructed 
 as to why my little Francine had left her 
 6 
 
 protectress, why she was keeping house 
 at Carlsruhe, and on what understand- 
 ing her customers called her madame. 
 
 I was obliged to take next day a long 
 alterative excursion among the trees 
 of the Haardtwald : in fact, her gentle 
 warmth, her freshness, her nattiness, the 
 very protection she shed over me, were 
 working sad mischief to my peace of 
 mind. I came upon an old shepherd, 
 who, with his music-book thrown into a 
 bush in front of him, was leaning back 
 against a tree and drawing sweet sounds 
 out of a cornet-a-piston. 
 
 "Even so," I said, "did Stark the 
 Viking hear the notes of the enchanted 
 horn teaching every tree he came to the 
 echo of his true-love's name." 
 
 But the churlish shepherd, the moment 
 he caught sight of me, put up his pipe, 
 whistled to his dogs and rej oined the flock. 
 I was dissatisfied with his unsocial re- 
 treat. I felt, with renewed force, that a 
 note was lacking to the full harmony of 
 my life, and I threw myself upon a bank. 
 I tried not to see the artificial roads of 
 the forest, alive with city carriages. I 
 believed myself lost in a primeval wood, 
 and I examined the state of my heart. 
 I perceived with concern that that organ 
 was still lacerated. The languid, mu- 
 sical pageant of my youth streamed 
 toward me again through the leafy aisles, 
 and I remembered my high aspirings, 
 my poems, my ideals : the floating vision 
 of a Dark Ladye passed or looked up 
 at me through the broken waves of Ob- 
 livion ; she listened to my rhapsodies 
 with the old puzzling silence ; she con- 
 fided to me certain Sibylline leaves out 
 of her diary ; then she receded, cold and 
 unresponsive, a statue cut out of a shad- 
 ow. I was obliged to untie my cravat. 
 Finally, I fell asleep and dreamed of 
 Mary Ashburton crowned with the neat 
 workwoman's cap of Francine Joliet. I 
 returned to dinner considerably exalted, 
 and just touched with rheumatism. 
 
 The soup was glacial, the roast was 
 steaming, the conversation was geo- 
 graphical. " Pray, M. Flemming," said 
 my neighbor (he had been stealing a 
 look at the register of visitors' names), 
 "can cattle be wintered out of doors as 
 
82 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 far north as Pennsylvania, or only up to 
 Virginia?" 
 
 "Pray," said another, "is not New 
 York situated between the North River 
 and the Hudson ?" 
 
 The prayer of a third made itself au- 
 dible : " Ought we to say * Delightful Wy- 
 oming,' after Campbell, or Wyoming ?" 
 
 "We ought to eat with thankfulness 
 the good things set before us," I replied, 
 with some presence of mind. " Excuse 
 me, gentlemen," I added, to carry off 
 my vivacity, " but I think informing con- 
 versation is a bore until after the nuts 
 and raisins. A Danish proverb says 
 that he who knows what he is saying at 
 
 DELIGHTS OF THE VEKLOBTEN. 
 
 a feast has but poor comprehension of 
 what he is eating. On my way hither, 
 breakfasting at Strasburg, I enjoyed a 
 lesson in geography, and I aver that 
 though the lesson was elementary, I 
 breakfasted very badly." 
 
 "Who was the teacher?" asked the 
 explorer of Wyoming, a German, in the 
 tone of a man to whom no professor of 
 Geography could properly be a stranger. 
 
 with 
 
 "The teacher," I answered 
 smile, "was one Fortnoye — " 
 
 I did not finish my sentence. At that 
 name, Fortnoye, a kind of electric move- 
 ment was communicated around the 
 board. Every eye sought the face of 
 Francine, who, troubled and confused, 
 fell upon the cutlet placed before her and 
 cut it feverishly into flinders. Evidently 
 there was a secret thereabouts. When 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 83 
 
 coffee was on, I applied myself to satis- 
 fying the topographic doubts of my neigh- 
 bors, but the name of the geographical 
 professor was approached no more. 
 
 When dinner was over, and only two 
 stranded Belgians remained at table, 
 discussing whether the Falls of Niagara 
 plunge from the United States into Can- 
 ada, or from Canada into the United 
 States, I stole into the narrow office, be- 
 lieving I should see Francine. 
 
 She was not there, but the register was 
 
 lying on the desk. I fell to turning the 
 leaves over furiously : I felt that I was 
 on the trail of Fortnoye. I was not long 
 in amassing a quantity of discoveries. 
 Going back to the previous year, I found 
 the signature of Fortnoye in March and 
 April ; in July and September, Fortnoye 
 bound up and down the Rhine ; in the 
 depth of the winter, Monsieur Tonson- 
 Fortnoye come again ! Evidently one 
 of the most frequent guests of my delicate 
 Francine was the interpreter of Cosmos 
 
 THE CHURCHYARD LOVER. 
 
 in Strasburg, the white-bearded mystifier 
 of the champagne-cellar, the finest sing- 
 ing-voice in Epernay. 
 
 Toward ten o'clock, as I paced the 
 little grove called the Oak Wood, I saw 
 at the miniature lake four persons, who 
 were regaining the bank after trying to 
 detach the little boat moored by the 
 shore. They were just the four from our 
 social table with whom I best agreed. I 
 joined the party, and, hooking now a 
 friendly arm to the elbow of one, now 
 to that of another, I soon obtained all 
 they had to communicate on the subject 
 which occupied my mind. Each knew 
 Fortnoye intimately : the result of my 
 quadratic amounted to the following : 
 
 First. Fortnoye, educated at the Poly- 
 
 technic School in Paris, is a man of 
 grave character and profound learning. 
 
 Second. Fortnoye is a roysterer, latter- 
 ly occupied in extending the connection 
 of a champagne-house at Epernay. He 
 is a Bohemian, even a poet: he can 
 rhyme, but strictly in the interests of 
 commerce — he composes only drinking- 
 songs. 
 
 Third. Fortnoye is an exploded specu- 
 lator, dismissed from the French Board : 
 obliged to beat a retreat to Belgium, he 
 soon found himself in Baden, where he 
 had good luck at the green table shortly 
 before the war. 
 
 Fourth, and last. (This was from the 
 man of Wyoming.) Fortnoye only re- 
 treated to Belgium as a refuge for his 
 
84 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 demagogic opinions. He belongs to the 
 innermost circle of the Commune and to 
 all the French and Italian secret asso- 
 ciations. He is represented in the back- 
 ground of several of Courbet's pictures. 
 He has been everywhere : in Italy he 
 joined the society of the Mary Anne, 
 where he met the celebrated Lothair. 
 This order has a branch called 
 the Society of Pure Illumination. |||| 
 If he has liberty to return into |j I 
 France, it is because he is con- 
 nected with the detective police. 
 
 The information, extensive as 
 it was, did not altogether satisfy 
 me. I made little of the incon- 
 sistencies betrayed by the various 
 counsels of the Areopagus, but I 
 closed the whole solemnity with 
 one crucial interrogatory : "What 
 the dickens does Fortnoye come 
 prowling around Francine Joliet's 
 house for ?" 
 
 The answer was not calculated 
 to please me : "She is young and 
 attractive : Fortnoye advanced 
 the funds to set her up in the 
 house." 
 
 But my morose thoughts were 
 distracted by the scene around 
 us. The moon burst up above 
 the trees of the Oak Wood — a fine 
 ample German moon, like a Di- 
 ana of Rubens. Close to our sides 
 passed numerous young couples, 
 holding hands, clasping waists, chatter- 
 ing gayly, or walking in silence with a 
 blonde head laid on a burly shoulder. 
 One of my companions pointed out a 
 specially stalwart and graceful young 
 apprentice, whose elbow, supported on 
 a rustic bench, was bent around a mass 
 of beautiful golden hair. 
 
 "An eligible verlobter" said he. 
 
 I thought of Perrette and the tall young 
 man who had helped pull her milk-cart. 
 My friend continued: "Betrothal here- 
 abouts is a serious institution. The girl 
 who loses her verlobter becomes a widow. 
 Woe betide her if she dreams of replacing 
 him too early ! She will find herself 
 followed by ill looks and contemptuous 
 tongues : she even runs the risk of hav- 
 ing nobody to marry better than a dead 
 
 man, if we may believe the history of 
 Bettina of Ettlingen." 
 
 "The history of Bettina of Ettlingen ? 
 That sounds like the title to a ballad." 
 
 " It is a recent history, which you 
 would take for a legend of the twelfth 
 century." 
 
 I cannot help it. In face of that word 
 
 ON THE FIRST STEP. 
 
 legend my mind stops and stares rigidly 
 like a pointer dog. The moment was 
 favorable for a good story : the sky was 
 covered with flocked clouds, behind 
 which the ample German moon, shorn 
 of half its brightness, took suddenly the 
 pale gilded tint of sauerkraut. The 
 wandering lovers, half effaced in the 
 gloom, looked like straying shades in 
 an Elysium. 
 
 " Ettlingen is between Carlsruhe and 
 Rastadt, an hour's walking as you go to 
 Kehl. The flowers grow there without 
 thinking about it, and sow their own 
 seed. It is therefore a simple thing to 
 be a gardener, and Bettina's father, the 
 florist, attended entirely to his pipe, 
 leaving the cares of business to his ap- 
 prentice, whose name was Nature. Bet- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 85 
 
 tin a, as became the daughter of a gar- 
 dener, was a kind of rose : Wilhelm, the 
 baker's young man, would have thrown 
 himself into the furnace for her. But 
 there came along Fritz, the dyer, who 
 had been in France and who wore 
 gloves. She continued a while to prom- 
 enade with Wilhelm under the chestnut 
 trees which surround the fortifications of 
 Ettlingen, but one night she suddenly 
 withdrew her hand : ' You had better 
 find a nicer girl than I am : I do not feel 
 that I could make you happy.' Wil- 
 helm disappeared from the country. His 
 departure, which was the talk of Ettlin- 
 gen, caused Bettina more remorse than 
 regret. For six months she shut herself 
 up: then, hearing nothing of her lover, 
 
 she reappeared shyly on the promenade, 
 divested of rings, ear-drops and orna- 
 ments. The beautiful Fritz, in his love- 
 liest gloves, intercepted her beneath the 
 chestnuts, and, armed with her father's 
 consent, proposed himself for her ver- 
 lobter. 
 
 '" Not yet,' she answered : ' wait till I 
 wear my flowers again.' 
 
 " In Germany, as in Switzerland and 
 Italy, natural flowers are indispensable 
 to a young girl's toilet. To appear at 
 an assembly without a blooming tuft at 
 the corsage or in the hair is to indicate 
 that the family is in mourning, the moth- 
 er sick or the lover conscripted. 
 
 " With an exquisite natural sense, Bet- 
 tina, daughter of a gardener, would never 
 
 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AND PROFESSION OF FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 wear any flowers but wild ones. About 
 this time there was a grand fair at Dur- 
 lach : almost all Ettlingen went there, 
 and Bettina too, but as spectatress only, 
 and without her flowers. 
 
 " The dances which animated the others 
 made her sad. She left the ball and 
 wandered on the hillside. There, be- 
 neath the hedge of a sunken road, she 
 recognized her beauteous Fritz. Poor 
 Fritz ! he was refusing himself the pleas- 
 ure of the dance which he might not 
 partake with her. Ah, the time for tem- 
 porizing is over ! Bettina determines 
 that to-day, in the eyes of every one, they 
 shall dance together, and he shall be 
 recognized as her verlobter. She looks 
 hastily around for flowers. The hill is 
 bare, the road is stony : an enclosure at 
 the left offers some promise, and Bettina 
 enters. 
 
 " It was a cemetery. Animated with 
 
 her new resolve, she thought little of the 
 profanation, and crowned herself with 
 flowers from the nearest grave. In an 
 hour the villagers from Ettlingen saw 
 her leaning on Fritz's shoulder in the 
 waltz. That night the shade of Wilhelm 
 stood at her bed-head : ' You have ac- 
 cepted the flowers growing on my grave 
 and nourished from my heart. I am 
 once more your verlobter.' 
 
 " Next day Fritz came, radiant, with a 
 silver engagement-ring, which he was to 
 exchange for that on Bettina's finger, 
 returned by Wilhelm at his departure. 
 But the ring was gone. At night Wil- 
 helm reappeared, and showed the ring 
 on his finger. Some time passed, and 
 Bettina lost a good part of her beauty, 
 distracted as she was between the laugh- 
 ing Fritz in the daytime and the pale 
 Wilhelm at night. She was a sensible 
 girl, however, and persuaded herself, 
 
86 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 with Fritz's assistance, that the vision 
 was created by a disordered fancy. But 
 she caused inquiry to be made about the 
 grave in the cemetery at Durlach : the 
 answer came : ' Under the first stone 
 in the line at the right of the gate lies 
 the body of Wilhelm Haussbach of Ett- 
 lingen, where he followed the trade of 
 baker.' 
 
 "Then she knew that she had robbed 
 her lover's grave to adorn herself for a 
 new verlobter. After this the ghost of 
 Wilhelm began to invade her prome- 
 nades with Fritz, and she walked even- 
 ing* after evening beneath the chestnuts 
 between her two lovers. 
 
 "The gardener's daughter never look- 
 ed fairer than on her wedding - day. 
 Armed with all her resolution, and filled 
 with love for Fritz, she presented herself 
 at the altar. The priest began to recite 
 the sacramental words, when he came 
 to a pause at the sight of Bettina, pale 
 and wild-eyed, shivering convulsively 
 in her bridal draperies. 
 
 " Wilhelm was again at her side, kneel- 
 ing on the right, as Fritz on the left. He 
 was in bridegroom's habit, and he offer- 
 ed a bouquet of graveyard-flowers — the 
 white immortelle and the forget-me-not. 
 When Fritz rose and put the ring on 
 her finger she felt an icy hand draw the 
 token off and replace it by another. At 
 this, overcome with terror, and making 
 a wild gesture of rejection both to right 
 and left, she ran shrieking out of the 
 church. 
 
 " Such is the true and authentic story 
 of Bettina," concluded my narrator. 
 " You may see Bettina any day at Ettlin- 
 gen, a yellow old maid forty years of 
 age. Every Sunday she goes to mass 
 at Durlach, where she employs the rest 
 of the day in tending flowers on a grave, 
 the first grave in the line to the right of 
 the gateway." 
 
 I returned to the house with this grim 
 and tender little idyll crooning through 
 my brains. I took my key and bed- 
 candle, and asked the porter if a letter 
 had arrived for me from Sylvester Berk- 
 ley. Not a line ! This silence became 
 inconvenient. Not only did I rely upon 
 
 Berkley for my passport, the certificate 
 of my character, but likewise for the 
 revictualing of my purse. As I passed 
 the small throne - room of Francine, 
 where she sat vis-a-vis with all her keys 
 and bells, a light, a presence, an ami- 
 cable little nod informed me that a friend 
 was there for me, and sent a bath of 
 warm and comfortable emotion all over 
 my poor old heart. 
 
 It was late. Francine, at a little velvet 
 account - book, 
 was executing 
 some fairy-like 
 and poetical 
 arithmetic in 
 purple ink. I 
 had the pleas- 
 ure , before a 
 half hour had 
 passed, of mak- 
 ing her commit 
 more than one effusion. 
 
 error in her col- 
 umns, do violet violence to the neatness 
 of her book, and adorn her thumb-nail 
 with a comical tiny silhouette. My gossip, 
 which had this encouraging and proud 
 effect, was commenced easily upon fa- 
 miliar subjects, such as the old rose- 
 garden and the chickens, but branched 
 imperceptibly into more personal con- 
 fidences. I found myself growing 
 strangely confidential. Soon I had 
 sketched for Francine my life of opulent 
 loneliness, my cook and my old valet, 
 my philosopher's den at Marly, my neg- 
 ligent existence at Paris, without family, 
 country or obligations. 
 
 Her good gray eyes were swimming 
 with tears, I thought. With a look of 
 perfect natural sweetness she said, "To 
 live alone and far from kin and father- 
 land, that is not amusing. It is like one 
 of the small straight sticks of rose my 
 father would take and plant in the sand 
 in a far-away little red pot." 
 
 A delicious vignette, I confess, began 
 to be outlined in my fancy. I cannot 
 describe it, but I know Francine was in 
 the middle repairing a stocking, while 
 my own books and geographical notes, 
 in a state of dustlessness they had nevei 
 known actually, formed a brown bower 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 8? 
 
 around her. Somewhere near, in an 
 old secretary or in a grave, was buried 
 the ideal of an earlier, haughtier love, 
 wrapped up in a stolen ribbon or pressed 
 in a book. 
 
 She continued simply, " 1 am very 
 much alone myself. Without the visits 
 of Monsieur Fortnoye I should be dead 
 of ennui. I am so glad to find you 
 know him, monsieur!'' 
 
 This jarred upon me more than I can 
 say. I assumed, as 
 one can at my age, 
 an air of parental be- 
 nevolence, in which I 
 administered my dis- 
 satisfaction : " Fort- 
 noye is a roysterer, 
 a squanderer, a 
 wanderer and a fte- 
 troleur. At your age, 
 my child, you are 
 really imprudent." 
 
 "He is a little wild, 
 but he is young him- 
 self. And bo good, 
 so generous, so kind ! 
 I owe him every- 
 thing." 
 "On what conditions?" said I, more 
 severely perhaps than I meant. "Your 
 relations, my daughter, are not very 
 clear. Is he then your verlobter?" 
 
 She looked at me with an expression 
 of stupefaction, then buried her face in 
 her hands : " He my intended ! Has he 
 ever dreamed of such a thing ? Am I 
 not a poor flower-girl ?" 
 
 And she was sobbing through her 
 ringers. 
 
 My nights were sweet at Carlsruhe. 
 My slumber was ushered in with those 
 delicious dream-sketches that lend their 
 grace to folly. Each morning I won- 
 dered what surprise the day would ar- 
 range for me. 
 
 The little wood was hidden from my 
 window by an early fog : the birds were 
 silent. I was meditating on my singular 
 position, in pawn as it were under the 
 care of Joliet's good daughter, when I 
 heard my name pronounced at the bot- 
 tom of the stairs. It was Sylvester 
 Berkley. 
 
 P3.- 
 
 SELF-CONTROL. 
 
 The briskness of our friendships de- 
 pends on the time when — the place 
 where. To men in prison a familiar face 
 is the next thing to liberty. 
 
 Some years ago I had an absurd dis- 
 pute with a neighbor about a party-wall 
 at Passy, and was obliged to go to the 
 Palace of Justice at ten every morning 
 for a week. My forced intercourse with 
 those solemn birds in black plumage 
 had 'a singular effect on me. While 
 among them I felt as if cut off from my 
 species, and visiting with Gulliver some 
 dreadful island peopled with mere alle- 
 gories. As the time passed I grew worse : 
 I dragged myself to the Cite with horror, 
 and before returning home was always 
 obliged to wash out my brains by a short 
 stroll in Notre Dame or amongst the fine 
 glass of the Sainte Chapelle. One day, 
 pacing the pale and shuffling corridors 
 of the palace, waiting for an unpunctual 
 lawyer, and regarding the gowns and 
 caps around me with insupportable hate, 
 at the turning of a passage — oh happi- 
 ness ! — a face was revealed in the dis- 
 tance, the face of a friend, the face of 
 an old neighbor. At the bright appari- 
 tion I made an involuntary sign of joy : 
 the owner of the face seemed no less 
 pleased. We walked toward each other, 
 our hands expanded. All of a sudden 
 a doubt seemed to strike us both at the 
 same moment : he slackened his pace, 
 I slackened mine. We met : we had 
 never done so before. It was a little 
 mistake. We saluted each other slight- 
 ly and gravely, and separated once 
 more, as wise in our looks as that irre- 
 proachable hero who, after marching 
 up the hill with his men, pocketed his 
 thoughts and marched down again. 
 
 My meeting with Berkley Junior was 
 not precisely similar, but connected with 
 the same feelings and associations. I 
 dashed down four steps at a time, pre- 
 cipitated myself on him like a bird of 
 prey, and wrung his hands again and 
 again with fondest violence. 
 
 Now, up to that date my relations 
 with Sylvester Berkley had been of a 
 frigid and formal description. I had 
 met him two or three times with his 
 hearty old relation, and had borne away 
 
s$ 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 the distinct impression that he was a 
 prig. While the uncle would breakfast 
 in his tub, like Diogenes, off simple 
 bones and cutlets, Sylvester ate some 
 sort of a mash made of bruised oats : 
 while the nephew made an untenable 
 pretension to family honors, the elder 
 talked familiarly of the porcelain trade, 
 freely alluding to the youth as a piece 
 of precious Sevres that had cracked. 
 
 He met my advances with a calmness, 
 imprinted with astonishment, that re- 
 called me to myself. Against such a 
 refrigerator my heart and fancy recover- 
 ed their proper level : I had been caress- 
 ing an iceberg in a white cravat. I ex- 
 amined my emotions, and found, to my 
 shame, that my warmth had a selfish 
 origin in the fact that I was alone in 
 Carlsruhe, greatly in need of a passport 
 and a purse. 
 
 " Do you intend shortly to quit the 
 archducal seat?" asked Sylvester, by 
 way of an agreeable remark. 
 
 " I have the strongest obligations to 
 be at home," I returned. " I only await 
 your kind assistance about my pass- 
 port." 
 
 " It is expected at the office, but I fear 
 it will not be received in time for you to 
 take the next train. I fear we shall be 
 obliged to keep you with us until thirty 
 minutes past one." 
 
 He conferred on me, with his neck 
 and his hand, a salute which had the 
 effect of being made from a distant win- 
 dow. Then he departed. 
 
 To ask such a man for money was not 
 easy. I dressed myself and marched 
 in great haste to the gay quarter of the 
 town, having made up my mind to de- 
 pend on the mercies of the chief jeweler 
 and the merits of my Poitevin watch. 
 It had cost a thousand francs, and would 
 surely, after many a service rendered, 
 help me now to regain my home. 
 
 Another disappointment — not a pawn- 
 broker to be found in Carlsruhe ! I was 
 ready to look upon myself as a fixture in 
 the town, when a brilliant idea flashed 
 upon me. One of my neighbors at table 
 was transportation-agent at the railway 
 depot. What so opportune for me as a 
 credit on the railway company ? With 
 
 his recommendation my watch would 
 surely be security enough. 
 
 Delighted with the thought, and with 
 my own cleverness in originating it, I 
 made briskly for the Ettlingen Gate, be- 
 fore which the road passes. Glancing 
 at the clock on the depot, I regulated 
 first my watch by the time of the place, 
 in order that no doubt might be cast on 
 
 LOSING TIME. 
 
 its perfect regularity. I was holding it 
 in my hand, my eyes still riveted on the 
 great clock, as I stepped over the near- 
 est rails. A shout, mixed with impreca- 
 tions, was audible. My coat was seized 
 by a vigorous fist, I was rudely pushed, 
 my watch escaped, and the train from 
 Frankfort, which was just entering the 
 depot, only rendered it to my hands 
 crushed, peeled and pounded. Instead 
 of a thousand francs, my old friend would 
 hardly bring five dollars. 
 
 After such a catastrophe what remain- 
 ed for me to do ? Evidently to humble 
 my pride and beg an obolus of young 
 Berkley. I represented to myself that 
 the victory over my own false shame 
 was worth many watches, and I began 
 to compose a little speech intended for 
 his ear, in which I compared myself to 
 Dante at the convent door. 
 
 I found him in his office clasping a 
 hand-valise. "I am about to go away 
 by your train," he said, without waiting 
 for me to speak or remarking my shab- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 89 
 
 by-genteel expression of heroism. He 
 added, as he handed me a great seal- 
 ed envelope, "There is your passport. 
 Nothing imperative requires my stay 
 here : I shall accompany you, then, as 
 far as the station of Oos, and while you 
 are continuing your route toward your 
 beloved metropolis, I will go and finish 
 my leave of absence at Baden-Baden, 
 
 where I am claimed by certain condi- 
 tions of my liver." 
 
 I was so nervous and uncertain of 
 myself that this little change in the hori- 
 zon upset me completely. For the life 
 of me I could not, at that moment, and 
 at the risk of seeing him drop his bag 
 and rain its contents over the official 
 courtyard, rehearse my awkward acci- 
 
 dent and disreputable beggary. On the 
 other hand, it was much to gain a friend- 
 ly companion and pass arm-in-arm with 
 him to the ticket- office. Leaving every 
 other plan uncertain, I determined to 
 start from Carlsruhe in his diplomatic 
 shadow. 
 
 I dashed with surprising agility into the 
 house to ask for my account with Fran- 
 cine. I was about to 
 explain that I would 
 quickly settle with 
 her from Paris, when 
 the thoughtful little 
 woman anticipated 
 me. "Monsieur 
 Flemming," she 
 said, with her sweet 
 supplicating air,"you 
 left the city without 
 meaning it. If you 
 would like a little 
 advance, monsieur, 
 I am quite well sup- 
 plied just now. Dis- 
 pose of me : I shall 
 be so thankful !" 
 
 The money of 
 Fortnoye! the 
 thought was impos- 
 sible. It was impos- 
 sible to resist taking 
 her bright brown 
 head between my 
 hands and secreting 
 a kiss somewhere in 
 the laminations of 
 the artisanne cap. 
 
 " Dear infant ! I 
 shall be an unhappy 
 old fellow if I do not 
 see you again very 
 soon." 
 
 — And I was off, 
 dragged by those 
 obligations of the time-table which have 
 no tenderness toward human sentiment. 
 At one o'clock I was at the railway 
 with Sylvester. I was uncertain of my 
 plans, and the confusion of the depot 
 added nothing to the clearness inside 
 my head. Berkley advanced first to the 
 ticket - seller's window. "A first-class 
 place for Baden-Baden," said he. 
 
9° 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 XT? 
 
 tMMi 
 
 % 
 
 " How many ?" briskly asked the clerk, seeing us 
 together. 
 
 At that moment Sylvester heard a ghostly voice 
 at his ear: "You may get a couple." The voice 
 was mine. 
 
 Berkley got them and paid. I had reflected 
 that my letter of credit from Munroe & Co. would 
 undoubtedly be drawn on Baden-Baden, and had 
 suddenly taken a resolution to try the effect of the 
 springs on my unfortunate stoutness. 
 
 We got down at the Gasthaus zum Hirsch, but I 
 had already sold the ruins of my chronometer, and 
 was twenty-five francs the richer for the transaction. 
 
 I cannot call Baden-Baden a city : it is a stage. 
 It is a perpetually set scene for light opera. Ev- 
 erything seems dressed up and artificial, and meant 
 to be viewed, as it were, in the glare of the foot- 
 lights. But instead of the shepherds in white satin 
 who ought to be the performers in this ingenious 
 theatre, it is the unaccustomed stranger who is 
 forced into the position of actor. As he toils up 
 the steep and slovenly streets, faced with shabby 
 buildings that crack and blacken behind their ill- 
 adjusted fronts of stucco and distemper, he cheap- 
 ens rapidly in his own view : he feels painfully like 
 the hapless supernumerary whom he has seen 
 mounting an obvious step-ladder behind a screen 
 of rock-work on his way to a wedding rn the chapel 
 or a coronation in the Capitol. The difference is, 
 that here the permission to play his role is paid for 
 by the performer. 
 
 But I, as I sat hugging my knee in the hotel bed- 
 room, was possessed by loftier feelings. If there is 
 one faculty which I can fairly extol in myself, it is 
 that of displaying true sentiment in false situations. 
 My thoughts, with incredible agility, went back to 
 Francine. A knock came at the door, and my 
 emotions received a chill : my visitor could be 
 none but Berkley, in whose face I should see a 
 reminder that I owed him for my car-fare. 
 
 In place of frigid politeness, however, the diplo- 
 matist wore all that he knew of good-fellowship 
 and Bohemianism. He was now clad in tourists' 
 plaid, and stood upon soles half an inch thick — a 
 true Englishman on his travels. 
 
 "Come, old boy!" — old boy, indeed! — "you must 
 taste the pleasures of Baden- Baden : it is but four 
 o'clock, and we can see the Trinkhalle, the Conver- 
 sations- Haus, and plenty besides before dinner. Is 
 there any place in particular where you would like 
 to go ?" 
 
 I looked solemnly at him. "I would fain visit the Alt-Schloss," I said. 
 
 "With all my heart!" replied Sylvester, tapping his legs and admiring his boots. 
 This unpromising comrade was wearing better than I expected. 
 
 1* ' ; 
 
 \ 
 
 THE WOOD-PATH. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 SCENE OF MA TTHISSON'S POEM IMITATING GRAY'S " ELEGY. 
 
 "Shall we have a carriage?" he pur- 
 sued. At this question my face con- 
 tracted as by the effect of a nervous 
 attack. I thought of the few pence I 
 possessed. I assumed the determined 
 pedestrian. 
 
 " For shame !" I cried : " it is but three 
 miles. Where are your tourist muscles ? 
 I should like to walk." 
 
 "Nothing simpler," said the man of 
 facile views : "we shall do it within the 
 hour." 
 
 I breathed again. 
 
 WINE OK BEEK 
 
 We set off. We 
 had before us 
 cliffs and hills, 
 with small 
 Gothic towers 
 printed on the 
 blue of the sky ; 
 but the moun- 
 tain - path be- 
 neath our steps 
 was sanded, 
 graveled, pack- 
 ed, rolled, weed- 
 ed, and pro- 
 vided with co- 
 quettish sofas at 
 
 every hundred steps. I, who happened 
 that afternoon to feel the emotions of 
 Manfred, would gladly have exchanged 
 these detestable conveniences for preci- 
 pices, storms and eagles. 
 
 "How ridiculous," I said with a little 
 temper, "to go to a ruin by way of the 
 boulevards !" 
 
 "Ah," said my companion of com- 
 plaisant manners, "you like Nature ? It 
 is but the choosing." 
 
 And Berkley, perfectly acquainted 
 with the locality, directed our steps into 
 a narrow path hardly traced through the 
 woods. Here at least were flowers and 
 grass and sylvan shadows. No sooner 
 did I smell the balm of the pine trees 
 than my heart resigned itself, with ex- 
 quisite indecision, to the thoughts of 
 Francine Joliet and the memories of 
 Mary Ashburton. I glanced at Berk- 
 ley : he seemed, in Scotch clothes, a 
 little less impenetrable than he had 
 appeared in white cravat and dress- 
 gloves. I cannot restrain my confi- 
 dences when a man is near me : I but- 
 tonholed Sylvester, and I made the 
 plunge. " I used to talk of the Alt- 
 
9 2 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 with one whom 
 
 ith my late 
 
 Schloss," I murmured, 
 I have lost." 
 
 "Ah, I comprehend 
 uncle, perhaps." 
 
 "No, sir, not with any cynic in a tub, 
 but with a maiden in her flower. It was 
 one of the best points I made with Miss 
 Ashburton." 
 
 "The Alt-Schloss is 
 indeed a picturesque 
 construction," said the 
 diplomate, by way of 
 generally inviting my 
 confidence. 
 
 "We were convers- 
 ing about the poems 
 of Salis and Matthis- 
 son," I pursued. "I 
 had in my pocket a 
 little translation of 
 Salis's song entitled 
 'The Silent Land,' 
 and endeavored to 
 bend the dialogue 
 in a suitable direc- 
 tion, but these allu- 
 sions are incredibly 
 hard to introduce in 
 conversation, and we 
 happened to stray 
 upon Baden-Baden. 
 I asked Miss Ashbur- 
 ton if she had been 
 here, and she answer- 
 ed, ' Yes, the last sum- 
 mer.' 'And you have 
 not forgotten ?' I sug- 
 gested — 'The old 
 castle,' she rejoined. 
 ' Of course not. What 
 a magnificent ruin it 
 is!'" 
 
 "What tact your 
 friend displayed," 
 said Berkley, "to feign utter unconscious- 
 ness of the green tables, and see nothing 
 but ruins in Baden-Baden !" 
 
 " Permit me to say," I replied quickly, 
 "that it is not agreeable to me to have 
 that lady alluded to, however distantly, 
 in connection with gambling - tables. 
 The Ashburtons had been probably 
 drinking the waters, for her mother 
 was noticeably stout and florid. But to 
 
 continue with the poets. I explained to 
 her that the ruins of the Alt-Schloss had 
 suggested to Matthisson a poem in im- 
 itation of an English masterpiece. Mat- 
 thisson made a study of Gray's ' Elegy,' 
 and from it produced his ' Elegy on the 
 Ruins of an Ancient Castle.' Miss Ash- 
 
 ENTKANCE TO THE ALT-SCHLOSS. 
 
 burton became nationally enthusiastic, 
 and said she should like very much to 
 see the poem. Her wish was usually 
 my law, but the translation of the other 
 song being in my pocket, I was obliged 
 to palm it off upon her ; and after con- 
 ceding that Matthisson had written his 
 'Elegy' with unwonted inspiration, I 
 sailed in upon that tide of feeling — with 
 a slight inconsequence, to be sure — and 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 93 
 
 declaimed my version from Salis. Miss 
 Ashburton, sir, was obliged to turn away 
 to hide her tears." 
 
 " I used to hear from my uncle of your 
 attachment," said Sylvester, with his po- 
 litest air of condolence, "and I assure 
 you my opinion ever has been that your 
 feelings did you honor. Nothing, in my 
 view, is so becoming to gray hairs and 
 the evening of life as fidelity to a first 
 passion." 
 
 "Lord forgive you, Berkley!" I ex- 
 claimed, startled out of all self-posses- 
 sion by his impertinence. "What on 
 earth do you mean ? You are complete- 
 ly ignorant of what you are talking 
 about. I have hardly any gray hairs, 
 and some excellent constitutions are 
 gray at thirty. You are partly bald 
 yourself: I know it from the way you 
 turn up your love-locks. And it was 
 not Miss Ashburton I was talking about. 
 That is, if I did 
 derive my reminis- 
 cences from her, it 
 was with an object 
 of a very different 
 character at the 
 end of the perspec- 
 tive. I have adopt- 
 ed other views ; 
 that is, I have late- 
 ly had presented to 
 
 KELLNER 
 
 my mind — " 
 
 With these rhe- 
 torical somersaults, like the flappings 
 of a carp upon the straw, did I express 
 the mental distractions I was suffering 
 from, and the tugs at my heart respect- 
 ively administered by Francine's cap- 
 strings and Mary Ashburton's shadowy 
 tresses. Berkley, diplomatically approv- 
 ing the landscape before us, would not 
 get angry, would not be insulted, and 
 offered no prise to my difficult temper. 
 
 "Tell me now, Sylvester," said I after 
 a few minutes' silence. " You are young, 
 yet you have seen the world. What is 
 the best refuge, in your view, for a man 
 of delicate sentiments and of ripe age ? 
 Would you recommend such a person 
 to shut himself up for ever in a hermit- 
 age of musty books, and to flirt there 
 eternally with the memories of his young 
 
 loves, who are become corpulent ma- 
 trons or angular maids ? Or, don't you 
 think, now, that an autumnal attach- 
 ment — provided some sweet and healthy 
 intelligence comes in contact with his 
 own — is a capital thing in its way ? The 
 crackling fireside instead of the lovers' 
 walk ? The perfection of rational com- 
 fort subservient to, rather than domina- 
 ting, his early dreams ? Respectful af- 
 fection, fidelity and fondest care as the 
 conditions surrounding one's character, 
 and upholding it in its best symmetry ? 
 Cannot the poet think better if his body 
 is kept snug ? Cannot the man of feel- 
 ing remember better if his slippers are 
 toasted and his buttons sewed ? In fact, 
 is not one's faith to a beloved ideal best 
 shown by acquiring a fresh standing- 
 point to see it from ?" 
 
 "No doubt Hamlet's mother thought 
 so," said Sylvester rather brutally, "and 
 married King Claudius solely to bright- 
 en her ideal of her first husband." A 
 more appropriate remark, it seemed to 
 me, might have been found to chime in 
 with my speculations. " But here," pur- 
 sued the statesman, compromisingly, 
 "are old memories protected by modern 
 conveniences. Here is the ' Repose of 
 Sophie.' " 
 
 We had mounted a terrace from whose 
 eminence the whole spread of the valley 
 was visible. Profanation ! No sooner 
 had we attained the plateau than a cov- 
 ered gallery appeared, and a Teutonic 
 voice was heard with the familiar in- 
 quiry, "Will the gentlemen take wine 
 or beer ?" 
 
 Was ever a man of delicacy and feel- 
 ing so ruthlessly treated as I ? To be 
 tempted by circumstances into pouring 
 out one's most intimate confessions to an 
 icy person to whom one owes money, and 
 then to have even this imperfect con- 
 fidence interrupted by a tavern-waiter 
 in an apron ! Miserable hireling ! give 
 us solitude and meditation, not beer ! 
 
 Flying the "Repose of Sophie " with- 
 out the concession of a glance, we 
 mounted toward the ancient castle, 
 whose ruins seemed ready to roll on us 
 down the hillside. It was indeed ro- 
 mantic. The wind, in plaintive, melo- 
 
94 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 dious tones, searched our ears as it came 
 perfumed from the tufted walls, We 
 penetrated through a scene of high and 
 mossy rocks, bound in the lean embrace 
 of knotted ivy, and finally by a dis- 
 mantled postern we intruded into the 
 castle. Sacrilege again ! The stone- 
 masons were tranquilly working here 
 and there, solidifying old ruins and very 
 probably fabricating new ones. The 
 wind, whose sighing we had admired, 
 was the cat-like harmony of the seolian 
 harps : these harps were artlessly stretch- 
 ed across each of the old vaulted win- 
 dows. We arrived at the high portal of 
 the ancient manor, a genuine Roman 
 construction of Aurelius Aquensis — a 
 gateway with a round arch : it was ob- 
 structed by hired cabs, by whole herds of 
 venal donkeys saddled and bridled, and 
 by holiday-makers of Baden in Sunday 
 clothes preserved for ten or fifteen years. 
 The old pile itself is transformed into a 
 hostelry. Gray was wrong : the paths 
 of glory lead not to the grave, but to the 
 gasthaus ; and Matthisson could have 
 imitated the "Elegy" about as well in 
 the gaming-hall as among these rejuve- 
 nated ruins. 
 
 The modern idea of a wood is a grav- 
 eled chess-board on a large scale, flood- 
 ed at night with gas : the modern idea 
 of a ruin is a dancing-floor, with a few 
 patched arches and walls lifted between 
 the wind and our nobility. We shave 
 the weeds away and produce a fine Eng- 
 lish turf : we root up the brambles and 
 eglantines which might tear the skirts 
 of the ladies. Our lovers, our poets and 
 romancers must fly to distant glades if 
 they would not walk in the shade of 
 trees that have been transplanted. 
 
 I was considering the sorry triumph 
 of the stage-machinists of Baden-Baden, 
 when Berkley, who had disappeared, 
 came in sight again. Our dinner, he said, 
 was ready — ready in the guards' hall. 
 I retreated with a sudden cry of alarm. 
 I had rather dine at the hotel; I had 
 rather not dine at all ; I was not in the 
 least hungry. It was the emptiness of 
 my pocket that caused this sudden full- 
 ness of the stomach. Berkley made 
 light of my objections. 
 
 " Listen ! You can hear from this 
 mountain the dinner-bells of the city. 
 We should arrive too late. Although 
 you hate restored castles, you need not 
 refuse to dine with me in one." 
 
 The noble hall was a scene of vulgar 
 festivity, where the ubiquitous kellner, 
 
 TYROLEAN. 
 
 racing to and fro with beer and plates 
 of sausage, solved the problem of per- 
 petual motion. It was not easy, in such 
 circumstances, to maintain the flow of 
 poetic association, but I accomplished 
 the feat in a measure. As the shades 
 of evening closed around the hill, and 
 the bells of twenty dining-tables ascend- 
 ed to us through the still air, I thought 
 of Gray's curfew — of that glimmering 
 Stoke-Pogis landscape that faded into 
 immortality on his sight. I thought of 
 Matthisson's " Elegy " on this forlorn old 
 dandy of a castle. I thought of the 
 sympathetic chest-notes with which I 
 read to Mary Ashburton the " Song of 
 the Silent Land." 
 
 I thought of Francine, and of the 
 condition of base terror I was in when 
 I ran away from her with the man who 
 momentarily represented my solvency, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 95 
 
 my credit and my respectability. May 
 the foul fiend catch me, sweet vision, if 
 I do not find thee soon again ! A Ty- 
 rolean, who entered by stealth, persuaded 
 a heart-rending lamentation to issue from 
 his wooden trumpet : although the acid 
 sounds proceeding from this terrible 
 whistle set my teeth on edge and caused 
 me at first to start off my seat, yet I re- 
 warded him with such a competency in 
 copper as made his eyes emerge from 
 his face. A singing - girl and some 
 blonde bouquet-sellers had equal cause 
 to rejoice in my generosity. It is when 
 a gentleman is landed finally on his cop- 
 pers that he becomes penny-liberal. I 
 
 glanced defiance at Berkley, my creditor, 
 as I showered largess on these humble 
 poets. 
 
 We descended under the stars, and I 
 began to think that illuminated gravel- 
 roads were, at night, susceptible of some 
 apology. We returned to the city by 
 easy stages, with a halt at the " Repose 
 of Sophie." At the hotel there was 
 given me, re-directed in the pretty hand 
 of Francine, an unlimited credit from 
 Munroe & Co. on the house of Meyer in 
 Baden-Baden. I was a freeman once 
 
zp.a.:r,t tii. 
 
 THE SEDUCTIONS OF BADEN-BADEN. 
 
 THE ANCIENTS AND THE NEWS. 
 
 THE supreme delight we take in be- 
 ing racked, tortured and suspended 
 over chasms by the fickle tenure of a 
 rotten plank is one of the most unselfish 
 traits of human nature. For my part, I 
 have never been so happy as when held, 
 by the strong power of imagination, 
 right over the depths of a mediaeval 
 oubliette, at the bottom of which the 
 roaring of the sea or of a brace of gor- 
 96 
 
 mandizing lions was distinctly audible. 
 The first question asked by Paul Flem- 
 ming of the baron of Hohenfels, when 
 at Heidelberg, was one about that tra- 
 dition of the castle according to which 
 Louis le Debonnaire was frightened by 
 an apparition of Satan and the Virgin 
 into delivering up his brother Frederick 
 to the two Black Knights representing 
 the Vehm-Gericht. "Ha! that is grand," 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 97 
 
 I said, inexpressibly refreshed with the 
 allusion to the thrilling Vehm - Gericht. 
 "Tell me the whole story quickly, for 
 
 ELICITING TRUTH. 
 
 1 am curious as a child." Ah ! that 
 indispensable Vehmic Council — true 
 grammar-school in which the genius of 
 Radcliffe and Ainsworth was formed — 
 was there ever a contrivance so admira- 
 bly adapted for pleasantly crisping the 
 scalp and icing the veins ! I am not 
 ashamed to say that even in these latter 
 years of mine there are certain stormy 
 evenings when I draw forth the coals 
 over the hearth, practice my geomancy, 
 lock out all interlopers, and invoke the 
 powerful Wizard of the North. He 
 plunges me into a dream that is the 
 very acme of sweet terror : a voluptuous 
 swimming sensation overcomes me as 
 my bed, in whose integrity I should else- 
 where have perfect faith, sinks down, 
 down, down, fathoms deep. The damps 
 of dungeons are around me : around me 
 also are black and awful forms, from 
 one of which a solemn voice proceeds, 
 asking if I know where I am. I am 
 drilled in my lesson : " I believe that I 
 am before the Unknown or Secret Tri- 
 bunal called the Vehm-Gericht." 
 "Then are you aware," answers the 
 7 
 
 judge, "that you would be safer if you 
 were suspended by the hair over the 
 abyss of Schaffhausen ?" 
 
 I enjoy it immensely, for I have 
 recognized the voice, slightly broken 
 with inward laughter, of the Wizard 
 himself. 1 know perfectly well that 
 he cannot afford to lose a hero in the 
 very middle of the second volume, 
 and I know, too, that he is a dear 
 old hypocrite of a mediaeval, with a 
 mask of terror and a heart of butter. 
 "Now, by my halidom !" says the 
 great Vehmic Wizard in his finest 
 chest tones, "mockest thou me, caitiff? 
 Off with him, then, to the profoundest 
 bastiles of Breisach !" 
 
 And there I am, on a sheaf of fresh 
 theatrical straw, with a bottomless 
 pit in the floor, in which I can see the 
 subterranean scene-shifters. And my 
 name is not Paul Flemming, but Ar- 
 thur Philipson, and I hear footsteps. 
 They come, they come, the murder- 
 ers ! O Lady of Mercy ! and O gra- 
 cious Heaven ! forgive my transgres- 
 sions 
 proach, 
 muslin, 
 
 these things be ?" I cry fatuously; "and 
 has she really the powers of an element- 
 ary spirit?" And she, taking my hand, 
 wafts me forth, as blissfully and easily 
 as would a morning dream, into the day- 
 light. 
 
 " I knew she was coming," observes 
 the Wizard at 
 my elbow, 
 "and that was 
 the reason I 
 dumped you 
 there." 
 
 When, how- 
 ever, I exam- 
 ined the un- 
 derground 
 portions of the 
 Neues Schloss 
 at Baden-Ba- 
 den, J found 
 the relics re- 
 maining there endued with a ferocious 
 realism that took away my confidence. 
 Sylvester Berkley in evening-dress — 
 
 ! And when the footsteps ap- 
 there, robed in angelic white 
 is Anne of Geierstein. "Can 
 
 KNOW THYSELF 
 
9 8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 for he had some people to meet at din- 
 ner — myself in my garden-cap, and a 
 guide with a torch, committed ourselves 
 to the exploration. We had hurriedly 
 got over the examination of the palace 
 for the sake of these famous sub-con- 
 structions. Tis there, they say, in the 
 Middle Ages sat the terrible Vigilance 
 Committee called Vehmic, formerly the 
 terror of Europe, and more recently the 
 cause of many a melodrama and opera. 
 
 We descended innumerable steps, 
 formed of slabs of rock scarcely con- 
 nected together, and worn by the steps 
 of ages. Tottering or sliding under our 
 feet, they threatened death for the least 
 false balance. Relieved of this peril, we 
 passed through ten vaults, each more 
 sepulchral than the other. 
 
 A door, made of a single stone, pre- 
 sented itself. After long efforts the stiff 
 portal opened — not by means of a key, 
 but of powerful levers which we ourselves 
 helped to move. 
 
 We were in the grand chamber of the 
 Secret Tribunal. The form of the seats 
 from which the judges spoke was still 
 visible on some of the stones that rose 
 out of the ground. After a silent exam- 
 ination, followed by a procession through 
 numerous corridors, we were suddenly 
 ushered into a large hall, more forbid- 
 ding than all the rest. Bolts of iron, 
 chains and rusty clamps adorned the 
 blackened and slimy walls. "This is 
 the inquisition-chamber," said the guide 
 solemnly, moving his torch along the 
 stones still spotted with blood : " here the 
 victims, placed on the rack, were tor- 
 tured with the pincers, their foreheads 
 
 " WHEN WE SHALL MEET AT COMPT." 
 
 compressed by a constantly narrowing 
 band of iron, and their feet set on a fur- 
 nace." 
 
 I fairly choked in such an atmosphere, 
 and at the presence of these visible, pal- 
 pable irons rusted with blood, a cold per- 
 spiration stood out on my forehead. I 
 looked at Sylvester. Smiling, white-cra- 
 vatted, he was kissing the pommel of his 
 cane. 
 
 "You are good-natured," he said, "to 
 devote so much valuable emotion to such 
 a small affair." 
 
 "A small affair!" repeated I, pointing 
 to the tortures. 
 
 "In former times," he answered with 
 the most perfect self-possession, "when 
 enemies invaded the country, these big 
 cellars were used to fold the sheep and 
 oxen, as well as those less valuable beasts 
 of burden, the women. You see the 
 chains and fastenings for the cows. Up 
 
 ROMAN CAPTIVES DELIVERED TO THE VANDAL. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 99 
 
 to this point, dear Mr. Flemming, I have 
 not contradicted your errors — you seem- 
 ed to feel a need for a Vehmic Council, 
 and I indulged you — but now that it has 
 brought out the perspiration over your 
 temples and nose, thus including you 
 
 among the tortured, I suppress it. No 
 Vehmic Council ever sat here." 
 
 Even painful feelings are sometimes 
 not without their sweetness. I felt like 
 keeping mine. I observed that the mag- 
 nitude of these terrible halls witnessed 
 
 that they were constructed for some awful 
 purpose. The guide, furnished only with 
 the name and definition of each room, 
 declined to take part in the discussion. 
 After having made us pass over a little 
 bridge, whose gaping planks allowed a 
 damp, tomblike air to ascend to our nos- 
 trils, he turned suddenly. "The oubli- 
 ettes !" he said in his hollowest tones. 
 
 I took a stone, and let it fall through 
 a crack in the boards : it was ten seconds 
 arriving at the bottom. 
 
 I crossed my arms and looked firmly 
 at Sylvester. "Well?" I said. 
 
 "A well, certainly," he answered. 
 
 I was put out at having the word thus 
 taken from my mouth to my disadvantage. 
 
 I asked the guide if he knew no story 
 of the dark old times, with the name of 
 some illustrious victim plunged into the 
 oubliette. 
 
 He confessed to knowing, of his own 
 memory, that formerly, a long while ago, 
 when he was quite young, a little dog, 
 that had stolen in at the heels of its 
 master, had disappeared between the 
 planks of the bridge. The animal's 
 name was Love. The owner was an 
 Englishman, and therefore very rich. 
 He offered enormous bribes for the body 
 of his dog, living or dead. With the 
 dog, which was got out alive, but sneez- 
 ing, they brought up a kind of dust, half 
 white and half red, which evidently pro- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ceeded from human bones and weapons 
 reduced to rust. 
 
 I did not consider that the adventure 
 of the aforesaid Love was tabulable in a 
 class of historical events sufficiently grave 
 to allow me to make a weapon of it 
 against Sylvester. 
 
 The more I studied the character of 
 the latter, the more it puzzled me. With 
 his correctness, his measured phrases, 
 his politeness, he united a strange ob- 
 stinacy and an obvious exaggeration. 
 As we emerged from the dungeons of the 
 Neues Schloss, our discussion still pro- 
 ceeding, he combated my views with a 
 vivacity and a personal strenuousness 
 that surprised me. Here evidently was 
 no man, like Flemming, content to hold 
 his dearest opinions by a thread of fable 
 or sentiment. But the trait was hardly 
 noticed ere it was handsomely apologized 
 for. Berkley, his own accuser, com- 
 plained of a temper the reverse of dip- 
 lomatic. "My poor uncle was just so," 
 he observed, "and has been known to 
 dance on his own chinaware like a der- 
 vish. He tried cold tubs, and I am try- 
 ing whey. Every one, as Socrates ob- 
 serves, should know himself." 
 
 It appeared to me that there were 
 depths in Berkley which I had not sound- 
 ed. I took his arm and returned with 
 him to dinner. Habituated to Baden- 
 Baden, the dinner was for him a con- 
 tinual series of bows, compliments, send- 
 ing off of brimming glasses to bowing 
 and complimenting people at a distance. 
 Of two especial friends of his, one was 
 a German literary gentleman, so famous 
 that I do not venture to mention his 
 name — the other a landscape-painter. 
 
 After dining, I, for my part, discovered 
 an acquaintance, one of the disputants 
 of the table at Carlsruhe. After asking 
 for a few points, such as whether the St. 
 Lawrence River did not keep its color 
 for a long time after running into Lake 
 Superior, and whether Washington Ter- 
 ritory were not synonymous with the 
 District of Columbia, he gave me a 
 chance for a question, to hear whose an- 
 swer my ears were throbbing. I asked, 
 as indifferently as possible, after Francine 
 Joliet. 
 
 It appeared that since my departure 
 Francine did nothing but sing from morn- 
 ing till night. Exceedingly dissatisfied 
 with this reply, I turned to Sylvester, who 
 
 % 
 
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE POOR 
 
 with his friends intended to drop in at 
 the Casino of Holland, a rendezvous for 
 the archaeologists and curiosity-hunters 
 of the country. There is at the Casino 
 a library of limited numbers, but com- 
 posed exclusively of works connected 
 with the traditions of the grand duchy. 
 I found there several persons of my own 
 kidney, capital fellows, Germans of that 
 noble stomach that digests science equal- 
 ly with beer. 
 
 The next day I counted, of course, on 
 returning to Paris, but the thing was not 
 feasible. The clothes in which I stood 
 would hardly bear the journey, while my 
 funds, though unlimited in the letter 
 which I carried in my pocket, were prac- 
 tically reduced to a few coppers. To 
 change these conditions a little time was 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 For the matter of pocket-money, how- 
 ever, small change is perfectly useless at 
 Baden-Baden. Once deposited by the 
 train at the station of Oos, you become 
 a privileged subject of the proprietor. 
 He takes charge of your pleasures, treats 
 you to balls, races, hunts and concerts, 
 and will not let you pay so much as a 
 cab-driver or a washerwoman. For these. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 IOI 
 
 again, there is a formal tariff of charges, 
 regulated by city ordinance. Of those 
 wasps of the traveler's life you hear noth- 
 ing until the day of your departure, when 
 they make a feeble rattle in the hotel- 
 clerk's bill. 
 
 The persuasions of my acquaintance, 
 
 the claims of my affairs, and, above all, 
 a certain assonance and sympathy I 
 found between this sentimental watering- 
 place and my feelings, prevented my 
 immediate departure. I therefore began 
 to explore the locality. I dashed through 
 the Black Forest like the Black Hunts- 
 
 THE GALLERY OF LEGENDS. 
 
 man of Fontainebleau — in a cab, how- 
 ever. I faithfully attended the concerts. 
 I took part in the promenade — easily 
 planted in a garden-chair. I frequented 
 the Conversations-Haus. I enjoyed the 
 Casino, with its books and its maggots. 
 I even condescended to visit the reading- 
 room of good Frau Marx, where, plunged 
 into all the papers and all the reviews 
 of the day, were noses of old club-men 
 from half the countries of Europe, not to 
 speak of the frosty ones belonging to 
 German school-mistresses, who pottered 
 round the tables in impossible bonnets. 
 I became reconciled to Baden-Baden, 
 and no longer called it a theatrical dec- 
 oration. 
 
 At the Old Trinkhalle, where is found 
 the principal or father fountain, I would 
 watch Sylvester, armed with a little 
 thermometer, testing the water, which 
 has the singular faculty of burning the 
 hand, but not the lips. O simple prob- 
 lem, but too much for a diplomatist ! 
 
 Berkley drank like a dolphin, and was 
 probably the most superstitious believer 
 in all the baths. 
 
 Opposite the Old Trinkhalle is the old 
 drinking-gallery, now become the gen- 
 eral shelter for all the broken statues, all 
 the Roman potsherds, left from the an- 
 cient Aurelia Aquensis. There I saw a 
 Mercury with ass's ears, found on the 
 summit of the Stauffenberg, which owes 
 thereto its modern name of Mount Mer- 
 cury. With Berkley I visited the Stauf- 
 fenberg aforesaid, the Fremersberg and 
 many others. The old cemetery itself 
 received our visiting-card, though there 
 is no record of tourists having gone thith- 
 er before us. We were rewarded by the 
 sight of its calvary and cross, where the 
 Saviour appears life-sized, while behind 
 him, on a mountain two yards high, 
 perches an angel in the most innocently- 
 diminished perspective. At this gro- 
 tesque monument Sylvester, to my sur- 
 prise, crossed himself. Abstaining, for 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 my part, out of respect for art, if for nothing else, I 
 asked him frankly the cause of his un-English ac- 
 tion. "My views may be peculiar," said he, "but 
 as I think a diplomatist is the mediator between 
 different nations, I consider that he ought to ob- 
 serve all religious practices that are not in them- 
 selves immoral." 
 
 We next entered a little cell decorated as a chapel. 
 The walls were covered with ex voto offerings, such 
 as little twisted arms and clubbed feet, modeled in 
 plaster : small paintings of many kinds, each with 
 the story of a miraculous cure, told of the interces- 
 sion of the saints, more powerful here, it would 
 seem, than the thermal springs. In the chapel and 
 around the door were good simple peasants, men 
 and women, muttering their paternosters as they 
 knelt. Sylvester knelt with them, and like them 
 muttered a prayer. 
 
 It was after our promenade in the cemetery that 
 I bethought me of a mundane but agreeable resur- 
 rection, that of my wardrobe. I dropped Berkley, 
 with rendezvous at the New Trinkhalle, and in the 
 discreet shelter of a tailor's shop caused my old 
 scarred habit to disappear under a neat spring sur- 
 coat, with some further transformations of like cha- 
 racter. I also procured varnished shoes and a silk- 
 en hat, so strong upon me was the influence of wa- 
 tering-place vanity and the fear of hotel-stewards. 
 Making then for the Trinkhalle, I found in its vicin- 
 ity a knot of my philosophic friends from the Ca- 
 sino, together with the painter and the literary man. 
 
 Opposite the New Trinkhalle, which is not to be 
 confounded with the old one, rises an edifice in 
 the form of a classic portico, presenting a long gal- 
 lery upheld by Corinthian pillars. On the wall be- 
 tween each pair of columns is painted in fresco some 
 legend of the country, to the number of fourteen 
 pictures. One of these allegories the painter was 
 demonstrating to his friends, like a geometrical the- 
 orem, with the aid of his cane. I joined the group. 
 " It is the story of young Burkhardt Keller, a noble 
 knight. On two different evenings he met, as he 
 was riding through the forest of Kuppenheim, a 
 lady veiled in white, who sank into the ground at 
 his approach. He caused the ground to be dug up 
 in the place where she had disappeared, and found 
 there the remains of a Roman altar, then the frag- 
 ments of a statue, of which the bust alone remained j$ 
 uninjured. The features were of great beauty, and * 
 the gallant Keller would fain have had it play for 
 him the part of Galatea before Pygmalion. In the 
 
 same wood, at the hour of midnight, Keller met the veiled lady for the third time. 
 On this occasion she did not sink into the earth : leaning against the altar, she slowly 
 raised her veil. The face was that of the statue, but animated and alive. Keller 
 
 # 
 
 IBB 
 
 THE MARBLE VEIL. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ro 3 
 
 THE PAGAN ALTAR. 
 
 advanced ardently, and she opened her 
 arms. When they closed again upon 
 that perfect breast they had returned to 
 stone. Next day the youthful knight 
 
 THE CONVERTED PRE-RAPHAELITE. 
 
 was found dead at the foot of the ruined 
 altar, a pool of blood flowing from his 
 
 mouth. The veiled dame was one of 
 the devils." 
 
 We politely applauded the artist's story, 
 though I think we all knew it, and I for 
 my part had been reading it the day be- 
 fore in a volume found at Frau Marx's. 
 
 The literary man, however, showed no 
 marks of approval. " See how you have 
 spoiled," said he to the narrator, " a fable 
 bearing most pointedly on your own 
 artistic and vagabond profession. Now 
 listen to me. I have found the same 
 episode in the Chronicle of Otho of 
 Freissingen : I shall narrate it for your 
 benefit, introducing a few details from 
 that of Gunther. A good legend deserves 
 a title. I shall call it ' The Unhappy 
 Pre-Raphaelite.' It goes back as far as 
 the twelfth century. 
 
 "In the court of the margrave Herr- 
 mann, sitting contemptuously on an 
 overthrown saint in the chapel, might 
 have been seen a comely young man 
 biting the ends of his moustache with 
 vexation. ' Why has the margrave made 
 me his minister of the household and 
 of fine arts ?' he said. ' I am out of my 
 element here. We make nothing but 
 angular saints and angels in mediaeval 
 positions. They will call us purists, and 
 worship us in the future, I know very 
 well ; but I am a born romanticist. Why 
 has the school of Delacroix not arisen, 
 that I might join myself to his standard ?' 
 
 "The young man's name was Keller. 
 He had accompanied Frederick Barba- 
 
104 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 A BIT OF PRE-RAPHAELITE REALISM. 
 
 rossa on his first crusade, but, although 
 brave, he had not disemboweled a single 
 Saracen. ' The Oriental schools of 1840,' 
 said he, 'will need them all for their 
 Turkeries? He brought home with him 
 simply a raging mania for inlaid armor 
 and palm-leaf shawls. You perceive, 
 gentlemen, a veritable Decamps of the 
 Middle Ages ! Although of a meek and 
 humble spirit, he could not attend mass 
 before the hideous high altar, emblazon^- 
 ed with all the jeweled hideousness of 
 Gothic statuary. Yet he had been in 
 Rome to attend the coronation of the 
 same emperor Frederick Barbarossa ! 
 What attracted him at Rome were not 
 the processions, the pope, nor the Byzan- 
 tine frescoes in the basilicas. ' They will 
 do very well for Ruskin,' he said, ' but 
 I wish to record myself as decidedly re- 
 naissance.' So he used to sit on fallen 
 capitals and beweep the lost noses of 
 heathen deities. 
 
 "Returning home, his behavior was 
 remarked in church. Poor lover of 
 plastic beauty, simple line and artistic 
 suavity ! he was obliged to turn away his 
 eyes from the images of the saints. 
 Whatever was angular, disjointed or 
 grimacing affected him with nausea ; 
 and he used to groan when the licensed 
 sculptor of the court, who was also the 
 bellows-mender, set up a new saint with 
 flutes for legs and a high seraphic ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "The margrave Hermann loved Keller 
 like a father, having raised him from a 
 simple page. As there was some danger 
 of his being burnt for sacrilege by the 
 pure-minded and devout pre-Raphaelites 
 around him, an aristocratic match was hit 
 upon. The daughter of the provost of 
 Kuppenheim, known for the strictness 
 of her Catholicism, would lead him back 
 to a better way and to aesthetic principles 
 more safe for the preservation of human 
 life in a pious age. When Miss Kup- 
 penheim, however, was paraded from her 
 convent for his inspection, he found her 
 long-footed, goose-necked, violin-breast- 
 e d and ec- 
 static, much 
 like the statue 
 of Saint Ot- 
 tilia ; but he 
 consented to 
 visit her two 
 or three even- 
 ings in guise 
 of a suitor. 
 
 "Just at this 
 period his 
 secretary, 
 knowing him 
 curious about 
 old broken 
 china, Ro- 
 man cement 
 and such 
 things, came A subject for the bath- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 °5 
 
 to announce that the foresters, in uproot- 
 ing an oak somewhere about the pleas- 
 aunce, had uncovered a stone vault, 
 built with mortar so hard that the roots 
 had hardly succeeded in penetrating it. 
 Keller caused an opening to be made, 
 and descended with a torch. 
 " He was in a Doric chapel, in the 
 
 middle of which was a statue so beauti- 
 ful that it betrayed the chisel of Phidias. 
 "You know the collector Sauvageot 
 spent a quarter of a year in cleaning 
 with a needle the splendid purse-clasp 
 of Henri II., which was bought for three 
 francs as old iron. Keller undertook a 
 similar service for the white daughter of 
 
 TREASURES OF "LA FAVORITE. 
 
 Phidias, in removing with the point of 
 his dagger each mossy film from her 
 marble skin. When a month had slip- 
 ped away in this delightful labor, he 
 passed many further days in measuring, 
 analyzing and studying her soft perfec- 
 tions, to the complete neglect of Miss 
 Kuppenheim. 
 "Now it was not so very long since 
 
 A DANDY SKELETON. 
 
 the soldiers of the Cross, after incessant 
 struggles, had obliterated paganism in 
 Germany. Some obstinate heathens, in 
 the recesses of the Black Forest, were 
 supposed to be still attached to their 
 idols. The Vehmic tribunals were yet 
 
 daily looking out for opportunities to 
 drive back to the fold, with holy vio- 
 lence, the estrays both of politics and 
 theology. The provost of Kuppenheim 
 presided at one of these tribunals. He 
 was heard to remark that the slight put 
 upon his daughter had no influence on 
 his legislation, but that the moral eleva- 
 tion of pre-Raphaelitism must be pre- 
 served. 
 
 " The temple was one day 
 found overthrown and the 
 daughter of Phidias shatter- 
 ed. The saint-maker, possess- 
 ing himself of one of her legs, 
 observed that he could make 
 three or four out of it for the 
 new group of Saint Ursula 
 and her virgins commanded 
 by Miss Kuppenheim. It is 
 unnecessary to add that Burk- 
 hardt Keller was discovered 
 lying among the fragments, 
 pierced to the heart. The dagger was 
 his own, but on it was perceived the seal 
 of the Vehmic judges : they used to 
 hide their hand, but they signed their 
 works." 
 
 We received with suitable edification 
 
io6 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 this history of an early martyr for the 
 Renaissance. Sylvester Berkley emerged 
 from the Trinkhalle, his last drop. of 
 whey on his lips, at the moment when 
 the literary gentleman was bringing in 
 his Vehmic judges. I took care not to 
 interrupt him, but at the moment of his 
 conclusion I said: "So the Vehmic trib- 
 unal has held its sessions in this region ? 
 They occupied, then, the subterranean 
 chambers of the New Castle, since, un- 
 der the presidency of one Kuppenheim, 
 provost of Baden, they could pronounce 
 and execute sentence upon Burkhardt 
 Keller?" 
 
 I regarded Sylvester sarcastically as I 
 delivered this crusher. I supposed him 
 annihilated. Berkley considered a few 
 seconds ; then, with a parliamentary 
 gesture, addressing the others rather than 
 myself, he poured forth a little history 
 of the Vehmic institution from its foun- 
 dation by Charlemagne, so lucid, rapid, 
 fluent and bright that Clio in person 
 could not have acquitted herself better. 
 These courts, to believe him, had render- 
 ed in their time a service to religion as 
 great as that of the Inquisition, which 
 he praised in passing as having saved 
 Spain and Italy from the bloody relig- 
 ious wars which raged contemporane- 
 ously in France, England and the Neth- 
 erlands. The Vehmic judges, especially 
 powerful in Westphalia, had successively 
 fixed themselves in Frankfort, in Rastadt 
 and in Baden. But they had never sat 
 in the cellars of the Neues Schloss : he 
 would answer for it. 
 
 To my profound surprise, the savants 
 of the Casino were of his opinion, and 
 even the author sustained him. To such 
 a vacillating condition does a course of 
 drinking at a fashionable watering-place 
 bring a man's backbone ! 
 
 Another picture in the Gallery of 
 Legends helped to re-establish me after 
 this humiliation. 
 
 A dispute sprang up about the powers 
 of the natural springs taken as a bath. 
 Sylvester, a headlong bather and a will- 
 ing orator, pronounced a discourse in 
 their favor. I opposed him, armed with 
 complete ignorance of the subject, and 
 adorning my arguments with botanical 
 
 flowers derived from my small study of 
 simples. 
 
 "Mr. Flemming," said Berkley, con- 
 cealing a smile, "you, in this age when 
 
 A FRIEND IN CHURCH. 
 
 legends are receiving their eternal qui- 
 etus, remain one of the faithful. For 
 you a story has only to be wild and im- 
 probable to receive the most ardent sup- 
 port. I will argue with you simply by 
 means of another painting in yonder gal- 
 lery." And, borrowing the artist's cane, 
 he pointed to the picture of the Baldreit. 
 This was the name of one of the most 
 celebrated old hotels near Baden-Baden. 
 Cured at the spring, an ancient prince 
 of the Palatinate leaped up early one 
 morning, leaving his gout behind him in 
 the wash-basin. He ordered a horse 
 and pranced about the courtyard in his 
 joy, awakening landlord, ostlers and 
 servants with his din. Waving his hand 
 to them, the prince said : " See how soon 
 I can ride." But the noise was such that 
 "soon ride" were the only words they 
 could hear, and "soon ride" remained 
 the sign of the house. In the fresco, 
 animated and blithe, he leaps to the sad- 
 dle, while the landlord thrusts his night- 
 cap from a window, the chambermaid 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 107 
 
 lifts her arms to Heaven, the servants 
 stare, the knight's "nurse curses in the 
 pantry, and everything is in extremity." 
 My answer was ready. "What is the 
 picture about?" I asked of Sylvester. 
 "The palatine comes to Baden with a 
 
 HERCULES-CUPID. 
 
 palsy, and is instantly cured. Why, then, 
 as the painting shows you, it is a special 
 miracle, a fact without precedent. By 
 their surprise, amounting to terror, yon- 
 der Boniface and servants testify that 
 they have never seen or heard of such a 
 thing. It is, then, not the habit of the 
 water, but the exception, that is com- 
 memorated by the artist — " 
 
 " Herr Goetzenberger," put in the land- 
 scape-painter. 
 
 "Mr. Goetzenberger's picture is the 
 only one in the gallery of which the pro- 
 gramme conceals the date and hero's 
 name. The plumed hat and the yellow 
 boots he puts on his knight indicate the 
 thirteenth or fourteenth century for the 
 miracle. Be assured it has never hap- 
 pened since." 
 
 I got the laughs that time, and Berkley 
 had an aspect decorously diabolical. 
 
 Meanwhile — such an enigma is the 
 heart of man — I felt less and less like 
 returning home. My imperious longings 
 to depart were strangely mitigated when 
 I held in my hand the key of deliverance. 
 
 With the' first application I made to 
 Meyer on the strength of my letter of 
 credit I felt the swelling need of dis- 
 porting a day or two on the strength of 
 my funds, away from the chains of home 
 and the tyranny of my faithful Charles 
 and Josephine. To increase the con- 
 geniality of my surroundings, I found 
 myself in a perfect saturation of legend- 
 ary romance. I could hardly put my 
 head out of window but a poem or a 
 fable was unerringly darted at me, like 
 the bouquets with barbed pins which are 
 shot at you by the flower-girls of Naples. 
 If I examined some faded print in a 
 bookseller's window, and idly wondered 
 who might be the hero of that triumphal 
 entry or civic reception, an obliging 
 Teutonic voice was ready at my ear : 
 "It is the return of the margrave Lud- 
 wig-Wilhelm to Baden-Baden, sir, after 
 conquering the Turks. What do they 
 think of our hero in your country, sir?" 
 the voice would add. 
 
 "He is highly esteemed," was the 
 necessary reply, upon which I would fly 
 like a scared child to the good Frau 
 Marx or to the Casino of Holland for 
 the purpose of mending the deplorable 
 ignorance from which, in company with 
 my good fellow-countrymen, I suffered 
 in regard to this particular immortal. 
 
 The snare thus laid, it was impossible 
 to get rid of the heroic warrior, who stuck 
 to me like birdlime. The library of the 
 
 EXTRAVAGANCE. 
 
io8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Casino informed me that he was brought 
 up like a girl, after the precedent of 
 Achilles at Scyros, his mother having 
 exacted solemn oaths from his tutors 
 that never a weapon should touch his 
 hands. One day the unfeminine girl 
 kissed her governess like a trooper, and 
 then leaped from the 
 window to box with the 
 porters in the court- 
 yard. Become mar- 
 grave of Baden, Lud- 
 wig made twenty -six 
 campaigns, conduct- 
 ed twenty-five sieges, 
 appeared in forty 
 fights, shared with IfaS^pS? 
 John Sobieski the glory 
 of delivering Vienna 
 from the Turks, and 
 died peaceably in bed. 
 A few hours after it 
 would be the tomb. 
 .Here, having unwit- 
 tingly strayed into the 
 collegiate church of 
 Baden - Baden, I was 
 fascinated for an hour 
 by the allegories piled 
 up in honor of this 
 same Ludwig-Wilhelm 
 by Pigalle, and the 
 pompous Latin in 
 which his glories were 
 celebrated : Atlas Ger- 
 manics — Imperii pro- 
 tector — Hostium ter- 
 ror — Injidelium debel- 
 lator — Quoad vixit, 
 semper vicit, nunquam 
 v ictus. O illimitable 
 glories of this world ! how small a part 
 of its geography do you really cover ! 
 
 It was from the tomb of Ludwig that 
 I was excavated by a waiter from the 
 hotel, who had been sent out by Sylves- 
 ter to search until he found me. There 
 was project of an excursion to Eberstein- 
 burg, La Favorite. Every tourist visits 
 the Favorite, a mile from Baden-Baden, 
 and it harmonized well enough with my 
 thoughts of the instant, for it was built in 
 1725 by the margravine Sibylle-Auguste, 
 Ludwig-Wilhelm's eccentric spouse. 
 
 In approaching the favorite residence 
 of Ludwig's widow, kept intact, in furni- 
 ture and upholstery, since her death 
 about 1733, I assumed my behavior of 
 propriety : my head bent, my nose in 
 my hat, I prepared to enter a palace 
 which was in some sort a mausoleum. 
 
 THE CELES 
 
 What I actually found was an endless 
 curiosity-shop. The shelves were stuffed 
 with Venice glasses, Bohemian crystal, 
 hard-paste, soft-paste, Chinese crackle 
 and Limoges enamels. The glass cases 
 were filled with carved rock-crystal and 
 jade. Similar baubles were accumulated 
 on the walls, the cornices, the chimney- 
 pieces and the stoves. 
 
 Berkley > my cicerone, had told me 
 that I should find the portrait of my 
 hero Ludwig, and even under several 
 different types. I passed rapidly over 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 109 
 
 THE UNWILLING LISTENER. 
 
 the faience and majolica, searching eager- 
 ly for that warrior ; for, in my opinion, 
 there is no historical document equal to 
 the simple physiognomy of the individual 
 faithfully copied without flattery by an 
 artist. Lost among the memorial gim- 
 cracks, I failed to find a likeness of the 
 margrave, and consulted in despair a 
 multitude of miniatures representing a 
 whole nation of women. 
 
 Among these ladies some v/ere in court 
 costume, some in mourning robes, the 
 majority in many different travesties, as 
 of gypsies, dancers or jugglers with 
 pointed caps or fanciful turbans. On a 
 closer examination, all these faces had a 
 look of relationship, an air of resem- 
 blance. I had in fact under my eyes, in 
 this extravagant German seraglio, a sin- 
 gle woman, the margravine Sibylle-Au- 
 guste, nun, odalisque, marchioness or 
 witch at pleasure ! 
 
 Berkley, who joined me, showed me a 
 series opposite, representing a good, vul- 
 gar, burgher's face adorned with as great 
 a variety of costumes as its neighbor's. 
 This good burgher, unfortunately for 
 himself, was the dashing hero, the Turk- 
 slayer, Ludwig-Wilhelm himself! 
 
 There were seventy-two margravines, 
 seventy-two margraves — in all, one hun- 
 dred and forty-four portraits from two 
 models. How the ghost of Ludwig must 
 have haunted the painter who seventy- 
 two times slandered him ! 
 
 Was the extraordinary Sibylle a luna- 
 tic, a poetess .or a saint ? We visited 
 next the cell of the same princess, con- 
 structed in a corner of her park. Here, 
 during every Lent, she repented of her 
 sins for the year, sleeping on earth and 
 straw, causing her maids to flagellate 
 her with leaded thongs, and dining in 
 company with waxen statues of the Vir- 
 gin and Saint Joseph. Easter arrived, 
 she flung her nun's cap up the chimney, 
 and began again those orgies prolonged 
 till daylight which were the scandal of 
 the land. 
 
 But it is the country of lady eccentrics. 
 What tourist has not had pointed out to 
 him, but a few years back, the extraor- 
 dinary concurrence of female celebrities 
 gathered around the green tables of 
 Baden-Baden ? A woman now playing 
 the violin is far from an every-day spec- 
 tacle. A nun stroking the same instru- 
 ment is, one would say, a still rarer sight. 
 Yet that was what was seen formerly at 
 the convent of Lichtenthal. At present 
 you do not see the pious fiddlers, but you 
 hear them still. 
 
 Soothing my homeward-yearning con- 
 science by the assurance that I had some 
 very important notes to take on the history 
 of Ludwig-Wilhelm, I went for one last 
 time to the Casino of Holland. When I 
 observed neatly tacked upon the door 
 the legend, "Shut on account of Sun- 
 day," I remembered what day it was. I 
 then followed one of the prettiest Sab- 
 bath promenades of Baden-Baden by 
 strolling over the pleasant walk to Licht- 
 enthal. 
 
 The little church of the Augustine 
 nuns at Lichtenthal was founded in the 
 thirteenth century by the widow of Mar- 
 grave Hermann V. It still retains the 
 fine Byzantine Madonna which once 
 marched to the door and offered the 
 keys in heavenly sarcasm to a band of 
 marauders. On either side of the altar 
 I saw the glass cases in which are pre- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 served the bones of Saint Pius and Saint 
 Benedict. Better-dressed skeletons are 
 seldom met in mortuary circles. Collars 
 of lace, rosettes of velvet and pearl on 
 each rib, on the bald ivory skulls rich 
 caps in plumes — they are altogether what 
 
 Victor Hugo has well called "troubadour 
 skeletons." 
 
 Another singularity struck me. Twen- 
 ty minutes before the mass the candles 
 were blazing on the altar, and the sounds 
 of distant music, like heavenly viols, 
 
 NUN VIOLINISTS. 
 
 seemed to celebrate aerially a service 
 that was invisible to the eye. Probably 
 the Sisters, in their cloister, were tuning 
 their violins. The congregation, not yet 
 diluted with the throngs of curious travel- 
 ers who attend later in the season, was 
 completly German, silent and absorbed. 
 Not far from me I recognized, seated in 
 his stall, one of my savants of the Casino : 
 he was a fine little gentleman, asthmatic 
 and short-stemmed. On his right was 
 a villager, or perhaps my friend's servant, 
 mumbling over his breviary. This learn- 
 ed man had obliged me, the day before, 
 with a crabbed manuscript, so insuffer- 
 ably fine that I had incontinently stuffed 
 it in my pocket. Now, as if there were 
 a system of dumb-show established be- 
 tween us, this man of learning began to 
 make signs to me, pointing out the altar j 
 and one of the skeletons, his head all 
 the while playing a perfect fountain of 
 nods. I nodded in my turn, without a 
 particle of comprehension, and in due 
 time yielded myself to the enjoyment of 
 
 the Sisters' music. After service I ap- 
 proached to ask an explanation, but he 
 was encircled by a bevy of ladies. As I 
 passed, however, he flung me out a kind- 
 ly ejaculation : " There, you see — it was 
 the invisible mass — the legend — you 
 know," and sent me back quite bewilder- 
 ed to the hotel. 
 
 On my walk, however, it occurred to 
 me to examine the manuscript. I pass- 
 ed the happy promenaders with my face 
 quite shut up in the book, of which the 
 writing was so close that the eyes could 
 decipher it only by a sort of contact. 
 There I found question of my warrior 
 Ludwig-Wilhelm ; of the fiddling nuns ; 
 of one of the canonized skeletons by the 
 altar ; of the wild penitent Sibylle-Au- 
 guste ; the whole playing around the per- 
 son of a relative of the margrave's — 
 none other than Margrave Charles of 
 Carlsruhe, he who had dreamed in the 
 forest, and sketched that fair city as the 
 delineation of his dream. 
 
 This prince was in his youth extreme- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 At the same time he was the pride of 
 his father, Margrave Frederick VII. of Baden- 
 Durlach, and so handsome and vigorous that 
 the historian Schoepflin says of him that "Na- 
 ture, hesitating whether to form a Hercules or a 
 Cupid, made both the one and the other." He 
 was called to Stockholm to see if he would an- 
 swer for husband to the queen-dowager's grand- 
 daughter. But his conduct was so wild in Swe- 
 den that he was not invited to prolong the visit. 
 He fought with Ludwig at Landau, and came 
 back wounded to the baths, where Sibylle-Au- 
 guste received him honorably and lodged him 
 in the Neues Schloss. Hercules-Cupid's unhap- 
 py reputation soon began to gather around him 
 again like a cloud, and one day an Augustinian 
 nun ran pouting to the abbot Benedict and com- 
 plained that the devil had kissed her. The 
 good abbot arranged that the devil should not 
 return, and took his measures so well that 
 Charles conceived against him a deep feeling of 
 spite. 
 
 At this time, in the general state of poverty 
 consequent upon war, the Church was threatened 
 with bankruptcy. The nuns feared being obliged 
 to abandon the orphans whom they were edu- 
 cating. In such an extremity the abbot, although 
 eighty-seven years old, took the field and begged 
 from door to door, arriving finally at the New 
 Castle. 
 
 His young enemy, Charles, promised ten thou- 
 sand florins on condition that he, the abbot, 
 should say a mass for the success of his enter- 
 prises ; and this not once nor twice, but ten times 
 a year for ten years. The abbot pointed out 
 that such an engagement, for a nonagenarian, 
 would be unsuitable and impious. The young 
 margrave held firmly to his condition that the 
 mass should be performed by the abbot alone, 
 even should he have to return from the other 
 world to do it. Upon this the good man crossed 
 himself as if he were conversing with the Fiend 
 person, and retired to pursue his quest else- 
 where. Soon, however, he returned : the citi- 
 zens were impotent, the nuns were weeping. 
 He signed the bond, and hurried back to the 
 convent with his ten thousand florins. That 
 very night, after so strange an excitement, he 
 was seized with apoplexy and died. 
 a forest drive. Already revenged on the abbot, the pitiless 
 
 Charles pursued the Church. Refusing the 
 masses of any substitute, or even of the bishop, he instituted a suit. The princess 
 Sibylle-Auguste threatened him with her anger, but he was unyielding. The Sun- 
 day arrived at length for the first of the ten annual masses. Sibylle and the nuns 
 
112 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 were in their chapel, the hour passed, 
 and the bishop did not appear. The 
 princess sent a page for him, when, to 
 the great surprise of the congregation, 
 the doors of the church rolled back of 
 themselves on their hinges : a man ap- 
 peared, haggard, gasping, and staggered 
 toward the choir as if impelled by supe- 
 rior force. It was Charles. 
 
 The door closed behind him, and im- 
 mediately the church was filled with 
 eerie music, vibrating from harps and 
 violins in the upper arches. At the altar 
 now could be heard the holy mutter of 
 a man's voice — a voice that made Charles 
 tremble. Bending his starting eyes upon 
 the spot, he easily distinguished there 
 the shade of Benedict going through the 
 office as of yore, while angels swung the 
 censers. For the congregation it was an 
 invisible mass : they only saw the stirring 
 of the altar-laces, the book opening of 
 itself, the sacred wafer entering volun- 
 tarily into the tabernacle. 
 
 Mass over, the pale witnesses of this 
 miracle found Charles leaning against a 
 pillar of the doorway, panting. He had 
 wished to fly, but a superior force with- 
 stood him at the portal. 
 
 Charles stopped his suit. The elegant 
 and pious Sibylle, struck with the celes- 
 tial harmonies she had heard, and was 
 not quite certain of hearing again, con- 
 ferred an endowment providing for a 
 choir of violins to be played on Sundays 
 and feasts by the nuns. Charles, or Carl- 
 Wilhelm, the hero of this prodigious his- 
 tory, became very brave, but never lost 
 his gallantry. After the peace of Ra- 
 stadt, renouncing his residence at Dur- 
 lach, he laid out Carlsruhe, as we have 
 seen, on the model of a lady's fan. 
 
 It was still early in the day, the weath- 
 er was delicious, and I felt ashamed of 
 my inertia as I flung away the little 
 manuscript book. Sylvester Berkley had 
 refreshed himself at the sermon of an 
 Anglican divine, the first of all that flock 
 of curate - tourists who would brighten 
 the atmosphere of Baden-Baden during 
 the summer — an edification which seem- 
 ed to express itself in the enhanced white- 
 ness and accuracy of his cravat and the 
 transfigured effulgence of his highlows. 
 
 We arranged a drive to New Eberstein, 
 on the Murg, a castle eight miles off, in- 
 viting the artist and the literary man, 
 who had been sacrilegiously devoting the 
 morning to chess. 
 
 It was a beautiful excursion along the 
 bases of the hills and under the tasseled 
 
 THE DISCONTENTED ARTIST. 
 
 shadows of the Black Forest. However, 
 when, walking up an ascent for the ease 
 of the horses, I burst into exclamations 
 at the view, I could get no response from 
 the landscape-painter. He stood digging 
 his cane into the bark of one of those 
 immense trees called Hollanders, be- 
 cause they are chosen for the Holland 
 marine. As I expatiated on the scene, 
 he gruffly said, " Humph ! Light badly 
 distributed, sky improbable." 
 
 Who ever knew a landscape-painter 
 to approve a landscape unless it were on 
 canvas ? 
 
 Long rafts of felled timber were slow- 
 ly coiling their way along the Murg. It 
 was Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane 
 — the Black Forest moving in serried 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 JI 3 
 
 ranks down upon the Netherlands. From 
 far up the little stream — from the cloudy 
 recesses of its humid forest cradle — 
 come pouring the uptorn, helpless trees, 
 caught in its eddies, precipitated over its 
 
 cascades, trying with dumb fidelity to 
 learn the fluidity of water. 
 
 We were unable to enter the Eberstein, 
 it being occupied. The visitors were 
 disposed to complain of this disappoint- 
 
 
 THE MUKG RIVER. 
 
 ment, with the exception of one, who sat 
 down muttering quite cheerfully under a 
 tree. That one was Flemming, and he 
 sat as contentedly as possible, crooning 
 ballads of Uhland and Schiller, and fill- 
 ing his reverie with Black Knights and 
 ghostly battles. Was not the Grafen- 
 sprung, the Count's Leap, before him ? 
 Were not those the toiling whirlpools of 
 the Murg ? Was he not free to penetrate 
 the Eberstein at the advantage of some 
 centuries in advance ? 
 
 A great poet and a great painter have 
 blended their genius over the .fortunes 
 of Count Eberhardt and his family. It 
 will not improve the romance of the 
 situation to explain their ancestral tree, 
 but a few words will place the works of 
 
 these two immortal artists in harmony 
 with each other. 
 
 Schiller's ballad and SchefFer's canvas 
 celebrate a sister and a brother, children 
 of Count Eberhardt II. of Wurtemberg. 
 The son, a youth of promise, for yielding 
 the victory to some troops of the palat- 
 inate, was reproached by his father, who 
 cut the tablecloth in front of his place, 
 signifying that the young knight had not 
 gained his bread. Afterward, on a day 
 of splendid victory, the boy was slain, 
 and his father retired weeping to his tent 
 amid the general acclaim. His name 
 was thereupon changed from Eberhardt 
 the Fighter to Eberhardt the Weeper, 
 and his mourning over the gallant dead 
 is the subject of Scheffer's picture in the 
 
ii4 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Luxembourg, of which a magnificent 
 replica by the artist is visible to my 
 American reader in dear old Boston 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 The sister, Lida, was forced by her 
 father to marry her cousin Conrad ; but 
 the bride was placed upon the noble 
 horse Tador, which had been taken 
 from her own true love, Count Wolf 
 of Eberstein. Obeying some impulse 
 quite worthy of Pegasus, this steed, in 
 the ballad of Schiller, flies like the 
 wind with Lida to the castle on the 
 Murg where Wolf is hiding. He leaps 
 with her upon the horse, braves the 
 pursuers as long as possible, and then 
 wildly dashes with his two loves, his 
 horse and his affianced, over the steep 
 cliff into the river. 
 
 With much converse over the Ger- 
 man ballad-form between the author 
 and myself, we returned to Baden- 
 Baden. The painter and the diplo- 
 matist, disgusted with our frivolous 
 sentiment, fell to talking on the sub- 
 ject of skimmed milk, upon which 
 theme they met with equal enthusiasm, 
 the fluid serving the one as a varnish 
 for his charcoal-sketches, the other as 
 an occasional diet. 
 
 Our horses were good, and we arrived 
 quite early in the afternoon. I felt like 
 taking advantage of the weather, and 
 asked the landlord how I should put in 
 my time. As I approached him with 
 this question, my vision of a stay in Ba- 
 den-Baden was extended over several 
 days at least. His reply set me to pack- 
 ing my new pantaloons and trifles as if 
 my life depended on it. At the moment 
 when I felt most assured of some settled 
 fixity my incomparable enthusiasm of 
 
 temper set me flying off like a projectile. 
 He spoke — and it was disinterested of 
 him — of an amusing conference going 
 on at Achern, a station on the road to 
 Kehl. The catchword of Kehl remind- 
 ed me of Strasburg, £pernay and home. 
 
 SCHILLER AND SCHEFFER. 
 
 As for the attraction, it was a congress 
 of all the philharmonic and orpheonist 
 societies of Alsace and the grand duchy. 
 This Sunday night would be their grand 
 pot pourri. 
 
 The temptation was too strong for me. 
 The train was just attainable. Wring- 
 ing Sylvester's hand until the glove split, 
 and settling my landlord's bill, I — went 
 to Achern on the route to Kehl. 
 
:p.a_:r/t "Viii. 
 
 THE MUSIK-FEST AT ACHERN 
 
 <Z2^& 
 
 I WAS never a dancing man, having 
 been in youth so absent as to forget 
 the figures while I whispered poetry into 
 my partner's ear, and in age too obese ; 
 but I love the concord of sweet sounds, 
 and, like Henry of Ofterdingen in No- 
 valis's story, Paul Flemming thinks to 
 music. I become so absorbed at the 
 opera that I have been eyed in my box 
 by the principal lady in the female cho- 
 ruses, with an absolute certainty that I 
 was a conquest. I still repair with the 
 baron to representations of Don Gio- 
 vanni ; and when Faure is serenading 
 the prima donna, guitar in hand, I ob- 
 
 serve to my good Hohenfels, " How that 
 melancholy chord he plays vibrates 
 through the gayety of the air ! So in 
 the noisy crowd do I hear the mournful 
 string of my own heart." 
 
 " You are addled eternally, my poor 
 Paul," the baron replies. " Don't you 
 know that Faure's guitar is a dummy, 
 and that his accompaniment is really 
 played by that squinting young man at 
 the large harp ?" 
 
 The baron, an excellent fellow, is too 
 prosaic to perceive that my imaginative 
 way of hearing is the best. It was with 
 genuine anticipation, then, that I rolled 
 along to hear the orpheonists at Achern : 
 these choral reunions are superb affairs 
 in Germany. 
 
 On my way I took the towns of Ot- 
 tersweier and Sassbach : unless a route 
 has something of vagabondage it is no 
 route for Flemming. At Ottersweier I 
 had been told I could find some curious 
 documents — removed thither from the 
 great historical stores of Heidelberg — 
 about Ludwig-Wilhelm, my scourge of 
 the Turks and husband of the frivolous 
 devotee Sibylle - Auguste. Greatly in- 
 terested in recovering this biographic 
 trace, which I had only lost at Baden- 
 
 "5 
 
n6 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Baden for the vile reason of the Casino 
 being closed for Sunday, I presented 
 myself eagerly at the bureau of archives. 
 
 THE ASHES OF TURENNE. 
 
 Still the same baffling privacy and the 
 same dominical excuse — "Shut up on 
 account of Sunday !" My Sabbath had 
 truly been a day of prayer, but of prayer 
 ungratified. The church, though, was 
 open, and among its mural paintings 
 and stucco angels I got the better of my 
 chagrin. 
 
 Nor was Sassbach a very satisfactory 
 success. I wished to see the monument 
 to Turenne, who fell here in 1675, hav- 
 ing before him, for adversaries, Monte- 
 cuculli and my hero Ludwig-Wilhelm of 
 Baden, then a boy twenty years of age. 
 I had vaguely heard that at Sassbach, 
 by international consent, the death-place 
 of Turenne was considered as having 
 been conquered to the French nation by 
 the warrior's fall — that the scene was, in 
 fact, a miniature France, defended by 
 an army of a corporal and four zouaves, 
 still commanded by the ghost of the 
 mighty Turenne. I might have known 
 that since the disasters of 1871 no such 
 martial courtesies could be claimed by 
 France. The real tomb of Turenne is 
 at the Invalides, happily safe from the 
 reverses of war. His monument, which 
 covers nothing, and the relics of the tree 
 under which he died, are in the custody 
 of an honest Teuton, who warms his 
 feet in his little box while he waits for 
 patriotic tourists. He showed me the 
 
 bullet which killed the great soldier, and 
 I could but secretly wonder how many 
 of these authentic balls he might have 
 sold to eager French purchasers. 
 The vicarious bullet, however, had 
 been inspected by more credulous 
 * eyes than mine. On the visitors' 
 register I saw, under date of April 
 4, 1832, the names of Hortense, 
 "duchesse de Saint-Leu," and of 
 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the lat- 
 ter then a wandering actor, with his 
 \ greatest comedies and tragedies yet 
 "J^- to play, but believing in his star 
 ^y even before the missile which kill- 
 3-""" ed Turenne. 
 
 =_> I was chased out of Sassbach by 
 
 a volley of large drops, precursors 
 
 j-^ of a sullen and determined storm 
 
 which almost literally floated me 
 
 into Achern. The streets, however, 
 
 were as flush with people as though the 
 
 Acherners, like garden flowers, were in 
 
 the habit of coming out to get the shower. 
 
 It was not the deluge which attracted 
 
 them. 
 
 I found Achern a city of silken and 
 gingham domes, on which the rain 
 thumped its funeral marches persever- 
 ingly. A thousand umbrellas surmount- 
 ed two or three thousand human heads : 
 
 " NEITHER BED NOR BOARD 
 
 these canopies, however, might have been 
 more impartial, for they did not protect 
 the sculptured heads of Haydn and Mo- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 117 
 
 zart, which in turn surmounted them: 
 the lyre of Strasburg, the Belgian lion, 
 the civic arms of Heidelberg, of Colmar, 
 of Mannheim, of Mulhausen, tore their 
 way on a dozen banner - staves through 
 the world of umbrellas. Worse than the 
 
 crowd or the flood, the landlord of the 
 Golden Crown met me with that over- 
 done air of politeness which announced, 
 even before he spoke, that he could offer 
 me neither bed nor board. 
 
 My situation would have discomfited 
 
 waiter! wait!" 
 
 Turenne himself. The overstocked Gold- 
 en Crown would naturally be the type of 
 other hotels ; besides, my hat, a curly 
 silken leaf of the Baden-Baden parterre, 
 did not invite me to a journey of explo- 
 ration. No more did the absence of my 
 stout umbrella, which I had left behind : 
 it was probably still plunging in quest of 
 the bottom of some bottomless oubliette 
 of the Neues Schloss. There is nothing 
 which awakens the careful and tender 
 instinct of a man's heart — no, not one's 
 first-born — like a perfectly new hat : you 
 shelter the vanity from a wind to which 
 you willingly expose the baby. To be 
 sure, the loss of your heir excites com- 
 miseration, but that of your hat scorn. 
 I naturally put up my hand to examine 
 mine as I stood in the porte-cochere 
 amid a group of unfortunates as sad 
 and shelterless as myself, with not a 
 dry cheek among us. Jupiter Pluvius ! 
 the hat was gone ! 
 
 I had hit upon a method, of specious 
 but fallacious cleverness, to reconcile my 
 smart chapeau and my rustic garden-cap. 
 On the road, ugly and sympathetic, it 
 was my bonnet that crowned the situa- 
 tion : in the street — that is to say, among 
 marts and cities — I wore my hat. In- 
 side it I had found a cunning way to 
 secrete my cap, reduced to its simplest 
 expression, or, in other words, deprived 
 
 of the whalebone that gave it a circular 
 bent. This proof of penetrability in 
 matter, at least in matter of costume, 
 had not a little set me up. I was less 
 proud of it now, when the deceptive 
 clasp of the whalebone had treacherous- 
 
 ly lulled my poor old head in false se- 
 curity, and when my volatile hat was 
 probably flying back to its native Baden. 
 
n8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 I must seek repose, and it shall be 
 elsewhere. I am already quite willing 
 to follow my hat. I am quite disgusted 
 with Achern, which has become the 
 merest bog, and with its landlords, 
 
 Who are indeed a bog that bears 
 Your unparticipated cares, 
 
 Unmoved and without quaking. 
 
 I apply for instructions. The landlord, 
 who appears again, and who evidently 
 disapproves my costume and me, reiter- 
 ates, "No room ! no room !" when I ask 
 
 THE DOOR-MAT. 
 
 him the way to the station. I fancy he 
 is responding to his own thought rather 
 than to mine : in a Baden railway there 
 is always room. I try his subordinates : 
 there are plenty of waiters, who, stimu- 
 lated to the utmost height of their talents, 
 with ardent eyes and with the gait of 
 hunted ostriches, are vaulting in a covey 
 into the dining-room, loaded with plates 
 and dishes. I try to bring one down on 
 the wing, but he describes a loop around 
 me with the quickness of a lasso, and 
 shoots through the doorway, within which 
 a hundred growling voices are calling for 
 him. 
 
 If it was hard that I could not enter, 
 I thought it still harder that I could not 
 get away. I Relieve I am not naturally 
 
 uncharitable, but in that vlark, damp 
 hour I could almost have drowned in the 
 gutters of Achern my Baden landlord 
 who had sent me there, Berkley who 
 had brought me to the baths, the cus- 
 toms-officers of Kehl who had despatch- 
 ed me for Berkley, the engineer who had 
 driven me over to Kehl, the conspirators 
 of Epernay, and the wretched James 
 Athanasius Grandstone, whose birthday 
 had tempted me from the outskirts of 
 Paris. While I was musing thus, full of 
 spleen and misanthropy, a carriage ap- 
 proached like a sail to a shipwreck. It 
 was depositing a load of visitors, but it 
 would suffice to conduct me to the sta- 
 tion. As the driver was closing the 
 carriage door I leaped inside before 
 him. 
 
 The cabman, with a calm gesture of a 
 heavy arm, put me aside like a feather. 
 Extracting a glossy hat from under the 
 seat I was about to occupy, he observed, 
 without seeming to open his mouth, 
 " Stout old foreign gentleman in a cap : 
 perhaps it is you, sir. Lost hat, handed 
 to me by a comrade of mine. Would 
 you stand a trifling trinkgeld?" 
 
 Thus it was that after a more or less 
 voluntary abdication I recovered my 
 crown. But the restoration brought me 
 little happiness, for the landlord, who 
 ran up once more at the noise of the 
 carriage, informed me that the train 
 would not stop at Achern until ten. It 
 was striking four. I pressed my proper- 
 ty upon my brow — as if I were not sure 
 to lose it at the first possible opportunity 
 — and resumed my thoughts, while the 
 
 COURTING SLEEP. 
 
 driver, certain of better jobs than mine, 
 rumbled off without trying to mend my 
 indecision. I was tired and humble : I 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 119 
 
 sat doggedly upon the stairs, crowned 
 indeed with my novel splendors, but re- 
 signing my coat-tails as a door-mat to 
 every stranger who chose to tread upon 
 them. I believe it was the hat and the 
 humility, combined perhaps with my in- 
 voluntary liberality to the coachman, 
 which converted the landlord. The 
 hat of ceremony, indeed, is a kind 
 of passport on the Continent. Boni- 
 face, at any rate, came to me for the 
 fourth time, made me a fourth long- 
 bodied bow, and invited me to a large 
 chamber on the topmost floor. The 
 apartment was soaked with the to- 
 bacco-smoke of years. "I give you 
 the bed-room of my daughters," he 
 said for explanation ; and I tried to 
 believe him. 
 
 In a quarter of an hour I was at 
 dinner. To dine alone is with me 
 an impossibility. My meal, like an 
 Egyptian banquet, was made in the 
 company of two mysteries — one a 
 friend and one an enemy — Francine 
 and Fortnoye. The sweet stewardess 
 and the enigmatic commission-agent 
 helped me to my rations and season- 
 ed my sauces. I determined to hunt 
 down the whole chimera, and for that 
 purpose to go home again by Eper- -=g 
 nay and Noisy. 
 
 Cc 
 
 train at ten," I said to the waiter : he 
 promised. "You will not forget, on 
 any account," I insisted : he repeated 
 his vow. It was a broad-boned, color- 
 less waiter, with two buttermilk eyes, far 
 apart, at the bottom of two caverns tuft- 
 ed with white bristles. 
 
 I sought my chamber for a little re- 
 pose. At first the tumult of bands in 
 the street, a veritable conspiracy between 
 the musicians of Baden and those of 
 Alsace, and the rehearsals going on in 
 the house itself, made slumber impos- 
 sible. I tied a handkerchief over my 
 ears to exclude the clamor, wrapped my 
 nose in the sheet to get rid of the odor 
 from the pillows — on which the inn- 
 keeper's daughters seemed to have strew- 
 ed caporal — and sat for some time in 
 bed, upright and agonized. I was soon, 
 however, prostrated by sheer fatigue. 
 
 Hardly had I closed my eyes, as it seem- 
 ed, when the glimmering, far-apart blu- 
 ish eyes of the waiter appeared in the 
 doorway, and I was summoned to the 
 railway-station. The night-train arrived 
 with supernatural whiz and roar. At 
 
 THE ENCHANTED STEED. 
 
 last I found my face turned toward the 
 dear lares and penates ! At the rate of 
 a mile a minute the engine flew toward 
 Paris. At the metropolis what changes 
 since my departure ! The new avenues 
 and boulevards had developed like 
 magic. The belt-railroad surrounding 
 the city took possession of me : there 
 was no stopping, and with an ever-in- 
 creasing speed I was borne quite around 
 the capital, and eastward again, by way 
 of Charleroi, Luxembourg and Metz, to 
 Strasburg. As I was flying, still in the 
 train, over the bridge to Kehl, I sudden- 
 ly saw two horsemen riding by my side. 
 They kept up easily with the locomotive, 
 both mounted on the same apocalyptic 
 steed, and necessarily running on the 
 water. They were richly dressed, but 
 
120 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 the wind plunged with hollow murmurs 
 under their waistcoats, as in empty space. 
 There was no flesh on their ribs, long 
 spurs were attached to their bony heels, 
 and their skeletons rattled at every bound 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of the horse. The latter had joints of 
 steel in sockets of copper, and I heard 
 the sound of pistons and the rush of 
 steam as he moved : it was my enemy 
 the locomotive in a new disguise. The 
 
 riders turned their eyes, filled with pale 
 flame, upon me. They gave their names. 
 One was Ludwig-Wilhelm, the scourge 
 of Islam, the original of the seventy-two 
 miniatures I had seen in the Favorite of 
 Sibylle-Auguste ; the other was Margrave 
 Charles of Baden, founder of the city 
 laid out in a fan. 
 
 Charles, in evident allusion to his 
 forced entry and detention in the church 
 of Lichtenthal, said sneeringly, "Very 
 well : you see how it is to be drawn by a 
 power stronger than yourself. How do 
 you like legendary adventures by this 
 time, Mr. Paul Flemming ?" 
 
 Addressing myself immediately to 
 Ludwig, whose worthy burgher attitude 
 invited confidence, I asked where this 
 unslackening race should end. 
 
 "At Achern," he replied. 
 
 " But why must I return thus upon my 
 point of departure ?" I demanded. 
 
 "Because you have forgotten to settle 
 your account with the landlord," he re- 
 torted, with his broad skeleton grin. 
 
 This appeal to my sense of duty shock- 
 ed me so that I awoke. It was broad 
 day : the train was lost, with a witness ! 
 
 I was ready to raise a shout of distress, 
 or at least to summon for vengeance the 
 inculpated waiter. A new incident de- 
 terred me. A spectre again ! Some- 
 thing clad in white was passing around 
 the chamber. I thought for a moment, 
 with bachelor horror, of the landlord's 
 daughters. Supposing this should really 
 be their boudoir ! A glance through the 
 curtains reassured me : the spectre wore 
 
 WHO KNOWS? 
 
 boots. Another glance showed me a 
 gentleman tying his cravat at the glass. 
 The host had simply used his right to 
 dispose of the vacant bed. The new 
 
 tenant was no ghost : the face I caught 
 for a moment in the mirror was comely 
 and ruddy. I fell back somewhat com- 
 forted, letting go the curtains. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 121 
 
 The lodger having departed, I leaped 
 to the floor and made a hasty toilet. 
 As I went to crown the edifice by putting 
 on my hat, a name written on the lining 
 of the article arrested me. It was " Fort- 
 noye." We had changed hats ! With this 
 sphinx, then, I had passed a whole night 
 unconsciously. No wonder my dreams 
 
 were bad. Descending, I asked some 
 time-table questions of the landlord, and 
 added, " Do you know a certain M. 
 Fortnoye, whom you have given me for 
 fellow-lodger?" 
 
 "Do I know him ? He is our cham- 
 pagne-merchant — mine and all the hotel- 
 keepers' within twenty leagues. And a 
 
 MOTION SUSPENDED : RESOLUTION TABLED FOR AMENDMENT. 
 
 fine man, sir, with his joke always in his 
 cheek ! You see, the trade makes the 
 tradesman, for champagne-sellers keep 
 the ball a-rolling : the business lets no 
 man be dull. As for this one, he is 
 always in good temper : he has it bottled 
 in his brains. You should have seen him 
 last night. Four students from Carls- 
 
 ruhe and Heidelberg — he had them all 
 under the table in no time, and at his 
 own expense. But that is his style of 
 increasing the connection : they come 
 back to it sure enough, sir." 
 
 Mine host, so miserly with his words 
 the night before, chatted this morning 
 like a parrot : I took advantage of his 
 
 THE TAILBOARD. 
 
 loquacity to get the probable route of 
 Fortnoye. 
 
 At some miles from Achern, in a ro- 
 mantic landscape, rise the solemn ruins 
 of All - Saints' Abbey — Allerheiligen. 
 It is a refuge fit for Carlyle's Eternal 
 Silences. Hither, nevertheless, were bent 
 the combined noises of Baden, Belgium 
 
 and Alsace. Achern had been the focus, 
 but Allerheiligen was the Mecca of the 
 philharmonic pilgrimage. All the mu- 
 sicians and singers, as well as all the 
 rest who were merely secular and audi- 
 tory, would pour to-day into the ruined 
 abbey. I hesitated but a minute : I took 
 a seat on the tailboard of a terrible cart, 
 
122 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 and I followed the world — followed the 
 drivers, followed the walkers, followed 
 Fortnoye, followed my hat. 
 
 village, whose inhabitants, probably aug- 
 mented by neighbors from the inner 
 country, passed us in review. The peas- 
 
 Every ten minutes we passed a pretty i ants here are not like those whom you 
 
 BLACK FOREST FLOWERS. 
 
 see in Carlsruhe and Baden - Baden. 
 You are already in the Black Forest. 
 The countrymen were in ample red waist- 
 coats and broad hat-brims, the blonde 
 girls bare-headed, with floating ribbons. 
 As we filed through these ranks of rustic 
 
 spectators, the red waistcoats, alternating 
 with the golden heads, shone like pop- 
 pies in a field of wheat. The quantity 
 of yellow tresses I saw on this excursion 
 was truly edifying. I am certain that 
 Germany pioduces a sufficiency to sur- 
 
 6 $ 
 
 THE TRYSTING-PLACE. 
 
 round the globe with a ringlet of gold — 
 a precious ecliptic, worthy enough to 
 mark the course of the sun. 
 After passing through several hamlets 
 
 — I think Ober-Achern, Furschenbach, 
 Ottenhofen were among them — and con- 
 suming two hours of time, we descended 
 from the cart to clamber up the hills. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 123 
 
 Fifty minutes' climbing, and we paused 
 in a little grove, which seemed to have 
 been appropriated as point of reference 
 for all the strayed revelers and disjointed 
 couples who attended the concert. Here 
 those who had lost their friends, girls 
 who missed their lovers, and husbands 
 divorced from their wives, met by mu- 
 tual agreement. It was a concourse of 
 Plato's half-souls, seeking their affinities 
 anxiously and clamorously. Odd sounds, 
 agreed upon no doubt as signals, made 
 the little wood vocal : some crowed like 
 cocks, some hooted like owls, some bel- 
 
 lowed like all the herds of Bashan — a 
 singular concert, preluding the genuine 
 one. Every fatigue-cap, felt and kepi 
 collected in the grove passed under my 
 inspection, but I could not detect my own 
 hat or the countenance of Fortnoye. The 
 throng gradually dispersed, moving to- 
 gether in a particular direction, and I 
 followed the rest. Every one went to 
 buy tickets at a box-office temporarily 
 set up behind a high rock. I secured a 
 card with a lyre on it, a first-class place, 
 and the change for a half-florin. A hun- 
 dred paces farther, as the path descend- 
 
 
 
 SHADES OF THE BLACK FOREST. 
 
 ed through the trees, a view burst upon 
 us of the ruins and their site. 
 
 Seated in its rocky funnel, with an 
 amphitheatre of noble scenery around, 
 and the echoes of the Grindbachs cata- 
 ract muffled in the tufted woods, the ab- 
 bey of Allerheiligen was of old a nest 
 of learning, famous for the sapience of 
 its sylvan monks. Here Elmy the gyp- 
 sy, whose student-lover had climbed to 
 the crow's nest to recover her betrothal- 
 ring saw the brave boy dashed to pieces 
 at her feet, and only obtained the pre- 
 cious token from his dead hand. The 
 betrothed couples of the present day I 
 found more comfortably engaged : the 
 lasses were pouring out beer for the lads. 
 
 and family groups, perched everywhere 
 on the hillside, were regaling themselves 
 with viands frugally brought from home. 
 Those heads of families who missed the 
 shadow of a tree or a thicket tranquilly 
 dined in the sun. Indeed, they were not 
 entirely deprived of shelter, seeing that 
 the breadths of felt with which they 
 shaded their own brows cast a liberal 
 and grateful penumbra over the whole 
 group. Nowhere else can you find man- 
 kind wearing such solid and ample par- 
 asols : if these honest Black Foresters 
 could measure their height by the cir- 
 cumference of their brims, they would 
 be giants. What was strange, neither 
 in the field at the bottom of the funnel 
 
124 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 nor on the sides was there a sign that 
 these pilgrims of melody thought of any- 
 thing but eating and drinking. I should 
 have argued the concert to be postponed 
 sine die if I had not accidentally per- 
 ceived two fat bass-viols and several 
 
 slender coffins containing violins pro- 
 ceeding toward the ruined abbey, the 
 latter still closed to the public, even to 
 those with tickets for the first place. 
 
 It was an animated sight. The ex- 
 temporized tables, the bar arranged along 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE ORCHESTRA. 
 
 a low ruined wall, whose fallen stones 
 offered seats to the drinkers, were occu- 
 pied by moving throngs, amongst which 
 I ceased not to pursue the trail of my 
 fugitive hat, and of that unaccountable 
 Fortnoye for whose discovery my hat- 
 hunt was but a pretext. For a quarter 
 of an hour, with my eyes wide open, did 
 I turn to the cardinal points of this 
 mighty funnel, boxing the compass of 
 Allerheiligen, when the sound of pop- 
 ping champagne-corks arrested my ear. 
 No better indication of my man could 
 be thought of. I posted myself near the 
 drinkers, who turned out to be a party 
 of students, and sought an excuse to 
 enter into conversation with them, not 
 despairing of finding in the group some 
 who had disgraced themselves with Fort- 
 noye the night before. 
 
 A quick young collegian anticipated 
 me. Instantly observing my tin box, he 
 said very courteously, " Are you a bot- 
 anist, sir?" As I was about to profit by 
 
 the interview to lead up to the subject of 
 Fortnoye, he continued : " I am a bot- 
 anist myself: I am studying for the pro- 
 fession of drugs. If you would find an 
 excellent field, go five miles from here, 
 to the base of the Tiberg. The Ana- 
 gallis Arvensis grows there in abun- 
 dance. Your health, sir !" 
 
 The whole party rose, touched glasses 
 and trooped off laughing, not without 
 reason : the plant adorned with so much 
 fine Latin is no other than the chick- 
 weed, oftener sought by canaries than 
 by botanists. But I remembered how 
 mercilessly I had hoaxed MacMeurtrier 
 with the tobacco plants and pineapple 
 fruits, and felt that I had no right to be 
 too much put out. 
 
 The vacated students' table offered 
 itself invitingly, and I seated myself. 
 These tables were under the agency of 
 the chief forester of the estates, trans- 
 formed on Sundays and holidays to an 
 innkeeper. With an eye to business, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 125 
 
 this functionary offered no alternative to 
 his guests but rabbits killed in his de- 
 mesne or the ever-prevailing and mo- 
 notonous ham. Among the waiters — 
 whom I suspected, from the dignity of 
 their chief, to be wood-choppers and 
 charcoal-burners on ordinary days — I 
 succeeded in making one excited indi- 
 vidual listen to me. I ordered rabbit and 
 Affenthaler wine : he reappeared after a 
 
 long time with ham and beer. But I 
 took care, after the first mouthful, not to 
 complain, for the beer was Bavarian and 
 the ham Westphalian. 
 
 As I tasted the one and the other with 
 the gusto of an epicure, suddenly my 
 table, with the plates and bottles, re- 
 sounded to a tinkling hail — a hail of 
 money. Whence came this Danae show- 
 er ? No one knew, but its effects, satis- 
 
 AURI SACRA FAMES. 
 
 factory to some, were for others, and 
 especially myself, most deplorable. The 
 peasantry from the heights around us, 
 hearing the metallic ring, plunged upon 
 our tables, our benches, our feet and our 
 dishes, to collect the small change falling 
 from the skies. It continued to rain, not 
 kreutzers only, but little coins of silver. 
 The instinct of avarice spread through 
 all the throng ; the crowds poured down 
 the hill like a landslide ; men and women, 
 young girls, lads and children, all eager 
 for the quarry, fought hardily for this 
 uncelestial manna. Woe to the girl who 
 received a kreutzer in her bodice ! she 
 
 was not to remain the possessor. The 
 waiters, sent up to pacify the fray, yield- 
 ed to the game with avidity, and seemed 
 to find themselves in a new California. 
 The dogs, even, plunged into the loot, 
 disdaining indeed the silver, but not the 
 ham-bones and little saddles of rabbit. 
 In the confusion the benches turned over 
 on their sides, the tables on their backs, 
 followed by some of the diners. My 
 own lot was cast among these latter. 
 
 I got up bareheaded and shamefaced, 
 but no one had noticed my reverse. The 
 rain of silver had taken another direc- 
 tion, and the world, as of old, had run 
 
126 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 after the money. A playful dog was 
 shaking and worrying a hat a few feet 
 off: he readily rendered me my head- 
 covering, or more properly that of Fort- 
 noye. A bell gave signal that the con- 
 cert was beginning. Hurrying up to the 
 ruin, I posted myself outside the door, 
 
 THE DEBRIS. 
 
 where all the holders of first-class places 
 necessarily defiled before me: not a 
 single Fortnoye ! 
 
 What an unfortunate notion was mine, 
 to chase this invisible and possibly chi- 
 merical enigma into the ruined wilderness 
 of All-Saints ! Had I taken the morn- 
 ing train, I should be already at Stras- 
 burg. The interior of the abbey, now 
 overflowing with music, tempted me to 
 enter. 
 
 Truly, the picture was original, The 
 orchestra and the orpheonists filled the 
 sacred apsis. Despoiled of their stained 
 glass, the long Gothic windows were 
 painted instead with the distant land- 
 scape and the gilded summits of moun- 
 tainous crags. The audience was divided 
 into two portions or categories : the first 
 occupied impromptu benches, laid from 
 base to base of the fallen pillars ; the 
 second stood up behind. Authorized by 
 my ticket to mingle with the first, my 
 entrance among the hindmost obliged 
 me to content myself with the last. 
 
 The overture to Mendelssohn's Antig- 
 one had already been executed, as well 
 as a fine choral of Louis Lacombe's, and 
 I had a brief glimpse of the collected 
 performers — a tableau full of piquant 
 German character, and worthy to rank 
 with Hogarth's picture representing the 
 
 opera of Judith. My view was a short 
 one, for, the sun coming out from behind 
 a cloud, every lady in the parquet open- 
 ed out the implement she carried, which 
 was no circumscribed and feeble sun- 
 shade, but a liberal umbrella, provided 
 in view of a possible storm like that of 
 yesterday. The men delayed not 
 to imitate the example, and my in- 
 spection of the performance was 
 intercepted by a bubbling sea of 
 variegated hemispheres. Mean- 
 time, my own position among the 
 poorer multitude was flooded with 
 hot sunshine : I lost no time in 
 changing it; and a lusty elder 
 tree, clinging to the ruined wall 
 eS' just behind me, offered me a natu- 
 ~\ ral sunshade more agreeable than 
 the circular shadow of the best re- 
 genschirm in Germany. The perch 
 offered me another advantage. It 
 placed me in a post of observation where 
 I could interpret the secret of the mys- 
 terious shower of gold. 
 
 At the base of the hillock which I oc- 
 cupied a group of students were whis- 
 pering and busying themselves over some 
 stealthy preparation. In the ringleadei 
 I recognized my disciple of drugs, the 
 same who had suggested a botanizing 
 tour after chickweed. He held a sack, 
 containing probably a provision of cop- 
 per change, and each of the band, rum- 
 maging in his pockets, added a supply 
 of small moneys, and even of silver : as 
 for my druggist, he drew forth a handful 
 of gold, whose opulent gleam was clear- 
 ly visible to me in my hiding-place. 
 When he had mixed a portion of this in 
 
 PLAYFULNESS. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 127 
 
 the bag, the whole conspiracy of tempt- 
 ers busied themselves in flinging it over 
 the wall amongst the mass of second- 
 class auditors, whose ranks I had just 
 left. And the scenes of dinner-time 
 were not tardy in recurring — the scram- 
 ble, the bickering, the topsy-turvy and 
 the chaos. 
 
 Poor Germany! I thought: is it thus 
 she distributes the gold just wrung from 
 
 bleeding France ? With her nouveaux 
 riches tempted only to senseless freaks, 
 and her lower classes famished as ever, 
 it is little profit she will get from her un- 
 digested wealth. The spectacle, testify- 
 ing to nothing so much as to the misery 
 of the German populace, saddened me 
 more than it diverted me. I was still 
 thinking about it when the sun, having 
 seen all it cared about of the concert, 
 
 <\ \^ 
 
 HOGARTHIAN GROUP. 
 
 re-ente r ed its tent of clouds, and every 
 umbrella, with simultaneous promptness, 
 changed from a hemisphere to a straight 
 line. I passed into the enclosure once 
 more, just before the finale. I got a bet- 
 ter place than at first, and enjoyed a full 
 view of the singers and the instrument- 
 alists. 
 
 Among the former I remarked a per- 
 former who gesticulated a good deal more 
 than he sang, and whose looks were con- 
 stantly turned toward myself. His coun- 
 
 tenance seemed American in its outlines, 
 and bore a likeness to the countenance 
 of James Athanasius Grandstone. But 
 how was it possible to suppose that in- 
 dividual amongst these professionals ? 
 Nevertheless, it was strictly and identical- 
 ly he. 
 
 I had known many students of phar- 
 macy : never had any of them fed the 
 multitude with gold. I had met many 
 an American wine-seller : never one who 
 had fitted himself to compete with Ger- 
 
128 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 THE PARASOL. 
 
 man musicians. It was a day of sur- 
 prises. After seeing Jupiter raining gold 
 under the metamor- 
 phosis of a Heidelberg 
 student, it remained to 
 me to see my compa- 
 triot, who could hard- 
 ly hold his own at col- 
 lege in a " Gaudeamus 
 igitur" in the guise of 
 an orpheonist. At the 
 side of Athanasius, 
 singing or not sing- 
 ing, but with mouths 
 wide open all the 
 same, and in every 
 hand a scroll of music, 
 stood his whole din- 
 ner-table of Epernay. 
 The circle that had 
 enjoyed the Eleusinian mysteries of the 
 wine-cellar, even to the little caustic 
 hunchback, and that had started with 
 Grandstone to pass his birthday at the 
 Falls of Schaffhausen, was reunited here 
 at Achern, needing only myself to form 
 the clasp. Near the witty dwarf, and 
 bending over the same sheet, I recognized 
 a pale face, with a red boss in the mid- 
 dle : it was palpably MacMeurtrier, the 
 homceopathist, preceded by his ardent 
 nose. How came this Scotchman in the 
 group ? 
 
 But I was not at the end of my aston- 
 ishments. As I made my way through 
 the dispersing crowd which separated 
 me from the performers, I ran against 
 an individual. Looking up, I recognized 
 my hat : the obstacle was Fortnoye ! I 
 quickly had an explanation of all these 
 wonders. 
 
 In the railway-carriage which had con- 
 veyed the birthday party to Strasburg, 
 Grandstone and his friends had formed 
 a plan with Fortnoye to meet all together 
 at the musical festival of Achern. The 
 homceopathist, for his part, bound like- 
 wise for Schaffhausen, had run upon the 
 whole convivial group in the Krone Ho- 
 tel at that spot. The embossed dwarf — 
 whom it will be more civil to call here- 
 after by his real name of Somerard — 
 had attacked him in a moment as lawful 
 yrey. Strange to say, the encounter 
 
 begun in jest had terminated confidential- 
 ly : something imperturbable and canny 
 about the Scot proved attractive to the 
 hunchback, subject himself to all the 
 irregular vivacities so often noticed in 
 his kind. MacMurtagh or Meurtrier, 
 having disarmed his waspish opponent 
 by dint of stolid calm, was destined to 
 yet another victory : at the close of a 
 long evening's conversation on homoe- 
 opathy, Somerard, always ailing and 
 doctor-hunting, declared himself a con- 
 vert. The famous combination of veg- 
 etable magnetism with similia similibus 
 curantur\i2.d fascinated him. This target 
 of the wit's former scorn-, this heron on 
 stilts, this man with double knee-pans, 
 recognized from a sketch of Hogarth's, 
 had become his veneration and comfort. 
 Grandstone, over a cigar, confided to 
 me the details of this strange partner- 
 ship : "I don't know what to think. 
 They'll persuade me that I have seen 
 the cure with my own eyes. This Scotch- 
 
 AMATEUR PERFOKMEKb. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 129 
 
 man, who doesn't look particularly like 
 the devil, pretends that he can make the 
 force of the sap in young trees commu- 
 nicate itself to his patients. He makes 
 his magnetic passes all the while, you 
 see. Now, I myself have been with 
 Foster when he read letters through his 
 forehead : I'm not prepared to say there 
 is not something in magnetism. But 
 you ought to hear the rigmaroles that 
 Murtagh says over his patients : the 
 greatest rot you ever listened to ! And 
 he says he can straighten up any case 
 of spinal curvature. I have seen Som- 
 erard hugging a young poplar tree by 
 the hour. When he came away he said 
 he felt perfectly full of sap. What I'll 
 ask you to explain is, that the tree cer- 
 tainly drooped and turned out the wrong 
 side of its leaves." 
 
 It appeared to me that my mercantile 
 young American was half a convert him- 
 self. Having remarked that Somerard, 
 who was rich enough for the luxury, had 
 actually engaged the Scotchman as pro- 
 fessional companion, he proceeded to 
 account for the presence of his band 
 among the performers rather than among 
 the audience. It seems they had come 
 on foot through the Forest from Freiburg 
 in the Breisgau, whither the railway had 
 transported them from Bale. On their 
 tramp they had fallen in with a contin- 
 gent of the grand orpheonist army. 
 They had dined with them, supped with 
 them, slept in the same barn. Next day 
 they had awaked to find themselves fast 
 friends, and it had seemed good to all 
 hands to remain united, even within the 
 precincts of art. 
 
 While Grandstone, in satisfying my 
 surprises, suggested so many new ones, 
 I did not lose from view Fortnoye, the 
 man of mystery, and my rival in the 
 pretty hotel at Carlsruhe. He was speak- 
 ing with the forester, no doubt on the 
 subject of champagne. Their colloquy 
 finished, I approached and offered him 
 hfs hat. 
 
 "Ah, monsieur," he said, laughing 
 pleasantly, " you are, then, my unknown 
 room-mate ? You must have taken me 
 for a thief. But where have I seen you 
 ere now ?" 
 9 
 
 VEGETABLE MAGNETISM. 
 
 I replied promptly: "At Strasburg, 
 where I sat at the same table with you 
 and your new Masonic convert, Mac- 
 Meurtrier here. Possibly, also, you saw 
 me last night when you put hors de com- 
 bat your friends the students, and divert- 
 ed all the hotel-waiters from attending 
 to me." 
 
 "A truce to these follies," he replied. 
 "I am winding up my bachelor life." 
 
 "Are you thinking of marriage?" I 
 asked with unnecessary interest. 
 
 "Who knows ?" 
 
 "Pardon!" said I, "but I have heard 
 much of you lately : it was at Carlsruhe, 
 at the boarding-house — " 
 
 He blushed faintly: "You know the 
 lady who keeps the house where I put 
 up ?" 
 
 " Francine ? I knew her as a baby : I 
 brought her news of her father, whom I 
 had just left at Noisy." 
 
 " Hullo !" (The French for the excla- 
 mation, I think, was "Tiens ! tiens !") " I 
 saw him the same day as you. I know 
 you now, monsieur : you are the man 
 with the two chickens." 
 
FJ^JEtT IX. 
 
 ASTRAY IN THE BLACK FOREST. 
 
 THE LAKE OF UNDINES. 
 
 YOUR vilest matchmaker is Death. 
 Year after year he weds the tender 
 and the base. His call, even as Keats's 
 purer bird, is heard through every age 
 "alike by emperor and clown." What 
 avails our protest ? From time to time 
 some delicate prince, first conscious of the 
 130 
 
 natural, helpless antipathy, shall idly ask, 
 for humanity's Caesars and Alexanders, 
 whether they must come to this fashion 
 i' the earth; and Death's groomsman 
 the gravedigger sings twice or thrice, 
 "Oh, a pit of clay for to be made for 
 such a guest is meet." Again and again 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 some wild Constance, morbid bride of 
 corruption, shall shriek, "Arise forth 
 from the couch of lasting night," and 
 offer her maniac kiss to the "detestable 
 bones," and put her eyeballs in the 
 "vaulty brows." And Death, more hor- 
 rible than any diieg?ie complaisante, re- 
 
 LL-FAME AND INNOCENCE. 
 
 ceives with his own grin his pennies 
 from the filmy eyes. Our fine delicacy 
 is nothing, our choice is impotent. 
 
 And Beauty shall be laid in Yorick's 
 bed, for innocence must slumber with 
 the clown to-night, and in the grave is 
 no device nor difference. 
 
 I am approaching the most serious part 
 of my story. I should be sorry for the 
 reader to think that Paul Flemming can 
 occupy himself with only dilettante studies 
 and ballads of travel. Fill thyself with 
 angrier ink, O pen that long since wrotest 
 the dirge of Emma of Ilmenau : do thy 
 spiriting darkly, as when, by those lone 
 banks of Neckar, there fell a star from 
 
 heaven ! I have no plain and easy tale 
 to tell this morning, and I must needs 
 fortify myself, as in the old time, with the 
 old words, when I said, "O thou poor 
 authorling ! reach a little deeper into the 
 human heart. Touch those strings — 
 touch those deeper strings, and more 
 boldly, or the notes will die 
 away like whispers." 
 
 It is now four or five years 
 since a lonely and beautiful 
 woman, hurrying across the 
 wealthy plains of Belgium 
 <= _ with an infant in her arms, 
 
 was forced to pause at Brus- 
 sels. When she rose from a 
 sick bed the angel of death 
 had stolen from her bosom 
 the little tender babe, and 
 had laid the poor abortive 
 being in the cemetery of 
 Laaken. Just able at length 
 to walk, she stole to the 
 churchyard to bid a last 
 adieu to the grave, for un- 
 controllable reasons urged 
 her speedy departure from 
 Belgium. " Take care of the 
 poor flowers," she said, put- 
 ting money into the hand of 
 a stolid sexton. Then, in a 
 voice all broken with sobs, 
 "Ah, darling, darling little 
 daughter \ why cannot I stay 
 near you ? What gentle eye 
 -- 3 will ever dwell on your sweet 
 
 grave when your mother her- 
 self abandons you ? W h o 
 will tend these desolate little roses and 
 violets ?" 
 
 "I will!" said a voice which seemed 
 to rise upon the wind. She looked 
 around, but saw nobody : was the sound 
 a lingering echo of delirium ? She came 
 in haste next day at an early hour snatch- 
 ed with difficulty from the routine of 
 travel. The grave was already covered 
 with fresh plants for all its petty length, 
 and guarded with a grating of iron. " My 
 prayers are answered," said the poor 
 traveler. When she had gone a figure 
 approached the tomb from the nearest 
 clump of cypresses. It was a young man 
 of vigorous proportions, but with a face 
 
3 2 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 worn and saddened with anxiety. He 
 laid his hand upon the rail. "Poor 
 baby!" said he, "it is in the name of 
 maternity !" 
 
 After that no week passed by but the 
 young philanthropist returned, darkly 
 studying the bed where chance had laid 
 the baby-bride of Eternity. He was a 
 
 home-sick Frenchman, and truly few 
 young men but those of the Latin race 
 would be capable of an action generous, 
 yet uncalled-for and slightly mock-heroic. 
 Only briefly a resident of Brussels, and 
 driven thither by a schoolboy's manifes- 
 tation which had been viewed in a po- 
 litical aspect, he had formed the habit 
 
 FALLS AT ALLERHEILIGEN. 
 
 of promenading in the cemetery. The 
 small creature, hidden in the grave with- 
 out ever having met his eye, became for 
 him an interest and an object in life. 
 He visited no one else, avoiding even 
 the other refugees tempted by bank- 
 ruptcy or ill-fortune into the friendly ter- 
 ritory. Sick for his native land, he es- 
 tablished a parallel between himself and 
 this tiny stranger withered on a foreign 
 soil. It lived in his fancy as a pallid 
 cherub, and alternated with imperfect 
 visions of a graceful lady half seen 
 
 among the trees. His constant visits 
 were noticed, and with no friendly eyes. 
 
 "What would you think, yourself, 
 Flemming?" said Grandstone, who re- 
 cited, as we strolled toward the cascades 
 of Allerheiligen, the history from which 
 I have condensed this shadowy little 
 idyl. 
 
 "I think he was Quixotic, but a fine 
 fellow." 
 
 "They didn't think him very fine in 
 Brussels," said my young countryman. 
 "You see, they don't give a hearty wel- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 33 
 
 come in Belgian society to French ref- 
 ugees, being more used to fellows that 
 have jumped their bail or to gentlemen 
 of the Rochefort order than they are to 
 Don Quixotes. It was too bad, though, 
 the things they dared to drop about that 
 baby and its supposed father. ' We had 
 better part,' said the landlord who lodged 
 
 him near the cemetery : ' there are too 
 many of your family in our fajbourg.' 1 
 
 "Was he obliged to move away, then, 
 from the grave he had tended so gen- 
 erously ?" 
 
 " It was of the less importance, for his 
 banishment from French soil was repeal- 
 ed. Before departing he came once 
 
 LADDER OK BRIDG 
 
 more to the churchyard of Laaken. He 
 left a considerable sum with the sexton, 
 making him promise to keep the place 
 in his special care. Nothing could be 
 more handsome of Fortnoye." 
 
 — For it was again of Fortnoye, the 
 eternal, the inevitable Fortnoye, that the 
 tale was told. I had been repeating to 
 Grandstone his riddling words about an 
 approaching matrimonal project on his 
 part. The former continued : 
 
 "Do you fancy that even if he wants 
 to marry, a girl who goes over the coun- 
 
 try with undecipherable and mysterious 
 babies is the wife for our whimsical, scru- 
 pulous Paladin ? It was a pure infamy, 
 though, to invent that coarse slander 
 about him and the child." 
 
 " But who is the supposed mother of 
 the infant ?" 
 
 " Why, don't you see ? Her godmoth- 
 er is well known at Brussels, where she 
 shut her door against the adventuress. 
 Of course it is your pretty hostess of 
 Carlsruhe." 
 
 " What ! Francine Joliet ? The infamy 
 
134 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 is in attaching any kind of mystery to 
 that lovely creature's conduct." 
 
 I was proceeding to defend my dainty 
 Francine at greater length 
 when our dialogue was in- 
 terrupted by a simultaneous «==_- 
 cry. It was a cry of de- £2^ 
 light, for we had now mount- ~ 3=* 
 ed the hills, those sunny _f^E 
 summits which had filled so 
 beautifully the arches of the 
 ruined windows in the ab- 
 bey, and the cascades of 
 Allerheiligen were before 
 us. From the eminence we 
 had reached, stretched out 
 in their silver length, were 
 unfolded to our sight the 
 multiplied cataracts, like 
 twenty rivers standing story 
 over story. 
 
 Our comrades were wait- 
 ing for us a little farther 
 on, Fortnoye among them : 
 as we neared each other I 
 stepped briskly up to him 
 and grasped his hand, a 
 manoeuvre which seemed 
 considerably to surprise 
 him. It was a salute pro- 
 ceeding from the grave at 
 Laaken. 
 
 Swelled by the tributes of the Murg, 
 the Enz and the numerous water-courses 
 that drain the Black Forest, the falls of 
 Allerheiligen have torn their way through 
 a rocky tract, whose points of resistance 
 have looped up the stream into numerous 
 draperies. Formerly, to trace these cata- 
 
 Later, a series of ladders was thrown 
 from peak to peak, where travelers with 
 strong heads might clamber at their slip- 
 
 SAINT SATAN. 
 
 racts through their whole length, the for- 
 ester or hunter was obliged to slide over 
 dangerous crags at the risk of his life. 
 
 pery will. At present, the whole is ar- 
 ranged for the tourist with plank-walks, 
 rails and bridges ; yet many of the latter, 
 in the history of the evolution pursued 
 by Allerheiligen, remain in a state of 
 partial development, and hesitate gid- 
 dily between ladder and bridge. 
 
 The country-folk from the musical 
 festival crowded the stairways, where the 
 spray from the torrent baptized a won- 
 derful variety of rustic costumes. I es- 
 sayed a rude sketch of the scene, but 
 the fantastic embossed man, Somerard, 
 by dint of flying and capricoling about 
 me, and professing ecstasy at the effect 
 of the blank paper, destroyed my draw- 
 ing before it was begun. As we crossed 
 from the left bank to the right one I 
 plucked a fine gentian, and opened my 
 tin box to receive it : I found already in 
 the cavity a sheaf of nettles. Evidently 
 the dwarf about to become a giant had 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 *35 
 
 chosen me as his victim for the day. 
 As I shook a finger at him he puffed up 
 quite globularly with laughter : perhaps 
 
 in elongating he would grow more wise ; 
 and so, with jokes and Joe Millers, we 
 took leave of Allerheiligen, ever memor- 
 
 LAKESIDE REVERIES. 
 
 able for its processions of buffo charac- 
 ters trailing between the coulisses of a 
 grand, austere landscape. 
 
 At the entrance to the little grove 
 where I had found such a lively scene 
 of rendezvous in the morning were num- 
 
 ASPIRATION. 
 
 bers of cabs and carts. Grandstone, 
 Fortnoye, the homceopathist, Somerard, 
 two other champagne - feasters from 
 
 Epernay, a chance friend whom Grand- 
 stone had seduced from among the orph- 
 eonists, and myself, formed a little drama 
 of eight persons. We engaged two carts. 
 Grandstone went to direct the peasant 
 who drove. I supposed we were on the 
 return to Achern. 
 
 "To the Mummelsee!" said Grand- 
 stone. 
 
 " Is that the place where we are to 
 dine?" I asked, rather absently, with a 
 regret flung backward at my breakfast, 
 interrupted by the shower of gold. 
 
 "We dine at the Hirsch." 
 
 " Why not at Achern ? I shall certain- 
 ly take the evening train for Paris. My 
 chum Hohenfels must be almost a ma- 
 niac by this time." 
 
 "We take the Paris train too : at least, 
 if not for Paris, as far along as Epernay. 
 But, you innocent, do you suppose peo- 
 ple come to Allerheiligen without going 
 to the Mummelsee ?" 
 
 "What is a Mummelsee ?" 
 
 "The Mummelsee is the Lake of Un- 
 dines," said Somerard. 
 
 "And where is this Lake of Undines ?" 
 
 "At the Mummelsee." 
 
 It appeared unnecessary to prolong 
 this circular argument. Besides, the 
 term " Lake of Undines " had a soft ring- 
 to my ear. We rode through a gentle 
 valley toward Oberkappel, exchanging 
 the din of the Funnel for the completest 
 pastoral silence, punctuated here and 
 there by the notes of the birds. Our 
 party did little to disturb the scene : some 
 smoked, with the grateful taciturnity of 
 smokers ; some slept at the bottom of 
 
i 3 6 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 the carts, where even Somerard, rocked 
 in the cradle of his back, forgot his 
 pranks in a succession of falsetto snores. 
 For my part, I mused on a certain arti- 
 sanne cap at Carlsruhe. Surely that milk- 
 
 white talisman was without a smirch, 
 notwithstanding Grandstone's careless 
 tales and a censorious world. Fortnoye 
 had not spoken with blame of the gentle 
 girl ; and she, as I reflected with a pang, 
 
 FALLS OF SCHAFFHAUSEN. 
 
 was so shy, so grateful, so devoted in 
 speaking of him ! 
 
 Suddenly, as I saw the floating cap- 
 strings very distinctly before me, they 
 gave a smart crack like a whiplash. 
 We had arrived at the " Hirsch." I must 
 have been nodding. 
 
 The Hirsch is a large gasthaus, an or- 
 dinary stopping - place for drovers, for 
 
 clock-sellers, or for the intelligent tourist 
 bound for the Lake of Undines. Placed 
 between the route for Wurtemberg and 
 that for the Mummelsee, it presents on 
 the side toward the latter the form of a 
 large chalet, where you can enter by a 
 human-looking doorway, and have the 
 range of two stories of chambers. On 
 the side of the Wurtemberg road you 
 
 AN UNSOCIAL COMPANION. 
 
 find but one floor, and an entrance into 
 a garret like a hay-mow : it is the loss 
 of level between the Seebach valley and 
 the slopes of the Black Forest. We en- 
 tered a large, low, whitewashed room, 
 
 furnished with limping tables and chairs 
 of unassuming rustic-work. One orna- 
 ment was on the wall, a tinted wood-cut 
 of Waldhantz the Poacher. 
 
 Germany has plenty of legendary Wild 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 137 
 
 Huntsmen, but the jolly Waldhantz is 
 the appurtenance of the Black Forest. 
 This amiable being, the king of poach- 
 
 AN ACCIDENT. 
 
 ers, used to course the woods with an in- 
 genious little gun, easily concealed, and 
 Saint Hubert took good care to keep his 
 gamebag filled. But one day he met a 
 sinister-looking black-haired personage, 
 resembling more the Prophet of Evil 
 than the good Saint Hubert. 
 
 " Good - day, Waldhantz!" said the 
 stranger sulphurously. 
 
 "Good-day, Satan!" replied the bold 
 poacher. 
 
 "What is that droll little thing in your 
 hand?" 
 
 "That? Oh, it is my pipe. Do you 
 smoke ?" 
 
 " Show me how to use it. Is your pipe 
 illed?" 
 
 "It is." And Waldhantz, who had 
 conceived the beneficent idea of ridding 
 the world of its arch-enemy, put the bar- 
 rel up to the smiling lips of his new 
 acquaintance. 
 
 "Have you your flint there? Now 
 light." With a prayer to Hubert, Wald- 
 hantz fired his fowling-piece. When the 
 smoke cleared away Saint 
 Satan was seen in good form, 
 but coughing out clouds of 
 buckshot. " What strong to- 
 bacco you use !" he said with 
 a queer wink. Waldhantz 
 had the glory of endeavor, 
 but not of success. It suf- 
 ficed him, however, for en- 
 during fame. 
 
 The rays of the sun were 
 getting level. We provided 
 ourselves with alpenstocks, 
 and with another bit of iron- 
 shod wood called a guide. 
 Our course lay along the riv- 
 ulet which descends from the 
 Mummelsee. I had intended 
 to talk seriously with Fort- 
 noye on the route, but the 
 steepness of the ascent for- 
 bade conversation. Although 
 I leaned affectionately on the 
 scapulary angle of the guide, 
 I panted like an August cart- 
 dog. To add to my humili- 
 ation, as I painfully divided 
 off the pathway I perceived 
 overhead, leaping goatlike 
 from rock to rock, a Titan scaling the 
 mountains, the patient of our homceop- 
 athist, Somerard of the mocking eye. 
 For one moment I was ready to believe 
 in the vegetable-magnetic theory of the 
 doctor, who 
 toiled inade- 
 quately after on 
 his interminable 
 legs. 
 
 A grand basin 
 turned by some 
 puissant potter 
 in the arid clay 
 of the surround- 
 ing hills — lead- 
 en waters, stag- 
 nant and thick, 
 without fish 
 within or insects 
 or flowers above, 
 see. Evidently as birds will only breed 
 
 THE REAR. 
 
 -such is the Mummel- 
 
138 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 in an untouched nest, the Undines de- 
 mand for their lodgment a massive laver 
 sacred from profane company. 
 
 At times, however, the Mummelsee is 
 stirred from its depths, and that too when 
 no wind is breathing. The leaves do 
 not flutter in the forest, the raven's breast 
 is not curled as he sails motionless over 
 the lake. The strange agitation is soul- 
 thrilling and terrible. The nymphs who 
 live below in bowers of coral (it is prob- 
 ably the only instance known of the 
 coral-builder as a fresh - water polyp) 
 come to the surface in the full of every 
 moon. They come up like bubbles and 
 disport on the surface, where their gleam- 
 ing, moonlight-washed bodies seem to 
 be lilies blushing into roses. When the 
 cock crows the frolic and jest, the wan- 
 ton diving and swimming, cease in a 
 moment, and the nymphs plunge to wait 
 for another full moon. Sometimes the 
 dawn surprises them : then there ap- 
 pears a dreadful Uncle Kuhleborn, a 
 dwarfish ugly monster, who threatens 
 them and drives them headlong into the 
 lake, and the waters are left dull and 
 sullen. Once the lasses of Seebach were 
 surprised at their spinning by a lovely 
 apparition, a fair girl who sat among 
 them and spun from her ivory wheel a 
 thread like foun- 
 tain-spray. She 
 always left them 
 at one hour, but 
 the son of the 
 house set back 
 the clock, and 
 that night she 
 went hastily to 
 the Mummelsee 
 and threw her- 
 self into the wa- 
 ter. Then a 
 complaining 
 sound was 
 heard, and the 
 lake began to 
 " VIZZ \" foam and boil. 
 
 But the young 
 nan, infatuated, flung himself into the 
 vhirlpool, and then the water was still, 
 but the spinning Undine appeared no 
 more. 
 
 (■: -w 
 
 We stretched ourselves on a hillock, 
 as appositely as possible for the visit of 
 any fairy with ivory wheel or a foam- 
 spinning distaff, but our receptive state 
 was not honored with an apparition. 
 
 THE SICK-BED. 
 
 We lay and caressed our alpenstocks 
 beside this small parody of the Dead 
 Sea, beside this flat frog-pond for whose 
 sake we had gone aside from Achern 
 and committed ourselves to a journey. 
 Some of those green-coated musicians, 
 the frogs, began to be audible in the sedgy 
 banks, and reminded me for a moment 
 of the young apprentice in green who 
 had long ago sung to me to "beware." 
 The worst of it was that MacMurtagh, 
 the Scotch charlatan, began to take me, 
 as if he might follow the lead of his em- 
 ployer, for the butt of his clumsy badi- 
 nage. 
 
 "Oh !" I said casually, "this is a poor 
 exchange for the cascades of Allerheil- 
 igen !" 
 
 " — Which are themselves a lame sub- 
 stitute for the falls we have just seen at 
 Schaffhausen," said the Scot. " Ah, Mr. 
 Flemming, you have seen nothing ! If 
 you had been privileged, like us, to be 
 at Schaffhausen, while reading at the 
 same time the matchless description of 
 Ruskin !" And the doctor began to re- 
 cite, through his red nose, and with the 
 utmost disenchantment of a strong Scotch 
 brogue, a long passage beginning " Stand 
 for an hour at the Falls of SchafThausen." 
 
 Grandstone, wearying rapidly of this 
 entertainment, turned to me with a groan. 
 " Don't you smoke ?" said he. 
 
 The incense from a number of mouths 
 was curling among the mists of the Mum- 
 melsee. MacMurtagh interrupted him- 
 self: "Mr. Flemming smokes only by 
 
THE NEW HYPERIOX. 
 
 139 
 
 TRUTH AND HER FAVORITE 
 WELL. 
 
 proxy and with the aid of four negroes," 
 he said ironically, alluding to my little 
 quiz upon him at Strasburg. 
 
 I laughed good - naturedly enough. 
 "You really must forgive me," I said. 
 "When I popped that joke on you it was 
 in r e m e m- 
 brance of the 
 duke of Missis- 
 sippi, to whom 
 m y dear Frau 
 Kranich intro- 
 d u c e d me at 
 Ems, and who, 
 she assured me, 
 kept a private 
 secretary to 
 ' smoke to him.' 
 As for the 
 S c h a fTh a u sen 
 falls, if you were 
 acquainted with 
 my former history you would know that 
 I saw them in those same old times, be- 
 fore you were born. Since then I have 
 grown lazy. I no longer take tobacco, 
 even by proxy : in revenge I take my 
 waterfalls infinitessimally diluted, at the 
 hands of a homceopathist !" 
 
 Fortnoye, stretched apart from the rest, 
 on his pelvis and his two elbows, formed 
 a sort of tripod. To escape from the 
 recoil of my shot at MacMurtagh, I went 
 up and offered him a penny for his 
 thoughts. He turned to me a face that 
 was surprising for its depth and tender- 
 ness of expression. " I am thinking of 
 a fain-," said he, "whom if I had the 
 power I would bid arise this moment out 
 of yonder lake." I know not why it was 
 — I am sure I was torn with jealousy — 
 but on that I gave him my hand for the 
 second time. 
 
 In order to get an idea of the dignity 
 of the hills on which the Black Forest is 
 planted, our younger men had determin- 
 ed to ascend the Hornisgrinde, an ex- 
 cursion which would occupy the remain- 
 der of the day. This is the most elevated 
 peak of a range which extends from 
 Sassbachwalden to Oberkappel. For my 
 part, I started in the rear of the party, 
 but with a covert determination to bota- 
 nize and sketch in such a manner as to 
 
 be left entirely behind. The fatigues of 
 the morning had already told on my 
 knees, which felt curiously uncertain 
 under me, and I was wiping my brow 
 already when my companions had 
 mounted the first hillock. As for the 
 short gentleman, the lively Somerard, he 
 departed for the loftiest peaks like an 
 eagle, and as if the best the Schwarzwald 
 had to show were all insufficient for his 
 desires. 
 
 My own rearward location, however, 
 soon became the most popular one. In 
 a short time I saw our guide returning to 
 the lake, and looking like a Savoyard 
 with his monkey as he carried the am- 
 bitious Somerard on his shoulder. He 
 had fallen all of a heap in the pathway. 
 MacMurtagh, who with the rest followed 
 the descending cortege, said that it was 
 a superexcitation of the assimilative or- 
 gans, the result of an overdose of young 
 ash tree in the morning, aggravated by 
 the rarer air of the heights. 
 
 At the Hirsch, where we hardly arrived 
 before nightfall, the table was alreadv 
 
 ONB OF THE CHORU: 
 
 set, and we found to our wonder at each 
 plate a noble bottle of champagne label- 
 ed Le Brun, of which house Fortnoye 
 was a special agent. " The Le Brun 
 brand," said he carelessly, as if to con- 
 ceal the generositv of his handsome 
 
4 o 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 treat, 'you'll find the most honest and 
 conscientious of all the champagnes." 
 This surprise, arranged over-night by 
 our invaluable companion, put us all in 
 
 good humor and obliterated our fatigues, 
 except those of poor Somerard, for whom 
 a bed was laid in a corner of the great 
 room. The invincible dwarf, sociable to 
 
 BROKEN SLUMBERS. 
 
 the last, feebly applauded with his hands 
 when he saw the sierra of bottles stretch- 
 ed along the table. 
 
 As the repast proceeded some rather 
 effervescent talk was heard, and witti- 
 cisms and good things were not wanting. 
 Fortnoye, the prophet and interpreter of 
 the vintage, while continually adding to 
 the fund of wit, maintained that the whole 
 exhibition was due less to our natural 
 ingenuity than to qualities inherent in 
 the Le Brun brand. He argued that he 
 could recognize its true effect in our gay 
 but not silly repartees. This gift, he 
 pleaded, was the special one of the cham- 
 pagne he represented, and thereupon he 
 developed a most extraordinary theory, 
 which he claimed to have been years in 
 forming. Let him hear, he said, such 
 and such a bright speech, such and such 
 a sarcastic reply, and he could tell wheth- 
 er it were born under the influence of 
 a sparkling or a still wine. At need he 
 believed he could specify the very part 
 of the Marne departement where the 
 speech or the sarcasm had been ferment- 
 ed and put in stock, whether at Rheims, 
 Epernay, Avize or Sillery. In his opin- 
 ion, Moet tended rather to imagination 
 than to mirth, Montebello inspired musing 
 
 rather than conversation, while Clicquot 
 turned naturally to politics; and so on 
 with twenty obscurer labels, which he 
 ranged under general headings, such as 
 "wines of wit," wines "patriotic," or 
 
 
 "anecdotic," or "hearty," or "jolly," or 
 even "a little broad." 
 
 The theory amused us abundantly, 
 and I gave with the rest my vote for the 
 classification of Fortnoye, without letting 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 141 
 
 INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 him know how many prejudices I had 
 been forced to conquer before coming 
 over to his side. 
 Fortnoye, in 
 accepting our 
 comments and 
 administering 
 some vigorous 
 strokes of his 
 own, had nev- 
 er got the bet- 
 ter of a sort of 
 dreamy gravity 
 which seemed 
 habitual with 
 him. 
 
 This man 
 had seemed to 
 me at Epernay 
 a mere profi- 
 cient in vulgar 
 horseplay : at 
 the house in 
 Carlsruhe I 
 learned to 
 think him a suspicious character. En- 
 gaged as I had been in his pursuit by a 
 ridiculous accident and a peevish curios- 
 ity, I had him now face to face without 
 the ability to see him clearly. Which 
 was the true Fortnoye — the ambu- 
 lant wine-agent, the poet, the phi- 
 lanthropist or the buffoon ? They 
 were all present in one, but the buf- 
 foon was disguised in the philoso- 
 pher's mantle : his thoughts laughed 
 oftener than his features. A keen, 
 discriminating mind leaped up from 
 the wine-cask, like Truth from her 
 fabled well. As for the heart, I 
 had but to trust the God's acre at 
 Laaken for that. There remained 
 but one more quality of Fortnoye's 
 to test him in — that of bard. 
 
 At dessert I invited him to sing 
 some of his own songs. He com- 
 plied by rolling out more than one 
 brindisi. They were transparently 
 joyous, light-hearted and sincere, 
 like fragments of Burns : at the mo- 
 ment of the most hilarious expres- 
 sion of gayety they were furnished with 
 a penetrating note of pathos or senti- 
 ment, which, shaded in the most ex- 
 
 quisite manner by the manly voice of 
 the singer, sent the strangest thrill of 
 sympathy into the pleasure with which 
 we listened, and matched our delighted 
 ears with an accompaniment of swim 
 ming eyes. We joined in the choruses 
 with absolute fury : the German orphe- 
 onist contributed to these refrains some 
 variations and Tyrolean jodels which 
 enlivened if they did not entirely follow 
 them ; and the sick Somerard, deter- 
 mined not to be forgotten at his corner, 
 piped in the choir like a friendly steam- 
 whistle. The fairies must have heard it 
 all in their lake with feelings of envy. 
 
 Already, at several attempts, our two 
 drivers had striven to detach us from 
 the table. The night, they said, was 
 gloomy, and it would be perilous cross- 
 ing the valleys of Kappel and Seebach 
 after it was too late to see the heads of 
 the horses before us. We paid small at- 
 tention. "One song more!" we cried, 
 and still Fortnoye, with his grave en- 
 thusiasm, sang of cheer and hospitality, 
 and the German vocalist, lashed to his 
 utmost endeavors, sent forth his voice in 
 Tyrolean exercises that resembled a 
 syrupy liquid blobbing forth from a gi- 
 
 THE BLACK FOREST. 
 
 gantic champagne-bottle. At last we 
 rose, and the charioteers cracked their 
 whips with the relish of anticipation 
 
142 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Doctor MacMurtagh, who had vainly- 
 endeavored to secure a hearing for cer- 
 tain effusions of Allan Cunningham and 
 the Ettrick Shepherd, now declared his 
 patient unfit to bear the jolts of the 
 wagon. He refused to leave his charge. 
 Grandstone, too, said it would be dis- 
 loyal to quit Somerard's bedside. Fort- 
 noye declared that wine - merchants 
 should work in harmony, and governed 
 his conduct by Grandstone's. The two 
 natives of Epernay were glad of an ex- 
 cuse to stay with Fortnoye ; the orpheon- 
 ist, cracking a fresh bottle, found himself 
 very well where he was, and promised to 
 spend the night at table ; and I, for my 
 
 part — what could I do against such a 
 formidable majority ? "Resolved" said 
 Fortnoye, "That to return to Achern 
 without M. Somerard would be an act 
 of treason which the remotest posterity 
 would brand on us as a crime." (" Hear ! 
 hear!" said the congress.) "Resolved, 
 As Doctor Meurtrier yonder promises to 
 set his patient up again by morning with 
 the aid of a few juleps of poplar and 
 birch tree, that we engage in another 
 little project. Resolved, That we gain on 
 foot to-morrow, not Achern again, but 
 Appenweier, a nearer town, and a sta- 
 tion where the railroad to Baden makes 
 a branch to that of Kehl. We thus save 
 
 Mp:k 
 
 RESTING IN THE WOODS. 
 
 time and improve our acquaintance with 
 the Black Forest." 
 
 The majority became unanimity, and 
 we sent the carts rattling back to Achern. 
 The landlord, not unused to making a 
 bed-room out of his dining-hall, threw a 
 few mattresses over the floor, where we 
 stretched ourselves, rather ill at ease. 
 The orpheonist alone, true to his prom- 
 ise, remained all night stolidly upright 
 at table, communing with a large pot of 
 beer and a small bottle of Kirschwasser. 
 
 Bright and briskly we quitted the grand 
 hotel of the Stag in the morning. We 
 directed our course for the little town of 
 Appenweier on the road to Kehl, and 
 I thought of an early return homeward, 
 and an encounter with Hohenfels at 
 
 Marly. The cows were going out to 
 pasture : they knew their way better than 
 James Grandstone, who volunteered to 
 guide us, knew ours. Ottenhafen and 
 Lautenbach left behind, we admired the 
 pretty valley of Salzbach, and passed 
 various tiny and almost nameless ham- 
 lets, when a town came in sight — surely 
 Appenweier and the Kehl railroad ! 
 
 The town was Oppenau, and we had 
 overshot the station. Grandstone was 
 dismissed without arrears of wages : we 
 sought a more experienced guide. Ven- 
 turing into a handsome village-house 
 and drinking a glass of beer, we asked 
 the red-waistcoated owner for a cicerone. 
 He pointed to a tall lout, a ferryman, 
 who had just brought some countrymen 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 M3 
 
 over the stream which laved the cottage 
 wall. We explained to the boatman our 
 wish to go to Appenweier, and he replied 
 by two gestures — one an affirmative nod, 
 
 LARGESS. 
 
 the other an invitation with his forefinger 
 to get into the boat. 
 
 This Charon conducted us for an end- 
 less time along his little river, the Rench 
 or the Ramsbach. Finally, leaping out 
 and not looking behind him, he march- 
 ed along a woody path, and then up a 
 hill. We followed, our mutual conversa- 
 tion growing more and more sparse as 
 our confidence decreased. This was our 
 history from six o'clock A. M. until two 
 in the afternoon. More than once I and 
 my tin box sank to the ground for a little 
 rest. Like the slave of some deceptive 
 princess in the Arabian Nights, he led 
 us through countless meanders, without 
 answering our questions or ever once 
 looking at us. At last he brought us to 
 a town, and Grandstone, as the financial 
 agent of the party, showered largess 
 upon the guide and dismissed him, glad 
 at last to have come to the termination 
 of so long a walk. He made an exag- 
 gerated rustic bow and plunged into the 
 recesses of the town. 
 
 At that moment I perceived on a sign- 
 board the name of the place. It was not 
 Appenweier. It was Freudenstadt. 
 
 "Hurrah, boys !" — I could not forbear 
 the joy of announcing our luck — "is not 
 this delightful ? We are lost in the Black 
 Forest ! Let us have adventures ! Let 
 us quote the vagabondage of Cervantes 
 and the philosophy of Gil Bias ! Let us 
 adopt knight-errantry as a profession, 
 charter our own association, and practice 
 ; Exploration of the Black Forest, by a 
 
 Company of Musical Amateurs, lim- 
 ited'!" 
 
 " Only hear the ancient boy !" Grand- 
 stone said in advance of me to the Scot, 
 without thinking me so near. "Was 
 there ever such a jolly old absurdity ? 
 He thinks he is still at the age when he 
 used to walk around Heidelberg with his 
 tiresome friend the baron." 
 
 We commenced our wilderness-life by 
 getting a good comfortable dinner at the 
 little tavern of Freudenstadt. The vil- 
 lage proved to be a commercial centre, 
 to the extent of irradiating upon a happy 
 world the blessings of straw hats, glass 
 mugs and musical boxes. There was a 
 strange church here, constructed in some 
 very remote antiquity on that cellular 
 system which we pretend is most exclu- 
 sively modern — the same system which 
 Mr. Dickens so disapproved on his first 
 visit among American prisons. The men 
 and women at Freudenstadt worship in 
 such privacy that they cannot see each 
 other, though the preacher's desk is vis- 
 ible to every one of the congregation. 
 
 But I must render justice to the dinner. 
 It was composed of cold sausage, of a 
 salad, and a tart open and filled with 
 Irish potatoes. It seemed to me prefer- 
 able to the ordinary bill of fare at Del- 
 monico's or Vefour's. But then I had 
 been walking for it from six in the 
 morning. It is proper, also, to celebrate 
 the hotel bill : it bore not the slightest 
 resemblance to my late one at Baden- 
 Baden. It was computed in kreutzers, 
 and cost us something like a dime each. 
 
 Again, then, we set ourselves in mo- 
 tion, having easily exhausted the com- 
 mercial charms of Freudenstadt. Our 
 guide, this time, was neither Grandstone 
 nor the ferryman, but Accident. We 
 were determined to have our souls thrill- 
 ed with adventure. 
 
 The fact is, the Black Forest, so far as 
 we could see it, appeared about as safe 
 and quiet as the route from Boston to 
 Cambridge, and we fancied we could 
 have our adventurous experience at a 
 very reasonable outlay in actual risk 
 Behold us lost in the Black Forest ! 
 
FJ^T&T X. 
 
 A WALK TO WILDBAD 
 
 TIME PASSES. 
 
 "A Saw-mill in the Black Forest, May — . 
 
 MY HOHENFELS : I have passed 
 through such vicissitudes that I 
 do not know the day of the month. I 
 have sought in vain to turn my face to- 
 ward my beloved hearthstone. I have 
 drained the last drops of a bitter cup, 
 which shall never be set to these lips again. 
 I refer to the cup they gave me this 
 144 
 
 morning for breakfast, the beverage in 
 which was of so vile and wooden a qual- 
 ity that nothing shall tempt me to try its 
 like while beer is to be had : I believe 
 there was sawdust in the grounds. The 
 bread, too, seems to be all bran here, or 
 perhaps there is sawdust in that too. In 
 fact, baron, I write to you this morning 
 in the full disenchantment of a satisfied 
 endeavor. ' Why must I be haunted ' (I 
 have always said) ' by this persistent, 
 importunate Me f Why cannot Paul 
 Flemming lose himself?' And now I 
 have lost myself, and I cannot tell you 
 what a poor triumph it is. 
 
 "Too tedious the tale to give you the 
 recital of my repeated failures to meet 
 you at Marly! Since the day when I 
 started to rejoin you, with no greater 
 eccentricity of direction than the charac- 
 teristic one of going eastward when you 
 and my rendezvous lay westward, — since 
 that fair start there has not been a morn- 
 ing when I have not been rushing to 
 find. you, not a night when I have not 
 prepared to throw myself upon you at 
 railway speed. The accursed railway ! 
 that and the perfidy of seeming friends 
 have kept us apart. At this moment I 
 do not know where I am, nor have I an 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 U5 
 
 idea how to get home. I do not know 
 whether Appenweier or Freudenstadt is 
 the nearer town, nor in which of them I 
 want to be, could I get there. I am 
 passing through the Black Forest, des- 
 perate and restless, with a motion in my 
 wooden head like the perpetual motion 
 which Wodenblock had in his timber 
 leg, and which made him travel on 
 through distant lands, a never-resting 
 skeleton. 
 
 " Freudenstadt was the last village that 
 had its baptismal appellation written up 
 on a guide-post. Since that, I have been 
 stringing village on to village without 
 knowing or caring for their names. Ev- 
 erybody speaks a kind of jargon which 
 is just enough like German for me to get 
 it exquisitely wrong and set myself off 
 on the wildest goose-chases. Yesterday, 
 in a dim and lonely forest road, I was 
 fairly frightened, for methought I heard 
 eleven o'clock strike from twenty steeples 
 at once : I feared my wits had fled. Go- 
 ing on a few steps, I found that the illu- 
 sion proceeded from a wandering clock- 
 seller, who had seen me first, and had 
 stopped to advertise himself by setting 
 all his mechanism in motion. While I 
 paused to talk with him a cuckoo flew 
 out from his breast, where he had hung 
 his finest timepiece : the ghostly bird, 
 unpleasing even to an unmarried ear, 
 __^ chimed in im- 
 
 pertinently 
 with our con- 
 versation, and 
 the twenty 
 clocks contin- 
 ued to strike 
 as I asked my 
 way of the fel- 
 low. He an- 
 swered in pa- 
 tois, and the 
 result of the 
 whole chorus 
 was indeed distracting. To make him 
 talk better, I went so far as to buy a 
 clock. He did indeed speak more loud- 
 ly, and I understood him to say that 
 beds and nourishment could be obtained 
 at a neighboring mill. It has proved to 
 be a saw-mill, and the beds are filled 
 ro 
 
 THE EAR DISPLEASED. 
 
 with sawdust. If you can think of any 
 more incongruous and absurd figure than 
 a lost man carefully carrying a clock 
 through the recesses of the Black Forest, 
 you must find it in Arnim's ' Wonder- 
 Horn.' I no sooner had the automaton 
 in my arms — there was a neat glass globe 
 over it, and the utmost delicacy of car- 
 riage was required — than my one object 
 in life was to find a place where I could 
 set it down. 
 
 " Soon after dismissing my clock-seller 
 — and indeed his prices were moderate 
 — I heard a shot in the thick of the for- 
 est. I paused to listen, and directly a 
 shadow was seen, faintly recalling old 
 religious pictures of Saint John in the 
 wilderness bearing the lamb. The Shad- 
 ow fled at sight of me with extreme ra- 
 pidity : I could but remark the lusty 
 grace of the poacher as he made off with 
 the goat dangling at his back. The in- 
 cident was rather reassuring than other- 
 wise, as a poacher argued proprietary 
 rights, even here in the woods, and 
 promised a vague connection with homes 
 and haunts of men ; but he was not an 
 available person of whom to ask the way, 
 being more ready to show me his heels 
 than his tongue. The valley which led 
 to Freudenstadt I have called the Valley 
 of Rasselas, for it seems impossible to 
 get out of it, and I believe I am all the 
 while going round in a circle. I often 
 hear, behind the green draperies of the 
 forest, the songs of young girls, or the 
 laughter of women washing clothes 
 around a spring, or the lowing of herds : 
 it is like dreaming. It is an enchanted 
 vale, peopled only by echoes, or by such 
 quaint and picturesque types as my frei- 
 schiitz and my time-bearer. Still, re- 
 membering the coffee and the bread, I 
 am far from satisfied, and am convinced 
 that losing the omnipresent Ego is not 
 so fine as German poets have said it 
 would be. 
 
 "Here there are no inns. The pil- 
 grim deposits his staff in what corner so- 
 ever he can. I asked one or two other 
 people for the mill — a stout young wo- 
 man who walked along braiding some 
 fine and puerile-looking straw lace in 
 her clumsy fingers, and a cowherd. I 
 
146 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 pursued this idea of the mill with some 
 eagerness, for how could I forget, my 
 own baron, that charming night we pass- 
 ed together in what we called the en- 
 chanted valley of Birkenau, when you 
 
 sent the postilion right past the Wein- 
 heim landlord, who stood in his door 
 solicitous to bless, and when we put up 
 at the old mill on the Wechsnitz, where 
 by the droning wheel we recited Goethe's 
 
 ' Youth and the Millbrook' ? Ah me ! 
 that incident occurred while my life was 
 comparatively unclouded. It was be- 
 fore I had met the Dark Ladie, and be- 
 fore some other and perhaps superior 
 
 attractions had impinged on my course 
 Well-a-day ! I hope she is happy ; but ] 
 am bound to confess that I do not know 
 Mary Ashburton's present name, nor 
 aught of her history since she married 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 147 
 
 that traveling valet who convinced her 
 that he was the Lord of Burleigh in dis- 
 guise. I may have changed my views, 
 I may have selected a very different 
 type of female excellence ; but time 
 enough for that when we meet. 
 
 "The clock-vender's mill proved, as I 
 
 have told you, a saw-mill. A pair of 
 honest fellows were playing at draughts 
 inside it, with pieces two inches broad 
 hastily sawn off from sticks of brown 
 and white timber; their table was a 
 plank, rough from the mill, standing 
 upon round and barky legs which had 
 
 A SAW-MILL IN THE SCHWARZWALD. 
 
 doubtless been trimmed to make the 
 chequers, and rudely chalked over the 
 top in a large chessboard pattern. The 
 mill was stopped for the moment, the 
 hungry teeth of the saw resting fixed in 
 the heart of a pine. I was not put out 
 too much when I found 
 what kind of a labor- 
 atory it was. Have I 
 not somewhere con- 
 fided to you my notion 
 of writing a poem to 
 match Goethe's, and 
 to be called ' The 
 Song of the Saw -mill' ? 
 have I not enlarged to 
 you on the beautiful 
 associations of flood 
 and forest that branch 
 out from the theme ? 
 At least, I have included, among the 
 lessons of American poetry I have din- 
 ned into your ears, Bryant's capital 
 translation of Korner's little lyric on the 
 ' Saw - mill.' I accepted the substitute, 
 then, and took shelter under the substi- 
 tute's roof of long and fresh-made boards. 
 
 STRAW-BRAIDING. 
 
 I am a bird upon whose age you are 
 always insisting, but I am for ever being 
 caught with some variety of sweet-fla- 
 vored chaff; so I fluttered confidingly in 
 to the lure of the two friendly peasants. 
 
 THE FLOWER-SPIRIT. 
 
 The lure was a bed filled with atoms of 
 wood — as was also the coffee. I have 
 postponed my poem. 
 
 "Risen with the sun, I am writing to 
 you, my Hohenfels, upon the primitive 
 
48 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 table just described, which is worthy of 
 the patriarchal ages. My wanderings 
 must add immortal facts to my essay on 
 Progressive Geography, though it is em- 
 barrassing not to be able to find out the 
 names of any of the places I encounter. 
 — But what — what is the agitation which 
 at this moment alarms my senses ? The 
 chamber seems to be whirling around 
 me ! The table is escaping from my el- 
 bows, and grates over the floor in a series 
 of thrills or vibrations ! Everything in 
 the room is dancing and leaping, and a 
 tremendous roar has begun to come in 
 at the window ! They have started the 
 mill! I must seek elsewhere to finish 
 this scrawl." 
 
 The fact of being leagues away from 
 any probable post-office was just the in- 
 citement I needed to write to the baron : 
 my letter, which I never took out of my 
 pocket, was but fairly begun when the 
 pair of millers, having cleared away our 
 poor breakfast of coffee and sausages, 
 set the apparatus in motion, as I have 
 said. 
 
 As I rose a group of my fellow-pilgrims 
 burst into the chamber, which was still 
 furnished with the row of sawdust beds 
 on which we had passed the night. 
 Grandstone and Fortnoye, finger upon 
 lip, brought me to the window, which 
 looked out on the stream and on a little 
 savage garden. "Now you can surprise 
 the doctor in the very act of administer- 
 ing his peculiar remedies," said the latter. 
 
 Poor Somerard, hardly recovered from 
 his accident of the evening before, was 
 to-day put on a regimen of mere absti- 
 nence. The influence of poplar -sap 
 being far too drastic, he was restricted 
 entirely to perfumes, and under their 
 control we found him. Planted near the 
 window, and standing up with much 
 spirit to a garden-flower which by his 
 side appeared a giant, he inhaled the 
 fresh odor with all the ardor of a war- 
 horse that breathes the smoke of battle ; 
 and Sawney, at his back, was cautioning 
 and restraining him, murmuring scien- 
 tific formulas whose vile Latin came im- 
 perfectly to our ears, and perhaps point- 
 ing to his own red nose as a warning 
 
 against the reckless stimulation of the 
 smelling organ. The litany took some 
 ten minutes ; at the close of which our 
 homceopathist, dropping a grain of sugar 
 out of a tube, administered the same to 
 
 CHARLATANRY. 
 
 his patient in water, and his surgical op- 
 eration was for the present ended; the 
 poor patient's back, to the ordinary eye, 
 having much the same profile as before. 
 
 "What an invention !" said to Grand- 
 stone one of his guests from Epernay, 
 his voice protected by the clatter of the 
 machinery. "This doctor causes his 
 client to drink through the nose — that 
 same nose through which he doubtless 
 makes him pay." 
 
 "Mysterious, though," said honest 
 young Grandstone, doubtfully. "You'll 
 find Somerard particularly light and airy 
 this morning: 
 it's the essen- 
 tial oil he gets 
 out of those 
 g i 1 1 i f 1 o w e r s 
 and things.' 
 
 "There is a 
 need in hu- 
 manity," said 
 Fortnoyt in 
 his slightly 
 rhetorical way, 
 "to which the 
 
 race of charlatans responds. They are 
 the parasites of the upper classes, just 
 as the fortune-tellers subsist on qui ser- 
 vants. There are metropolitan quacks 
 
 THE TRIPOD OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 149 
 
 and there are provincial quacks. In 
 all the towns, and in the outskirts of 
 great cities too, have we not encoun- 
 tered the same Proteus in his various 
 forms of tooth - puller, pain - killer or 
 corn-doctor ? ' Heaven bless you, my 
 fine fellow !' I think as the honest rogue 
 
 REFRESHMENT. 
 
 cuts his poor flourish with feathers, armor, 
 music and fanfare : ' you are such a satire 
 on the age that I would not part with 
 you. We all have an aching tooth some- 
 where in the corner of our jaws, and we 
 all try to temporize, instead of submitting 
 to the regular dentist and the excruciating 
 pull. While you are amusing the vil- 
 lagers, monsieur and madame are be- 
 guiled just as well with some Mesmer or 
 Cagliostro adapted to their rank in life.' " 
 
 "And the scientific ranks, too !" add- 
 ed I. "You must not think that learn- 
 ing excludes credulity. Have I not seen, 
 in my own rooms at Passy, grave mem- 
 bers of the Institute, in their sacred 
 coats embroidered all round with sil- 
 ver olives, bending their old backs 
 over my card-tables or endeavoring 
 to float up to the ceiling like Mr. 
 Home ? But let us leave quackery, 
 and this frightful mill too, where the 
 tables turn from causes more purely 
 rational. It will be delightful to fol- 
 low that hemlock-tinted brook, which 
 looks like mead or metheglin spilled 
 from the drinking-horns of Valhalla." 
 
 "The gentleman is fond of the 
 Northern mythologies," said the Ger- 
 man orpheonist, who entered now — 
 the same who had sat up all night with 
 his beer and kirsch in the hotel of the 
 Stag. "I have found something better 
 
 than the milk or honey-mead of Val- 
 halla. I encountered, in a cow -yard, 
 the very woman whom we met braiding 
 straw ; and I have bought from her all 
 this potful of first-rate kirsch wasser." 
 
 The good pair of millers would accept 
 nothing for our beds or breakfast : they 
 were offended at the bare hint. But 
 when we passed the kirschwasser round 
 to them in a friendly way, they drank it 
 almost all between them. 
 
 I had to take a gibe from Somerard as 
 I left my clock dancing a./>as seul on the 
 shelf above the quadrille of seven or 
 eight mattresses upon the floor, for the 
 whole frame of the mill was shaken with 
 the revolving wheel. I had no repartee 
 ready for the sarcastic dwarf; and indeed 
 my feeling for him was one of pity when 
 I saw the look of trust and veneration 
 with which he started off on the arm of 
 Doctor MacMurtagh. I could but think 
 of the proverb of the casuist Schupp, as 
 reported by Heinrich Heine : " In this 
 world there are more fools than persons." 
 
 My curiosity about Fortnoye being by 
 no means satisfied, I sought occasion to 
 enjoy his society as we walked, but he 
 was the most popular member of the 
 group, the pivotal member about whom 
 the rest revolved in various combinations. 
 He was never alone. I attached myself 
 to him, however, and conversed indiffer- 
 ently amongst the rest while my arm was 
 linked to his. Presently my chance came. 
 The doctor, attracted by an echo, paused 
 
 TEACHING THE ECHO. 
 
 to hold a dialogue, it being, as he re- 
 marked, the only individual in the coun- 
 try that could speak a word of canny 
 
i5° 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Scotch : the rest, except Fortnoye, were 
 willing to stop and hear the extraordinary 
 duet. I carried off my man while the 
 doctor was executing the song "Green 
 grow the Rushes " for the echo's benefit, 
 and our orpheonist, who could not catch 
 the tune, and could make nothing of the 
 words, added to the confusion by assist- 
 ing in the chorus. 
 
 I made haste to report to Fortnoye the 
 strange things I had heard about him 
 from my fellow-lodgers at Carlsruhe — 
 
 THE LURLEIS OF BADEN-BADEN. 
 
 that he was at once a sage, a revolution- 
 ist, a bankrupt, a tradesman and a poet. 
 
 " There is a pennyworth of truth in all 
 that," he answered, laughing. "But as 
 we grow older we grc*v wiser. If you 
 will but take me as I am to-day, I am 
 no more a Communist than I am a bank- 
 rupt. My existence has been rather idle 
 and aimless until lately, and I confess 
 that there are adventures to be told of 
 my after-college days that I do not like 
 to remember. I will tell you a trifling 
 incident. Some few years ago I was at 
 Baden-Baden, sulky, homeless and alone. 
 What does the traditional young man do 
 at Baden-Baden when he is friendless 
 and far from home ?" 
 
 "He yields to the seductions of the 
 games. The sirens of gambling allure 
 him as they rise from the green expanse ; 
 and then the Lurleis sink with him and 
 crunch his bones at their leisure under 
 the — under the table." 
 
 " You are very right. One rainy even- 
 ing I entered the rooms where, beneath 
 a blaze of light, were assembled the 
 roues of the Continent, the blacklegs of 
 
 THE DOUBLE ZERO. 
 
 England, the miners of Australia and 
 the curious beauties of New York — " 
 "Of course it was your first visit?" 
 "No: that would be the proper way 
 ot Deginning a story, but in fact it was 
 not my first visit. I had risked fifty 
 francs every Saturday for some months 
 out of pure ennui, and had lost and won, 
 with, of course, a slight tendency toward 
 sacrifice on the average. I considered 
 that I was paying very cheap for an 
 extraordinarily interesting drama, and 
 thought it would not be honorable to 
 frequent the rooms unless I lost at least 
 as much as I usually did. I laid down 
 that night my fifty francs carelessly upon 
 the 0, the double zero — the dangerous 
 and fascinating spot affected by so many 
 
 GOING FORAGING. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 151 
 
 players. The indicator went spinning 
 round — in ' its predestined circle rolled,' 
 as your Shellev has it. I lost, and the 
 
 THE CROUPIER S FOREFINGER. 
 
 croupier curled his forefinger around my 
 little pile and tucked it in as the elephant 
 absorbs the unregarded apple of the 
 wondering little boy. Nothing could be 
 quicker and cleaner. ' Take the whole 
 of me, then,' I said in a pet, and threw 
 down five hundred francs upon the same 
 cynical double zero." 
 
 "Without doubt," I observed, " vou 
 
 lost again, and were left without a hope 
 in the world." 
 
 "Not at all, not at all! It was cer- 
 tainly all I had, but my 
 quarter's allowance was com- 
 ing in on the Monday, or 
 you see I should not have 
 run the risk. I never found 
 any use in losing my head on 
 these occasions. And then 
 I won." 
 
 "You won !" 
 
 "Won, yes — a whole pock- 
 etful. And that was what 
 frightened me. I was really 
 afraid I should be bitten with 
 the playing-fever. At home that night 
 I wrote a short memorandum in my 
 pocket - book : ' N. B. Never ga?nble 
 again.' Of course, I only had to be re- 
 minded of it. I dedicated the sum, ev- 
 en- centime, to the next worthy charity 
 that should present : I was not long in 
 finding such a one, and, as it happened, 
 that money, by an odd providence, went 
 
 SIGN-LANGUAGE. 
 
 to build a little monument in a cemetery 
 — the cemetery of Laaken, in fact." 
 
 I did not reveal that I knew anything 
 of the storv. The babe, the wretched 
 
152 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 mother, the generous young stranger 
 whose blushes I had had painted for me, 
 whose sobbing words had been quoted 
 in my hearing, the days of his tender 
 watching by that poor child's last mar- 
 ble cradle, formed a memory too beauti- 
 ful and delicate to be exposed. I grasped 
 his hand, warmly enough, no 
 doubt, and only said, "I've 
 been told, too, that you are 
 no stranger to Francine — " 
 
 "I should hope not!" 
 
 "And that you advanced 
 the funds to start her in 
 business." 
 
 "A bit, certainly — at six 
 per centum. Besides, that 
 little affair created a new 
 centre of employment for 
 my wines, and I had guaran- 
 tees for my capital from old 
 Father Joliet. Since those 
 good fellows of your table 
 choose to see in me a wild- 
 cat speculator, was not this 
 a reasonably good specula- 
 tion ?" 
 
 I was enchanted, for the 
 easy commercial tone in 
 which he spoke convinced 
 me that he had never borne 
 any relation toward Francine 
 but that of her wine-agent. 
 
 However contented Mac- 
 Murtagh might be with the 
 lessons in Burns he was giv- 
 ing to the echo, the convic- 
 tion became more and more 
 deeply impressed on us that 
 our lingual relation with the 
 Black Foresters was not sat- lBw " ,,,T 
 isfactory. The orpheonist, 
 whose nativity was in the Swiss direc- 
 tion, could understand about a word in 
 forty of those which were addressed to 
 us : I myself, with perhaps a broader 
 education, a better knowledge of roots 
 and a more philosophical way of listen- 
 ing, could usually pick up a word in 
 twenty-five. We walked along the road 
 with less and less assurance, until, at the 
 sight of a man dressed in black, whose 
 passage brought up all the little children 
 to his knees and all the women to the 
 
 gate-posts or door-sills, Fortnoye quietly 
 left us. 
 
 As I drew near I found he was talk- 
 ing to the priest in Latin. I contributed 
 my own tributary stream of erudition, 
 and we held a biblic colloquy in a lan- 
 guage strangely varied with the French 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE HOLLEN PASS. 
 
 accent, the German accent and the un- 
 reasonable accent that used to be taught 
 at Harvard. From this extraordinary 
 diet the best results came out. 
 
 We had been marching quite away 
 from the direction of Strasburg : we were 
 at the village of Wurzbach, between the 
 Lentz Valley and the Negold Valley. 
 To our right was shown the little town 
 of Calw, situated at the extremity of the 
 Black Forest, on its Westphalian side : 
 on our left, at a two hours' march, was 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 J 53 
 
 Wildbad, the famous watering - place, 
 from whence we could easily reach a 
 railway-station. These items consider- 
 ably encouraged the chiefs of the army 
 and revived the spirits of the men. In 
 truth, the whole troop was getting tired 
 
 FREIBURG IN BRISGAU. 
 
 of the Rasselas valley, which seemed to 
 have no bound nor limit. 
 
 At half an hour from Wurzbach the 
 fog that had accompanied us all the 
 way from the mill condensed into posi- 
 tive rain. We hastened our steps, look- 
 ing meanwhile to right and left for shel- 
 ter. A large cowherd's hut, distinguished 
 by a wooden cross and surrounded by 
 whole hillsides of cattle, offered itself to 
 our regards. 
 
 This time the hospitality we received 
 was not effusive or voluntary. An old 
 
 man and his daughter, the only guard- 
 ians of the place, watched us taking 
 possession with an expression of alarm. 
 In fact, the rain increasing, the cows 
 began to enter, and the strangers were 
 eight in number : it was a large party 
 for so small a place. We 
 =- -_ _ were obliged, however, 
 
 iijj^ to await the passage of 
 "]% the shower : the storm re- 
 FjS ^gjjp ; ^ doubled, and the interior 
 JH was a mass of steam. It 
 vffE J?- was noon. We were all 
 : — hungry, and not a sign 
 from our hosts announced 
 a dinner. We were all 
 ranged, damp and clam- 
 my, like frogs on a skewer, 
 along a miserable shelf or 
 bench opposite the empty 
 fireplace. The old man 
 and the girl looked in their 
 laps. 
 
 Tired of this, Fortnoye 
 got up and rang upon the 
 table a broad ecu of Bra- 
 bant, ordering the girl, with 
 a quiet and becoming air 
 of authority, to kindle a 
 fire and serve some food. 
 His gestures and his fine 
 manly tones were expres- 
 sive enough : the damsel, 
 looking to her father for 
 permission, and receiving 
 a nod, filled the oven with 
 wood and quickly sent a 
 volume of smoke rolling 
 up the chimney. Fortnoye 
 was not yet at the end of 
 his resources. He had per- 
 ceived a rabbit skin amongst the rafters, 
 and, taking it down, he signified, with 
 the assistance of another resonant ecu, 
 that we would take rabbit for our lunch- 
 eon. The old man, when he compre- 
 hended this idea, nodded his head, put 
 the two broad pieces slowly into his 
 pocket, buttoned on leather gaiters and 
 a thick felt overcoat, and doggedly van- 
 ished into the storm. He was gone an 
 hour, but he did produce a pair of rab- 
 bits. Meanwhile, the idea of remaining 
 for perhaps a day in a hovel without a 
 
54 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 larder, and where our Latin was not of 
 the slightest advantage for social inter- 
 course, became so intensely vexatious 
 that we resorted to various expedients 
 for shedding the light of intelligence on 
 the mind of our young female compan- 
 ion. We named her Gretchen. 
 
 A kind of comical delirium seized on 
 Somerard. As he desired eggs for 
 dinner, he took to crouching on the 
 ground and crowing like the morning 
 cock in Hamlet. Gretchen regarded 
 him with stupefaction. Grandstone 
 upon this, feeling an inclination for 
 mutton-chops, began bleating like a 
 lamb. His Epernay friends had un- 
 equal tastes : one took to fishing with 
 an imaginary line, the other to draw- 
 ing an invisible ox by a rope, and to 
 lowing expressively. I, for my part, 
 thought with infinite regret of my 
 faultless cook at Marly. The efforts 
 of all our pantomimists were fruitless, 
 and we starved on until the return of 
 the old proprietor, except when one of 
 us, imitating Alfred in another neatherd's 
 hut, took to toasting brown bread at the 
 cinders — an operation which he contin- 
 ued with patience and great effect — until 
 our friend returned successfully with the 
 rabbits, even as Alfred's henchman with 
 news of the Danish defeat. 
 
 Our rude dinner finished, we lost no 
 time in leaving this primitive hotel. The 
 rain had abated, and soon ceased entire- 
 ly. Before entering Wildbad we judged 
 it necessary to enter a large gasthaus, in 
 the form of a chalet, placed upon the 
 right of the road, in order that the brush- 
 ing, cleansing and pipe-claying proper 
 to an entrance in form upon the Baths 
 might take place. We had hardly gone 
 in when one of the most familiar choruses 
 of the Allerheiligen concert smote our 
 ears : it came from the throats of a dozen 
 
 orpheonists, who, after visiting the ruins 
 and cascades, had plunged like ourselves 
 into the Schwarzwald, and had described 
 a very different circle through its recesses 
 from ours. They had traversed the ro- 
 mantic Hell-vale, the Hollenpass ; they 
 had basked in the beautiful Paradise, or 
 Himmelreich; they had touched long 
 enough at Freiburg in the Breisgau to 
 admire its fine cathedral, one of the few 
 
 THE MOTIVE. 
 
 completed edifices of its class in Europe ; 
 and here they met us on the outskirts of 
 Wildbad. Our own orpheonist, who I 
 believe was a law-clerk from Geneva, 
 fraternized at once with these artists, and 
 I saw him no more at the waters. Fort- 
 noye determined to do a little stroke of 
 business among the hotel-keepers of this 
 favorite resort. Grandstone, after cluck- 
 ing together his brood of invited guests, 
 busied himself with plans for their en- 
 tertainment at the baths. I was the only 
 one who wished to depart instantaneous- 
 ly. My motive for such intense haste, 
 need I explain it to the reader ? 
 
 We, who had been such great friends, 
 dissolved like a summer shower. All 
 were busy and preoccupied : Fortnoye 
 was the only one who grasped my hand 
 at the station. 
 
ZP^_IR,T 2CI. 
 
 THE NECKAR REVISITED: OLD FRIENDS AT 
 HEIDELBERG AGAIN. 
 
 ROBERT BEVERLEY, in his His- 
 tory of Virginia, published in 1705, 
 says that " at the mouths of their rivers, 
 and all along upon the sea and bay, 
 grows the Myrtle, bearing a berry, of 
 which they make a hard brittle wax, 
 which upon refining grows transparent." 
 He goes on to speak of the uncontam- 
 inable sweetness of this bay or myrtle — a 
 sweetness so obdurate that candles made 
 of the wax go out with a fume that is a 
 perfume : they die in an odor of frag- 
 rance, these tapers, like little saints ; so 
 that people blow them out for the pleas- 
 ure of smelling the snuff. 
 
 The modest Vaccinium myrtillus, an 
 
 unpretending member of the great fam- 
 ily of the bays, grows abundantly in the 
 shade of the trees and up the sides of 
 the hills in the Black Forest and along 
 the Rhine. Its berries are exported into 
 France, sometimes to the figure of forty 
 thousand hogsheads in a season ; but 
 that must be in a year when the vintage 
 is bad, for the innocent Vaccinium myr- 
 tillus (or airelle-myrtille) changes in the 
 hands of the cunning Frenchmen into 
 grapes : those versatile chemists have 
 found a philosopher's stone by which 
 they can ferment a capital wine out of 
 the myrtle. The plant which can render 
 such service to humanity, which can 
 
 155 
 
i56 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 make glad the heart of man with its 
 wine or cheer his nights with its light, 
 deserves an illustrious recompense ; and 
 the myrtle has given its name to one of 
 the grandest towns of the old Palatinate, 
 
 THE MEETING. 
 
 the university city of Heidelberg. The 
 word Heidelberg signifies "Myrtle Moun- 
 tain." 
 
 I wish I were writing these lines by 
 the scented rays of a candle made out 
 of the American myrtle. I wish this 
 romer by my side were filled with bland 
 bay wine. For I am in Heidelberg ! I 
 am at a little card-table in a beautiful 
 bed-room, where the snowy sheets — the 
 first I have seen for several days — ex- 
 tend an almost irresistible invitation to a 
 tramper so tired as I. Yes, I am writing 
 in Heidelberg ! I wonder what the May 
 moon is whispering to the old tower that 
 lies prone on the mountain yonder, over- 
 thrown and calm — an Endymion in 
 slumber, with ivy bound around its fore- 
 head. I should like to ask some poet : 
 I should like to ask Hohenfels, with 
 whom I have discussed rhyme and rea- 
 son by the month together here in Hei- 
 delberg. I could ask him, and find out 
 exactly what he thinks about the moon, 
 for a parallel ray streams into the next 
 room, where Hohenfels is sitting in the 
 fauteuil, dozing probably. But I will go 
 to bed. I will lay down my pen and try 
 my pillows — I have seen none since 
 those of Achern, on which the landlord's 
 daughters had strewed tobacco instead 
 of poppies. I will blow out my fat, 
 gelatinous candle, whose snuff is by no 
 means perfumed with myrtle. I would 
 
 like to read myself to sleep with a vol- 
 ume of Goethe, my faithful Charles be- 
 ing hard by to carry away the light when 
 I dropped off, as was his style of old. I 
 could summon Charles easily enough, for 
 he is in the ante-chamber adjacent to my 
 bed-room, snoring on a cot bed. 
 
 But what is all this ? Heidelberg ! And 
 Hohenfels with me at Heidelberg, as if 
 it were young Paul Flemming again who 
 talked, and the baron were by, with thirty 
 years' silver taken out of his long hair, 
 to criticise and listen ! And Charles 
 himself present, the faithful retainer, as 
 -though the snug summer box at Marly, 
 with all its comforts, had been wafted 
 away to the shores' of the Neckar ! Hei- 
 delberg, and the baron, and the devoted 
 Charles ! It must be a witchery of the 
 May moon. Let the pen fall, and let 
 the morning correct what the night has 
 dreamed. 
 
 Yet morning has come, and I am still 
 at Heidelberg, but half in a dream. Let 
 me recall how I have fared since I part- 
 ed with Fortnoye and the £pernay rev- 
 elers and started Parisward from Wild- 
 bad. 
 
 At the junction of Oos, as I emerged 
 from the railway-car with the impression 
 that I must take another carriage to get 
 
 THE FEMALE CRUSOE AND PETS. 
 
 upon the French line, a heated man 
 stepped out of the terminus as I entered 
 it. The heated man was Charles, my 
 faithful Charles ! 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 157 
 
 I hardly recognized him at first, I so 
 little expected to meet him in the duchy 
 of Baden. As he saw me his feelings 
 expressed themselves in a complete in- 
 ability to speak, and in a perspiration 
 that set a tiara of pearls across his fore- 
 head : when he grasped my hand some- 
 thing fell splashing upon my boot, and 
 I made no doubt but it was a tear. 
 
 For thirty-six hours, Charles, borrow- 
 ing the wings of steam and the reflector- 
 lantern of the locomotive, had been 
 
 searching for me minutel) , as Diogenes 
 searched for a man or Telemachus for a 
 father. A letter received by Hohenfels 
 at Marly from some gentleman unknown 
 to Charles had given the former some 
 account of my escapades. According to 
 this epistle, I had just left Baden-Baden, 
 seemingly without cash, and to all ap- 
 pearance owing board-money at Carls- 
 ruhe, and probably at other places. The 
 baron, inexpressibly shocked to recog- 
 nize such a vagabond in a friend of his, 
 
 THE DEAD CASTLE. 
 
 waited a few days for my appearance ; 
 then, unable to bear it, flew to my relief. 
 Charles begged to go along with him. 
 Josephine the cook was to write to them 
 instantly if I arrived, and was left with 
 narrow instructions to look well into the 
 face's of all ragged persons who came 
 begging at the gate, and turn no one 
 away who could possibly be her master 
 in a state of adversity. If I did not 
 come, she was to write all the same and 
 send a line of news every day. 
 
 Two of these epistles had reached 
 
 Charles without any tidings of Monsieur. 
 Hohenfels had become very morose at 
 Baden-Baden, and went about muttering 
 anathemas against young heads covered 
 with gray hair. His correspondent, 
 whom he met there, and who was of 
 course Sylvester Berkley, was equally 
 nonplused. He could not understand 
 how I had obtained the sinews of war 
 for any further campaigns, and was 
 much surprised that I had not returned 
 direct to Marly, since he had bidden me 
 farewell at the station, with my baggage 
 
i58 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 on my person in the shape of a batter- 
 ed tin box. I must then, he opined to 
 Hohenfels, have gone back to Carlsruhe, 
 where I seemed to have unlimited credit 
 with a certain Francine. He took the 
 trouble to accompany the baron thither, 
 his curiosity undoubtedly piqued in the 
 matter of Francine as well as of me. In 
 fact, the two gentlemen had left this 
 morning, and were doubtless now in 
 Carlsruhe. Their instructions to Charles 
 
 were to post himself at the Oos junction, 
 and watch at all the trains with the eye of 
 a hawk and the ear of a lynx for any faded 
 gentleman who should bear my stature, 
 and who would probably be heard ask- 
 ing for a temporary loan to enable him 
 to reach Paris. His story told, Charles 
 looked me over, and his old protecting 
 tone took an accent of pity as he said, 
 "Monsieur must have suffered a great 
 deal to be obliged to buy an old hat like 
 
 RNING OF HEIDELBEK& PALACE. 
 
 that." It was my new hat, which indeed 
 had had its own little history. 
 
 "We will go to rejoin them together," 
 said 1. " I have a debt at Carlsruhe 
 which I am glad enough to settle." 
 
 "Monsieur has run in debt?" There 
 was a flood of reproach in the tone, and 
 Charles, who is of my own age, yet likes 
 to treat me as a schoolboy, made me 
 feel as I did when I was at Cambridge 
 and used to confess my debts in the va- 
 cations. At seven in the evening we 
 reached Carlsruhe. 
 
 In search of Berkley, I approached 
 the official bureaux once more, at about 
 the same hour as before, and with the 
 
 same question. The identical porter,, 
 like an automaton, gave me the identical 
 reply of the previous occasion : " Mr. 
 Berkley has gone to Heidelberg, where 
 he is dieting on whey." I asked if he 
 had not been in Carlsruhe to-day, return- 
 ing from Baden. The answer was affirm- 
 ative, without explanations. "If he has 
 gone to Heidelberg, is there not another 
 gentleman with him?" There was a 
 new affirmative response, and the watch- 
 man went so far as to add, " I believe 
 the gentlemen have gone there to hunt 
 for something they have lost." 
 
 That something was I. Satisfied with 
 my news, I ran around parenthetically. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 59 
 
 to the house where I had been so com- 
 fortably lodged. In the pretty dining- 
 room everything was confusion. The 
 dinner - table, all entire, giving up its 
 old researches in Progressive and Com- 
 parative Geography, was talking of the 
 grand event. Francine had gone, Fran- 
 cine had been taken away — by an old 
 gentleman, a servant added. I came 
 just in time to attract every one's suspi- 
 cions to myself. "What were you plot- 
 ting together in the office yonder?" ask- 
 ed the man of Wyoming, pointing to the 
 cabinet, where the keys still hung up like 
 interrogation-points in a manuscript. 
 
 This gave me great concern, but I had 
 leisure to think of nothing for the mo- 
 ment but to place myself as quickly as 
 possible in the care of my keepers. 
 Pigeon-holing Francine in my brain, to 
 be thought about when I should have 
 leisure, I hastened with Charles to the 
 railway. The train which had just 
 brought us was ready for departure. 
 Carlsruhe is a dining-station, and while 
 I was at the table of Francine our fel- 
 low-passengers were mingling soup and 
 coffee in the brief agony of a railway 
 meal. 
 
 Charles, sitting with me in a first-class 
 carriage for the first time in his life, in- 
 dicated his sense of the proprieties by 
 maintaining perfect silence, and placing 
 himself at the greatest attainable dis- 
 tance in the diagonal corner from my 
 own. Under any other circumstances he 
 would have been full of talk. I fell into 
 a train of musing that agreed well enough 
 with his taciturnity. I considered how I 
 had abjured the Rhine, and was now 
 skirting its mountain-walled borders. I 
 thought of the insane concatenation that 
 was flinging me upon Hohenfels once 
 more, and at Heidelberg ! A score and 
 a half of years expanded their cloudy 
 wings around me, and a lymphatic 
 beauty smiled vaguely upon me in the 
 general situation. The baron and I, 
 though assuredly we never expected to 
 see Heidelberg together again, might 
 discuss Richter and Schiller behind that 
 many-windowed mask of a ruined facade, 
 and our criticisms would become juve- 
 nile again and unconventional, like those 
 
 RUINS AND CABBAGE. 
 
 of the Bronte children when their father 
 made them utter opinions from behind 
 a mask on the great men of England. 
 But the baron ! I 
 paused doubtfully. 
 My very servant 
 had been scolding 
 me: what ava- 
 lanches of reproach 
 had I not a right 
 to expect from Ho- 
 henfels ! 
 
 We reached Hei- 
 delberg in the dark, 
 and I made for the 
 hotel of Prince 
 Charles, where I 
 knew that Berkley 
 usually took his 
 whey. I trembled 
 with apprehension. 
 I was about to meet 
 
 the man whom I had urged to pass the 
 spring with me in my little country den 
 at Marly. I had written him two let- 
 ters : the first was from Carlsruhe, where- 
 in I bade him await me. He had obey- 
 ed, but his waiting had been vain. The 
 second letter, from the saw-mill in the 
 Black Forest, was in my pocket. 
 
 Charles quickly discovered for me the 
 little suite of rooms in which Sylvester 
 and the baron were installed. I ordered 
 him, with a dignity unusual with me, to 
 go in first : I was shaking in all my 
 joints. The door opened, and in an in- 
 stant Hohenfels 
 was hugging me 
 like a lunatic in his 
 long arms. 
 
 "Ah, you terrible 
 responsibility ! 
 Have I got you 
 safe?" he said. I 
 felt his heart 
 thumping against 
 my own ribs. 
 
 Berkley left the 
 chess-board at 
 which the two gen- 
 tlemen had been 
 
 sitting over their game, and came up to 
 me slowly, with graceful gestures of his 
 knees at every step, and brushing out 
 
 A MOCKING 
 
i6o 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 his whiskers a little as he advanced. It 
 was his manner when he had something 
 elaborately sarcastic to deliver. But he 
 remarked, "What a singular man you 
 are, Mr. Flemming ! and what a singular 
 
 DRUNK WITH REVENGE. 
 
 man you have made of me ! At the be- 
 ginning of the month I took leave and 
 came down to Heidelberg: you forced 
 me to break off my cure of whey, to go 
 and take it up again at Baden-Baden. 
 Now you have got me back here, are 
 you content with me ?" 
 
 I wrung his hand : in my confusion it 
 was the broadest acknowledgment I 
 could make. 
 
 I tried to say something to Hohenfels : 
 " There is a good moon on the ruins, old 
 pal. I'd like to go up and sit there a 
 while with you." 
 
 "You rheumatic infant!" said the 
 baron, but he was touched too. "You 
 must go to bed. The next chamber is 
 engaged for you, you see. It is rather 
 more comfortable than this : I have set 
 
 the keys so that I can lock you up from 
 the outside, and I am going to fasten 
 you in, You are capable of running off 
 from us again." 
 I slept as on swan's-down, and awaken- 
 ed to find myself in 
 the shadow of the 
 Myrtle Mountain, with 
 Charles unrolling a 
 napkin to wait on me 
 in the breakfast-room, 
 and my name on the 
 inn-register next to the 
 names of my oldest 
 friends. ' 
 
 Sylvester awaited us 
 in the adjoining room, 
 where a little private 
 table was laid. Charles 
 relieved my wants with 
 importunate compas- 
 sion and waited on the 
 others with much 
 friendly interest. 
 
 Although I have 
 long recorded my lik- 
 ing for public dinner- 
 tables, where so many 
 gentle things can be 
 said without being 
 overheard, yet I ap- 
 proved this time the 
 confidential form of 
 the meal. We had so 
 much to say to each 
 other ! The private table, however, 
 proved to be an arrangement of Berk- 
 ley's. He did not choose to drink his 
 whey along with the holiday clerk and 
 the commercial gent. 
 
 The event of the repast was a letter 
 from Josephine. It said, in so many 
 words (addressed to Hohenfels), that 
 Monsieur being certainly lost, she was 
 going to look out for another situation ; 
 the solitude was unbearable ; she was 
 tired of acting as cook in the service of 
 Argus and the two tabbies. I read the 
 assurance of my loss in a loud voice to 
 the others. For some reason or other, 
 it gave me a fit of home-sickness. From 
 the post-mark of Marly emanated a pow- 
 erful influence over my spirits. I was 
 conscious of an overwhelming desire to 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 16] 
 
 see my garden, with its pumpkin vines 
 and Lima beans, its little rows of sweet 
 Indian corn, and the other contrivances 
 with which, in opposition to Laboulaye, 
 I had created an Amerique en Paris. I 
 wanted to fondle my dog, and I wanted 
 to baste my cook. Of these desires I 
 made a confidant 
 of H o h e n f e 1 s , 
 proposing to him 
 to fall into re- 
 treating order 
 forthwith. 
 
 "Only last 
 night you wanted 
 to revisit the cas- 
 tle. You need 
 not bring me so 
 far to drive me 
 straight back 
 again. As for 
 your cook, con- 
 sole yourself: I 
 gave her news of 
 your health in a 
 letter mailed last 
 night." 
 
 The baron, 
 with his shackling, ungainly limbs, his 
 enormous silken tassel of hair, has not 
 improved in looks with age. A pair of 
 deep crescent-shaped furrows have par- 
 tially replaced his old smile, and his 
 forehead is ruled like a country school- 
 master's copy-book for the inscriptions 
 of Time. But the soft iris of his light- 
 blue eye the years have not been able to 
 wrinkle ; and out of that mild azure, of a 
 color eternally young, he gave me a look 
 of exceeding friendliness as he cheered 
 me up : it was not for my cook he con- 
 soled me. 
 
 " I am willing enough to see the ruins," 
 I said, ashamed. " I only fear, if we go 
 over the old spots again, that we shall 
 take root here." 
 
 We beguiled Berkley by promising to 
 drop him at the Molkenkur, his dairy of 
 whey and buttermilk. It was in a grange 
 so named, on the top of a hill, that Syl- 
 vester undertook to acquire the diplo- 
 matist's calmness by infusion and imbi- 
 bition. From the plateau we lowered 
 our eyes, and out of the midst of the 
 
 lower part of the mountain, between 
 Wolfsbrunnen and the Molkenkur, a 
 magical apparition surged up before our 
 sight in the dazzling morning sunshine. 
 
 A city of marble rests there as though 
 it eternally heard the trump of a material 
 resurrection. Columns and arches rise 
 
 THE GREAT TUN OF HEIDELBERG 
 
 out of earthy graves. Men of stone, its 
 only inhabitants — some of whom hold 
 swords in their hands, while others are 
 supine and vanquished in dusty moats — 
 seem to keep up eternally some terrific 
 battle. Immense piles of ruin deform 
 the earth. Palaces rise around in maj- 
 esty and seeming strength, but through 
 their huge windows you see peeping the 
 foliage of lusty trees. Ivies, like the 
 snakes of Laocoon, roll up from the feet 
 of the sturdy pillars, and bite again and 
 again into the cracks and fissures of the 
 stone. As Herculaneum lies fixed and 
 mocked in its security of lava, so lie 
 these buildings mocked with the cohesion 
 of their own mortar and ironically ce- 
 mented with their ruin. 
 
 "Heidelberga deleta" said Berkley the 
 statesman in a low voice, repeating the 
 sinister brace of words furnished by 
 Boileau to serve as inscription on the 
 medal struck in honor of Louis XIV., 
 the destroyer of Heidelberg. 
 
 " Nay, I cannot think its life is com- 
 pletely trampled out," said Hohenfels. 
 
162 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 "Some intelligence of its past purpose 
 and splendor must remain, to give it a 
 ghostly animation. Do you suppose 
 these stones do not excite themselves, 
 on quiet nights, by performing again the 
 echoes of revel and pomp they knew of 
 yore ? Do you believe yonder stairs, 
 plying up in spirals to the clouds, do not 
 lead anywhere, or are not pressed by 
 
 phantom feet ? There is a voice in the 
 Past, gentlemen, for him who can hear it : 
 
 Prophetic sounds and loud arise for ever 
 From this, and from all Ruin, to the wise !" 
 
 For my part, I recited one of Goethe's 
 little poems, that one composed by him 
 when sailing down the Rhine in com- 
 pany with Lavater and Basedow, and 
 when, as we may fancy, he was suddenly 
 
 THE HEKO. 
 
 struck by the contrast between some 
 gray tower on the cliffs above and the 
 floating life beneath : 
 
 He stands upon the turret high, 
 
 The Hero's noble wraith, 
 And to the skiff that passeth by, 
 
 " Fair speed the voyage !" he saith. 
 
 " Behold, these sinews were so strong, 
 This heart so stout and wild, 
 Such pith did to these bones belong, 
 So high the board was piled. 
 
 '• One naif my life I stormed away, 
 One half in rest I drew — " 
 
 At that word of "rest" I looked at Ho- 
 henfels, and paused : he concluded the 
 poem in his silver voice with a gentle- 
 ness that turned its menace into a ben- 
 ison, and looking kindly straight at me : 
 
 " ' And thou, thou mortal of a day, 
 Thy mortal path pursue !' " 
 
 Sylvester then, as his contribution to the 
 literature of Heidelberg, furnished one of 
 his neat and succinct little histories, re- 
 suming in a few words the past career of 
 the stones that lay mute around us. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 1 63 
 
 In the place now occupied by Heidel- 
 berg Castle the Romans had already 
 constructed a fortress of a square plan. 
 After the fall of the Empire the design 
 was respected, so far as the form went, 
 by the Franks in the first 
 place, and then by Conrad 
 of Hohenstaufen, who began 
 to give it the appearance of ^ 
 
 a palace. Conrad's old .. ~ = 
 
 mauer was reconstructed in : : ^%L. 
 the close of the fourteenth 
 and beginning of the fif- 
 teenth centuries by Robert L 
 and Robert II., who added 
 numerous parts to the build- 
 ing. The succeeding elec- 
 tors rivaled each other in 
 adding graces and beauties 
 to the building. Frederick I., called the 
 Victorious, and Louis the Peaceful, or- 
 namented it with towers and terraces; 
 Frederick IV. erected a superb construc- 
 tion, whose remains prove its former 
 grandeur; his son, Frederick V., king 
 of Bohemia, built a second close by, 
 calling it the English Palace, to recall 
 the fact that his wife Elizabeth was 
 daughter of James I. of England. In 
 his unfortunate reign Heidelberg fell 
 into the Bavarian hands, and its great 
 Palatinate library was carried to Rome. 
 Other palaces were added by successive 
 princes, but the crowning glory was that 
 marvel of architecture which was con- 
 tributed by Otto Henry in the middle of 
 the sixteenth century. The cluster of 
 palaces had well earned its splendid 
 name of the German Alhambra when, 
 from 1674 to 1693, all the scourges of 
 war fell upon the Palatinate. Of its 
 palace there remained only that which 
 the miner and sapper, the cannon and 
 the torch, were unable to destroy. 
 
 But Louis XIV. did not sufficiently 
 destroy the palace of Heidelberg. Its 
 majesty has grown by what he did, and 
 Versailles does not offer half the solemn 
 beauty of this its murdered rival. 
 
 Sylvester continued his explanations 
 as a resident and habitue. The castle 
 in its present state has resident officers 
 and guardians of both sexes. The Tow- 
 er of Rupert, dating from the time of 
 
 Louis the Debonnaire, is haunted by the 
 devil, they say, since the doings in it 
 of a certain Leonora of Liitzelstein ; but 
 from this ill-omened edifice we heard 
 the sounds of a piano : other habitable 
 
 THE JESTER. 
 
 portions are occupied by commonplace 
 modern tenants. While Berkley was 
 relating the history of Leonora, we ob- 
 served a woman passing along an arch- 
 ed gallery with a plate of sauerkraut — 
 surely an honest and healthy sign of 
 life ; another tower near by, half crum- 
 bled away, showed windows with good 
 tight modern sashes; and while the 
 screech-owl and adder were making the 
 most of the ruined portion, a canary in 
 a cage mocked the devastation with sub- 
 lime impudence, singing as he swung 
 over Heidelberg from a Gothic balcony. 
 
 We examined the buildings of the old 
 castle in detail — the towers, rather, for 
 in this ruin every separate portion is so 
 called, and even the library is a tower. 
 We inspected the terrace, with its fresh 
 gardens in the pomp of spring-time, and 
 we looked down on the roofs of the 
 modern town. Wherever we went I 
 fancied something was wanting. 
 
 Suddenly I asked myself if something 
 was not de trap ? 
 
 My eye fell upon Berkley, who was 
 demonstrating a Roman coin in the mu- 
 seum with insufferable zeal and erudi- 
 tion. I glanced at my dear Hohenfels, 
 and fancied that his thoughts were the 
 like of mine. This, in fact, was not our 
 Heidelberg, the Heidelberg of our Lang 
 Syne, the Heidelberg of our memories 
 and of our passion. How could we pos- 
 sibly fall into the old tone, how discuss 
 
1 64 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Hans Sachs or the Minnelays, before this 
 frigid perfection, this person with opin- 
 ions all made up and squared by rule, 
 this perennial Prize Scholar fed on whey ? 
 We formed between ourselves a politi- 
 cal party in opposition to Berkley. We 
 spoke to each other with our eyes behind 
 his back : we telegraphed over his shoul- 
 ders or through his elbows. It is true 
 that Sylvester bore 
 the name of one 
 of my best friends, 
 a man who stood 
 by me and cheer- 
 ed me nobly in a 
 period of ridicu- 
 lous trial ; and the 
 younger Berkley, 
 for his own part, 
 had overwhelmed 
 me with civilities 
 and obligations. 
 I could not help 
 it: the moment he 
 presented himself, 
 in complete armor 
 of white kid gloves 
 and insipid erudi- 
 tion, at the scene 
 of my old fond 
 confidences with 
 Hohenfels, he became an enemy. I 
 would not have offended him for the 
 world, yet he was a mortal offence to 
 me. 
 
 There was nothing for it but bravado. 
 We must drain Berkley to the dregs. 
 "I suppose we cannot escape from it," I 
 said: "let us go and see the great tun. 
 The guide-book will never forgive us if 
 we don't." 
 
 "Yes," said Hohenfels, "let us beard 
 the lion of Heidelberg. Let us see the 
 great tun." 
 
 In this kind of desperation we paid 
 homage to the coopers' marvel. We 
 approached an angle formed by the pal- 
 aces of Frederick IV. and Frederick V., 
 and descended into the electoral cellars. 
 I am not sure that in all our residence 
 at Heidelberg, Hohenfels or I had ever 
 visited the tun ; but as a piece of acted 
 derision to Berkley we both enthusiastic- 
 ally agreed to see the corpulent wonder. 
 
 GUAKDIAN OF THE CELLAR. 
 
 In place of one astonishment, we had 
 three. 
 
 Compared with the wine-tun of com- 
 merce, the smallest of the three tuns at 
 Heidelberg is a giant, but by the side 
 of the other two, it seems like a little 
 anchovy-keg or mackerel-tub. The true 
 monarch, the master-tun of Heidelberg, 
 reposes in grand honor amongst the tra- 
 ditions of the German people. The 
 vine-growers of the Palatinate, to fulfill 
 their title, were obliged to fill it every 
 year ; but it had to submit to the fate of 
 the castle : the castle was burnt up, the 
 tun was drowned out. The revenge of 
 all the enemies of Germany, the revenge 
 of the French, the Bavarians, the Im- 
 perialists, Barbarossa, Turenne and Me- 
 lac, had to come by turns and slake its 
 thirst at .this symbolical, this eucharistic 
 wine-vessel. They broke the vase after 
 having let flow the contents. His ene- 
 mies' backs once seen in retreat, the 
 noble elector would cause the tun to be 
 reconstructed, and always in augmented 
 proportions. The astonishment of the 
 world was increased, but so was the tax 
 of the vine-growers. The curious may 
 see accordingly, to-day, the most enor- 
 mous cask which it has yet entered into 
 the mind of a cooper to construct : if 
 his ambition should increase by but one 
 degree, he would be no longer a cooper, 
 but a shipbuilder. 
 
 Indeed, the tun resembles nothing so 
 much as a Dutch brig seated on the stocks. 
 Reposing its majestic belly on a series of 
 solid supports, it sits like an Ark of Jol- 
 lity, its prow and poop, so to speak, both 
 decorated with figure-heads and coats- 
 of-arms, and a lusty Bacchus seeming to 
 bestride the hoops in a bower of sculp- 
 tured vines. A double stairway leads 
 up on deck, where, in a lucky season, a 
 ball has been given in honor of the vin- 
 tage, and the elector has danced with the 
 fairest women of his court. 
 
 This mastodon of the cellarage, built 
 in 175 1 by Engler, engineer-cooper, as 
 he was proudly called, of the elector 
 Charles Theodore, has been three times 
 filled completely. If the crop were but 
 middling, the good prince deigned to re- 
 duce the levy to the contents of his mid- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 i6 5 
 
 die tun ; if it failed entirely, he conde- 
 scended to accept the fill of the smallest 
 hogshead, called the Virgin's, which only- 
 held thirty thousand bottles. 
 
 In the same cellar, besides the three 
 tuns, we saw the statue of Perkeo the 
 jester, buried by desire with his mouth 
 under the spigot of the largest cask. It 
 is a kind of doll, or imitation, with a 
 frame of wood, a coat of silk, with tow 
 wig and short breeches, a wooden cane 
 in the hand which is not an imitation. 
 
 Clement Perkeo, the buffoon of Charles 
 Theodore, in addition to the ordinary ha- 
 bits of his kind, such as fishing off the 
 general -in -chief's wig with hook and 
 line, withdrawing the chair from the cor- 
 pulent prime minister, and the like, had 
 an enthusiastic addiction to wine. The 
 finest building and eighth wonder of the 
 
 world, he thought, was the tun, and he 
 chose for his nearest friend Engler, the 
 engineer - cooper. He brought in the 
 most accurate news of the grape - har- 
 vests. " Is the yield large, Perkeo ?" 
 "Disgraceful: hardly the middle tun!" 
 or, "Perfect ruin: only the Virgin this 
 year !" By these symbols he announced 
 to the elector the misfortunes of his 
 peasantry, and to the greedy court- 
 treasurer the prospects of his taxes. 
 Lest the vicissitudes of the vineyards 
 should affect his spirits (and the good 
 spirits of a jester are his capital), he 
 was allowanced with eighteen bottles 
 of Markgrafter wine per day. His only 
 wish on dying was to be buried with his 
 lips under the grand faucet, doubtless 
 hoping, even in death, to render the tun 
 his tributary. The elector directed his 
 
 THE SHUTTLECOCK. 
 
 image to be prepared as guardian of the 
 cellar: thus we see it, made of coopers' 
 and caulkers' materials, wood and tow. 
 
 At the conclusion of our visit to the 
 ruins we were resting, my dearest friend 
 and I, in the largest chamber of our suite 
 at the Prince Charles hotel. Berkley 
 was off for his whey, and I thought the 
 moment had come at last for Ulrich von 
 Lichtenstein and Walther von der Vogel- 
 weide. But Hohenfels asked me for a 
 full, methodical account of all my wan- 
 derings. I next tried to induce him to 
 speak of his new acquaintance, Mr. Berk- 
 ley, having myself a determined habit 
 of discussing the last thing that has got 
 into my head, and being willing to make 
 common cause with the baron in exe- 
 crating the diplomatist. But Hohenfels, 
 whatever language his eyes might have 
 spoken in allusion to Berkley, would not 
 speak in his absence with any expression 
 but a guarded chivalry and courtesy, 
 
 protesting that he knew the gentleman 
 too slightly to estimate his character, 
 and again asked me for the full confes- 
 sion of my long error. 
 
 That history, which I had recounted 
 to customs-officers and cab-drivers, to 
 Francine and to Fortnoye, and which 
 had rolled up like a snowball even as I 
 was singing the cantos of my own Odys- 
 sey, I gave to Hohenfels in full : I did 
 not omit the loss of an umbrella or the 
 purchase of a hat. 
 
 Hohenfels made his comment : "It 
 seems to me that if your friend Berkley 
 has made himself a living churn for di- 
 gesting buttermilk and whey, you have 
 done even more to lose your independ- 
 ence as a man. You have lost your cen- 
 tre of gravity. You have become a mere 
 shuttlecock between Accident and Ca- 
 price." 
 
ZF-AJE&T XII. 
 
 CONFLICTS AT HEIDELBERG. 
 
 THE TORTURES OF BERANGER. 
 
 THAT prince in the Arabian tale who, 
 on pulling aside his robe, revealed 
 his lower half turned to black marble, 
 was doubtless very happy when the en- 
 chantment came to be canceled and the 
 warm red current began to steal through 
 his flesh of sculpture. So was I in re- 
 covering the baron at Heidelberg. Ho- 
 henfels again, and again Heidelberg! 
 My thoughts began to knit, my stone 
 age at Marly buried itself in flowers and 
 became a forgotten loss, a dead period. 
 I declared that, after all, a stay-at-home 
 was a mere petrifaction, and that I only 
 found life again when I found my legs. 
 
 For me an effort was necessary in re- 
 newing the old times - you cannot force 
 the fine corpulent heart-throbs of fifty 
 1 66 
 
 into the genteel waistcoat of nineteen. 
 But for the baron no such transvasation 
 was necessary : he became young, or he 
 remained young, and fell into perspect- 
 ive with perfect ease. He was again my 
 Hohenfels of the Carl Strasse, with the 
 nature of a milky opal, always a little 
 curdled and flawed. His long flaxen 
 hair, flowing like the "curled clouds" on 
 which an Ariel might ride, was hardly 
 changed: Hohenfels' topknot, in fact, 
 was of the colorless sort which eludes 
 the approach of grayness, or conceals 
 grayness when it comes; and I have 
 often looked at the pale picture of his 
 head, with its abundant fuzz and con- 
 volutions, and thought it the perfect im- 
 age of his brain. My friend's long spine, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 16- 
 
 his bent shoulders, his lank, aimless, 
 companionable legs, which I loved with 
 all my soul, were but the preserved fea- 
 tures of his adolescence, and immortally 
 beautiful for me. They gave him, to my 
 notion, a lovable affinity with the por- 
 traits of that fairy enchanter born to us 
 out of the Dark Ages, that undying boy, 
 that sole possessor in our busy time of 
 
 ' I S; ifim. 
 
 IL TROVATORE. 
 
 the gift of legend — poor Hans Andersen. 
 The discord in our exquisite union, the 
 alkaline drop in our cup, was of course 
 Mr. Berkley. 
 
 We essayed, however, to practice the 
 old duet. We sought together those 
 nooks and corners of the splendid ruin 
 known, as we fancied, to us alone. We 
 no longer regretted that the superb 
 schloss was red, not gray. Youth de- 
 mands for its poems the hue of ashes, 
 but with the approach of age comes a 
 love for any spot of color where the eye 
 may warm itself. We sought our an- 
 cient haunt, the summit of the Rent 
 Tower, where the lindens wave like 
 plumes from a cloven helmet, and where 
 Paul Flemming used to admire the Tree 
 of Life brought from America two hun- 
 
 dred years before, and standing like a 
 kingly Louisiana slave in its iron bonds 
 and fetters. Of all this beautiful devas- 
 tation, Hohenfels was the voluntary bard 
 and interpreter. "Sull' orrida torre " he 
 perched, the troubadour. His ear had 
 not forgotten its nicety : he could play 
 as well as ever, and still preserved the 
 remarkable gift of singing and smoking 
 both at once. 
 
 The minstrel ought, perhaps, to have 
 sung the War of the Palatinate ; or Louis 
 XIV., who undertook it to reclaim the 
 dowry of his sister-in-law, wife of Phi- 
 lippe d'Orleans ; or Marshal Lorges, 
 whose name is only remembered, like 
 that of the aspiring boy who fired the 
 Ephesian dome, because he laid in ashes 
 the castle of Heidelberg. We ought, 
 perhaps, I say, to have sung these flames 
 of Troy. But we interpreted Heidelberg 
 in another manner. Among these tufted 
 walls, crumbling into melancholy beauty 
 beneath the touches of Time and His- 
 tory, nothing seemed to us half so pa- 
 thetic as the ruin of ourselves. It was 
 here we had met and sauntered, dream- 
 ing young men, committed to lives of 
 scholarship or art. It must be pardoned 
 to us that what we looked at was the 
 pageant of our own boyhood, lying in 
 vision for us, bathed in sun, through any 
 and all of these rugged arches. For this 
 sort of sentiment there is just one perfect 
 expression ; and we sang the "Grenier" 
 of Beranger. We sang it through to its 
 pensive close : 
 
 Quittons ce toit, oil ma raison s'enivre : 
 Oh, qu'ils sont loin, ces jours si regrettes ! 
 
 J'echangerais ce qu'il me reste a vivre 
 
 Contre un des jours qu'ici Dieu m'a comptes. 
 
 At each of. the five repetitions of that 
 refrain which closes Beranger's stanzas 
 with a heavy sigh — at each turn of the 
 "qu'on est bien a vingt ans !" — I fancied 
 I heard a voice like a file. At the fifth 
 refrain the sound was no longer doubt- 
 ful : Berkley, whose existence we had 
 forgotten, and on whom Nature had con- 
 ferred the ability to tie a cravat, but not 
 the gift of melody, was assisting behind 
 us with the chorus. 
 
 " I see you both adhere to the poet of 
 the First Consul," he observed with his 
 
1 68 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 most agreeable smile, " though his con- 
 firmed Bonapartism makes him an un- 
 welcome exponent of feeling just now in 
 most circles, and though his vaunt in the 
 penultimate verse, that 'jamais les rois 
 n'envahiront la France,' sounds nothing 
 less than derisory when sung to-day by 
 the Rhine." 
 
 "We were trying to capture another 
 kind of kingdom," said Hohenfels. "You 
 know, Berkley, that Tacitus describes 
 the barbarians by the Rhine as not only 
 lashing themselves to warlike deeds, but 
 consoling their ills, with a song. We 
 were only endeavoring to hit upon the 
 old key, and with it, if you will allow me 
 to say so, to enter the garret of Beranger." 
 
 But our talk was off the hinge, and we 
 could but converse on indifferent subjects 
 until dusk. We both love that placid 
 hour of afterglow, that equipoise of day 
 and night, which our language, with one 
 of its most poetical suggestions, calls the 
 even-ing. Berkley's endeavor to throw 
 a slight upon Beranger had had the nat- 
 ural effect of fixing the minstrel firmly 
 in our minds, and I supposed the baron 
 and myself were equally possessed with 
 a willful saturation of Beranger while we 
 talked with Sylvester on politics or whey. 
 At last, when a star shot, Hohenfels made 
 a falling firework out of the sparks from 
 his pipe, and hummed — 
 
 Encore une etoile qui file, 
 Qui file, file, et disparait ! 
 
 Prompt as he began this couplet, a 
 voice like Byron's "whetstone of the 
 teeth, monotony in wire," began to "file, 
 file" in unison, or rather in discord, with 
 his own : it was Mr. Berkley, bent on 
 being sympathetic, and contributing his 
 mite to the entertainment. 
 
 "I am reminded," the latter contin- 
 ued, "of some rather interesting facts in 
 the history of star-worship, of which a 
 remnant is plainly found in the tradition 
 that some one dies when a meteor falls. 
 A long time before Zoroaster — " 
 
 "Don't go on with that, Sylvester," 
 said the baron easily: "we had rather 
 talk Beranger. You know he says he 
 was made a poet by a thunderstorm : 
 that 3torm made a swan out of the tailor's 
 goose." 
 
 "All poets thrive on rain," I observed. 
 " Burns was found by his biographer 
 open-mouthed with enjoyment under a 
 sort of waterspout, oblivious of the tor- 
 rents that were filling out his galligas- 
 kins." 
 
 "Your pleasantry about the tailor's 
 goose, baron," said Mr. Berkley, "re- 
 
 THE DISCIPLE OF STRAUSS. 
 
 minds me of the little poem ' Les Oies ' 
 which Beranger's translator, Prout, puts 
 on the same page with his version of 
 ' Shooting Stars.' Since you change 
 your vein by means of a witticism, the 
 satire of this little squib cannot be dis- 
 agreeable. I will attempt a solo." And 
 he chanted, with a measured smile : 
 
 I hate to sing your hackneyed birds : 
 
 So, doves and swans, a truce ! 
 Your nests have been too often stirred ; 
 My hero shall be, in a word, 
 
 A goose ! 
 
 Can roasted nightingale a liver 
 
 Fit for a pie produce? — 
 Fat pies that on the Rhine's sweet river 
 Fair Strasburg bakes Pray, who's the giver ? 
 A goose ! 
 
 He interrupted himself to observe that as 
 both his hearers had just passed through 
 Strasburg, where they had doubtless paid 
 the civic goose the compliment of at least 
 one indigestion, the poem would be ap- 
 preciated. We looked at each other, 
 and hoped to get quit of the music by 
 the acceptance of this impeachment. 
 But in an instant another verse of the 
 canticle was fluttering laboriously through 
 Berklev's nostrils : 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 169 
 
 An ortolan is good to eat, 
 
 A partridge is of use, 
 But thev are scarce; whereas you meet 
 At Paris, ay, in every street, 
 
 A goose ' 
 
 There were six or seven verses, and 
 he faithfully gave us them all, remark- 
 ing occasionally that he had hardly ever 
 sung before any one, and that his goose 
 song was therefore a very callow gos- 
 ling. Berkley scientific was supportable, 
 but Berkley humorous was more than we 
 could bear. We abruptly rose and went 
 down the mountain into the city. Dur- 
 
 ing the descent I contrived to say inter- 
 rogatively to the baron, "Fine fellow, 
 Sylvester." 
 
 " Oh, a heart of gold !" 
 
 " And yet I got along with him admira- 
 bly at Baden-Baden !" 
 
 "And yet I passed a capital time with 
 him here until you came." 
 
 What did this and yet mean if Berkley 
 was a fine fellow and a heart of gold ? 
 The fact is, like old friends as we were, 
 we abused the laws of rhetoric in our 
 talk and leaped to conclusions. We 
 
 THE GOSLINGS OF MELODY. 
 
 meant that Berkley was good, and even 
 companionable in a strait, but no com- 
 rade for such a friendship and duality as 
 ours. We both esteemed him, yet both 
 would pay anything for an hour of free- 
 dom. 
 
 The baron thereupon had a bright 
 idea: "Suggest to him to unstarch him- 
 self: invite him to a studenten-kneipe." 
 
 The stratagem was successful. The 
 dissipations and, still worse, the philos- 
 ophy, of a students' gathering were dis- 
 tasteful to our mediator between na- 
 tions, who had knelt at the old crucifix 
 of Baden-Baden. "My view may be a 
 biased one," he said, "but it seems to 
 me that, representing a country with a 
 state religion, my place can hardly be 
 among these disciples of Spinoza and 
 Strauss." 
 
 So we went bird's-nesting like a pair 
 nf schoolboys, free and glad. We knew 
 
 well the old lane where the tavern was, 
 and entering by a garden we had a view 
 into the hall without interruption, mor- 
 ally speaking : in reality, we could see 
 nothing at the window where we had 
 stationed ourselves, for the tobacco- 
 smoke. The nearest head alone was 
 recognizable, and to my surprise proved 
 to be that of an acquaintance. It ap- 
 pertained to the hand that had thrown a 
 shower of gold among the feasters of 
 Allerheiligen — to my friend the student 
 of pharmacy, as he had called himself, 
 who tried to send me botanizing for 
 chickweed. He sat in a circle of atten- 
 tive listeners, who seemed to pay him a 
 good deal of consideration, and it was 
 easy to see that he was a bit of a hero 
 among the students. Presently he turn- 
 ed his face from profile to full, and then 
 it was the baron's turn to be surprised. 
 "Why, it is Fritz!" he exclaimed — 
 
i 7 o 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 "the son, Flemming, of a man whom I 
 have known like a brother, the Lithua- 
 nian baron Von Ramm !" And he tap- 
 ped at the window. 
 
 A fat young man turned rather angrily 
 and tottered slowly up to our casement. 
 He raised the guillotine sash, stared at 
 us blankly a moment, said "Death to 
 the Philisters !" and let the glass fall 
 with a noise. Then he retired into the 
 cloud. Hohenfels tapped again, and 
 this time it was the pharmacy-student 
 who looked around : my comrade had 
 taken out his card and held it against 
 one of the small panes, where it was 
 framed like a picture. The student 
 quickly recognized the name, and we 
 made an entry of considerable distinc- 
 tion, being drawn by the collars through 
 the window itself into the den. 
 
 It was a page of my youth brought 
 bodily before my eyes again : it seemed 
 not a renewed crowd of callow students, 
 but the same students, eternally young 
 and kept from change by some enchant- 
 ment. There were the Mossy-heads, the 
 Old Ones, the Pomatum Stallions, the 
 Princes of Twilight. They were dis- 
 cussing the laws of the Broad-Stone and 
 the Gutter; they were screaming and 
 whistling; some were in long yellow 
 hair and braided coats, gorgeous and 
 dirty ; some had white woolly heads, 
 and wore the schlafrock. It was a great 
 throng, for there were Austrians, Saxons, 
 Bavarians, Hessians, Hamburgers and 
 Wurtemburgers present. They looked 
 much alike, and the national differences 
 were seen not in their faces, but in the 
 patterns of the colossal pipes they carried. 
 The tallest men seemed to wear the nar- 
 rowest coats, those long, closely-button- 
 ed, serious-looking garments : out of all 
 proportion with the long pipes and the 
 great -coats were the caps — the imper- 
 ceptible caps, which, whatever wind may 
 blow, rest fixed like a nail on the ex- 
 treme summit of the head, thanks to the 
 practiced skill with which the German 
 student manoeuvres his neck. On the 
 table was a chair, on the chair was the 
 dignitary known as Senior of a Lands- 
 mannschaft, and on the Senior a great 
 pair of boots. "Silentium!" cried this 
 
 functionary: "the chorus will recom- 
 mence." 
 
 "I think a chorus is an odd sort of 
 silentium," said Hohenfels; and the 
 company began to sing a doggerel verse : 
 
 O Hans was Kost der Huat ? 
 
 Der Huat der hat ein Thaler Kost, 
 
 Ein Thaler Kost. 
 
 Ein Thaler Kost, 
 Der Huat der hat ein Thaler Kost. 
 Und vier and funfzig Groot ! 
 
 As each student had his allowance of 
 beer and butterbrod before him, of which 
 he partook without 
 minding the music, 
 the words of this song 
 were mostly uttered 
 with the mouth full ; 
 nor did the consump- 
 tion of butterbrod at 
 all interfere with the 
 smoking, for a Ger- 
 man student will 
 smoke and eat as eas- 
 ily as my friend the 
 baron will smoke and 
 sing. 
 
 We stayed late. Be- 
 fore leaving, Hohen- 
 fels said to his young 
 acquaint ance, "One 
 thing is necessary to 
 complete our joy in 
 Heidelberg. How 
 can we see a good 
 duel?" 
 
 " How ? Oh, any- 
 how," answered the 
 Baron of the Golden A FOX . 
 
 Shower. 
 
 "But when will a duel take place, if 
 you please ?" 
 
 "When ? Oh, any day." 
 
 "Duels are accommodating to tourists." 
 With this remark Hohenfels relinquish- 
 ed a subject which he thought his friend 
 seemed to surround with a certain ob- 
 scurity. Conversing afterward among 
 the students, however, he learned that a 
 duel was really to happen in two days, 
 and that Von Ramm was to be the hero. 
 Hence his reticence. " It is with a young 
 Fox from the University of Bonn, a for- 
 eigner. There will be several other 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 I7i 
 
 matches, but they will be simply trials 
 of skill. Fritz has the only affair of mo- 
 ment, good luck to him! The other 
 man insulted our college." He was pro- 
 ceeding to answer our questions as to 
 the hour and the place, when the round 
 face of the fat young student interposed 
 and emitted the following decree : 
 
 "Death to the Philisters ! These are 
 secrets of the college. Profane ears 
 
 must not hear where the university de- 
 fends its honor." 
 
 But we soon obtained an accurate di- 
 rection from an old familiar acquaintance 
 of mine. The ancient fire-tender and 
 man of all work about the hotel was in 
 reality none other than the postilion who 
 had brought me into town at my first 
 visit to Heidelberg: this worthy had a 
 comrade, the wisest and best-informed 
 
 THE STUDENTS. 
 
 cab-driver in the dominion. The char- 
 ioteer knew all about the honorable af- 
 fairs of die H err en Studenten, and a 
 duel with a baron in it was for him an 
 open secret of his profession. At the 
 appointed time we drove to the scene of 
 action, where we found already two pro- 
 cessions of carriages converging upon 
 the spot from opposite directions. These 
 were filled with students of the rival 
 corps, their friends and their physicians : 
 they carried almost enough lint, band- 
 ages and other surgical apparatus to dress 
 the wounds of a regiment in action. 
 It was the baron's excursion rather 
 
 than mine : I have never comprehended 
 the duello. Its logic, for us moderns, 
 appears to me incorrigibly faulty. In 
 the Middle Ages it was different : then 
 Heaven fought with the just man, as 
 Heaven in Hebrew times presided over 
 the drawing of lots. But now, in the 
 nineteenth century, it is obvious that a 
 good conscience does not give a man an 
 experience of ten or a dozen years with 
 small-swords. Technical skill may very 
 probably lie with the side morally weak- 
 est. This mode of adjudication must 
 therefore be rejected as spurious. I 
 yielded, however, with a good grace, 
 
172 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 and went off with Hohenfels to the seat 
 of war. 
 
 Some botanical specimens on the route 
 attracted me, and the baron, best natured 
 of men, conspired with me in my myrtle- 
 chasing. When we arrived the friendly 
 matches were all over, and the serious 
 affair between Von Ramm and the for- 
 eigner was under engagement. The lat- 
 ter, whose back was toward me, smoked 
 a pipe that out-Germaned Germany in 
 its length and model, and he was lost in 
 
 a pair of burlesque cavalry gloves from 
 some theatre ; his horseman's boots sur- 
 prised me, for they were made of alliga- 
 tor's skin, and looked just fit to contain 
 a bowie-knife or so ; his pantaloons, too, 
 were unlike anything Rhenish, for they 
 were of a fine pin-striped jean, more fa- 
 miliar to the Mississippi than the Rhine. 
 Except for a cuirass and fencing-mask 
 he was unprotected. His adversary, 
 however, whom it was difficult to recog- 
 nize, was stuffed out into a state of de- 
 
 ( > > 
 
 A PROFESSION WELL BOLSTERED. 
 
 fence that made him appear gigantic. 
 The student-duels on the Rhine are lit- 
 erally a pillow-fight. This combatant 
 had a mattress on his breast, wadding 
 on his arms and cushions on his legs ; 
 for it is with wool pulled over his eyes, 
 and, I doubt not, cotton in his ears, that 
 the Renowner achieves his fame. A fine 
 meerschaum issued from Von Ramm's 
 wire-woven visor, like a lily from a flow- 
 er-basket. A sufficiency of seconds and 
 students, their tinsel locks lying on their 
 shoulders like epaulettes, stood solemnly 
 around and contemplated battle's mag- 
 nificently stern array. These assistants 
 are often so completely encased in leath- 
 er and pads that they could be blown up 
 
 with gunpowder without much injury. 
 It is their duty to stand by with a sword, 
 intercept any unfair strokes, and stop 
 the fight if their principal is wounded. 
 The scars of a college duelist are gen- 
 erally seen on his left cheek, and I un- 
 derstood this fact .when I observed the 
 play of Von Ramm, who seemed to be 
 continually trying to cut over the guard 
 of his opponent's sword-arm. He was 
 an expert and graceful fencer, a hun- 
 dred times lighter in all his stuffings than 
 his unencumbered foe. The latter play- 
 ed very singularly : he kept entirely on 
 his defence, with little or no exhibition 
 of swordsmanship, until the spectators 
 became tired of the monotony of his 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 173 
 
 game. All were looking with interest at 
 the expert motions of the brilliant Lithua- 
 nian, when finally, just as his second step- 
 ped out to announce that the fifteen min- 
 utes were up, the alligator-boots sprang 
 forward, lunged at his neck, and deliver- 
 ed the point so strongly that the opposing 
 sword onlv succeeded in beating it down 
 
 THE LINEN DUSTER. 
 
 a little toward the shoulder. Von Ramm 
 staggered into the arms of his friends, 
 where he bled quite profusely from a 
 scrape over his collar-bone : seeing him 
 so unexpectedly hurt, Hohenfeis ran to 
 his side. I prepared to re-enter our cab, 
 very much disturbed and sickened, when 
 the victor, who was examining the red- 
 dened point of his sword in an attitude 
 of impartial interest, said, in a nasal in- 
 flection of my own language, "Guess 
 I've euchred him with my little snick- 
 ersnee !" The clumsy conqueror in al- 
 ligator boots was then an American ! 
 I have never known a national victory 
 to give me so little satisfaction. With a 
 feeling of shame and self-condemnation 
 I returned alone to the hotel. We had 
 undertaken our escapade among the 
 students for the purpose of avoiding the 
 contact of a lower mind, as we fancied : 
 we wished to get among German phil- 
 osophy, romance and Bohemianism. 
 The return, I felt, was the return of a 
 
 I blackguard. I was frustrated. I felt 
 therefore repentant and civil toward 
 , Berkley, whom I found at supper when 
 , I had removed the dust and issued from 
 my chamber. It was at the public table : 
 Hohenfeis was still absent. By two 
 movements of the head the English 
 statesman and I expressed, on the one 
 hand deprecation, on the other pardon 
 and pity. A new-comer was sitting near, 
 and to my great surprise this stranger 
 nodded too, without, however, betraying 
 the least intention of disturbing his hat, 
 which was a small wide-awake set rather 
 back from the forehead. 
 
 "I saw you at the little unpleasant- 
 ness :" this explanation he kindly added 
 to his salute. He proceeded : " It is dif- 
 ficult to recognize folks through a wire 
 basket, but my memory for faces is good : 
 I am something of an artist." 
 
 The nasal accent revealed the man 
 with alligator's legs. One of those san- 
 guinary brutes of the battle-field was 
 doing me the honor to claim me as an 
 acquaintance, and to share my supper 
 red-handed. His present appearance, 
 at least, was pacific : he had come out 
 of his alligator skin, and he wore that 
 garment which the American tourist flut- 
 ters like a victorious flag all round the 
 world, and which, made variously of 
 gray, white or yellow, is known as the 
 linen duster. He was drinking coffee out 
 of a larger cup than is usual for that be- 
 verage at a European dinner, but of a 
 size familiar on most breakfast-tables in 
 the United States. 
 
 "You are noticing my cup: I carry it 
 around. They make this cup at Dres- 
 den very largely for the American trade : 
 I am something of an importer. I can- 
 not enjoy my coffee out of one of these 
 poppycock thimbles they give you at a 
 table-d'hote, and I must have my coffee 
 just so : I'm something of an epicure." 
 I judged it necessary to say a word to 
 Berkley : "This gentleman, who appears 
 to be my compatriot, has just pinked his 
 man in an affair with a person I have 
 met before — a musical pilgrim at Ach- 
 ern, in fact, who joked with me on bo- 
 tanical subjects in the character of a 
 student of pharmacy." 
 
174 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 " No more of a pharmacy-student than 
 my cane : I'm something of an apoth- 
 ecary. He said our Western colleges 
 were only primary schools, which it was 
 a State disgrace to charter as univer- 
 sities. He totally denied the merit of 
 Ann Arbor, asserting he had never heard 
 of it. A college where they pick up a 
 new asteroid every fine night ! I've 
 been at Ann Arbor: I'm something of 
 an astronomer. I never fought before, 
 but on that I asked him out for a walk, 
 and I just waited for his jugular." 
 
 "You showed great coolness, certain- 
 ly," I said in a kinder tone. I found 
 something chivalresque in this young 
 stranger, who had never fought a duel, 
 coolly engaging an old hand in de- 
 fence of his country's educational ad- 
 vantages. 
 
 "Yes, I am probably cool. I simply 
 waited for his jugular. I had to wait for 
 nearly all the quarter of an hour, but 
 then he gave it me. You see, gentle- 
 men, for a raw swordsman to engage an 
 older one is an interesting, not to say a 
 difficult, problem in the correlation of 
 forces. My plan, which has succeeded, 
 was, to go through the fight without try- 
 ing to make any thrusts, and confine my 
 attention to parrying : I thus got an ad- 
 vantage of fifty per cent, over my man, 
 whose intellect was divided between 
 the two schemes of parry and thrust. 
 The watchfulness demanded in this ex- 
 ercise is simply the equal allotment of 
 neurotic power through the nerve- 
 branches of the whole body and limbs ; 
 this is harder than what is called pres- 
 ence of mind, which is only the concen- 
 tration of force in a single organ, the 
 brain. Thus, having put eyes, as it were, 
 all over my arms and legs, I felt per- 
 fectly calm and sure he couldn't touch 
 me. I had decided beforehand on this 
 game, and to uncover my sally-ports 
 only at the last. I was kept aware of 
 the exact passage of time by my second, 
 who made a signal every four minutes : 
 that was the fellow who rigged me out, 
 some theatrical fool from Munich. After 
 the third four minutes, knowing my ad- 
 versary was tired and unprepared, I cut 
 just as his second was stepping forward 
 
 to stop the fight. I had luck, and I 
 reached his jugular or near it." 
 
 And calmly attentive to us, he poured 
 down a draught of coffee. 
 
 " My order of sensations," he continued 
 musingly, " was not 
 dissimilar to what 
 I have experienced 
 at the Stock Ex- 
 change. There, 
 too, we are obliged 
 to combine ideas 
 with rapidity, to be 
 on continual guard, 
 and to be ready 
 wi t h the nerve- 
 force : I am some- 
 thing of a specula- 
 tor. FACTOTUM. 
 
 I looked anew 
 at this surprising, unsurprisable Amer- 
 ican. I made sure that he was from the 
 West. His proportions were not quite 
 harmonious: his legs and his duster 
 were long and lean, but his trunk, hat 
 and head were squat. It is generally 
 said that the American race is ap- 
 proaching in physique the character of 
 the native Indians, but it may be ob- 
 served that if a certain class of my coun- 
 trymen, led by temperament and predi- 
 lection, are allying themselves with that 
 branch of our barbarous population, 
 there is a second class obviously assim- 
 ilating with our other semi-civilized in- 
 gredient, the negro. Who has not seen, 
 on American faces perfectly Saxon in 
 their white-and-pink pigments, the ne- 
 gro's round nostril, blubber lips, curled 
 eyelashes and depressed skull, together 
 with the small, handsome, rudimentary 
 ears, like the bruised ears you find on 
 antique statues of Hercules ? Our new 
 acquaintance was of this type. His 
 nose was fat, his lips large, his hair pale 
 and bushy. There was something of the 
 albino in his appearance. 
 
 As he sauntered out picking his teeth 
 I called the man-of-all work. The old 
 fellow came up, decorated with his trous- 
 seau of keys. I asked him familiarly if 
 he knew my young countryman. " Is 
 there anything peculiar about the habits 
 or luggage of this Yankee ?" 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 175 
 
 "Faith, sir, he took a little corner 
 room in the garret, among the maids 
 and kellners. He travels with nothing 
 but a French horn, and a small bag 
 which is all papered over with the labels 
 of the express companies. One of the 
 cards is marked New Orleans, Louisiana, 
 Adams : the rest are . distributed over 
 
 SERMONS IN STONES. 
 
 Belgium and Germany, one of them 
 reading Brussels, one Liverpool, and one 
 Bonn. He is something of a Wandering 
 Jew." 
 
 " That is quite enough," I said, ashamed 
 to seem so inquisitive. "You understand 
 your station, and have made good use of 
 your eyes. Take this, and go off and 
 drink your beer with my man Charles." 
 
 It was the custom of Sylvester Berkley 
 to clamber up every morning to the 
 Molkenkur, where he drenched himself 
 liberally with whey. I once accompanied 
 him and enjoyed the spectacle : the un- 
 certain and testy character of the Berk- 
 leys was ameliorating sensibly under my 
 
 eyes with repeated washes of the emol- 
 lient liquor. Sylvester went so far as to 
 bathe in it. With him, too, I chose to 
 visit the most coquettish and artificial 
 part of the ruined castle, the Rittersaal 
 of Otho-Henry : its mixed Renaissance 
 style gave occasion for a hundred lec- 
 tures to so good an antiquarian as Berk- 
 ley was, and I came away 
 from his orations with an 
 increased respect for bric- 
 a-brac. On the lower part 
 of its front are four statues 
 — Hercules son of Jupiter, 
 Samson the lieutenant of 
 God, David the brave and 
 prudent boy, and " Herzog 
 Joshua, who killed thirty- 
 one kings by the grace of 
 the Lord." On the inside 
 this tower offered a scene 
 of lovely devastation : 
 wild vines and flowers 
 hung with insolent grace 
 among the florid carved- 
 work of the doors, through 
 which used to pass high- 
 stepping dames of the 
 Palatinate in sables and 
 feathers, but whose guests 
 now are owls and crows, 
 sometimes spotted or man- 
 tled with ermine of snow. 
 Berkley, familiar with 
 Heidelberg, was indeed 
 the best of ciceroni. Vis- 
 iting alone with him the 
 Rent Tower — which un- 
 der the reminiscences of Hohenfels had 
 seemed more of a grenier than aught 
 else — I comprehended its majesty as 
 symbolizing the power of Frederick I., 
 the Victorious, who beat Frederick IV. 
 and the German princes at Seckenheim. 
 It was eighty feet high, its walls on one 
 side twenty feet thick: this monstrous 
 shell was crushed by Louis XIV. like a 
 filbert, while at present, as if to keep the 
 warlike deed of the French nut-cracker 
 for a show, the rent portion is restrained 
 from crumbling in the mighty talons of 
 the trees. My diplomate knew all these 
 doughty Palatines like ancestors. After 
 Frederick the Victorious, he elucidated 
 
176 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Ludwig V. and Frederick V. : their 
 statues lean against the shadowy wall 
 of what was built as the Great Tower. 
 Frederick V., who married the grand- 
 daughter of Mary Queen of Scots, and 
 died in exile, retains on his marble brow 
 that crown of Bohemia which he ac- 
 cepted after its re- 
 fusal by the powers - s 
 of Austria, Saxony, 
 Savoy and Den- 
 mark ; but he has 
 lost the two hands 
 with which he grasp- 
 ed it. Ludwig V., 
 whose figure stands 
 near by, is not less 
 gloomy : he seems 
 to know that the 
 Great Tower hangs 
 in ruin behind him 
 as he watches the 
 ivy advance little by 
 little over his stone 
 face. The man of 
 useful information 
 had for each of these 
 heroes a date and 
 an anecdote: he 
 gave a voice to all 
 the petrified chiefs 
 vainly standing in 
 defence before their 
 
 towers, from Charlemagne, who had lost 
 his globe, to Otho of Hungary, who has 
 but one leg, and Otho -Henry of the 
 bric-a-brac tower, who has been bereft 
 of his hand, and Frederick II., who is 
 broken in half, and Frederick IV., who 
 has dropped his sceptre, and Frederick 
 the Victorious himself, among whose 
 marble plumes the green leaves of ruin 
 are playing. It is in such a spot and 
 with such a guide that you learn how 
 history may be better than legend. If I 
 had had so wise a counselor here in 
 my student days, I should perhaps have 
 quoted less of Jean Paul and more of 
 Clio. But at this period my Mentor was 
 Hohenfels, then at his own cloudiest stage 
 of development, who adored Goethe and 
 insulted Tiedge, who knew the Niebel- 
 ungen-Lied by heart, but could only rid- 
 icule the sketches, screech-owls, fallow- 
 
 deer and straddle-bug figures of worthy 
 Charles de Graimberg, the artist who for 
 thirty years collected here in his cham- 
 bers a museum of prints and books and 
 pictures illustrating Heidelberg. I have 
 not yet heard Sylvester ridicule a work 
 of art : if the specimen be of a grand 
 
 SATIRE IN STONE. 
 
 master, he respects it ; if it be art of 
 the Decadence, somewhat low, poor, im- 
 proper and profane, he adores it, and 
 moves heaven and earth that he may 
 buy it — the true spirit of the connoisseur. 
 As we stood in the Rittersaal, the spec- 
 tacle of the rosy Renaissance nymphs 
 and nereids evoked from him his very 
 best effort, an eloquence superior to the 
 Neues Schloss and a piety beyond the 
 stone Calvary. For my poor part, re- 
 plete and saturated with historic lore, I 
 would not have exchanged the trumpet 
 of Fame herself against the flaring sil- 
 very rim, bright with starch, of that all- 
 encircling cravat. 
 
 I would only have given a world pop- 
 ulated with Berkleys for my dream-rid- 
 den poet, my friend, my baron, the ac- 
 complice of my student-life. 
 
 Heidelberg Castle is comparatively un- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 177 
 
 hurt in front. The symmetrical profile 
 of its long facade, with gables and pin- 
 nacles, the repose of St. Udalrich's chap- 
 el and the be -ribboned smartness of 
 Otho-Henry's palace, speak little of de- 
 cay : it is like a fair mask lying in an 
 Egyptian coffin, and concealing a terri- 
 ble heap of bones and broken jewels, 
 and tufts of dry hair and shreds of rich 
 clothing. 
 
 And then, what a satire .it is that all 
 this stately masonry should be but the 
 
 " ONE FISH-BALL. 
 
 complicated envelope of the biggest 
 drinking-cask in the world ! 
 
 I prolonged my walks with Berkley 
 to the Schwalbennest (Swallow's Nest), 
 the square tower which leans so directly 
 over the Neckar from the heights of its 
 mountain at Neckarsteinach. The inex- 
 haustible cravat of the philosopher was 
 still pouring out useful information from 
 its polished lip, and I was listening to 
 the tale of Bligger the Scourge, whose 
 soldiers closed up this tower and left him 
 to die when the pope excommunicated 
 him, when of a sudden I heard the notes 
 of a French horn from the river below. 
 I borrowed the field -glass which hung 
 eternally from Berkley's shoulder by a 
 leathern baldrick, and there in a little 
 boat I saw our Yankee, who was drifting 
 past us on the river and relieving his 
 soul with the soldiers' march from Faust. 
 I watched with amusement this versatile 
 pattern of my country's civilization. In 
 a moment he had thrown down his in- 
 strument and had rowed himself care- 
 fully into the current. This necessity 
 fulfilled, his mind seemed to be at peace 
 12 
 
 again, and he flung himself flat on his 
 back in the bows. Another instant, and 
 a fresh wave of melody came up to us 
 in our watch-tower : this time it was 
 vocal, and the virtuoso was pouring out 
 with the full power of his lungs to the 
 Vosges Mountains that classic morsel 
 known as " One Fish-Ball." Directly he 
 had exhausted this sensation too, but his 
 resources were not yet at an end ; un- 
 folding a cast-net which lay beneath the 
 thwarts, he flung it skillfully out into the 
 broadest part of the stream ; and I hope 
 that the fishes of the Neckar, judicious- 
 ly charmed by the noise of the horn and 
 the song, made no delay in engaging 
 their gills among the meshes of this en- 
 ergetic young sportsman. Berkley, in 
 compliment to me, looked on at the 
 vagaries of my countryman with a sad, 
 forgiving politeness : I begged him to 
 finish his story of Bligger the Scourge. 
 It was now sunset, and when I looked 
 again for the Yankee, he was vanishing 
 like Hiawatha, high upon a sea of splen- 
 dor, and teaching the echoes to repeat 
 the adventures of Jeronimus Jobs, hero 
 of that original epic the " Jobsiad." Ten 
 minutes sufficed for my brilliant compa- 
 triot to prove that he was something of 
 an oarsman, something of a fisherman, 
 something of a vocalist, and something 
 of a hornblower. 
 
 The linen duster was visible again at 
 supper, twenty-four hours after our first 
 meal with him. I sent him a mouthful 
 of my Prince Metternich by the trusty 
 Charles, and he grasped his hat and 
 came over to touch glasses with Sylvester 
 and myself. 
 
 "Your wine is not so bad, but in this 
 confounded country I can get nothing 
 but the superfluities — an intolerable deal 
 of sack and not one ha'penn'orth of 
 bread. At Bonn, and here, too, I had 
 to dine without my crust." 
 
 "I have hardly noticed it," said I, 
 "but here I believe it has always been 
 so." 
 
 " I have seen the day when I would have 
 given a dollar for a corn-cake or a bit of 
 pone. They gave me at dinner with the 
 soup a pretty cake, a sort. of brioche. I 
 just flung it at the man and asked for 
 
1 7 8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 bread. Then he came up bringing a 
 little biscuit stuck full of aniseed. Then 
 I asked for bread again, and he brought 
 me a turn-over full of plums and cher- 
 ries, as if I had been Jack Horner, by 
 Jingo ! I stopped there, or he would 
 have offered me every tart and pudding 
 they turn out in the pastry- 
 shops. I vow I don't like -— ■- 
 it : I am something of a 
 Grahamite." 
 
 "It is just the same at 
 our table," I said, apply- 
 ing myself to a kind of 
 sausage or mince -meat 
 which I was consuming, 
 and which had prunes 
 in it. 
 
 "The Repast without 
 Bread," said Berkley, 
 who saw the chance for 
 an oration, "is an ancient 
 tradition of the country, a legend en- 
 closing the finest political rebuke ever 
 made by the producing to the governing 
 classes. The present observance, though, 
 is probably an involuntary sequel to the 
 old proverb." 
 
 "Oh! I thought likely," said the 
 youth with a shrewd air, and indicating 
 my sausage, "that they just didn't give 
 bread with one fish-ball" 
 
 "Frederick the Victorious," pursued 
 Sylvester, disdaining the interruption, 
 "after conquering the robber-knights at 
 Seckenheim, treated them famously, and 
 had them all to a feast. Everything was 
 magnificent, but when the guests called 
 for bread, there was none to be had. 
 ' My lords,' said Frederick, ' those whose 
 life's trade it is to trample the grain, 
 burn the mills and plant the fields with 
 corpses must not ask for bread : that 
 boon of industry is for other mouths 
 than ours.' And he resumed his courteous 
 talk as if nothing had happened. It was 
 a fine Corn-Law speech of the date of 
 1461." 
 
 "Perhaps so," I agreed; "but it is un- 
 fortunate that the lesson is not learned 
 yet in the country, and must be enforced 
 at the expense of strangers. By the by, a 
 pretty girl that," I said, willing to adopt 
 a slightly rakish tone with my young I 
 
 guest, and winking indulgently as a 
 handsome laundress made her escape 
 past the dining-room windows, a kind 
 of Briareus of surreptitious stockings 
 tossing multitudinously from out of her 
 apron. 
 
 "Pretty girl! you must be fond of a 
 
 THE CAST-NET. 
 
 pretty girl !" sneered the stony-hearted 
 student, with his first exhibition of tem- 
 per. " If all the pretty girls of Europe 
 were under the river in that seine of 
 mine, it would not be I who should draw 
 them out." 
 
 I felt surprised, and perhaps rebuked. 
 I assumed a rather grand manner : "Your 
 name must be Saint Anthony ! Apropos, 
 may we know how to call the guest with 
 whom the custom of the place lets us 
 share our cup, but not our loaf?" 
 
 "No objection," said the Yankee with 
 a business-like air; and he opened his 
 pocket-book, from which a card fell be- 
 side my plate. "Catch it! Not that," 
 he said, and extracted another. I read 
 them both without particular intention. 
 On one was printed " John Kranich" 
 on the other " Jean Kraaniff" "Ah, 
 now you have seen it," said the young 
 man, in an easy, unembarrassed way, 
 "and all the fat's in the fire. Well, we 
 are a good way from New Orleans, and I 
 may as well tell you all about it. You 
 are a literary man, I judge, and per- 
 haps you can help me to utilize my 
 anagram." 
 
 "Your anagram ?" I asked. 
 
 "The anagram of Jean Kraaniff, you 
 observe, may be Jean K. Ffarina. I 
 think that will do for New Orleans. I 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 179 
 
 am known there as a wine and spirits 
 merchant. From bay rum to cologne 
 water is no great step. My game is to 
 ally myself with the Farina family, rep- 
 resent in Louisiana the whole perfumery 
 
 " YOU ARE THE MAN OF THE TWO CHICKENS !" 
 
 business of Cologne and Paris, and some 
 day monopolize the Western States, South 
 America and the Pacific Islands. How 
 do you like the notion ?" 
 
 "I am the last man to consult in a 
 matter of trade," I replied: "your name 
 seems to have a superfluous letter." 
 
 "Oh, that 4 K' will do for anything: 
 kind means a child, Koeln means Co- 
 logne, you see — or I can drop the K. 
 That is not what troubles me. Unhap- 
 pily, plenty of people have seen my old 
 card, the one you first read, and it will 
 be tough to ask them to believe, as I 
 mean to do, that I am a genuine Farina, 
 who arranged his letters into Kraaniff 
 because he was poor. Worse luck ! my 
 expectations come from the other name, 
 from Kranich. Yes, aunty's name is 
 Kranich, and be hanged to her !" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said I, a sudden 
 thought striking me, "but I have long 
 known a lady of that name, and — " 
 
 " Have you ? It is not so difficult, for 
 she has lived in every capital of Europe. 
 Now it is Brussels ; a while back it was 
 Paris ; my christening-cup she forwarded 
 from Frankfort. My ridiculous old uncle 
 
 was somebody, my absurd old father was 
 nobody, and so I was sent to exile with 
 the grand duke of Mississippi. My poor 
 uncle the banker was as crazy as a loon." 
 
 " I have seen him at a ball in a bed- 
 gown." 
 
 "The ding-dong-deuce you have !" said 
 the duelist, very slowly and mistrustfully. 
 
 "Frau Kranich was at Ems with him 
 that season. He popped in to her ball 
 and fainted, and the duke of Mississippi 
 carried him to his chamber. But your 
 aunt is a good soul. I cannot forget how 
 she assisted me to the prettiest piece of 
 work I have ever done. It was a bit of 
 charity. Poor sweet little Francine ! I 
 hope she will make no bad investment 
 of her dowry." 
 
 "Why, then," said the young man, 
 rising and looking very black, " you in- 
 fernal, oily, amorous old hypocrite ! you 
 are the man of the two chickens /" 
 
 People have different ways of meeting 
 an outrage. I simply rose, conveyed my 
 surprise and indignation in a look, and 
 left the table and the room. Between a 
 limb like this and a person of my age 
 and phlegm no great insult was possible. 
 The young man turned on his heel, 
 grasped his hat again, and went to join 
 his companion, a German who had 
 served as second in his contest. It was 
 a student of pinched and beery appear- 
 ance, I remember, with fingers blazing 
 with stones, ears hung with rings, and 
 between them a round face bejeweled 
 with gold eye-glasses. 
 
 Berkley would probably have gone 
 out with me, but at that moment Ho- 
 henfels came rambling in to supper, 
 cheery and star-gazing as usual, the 
 duelist Von Ramm interlaced with him 
 like double cherries moulded on one 
 stem. I had rather repulsed my old 
 friend while in this companionship, and 
 now felt no appetite for duelists. " You'll 
 have but ill bred to your supper," I said 
 hastily in the door ; and leaving him this 
 choice pun, for which the baron would 
 soundly have trounced me had he un- 
 derstood it, I went out with a little gesture 
 of avoidance. 
 
zp^irt zm. 
 
 ON WITH THE OLD LOVE 
 
 THE WEAPONS. 
 
 A GREAT walk that I took in the 
 moonlight, a complete ascent of 
 the Little Geissberg, cleaned out my ill- 
 humor entirely. Besides, my conscience 
 was clear. I slept like a log, and. was 
 healthily confused in my senses when 
 aroused by the opening of my chamber 
 door in the morning. 
 
 "What game is afoot for to-day?" I 
 asked, still entangled in my visions of 
 the night. 
 
 "A chance unparalleled," said the di- 
 plomatist, who entered dressed, gloved, 
 cravatted and enwreathed with smiles. 
 "A diamond day — one of the few choice 
 sunrises of this uncertain spot for the 
 1 80 
 
 present season. The game, as you call 
 it, is an excursion to Schwetzingen. The 
 castle is immense — fountains, cascades, 
 statues. If Heidelberg is Germany's Al- 
 hambra, Schwetzingen is her Versailles. 
 You will be delighted, enchanted." (An 
 unusual briskness was injected just now 
 into Sylvester's periods: his style was 
 growing staccato ; but I took little no- 
 tice.) " Come, here is your coat. Break- 
 fast is over, but Charles has some sand- 
 wiches in your botany-box, and a flask 
 of hot coffee. The driver is waiting." 
 
 And truly the faithful servitor appear- 
 ed panting on the scene, his face striped 
 with sweat, his hands filled with bags 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 181 
 
 MY STIMULUS. 
 
 and valises, my sandwiches put to warm 
 under his arm-pit. At the carriage-door, 
 " Come, man, bundle up. Coachman, 
 run like a greyhound to Schwetzingen !" 
 said Sylvester. 
 
 "Which seat do you like, Berkley?" 
 said I, making 
 ro om for him 
 among m y con- 
 veniences. 
 
 "Oh, / don't 
 go," observed the 
 .statesman with his 
 most diplomatic 
 smile: "I have 
 seen it a hundred 
 times. You really 
 must let me off." 
 
 "And Hohen- 
 fels?" 
 
 " Hohenfels has 
 been up these two hours, and is over at 
 the college. He has mixed himself in 
 with drugs, chemicals and everything 
 you detest. The pharmacy-student has 
 put him up to it. If you could see him 
 now it would be with a cowskin apron 
 around him or in a glass mask and a 
 smock-frock." 
 
 "But if the baron does not accompany 
 me, you must." 
 
 " Let me off for this time, my dear sir. 
 I am myself implicated in his experi- 
 ments, and for once in your life you will 
 be a good riddance. 'Tis something we 
 discussed before you arrived, the direct 
 creation of whey by macerating grass 
 and turnips in the natural rennets. Good- 
 bye. You can be back with us by din- 
 ner if you insist. Drive on, coachman." 
 " Drive on, coachman," echoed Charles, 
 slipping a florin with vast secresy into 
 the man's hand. "Drive on as though 
 Saint Denis were throwing his head at 
 you." 
 
 On the route, as I sat pretty passive, 
 Charles kept feeding me assiduously out 
 of the tin box, stopping my mouth with 
 a croquette or a leathery egg whenever 
 I showed signs of asking a question. He 
 prolonged this exercise for nearly an 
 hour, the wheels bowling smoothly and 
 the landscape running softly behind us. 
 At last, choking with tears and heroical- 
 
 ly sinking back in the cushions, he said, 
 " Saved, thank all the saints ! I can no 
 more !" 
 
 "It is then, as I began to suspect, a 
 plot," I exclaimed. "As you value your 
 life and my service, let me hear all 
 about it." 
 
 " It is only that I have saved the life 
 of the dear patron," said Charles. "See, 
 here in these bags are all your clothes, 
 just as I brought them from Marly. 
 Monsieur is self-supporting, self-escaping 
 and self acting, like a watch. Never, 
 never need monsieur see these accursed 
 stones and students more." 
 
 "But this is treason," I cried, growing 
 excited. "In you, Charles, it is flat re- 
 bellion. I will not bear it." 
 
 "And an opera-hat in the large valise, 
 and a small alarm wrapped up in his 
 evening coat." 
 
 "Tell me the whole mystery, stupid," 
 
 AMATEUR CHEMISTS. 
 
 I shouted; "but first — No! turn the 
 horses immediately." 
 
 "Monsieur must condescend to hear 
 my story first. It will be time enough 
 to turn back when he knows the troubles 
 we have saved him from." And with 
 
182 
 
 7W.fi: NEW HYPERION. 
 
 this my faithful idiot, after the manner 
 of Sultana Scheherezade of old, plunged 
 into a torrent of garrulity, with the pure 
 object of making time. 
 
 "It seems, these Americans," said 
 Charles, who never dreamed of includ- 
 ing his employer under the designation, 
 "are man-eaters and everything that is 
 barbarous. Yonder Aztec from Bonn 
 ought to be put in a cage at the Jardin 
 des Plantes. I know whereof I talk, and 
 that the savage, although he makes a 
 feint of attending the lectures at Bonn, 
 is no more a student than my shoe. He 
 is a serpent out of a menagerie, who 
 roves over Europe, and they say he has 
 already exercised his vile fascinations on 
 a poor young girl, whom he has slimed 
 ready to devour." (Charles, not dis- 
 contented with this careful metaphor, re- 
 peated it over again.) "Monsieur must 
 know that his questions put to the ser- 
 viceable man of the hotel awakened my 
 ambition. With the assistance of that 
 worthy person I have made inquiries 
 among the university students. The 
 stranger is known. His cold and calcu- 
 lating malice is incalculable, it is fatal. 
 It is proper to rid the country of such a 
 demon. Not a student but trembles at 
 the thought of the bowie-knives which 
 are concealed in the legs of this croco- 
 dile, and of the inexhaustible barrels of 
 his revolvers of Colt." 
 
 Thus Charles, evidently sketching 
 some hero whom he had relished at 
 the Porte Saint-Martin Theatre. When 
 brought round to a simple narrative of 
 the scene at the supper-table, I found 
 that matters of some moment had indeed 
 taken place in my absence. Berkley 
 the statesman, it appears, had been ir- 
 resolute, unwilling to fly from the enemy, 
 and hesitating between diplomacy and 
 the underlying pugnacity of his temper, 
 which the stranger's speech was well 
 fitted to rouse. The arrival of Hohen- 
 fels and the American's late opponent 
 had added fuel to the flame, and a wordy 
 quarrel had arisen, the man in the linen 
 duster quickly relapsing into the meas- 
 ured, cold, provoking style of banter. 
 The dispute was raging when the late 
 arrival of a pair of travelers at supper — 
 
 one a lady — had suppressed all demon- 
 strations. Charles had noticed the cav- 
 alier, a handsome man in a gray over- 
 coat. This person, it would appear, had 
 some knowledge of the miscreant call- 
 ing himself Jean KraanifT. At any rate, 
 
 SOLICITUDE, 
 
 after supper, the quarrel was renewed in 
 the billiard-room. Hohenfels (who, bless 
 his heart ! knew about as much about 
 firearms as a nightingale) was for pistols 
 and twenty paces ; his alter ego, Von 
 Ramm, preferred swords, without the 
 usual mattresses ; when the new arrival 
 in the gray coat had begged to assume 
 the whole combat. "I think M. Kraa- 
 nifT knows me — we are both wine-sell- 
 ers," he said ( Charles had evidently 
 been polishing a keyhole near the con- 
 ference). " I have already been insulted 
 by him, and I choose the weapons." He 
 then, with a singular mixture of author- 
 ity and lordly good-nature, dictated a 
 novel sort of combat. Himself and the 
 stranger were to play so many games 
 of dominoes. ("As Monsieur Paul is a 
 Latin scholar, I suppose I should say 
 dominiy said Charles proudly.) They 
 were then to drink Rhine wine until one 
 of them was lifeless. Mr. Berkley was 
 to see fair play. The loser was to quit 
 the country, drown himself in the river, 
 or otherwise vanish from the terrestrial 
 sphere. The fearful combat began, the 
 games of dominoes were won about equal- 
 ly, but at the wine-match the American 
 failed, and lost his stiffness joint by joint 
 under the third bottle, while the other 
 improved in wisdom and gravity. As 
 he won the match, the conqueror made 
 the American sign some paper, which he 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 83 
 
 was just able to do, and which the Eng- 
 lish official witnessed. Charles of course 
 knew nothing about the paper's contents. 
 " But I can report the final speeches, 
 which were made about sunrise this 
 morning. ' If I can get Mr. Flemming 
 quietly out of the way, it will be the 
 triumph of a life's diplomacy.' Those 
 were the words of Mr. Berkley, and I 
 
 GALLANTRY. 
 
 thought them most noble. ' This robber 
 of women is harmless for the present,' 
 said M. Fortnoye." 
 
 "M. Fortnoye?" 
 
 "Certainly — M. Fortnoye, the purveyor 
 of wines for the hotel. The serviceable 
 person had monsieur the purveyor's room 
 all ready against his arrival. But he has 
 never been seen before in company with 
 a beautiful lady, as last night." 
 
 This recital gave me abundant food 
 for thought. Berkley's spasm of gayety, 
 and his whole ingenious manner of get- 
 ting rid of me, were approved without 
 much hesitation. But it gave me a pang 
 to reflect that Hohenfels had been drawn 
 into disputes for me, and that I had re- 
 treated without even wringing his hand : 
 please Heaven, we should yet renew our 
 twinship among the ruins of Heidelberg. 
 The sudden apparition of Fortnoye gave 
 me cause for jealous alarm — the famil- 
 iarity with which he was escorting his 
 fair companion, whom, as Francine, I 
 could not mistake, was most disagreeable 
 in every way to my feelings. 
 
 With all this on my mind the fairy 
 
 show of Schwetzingen was lost upon me. 
 Charles, I believe, found it an Elysium, 
 and wandered through the clipped laby- 
 rinths with a delighted spirit ; but for me 
 the heart was wanting to admire the ter- 
 races and grottoes, the bandy-legged 
 leaden statues, the fountains formed of 
 spouting birds, the trim cataracts and 
 little shaving-glass of a lake. I entered 
 a convenient house, called, I believe, the 
 "Imperial Baths," and tapped idly at a 
 window. A couple passed before the 
 panes, and were about vanishing through 
 the shrubbery. . The lady, handsomely 
 dressed, showed me little but the ample 
 rotundity of her back, disguised in the 
 superfluous paniers and puffings with 
 which stout females ever prefer to aug- 
 ment their personal majesty. The gen- 
 tleman was gallantly shading her from 
 the sun with an umbrella of white Chi- 
 nese silk lined with azure. His gait, his 
 hat and his overcoat of silver-gray seem- 
 ed familiar. He caught a half glimpse 
 of me, and quickly returned. He was 
 now alone, but through a glass corridor 
 I saw the lady enter the house where I 
 was sheltered. She was decidedly stout, 
 but did not lack the "grand air." Fort- 
 noye, for he it was, was now running up 
 to me. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Flemming," he cried with 
 a hearty grasp of my hand, "I am en- 
 chanted to meet you — enchanted selfish- 
 ly and unselfishly. I am in great haste : 
 you will let me explain. I have just 
 arrived hither with a lady, who must go 
 this evening to Frankfort. I knew her 
 late husband in circles connected with 
 my business. She will arrive there at 
 night — she cannot go alone. For my 
 own part, an affair of real importance — 
 real importance, or I would not ask you 
 — recalls me to Heidelberg. You are 
 doubtless on the way to Frankfort ?" 
 
 I had certainly not said I was going 
 to Frankfort. But it was not easy to 
 confess how short my excursion was 
 really intended to be, and thus give the 
 impression that I had run away just for 
 a morning from my enemy at Heidel- 
 berg. But who could be my proposed 
 companion ? Fortnoye's arrival with a 
 fair comrade the night before had been 
 
1S4 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 explained by his acquaintance with Fran- 
 cine. A load was taken from my mind 
 by the conjecture that, after all, it might 
 not have been she ; and certainly it was 
 hard to imagine the natty Francine trans- 
 formed by any freak or volume of crino- 
 line into the opulent and noble figure I 
 had glimpsed among the shrubbery. At 
 any rate, my dream of immediately re- 
 joining Hohenfels at Heidelberg was 
 postponed. 
 
 But the lady had entered the building, 
 and at this moment I both saw and heard 
 her behind some screens of double glass. 
 She was giving a fee to an aproned servi- 
 tor of the place, old, owlish-looking and 
 discreet, who quickly produced some 
 towels. Her words, slow and measured, 
 were, " I like them fine : I shall be visible 
 in twenty minutes." 
 
 The contours I had not recognized. 
 But the contralto's mellow music was 
 what has rung in my ears from the first 
 spring-time of my manhood ; and I have 
 often thought I should like to grow stone 
 deaf, so as to have that voice, and noth- 
 ing more vulgar, flowing perpetually to 
 my brain. It was the voice I had last 
 heard reading prayers in a bed-room of 
 the hotel at Stuttgart. 
 
 I tapped the window still, in a reverie, 
 as Fortnoye explained how my carriage 
 could be re-engaged to conduct us to the 
 railway, how Charles would relieve the 
 lady and myself of all minor trouble, 
 and how the preferable hotel at Frank- 
 fort had its frontage on the parade- 
 ground. Presently the chandelier shook, 
 and a faint perfume I knew floated on to 
 me. I was being presented. 
 
 The well - known voice had struck 
 again its bell-like music. I looked up 
 from my conventional obeisance. An 
 immeasurable pyramid of black silk and 
 Cashmerean yellow stood before me ; 
 and at the summit of a broad, many- 
 chinned face, drowned out in a waste of 
 healthy, well-fed tissues, shone the eyes 
 of Mary Ashburton ! 
 
 The first excursion I ever took with 
 Mary Ashburton was in that unlucky 
 barouche to the Valley of Lauterbrunnen. 
 Then, we were off for a picnic ; now, I 
 was flying with her to the city of the 
 
 bankers, on a hot May day, in a railway- 
 carriage softened to the feet with Brussels 
 carpet and stuffed up to the eyes with 
 
 THE DISCREET SERVITOR. 
 
 drab cassimere and coach-lace. The 
 bivouac wildness was missing which I 
 used to describe when I would ask the 
 reader if he knew the taste of cold meat 
 under the shadows of trees. Colder than 
 thy meats, O Vale of Fountains, were 
 the hearts of thy lady-visitors ! Wretch- 
 ed was the cheer I had from thee, land 
 of the glacier and the goat, of chalets 
 and of chamois, of poetry and of water- 
 colors, of recitations and of students in 
 green who wormed themselves into my 
 path with their whispers of Beware I 
 Cold meat, indeed ! When I remarked 
 to Miss Ashburton that I had never seen 
 Chamouni, and she vivaciously said that 
 in my place she would not lose an hour 
 in going thither, the taste of the cold 
 shoulder which she thus presented to me 
 struck chills to my palate and rankled 
 there for ten good years at least. I do 
 not know why I, recall those hard meas- 
 ures which were meted to me in Inter- 
 laken : I certainly did not think of them 
 when I was privileged to ride with her 
 again, and her presence, augmented to 
 thrice as much as I had the thought or 
 
THE XEW HYPER '/OX. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 - '- -_:'" ■■■■- - 
 
 s 
 
 
 **- 
 
 ■'-:• : ^--. 
 
 
 right of expecting, was palpably by my 
 side. 
 
 My reception by Man- Ashburton (or 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh, as she had christened 
 herself; was a delight without the ghost 
 of a complaint. For the Dark Ladye 
 was no longer unapproachable. On the 
 contrary, she received my homage very 
 graciously, and indeed overbore me, 
 flooded me and saturated me with a 
 stream of hopes and wishes. Nothing 
 that I had ever thought or felt before 
 could stand for a moment in this grand, 
 imperial influence : even the Mary Ash- 
 burton of 18 — (when her weight could 
 not have been over ninety pounds did 
 not constitute a vision of anything like 
 the distinctness. I sat, like O'Shanter 
 on his mare, enveloped in a whirling 
 sphere of witchery and incantation : no 
 previous impression had the least chance 
 of remaining. Francine Joliet's cap- 
 strings in the mad storm drove away 
 from my sight like white phantoms, level, 
 helpless and confused in the hurlyburly. 
 "Oh, madam !" I said in my corner, sit- 
 ting with that rotary action of the thumbs 
 which to my mind best expresses the rapt 
 soul — " Oh, madam, why cannot I attach 
 myself to you for ever?" 
 
 "You are on mv skirts now, I think," 
 
 she observed, just developing a kind of 
 generalized marble smile from her noble 
 chin. 
 
 Was there ever such a quick repartee : 
 On her skirts ! — like a purple bur or a 
 fragrant brier, clinging with even.- ten- 
 tacle of my nature as she traveled, and, 
 what was better, admitted in her speech 
 as such ! Was it not a virtual invitation ? 
 It is only married ladies — perhaps only 
 widows — who should permit themselves 
 these chaste doubles-entendres ; but the 
 expression, as it stood, was perfect. This 
 was only the first of the good things 
 which Mrs. Ashburleigh uttered — gems 
 of language which perhaps would have 
 escaped a less keen listener than myself 
 — felicities disguised in apparent com- 
 monplace and indicating the most adroit 
 self-mastery of a creative talent — pro- 
 verbial pith, fit to make Swift burn his 
 Bons-mots de Stella, or Tupper publish 
 the marvels in another volume of his 
 philosophical writings. 
 
 Thus we traveled like a dream, passing 
 Mannheim and Darmstadt. We sped 
 from place to place without my giving 
 a thought to the data of Progressive Ge- 
 ography. Equally obliterated from my 
 brain was the compatriot who had in- 
 sulted me at the hotel, the young son of 
 
i86 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 commerce who had seemed so cold, so 
 versatile, so truly American, until my 
 mention of Francine had driven him 
 into a fury perfectly worthy of the Lat- 
 in nations. The young man and his im- 
 pertinence slept undisturbed in my mind. 
 It was all I could do to realize that Mary 
 Ashburton or her double — perhaps, in 
 truth, her quadruple — was traveling, not 
 unkind, by my side. 
 
 " Don't you remember, Mr. Flemming, 
 when I met you in Venice ? — or was it 
 at Brighton ? — " 
 
 " Oh, my dear madam, surely you are 
 jesting : we met first at Interlaken. 
 Have you forgotten your sketch of the 
 Lake of Thun — forgotten the Staub- 
 bach ?" 
 
 " I really must confess that I have, or, 
 at any rate, whatever happened there." 
 
 It was with this peculiar delicacy that 
 she indicated how a veil was to be drawn 
 
 over every circumstance of that Past so 
 painful to me. Was it not kind ? She 
 continued : "Wherever it was, there was 
 a large hotel, or a palazzo, or something 
 of the sort, and outside it was always 
 raining, and I used to let you read my 
 diary. Would you like to repeat your 
 lessons ? I am something of a blue even 
 now." 
 
 She fumbled in her little satchel. I 
 waited as for the delivery of a Sibylline 
 scroll. Every emanation from that rare 
 intellect had a holiness for me. Extract- 
 ing a book, and passing over a few print- 
 ed pages containing, apparently, wash- 
 ing - accounts, my superb companion 
 pointed out to me the following prose 
 ballad. She remarked that she had 
 written it out the evening before. "When 
 I have finished one of my writings, and 
 there is any kind of a literary person 
 near, I am ready to die until I get it ex- 
 
 THE EARLY BIRD-CATCH EK . 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 187 
 
 amined. That good creature Fortnoye 
 would have received it if I had not met 
 you. For mercy's sake, read it, and tell 
 me if it is nonsense. We can relate our 
 histories to each other any time." 
 
 It was the most exquisite manner of 
 
 getting over a preliminary awkwardness 
 that I had ever known. I took the sacred 
 washing-book, which trembled in my 
 hands. I could hardly say a word or 
 read a line. If I had not afterward, 
 during a more intimate relation with the 
 
 THE DISCOVERER OF THE FORD. 
 
 writer, got hold of the copy again, my 
 reader would have but a lame account 
 .of the origin of the 
 
 " FRANKEN-FURTH. 
 
 " My poor mamma, who was a perfect 
 toper at novel-reading, found this ac- 
 count in one of her romances. She toid 
 it me once, and suggested that if I ever 
 had occasion to bank at Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main (her own credits were always 
 on Paris and Geneva), I might recall the 
 story, which was pretty in itself, and 
 might lend a new interest to the birth- 
 place of those dear Rothschilds. I have 
 been at Frankfort three or four times, 
 and of course I forgot all about poor 
 mamma and her old stories. Just now 
 M. Fortnoye told me the very same rig- 
 marole, with all sorts of French flourishes. 
 Strange if I did not remember it, coming 
 from him ! 
 
 "It was a handsome young lad in 
 trunk-hose and in the eighth century : 
 he was only a shoemaker, but, like 
 George Barnwell, or Eugene Aram or 
 somebody in Bulwer's writings, his soul 
 was above his profession. Having prom- 
 ised his blond lady-love that he would 
 catch her a nightingale, he had come 
 down at daybreak to the banks of the 
 Main River with an abundance of bird- 
 lime, of glue, and perhaps of shoemaker's 
 wax. 
 
 "Opposite to him stretched the great 
 
 Hercynian Forest, which formerly was 
 sixty days' journey across (am I not 
 good to remember this out of my Caesar's 
 Commentaries ?). Hidden behind a rock, 
 the youth whistled and piped, imitating 
 the notes of the birds whom he hoped to 
 attract. To his chagrin, not a song-bird 
 greeted the rising sun. But directly, as 
 the morning-star vanished in the light 
 of dawn, a frightful cloud swept tem- 
 pestuously over the forest. He analyzed 
 the storm : it was a storm of eagles. At 
 the same time a throng of living crea- 
 tures emerged from the woods and ran 
 distractedly up and down the brink. He 
 synthesized the throng : it was a barn- 
 yardful of neat cattle. 
 
 " Does and hares — the cows and sheep 
 of the wilderness — were in fact herding 
 on the farther shore of the Main. From 
 the birds of prey in the sky, from the 
 timid quadrupeds on the earth, ascended 
 a coarse discord of bleating and bark- 
 ing. The boy grasped his nets, and fled 
 with a hasty prayer to Odin : he had 
 been converted but three years before to 
 the faith of Rome, and must be pardon- 
 ed if, in a moment of such perplexity, 
 he forgot whether he was orthodox or 
 heterodox. 
 
 "Arrived at the nearest hilltop, the 
 youth's terror, which was strong, suc- 
 cumbed to his curiosity, which was 
 stronger. He hid himself and watched. 
 The extraordinary menagerie still roam- 
 
i88 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ed the river-bank, 
 hesitating and dis- 
 tracted, now dashing 
 back again into the 
 thickets, now emerg- 
 ing to try once more 
 the watery barrier 
 which restrained 
 them. 
 
 "The race of ante- 
 lopes has been pre- 
 served on the earth 
 on account of its su- 
 periority in powers of 
 flight. This elite of 
 cowardice was not un- 
 known in the eighth 
 century. The youth- 
 ful spy saw a doe, 
 guided by a keener 
 fear than the rest, 
 advance desperately 
 into the water. ' Well 
 done, pretty fool ! 
 You illustrate the sur- 
 vival of the fittest,' 
 £ a i d this primitive 
 Darwinian as the 
 young deer, with 
 frightened eyes and 
 distended nostrils, 
 stepped across the 
 torrent, selecting a 
 fordable passage in 
 its extremity. The 
 animal did not swim, 
 but walked, and thus 
 earned the honor of 
 discovering a ford in 
 the Main River. 
 
 "The path was 
 quickly put to a more 
 important use. From 
 the hilltop where he 
 crouched the little 
 cobbler now saw a 
 throng of figures, he- 
 roic and hideous, 
 emerge from the 
 Hercynian shades : they too paused at 
 the brink, but, guided by the fawn, they 
 strode tumultuously through the water, 
 grim and bloody, carrying their wound- 
 ed in their arms or on rough litters, and 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE IN RETREAT. 
 
 still clothed with the wolf-skins and bear- 
 skins which they had assumed over- 
 night with the laudable intention of 
 frightening the enemy by their ugliness. 
 I do not believe that the Franks were 
 
THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 189 
 
 " FRANKEN-FURTH. 
 
 yet celebrated either for toilettes or man- 
 ners. For the traversing army was the 
 Frankish force, conquered overnight by 
 the combined Saxons and Danes; and 
 the general at their head was Charle- 
 magne, generaled himself this time by a 
 frightened doe. 
 
 '" Franken-furth !' said the grim lead- 
 er, baptizing the shore, and thrusting his 
 lance deep into the bank. And Frank- 
 fort is the name which the spot still keeps 
 since the day when Charlemagne built a 
 fortress around his spear as it stuck in 
 the mud. 
 
 "The growth of a settlement about the 
 fortress was rapid. Before the young 
 bird-snarer and the blond beauty had 
 named their second baby it was a city fit 
 for them to live in. A cage hung always 
 at the door as a sign of the shoemaker's 
 abode, in which cage a starling sung per- 
 petually ' I can't get out ' a thousand years 
 before Sterne ; and Hans of the Starling, 
 as he was called, became a noble in the 
 land, the shoe being a sign of distinction 
 at a time when most gentleman went 
 without. 
 
 "Thus have I built in a night the city 
 
 of Charlemagne upon my page, like to 
 the mediaeval monk, who constructed on 
 the margin of his parchment a capital 
 of his own device, with wondrous archi- 
 tecture and inhabitants in brilliant robes. 
 When the clasps of his book were open- 
 ed, like the turning of city gates, the 
 populace awaked and stared at the read- 
 er with wide-open eyes : when they were 
 shut, the figures all went to sleep and. 
 dreamed." 
 
 "You retain your poetic fancy, dear 
 lady, and the habit of giving it vent in 
 writing," I said, as I returned the manu- 
 script, only half perused. 
 
 "Yes, it is my safety-valve," said Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh. (How original her images 
 were!) " Besides, the practice influenced 
 the most important event of my youth — 
 it almost procured me my husband." 
 
 "Do confide in me, dear madam," I 
 exclaimed, deeply touched by this sur- 
 prising confidence. "Are we not old ac- 
 quaintance ? Tell me all about it." 
 
 Mary Ashburleigh smiled. Talk of a 
 chin with a dimple in it ! There were a 
 dozen in hers at the very least, develop- 
 ing themselves every time she playfully 
 
190 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 bridled her neck : in each dimple, for 
 me, Love, in all decorum, sat playing. 
 
 "Generals don't usually expatiate on 
 their false moves," she said, "and my 
 marriage was not what is usually regard- 
 ed as a success. But I am a woman of 
 the world, and you are grown up, Mr. 
 Flemming, or ought to be. That episode, 
 after all, was a short one. The docu- 
 ment I refer to was a little essay in one 
 of my old albums : it pictured the life 
 of a painter from the North when he 
 came to bask and bathe in the art of 
 Italy." 
 
 " I know it by heart," I exclaimed, in- 
 terrupting her : " I have committed it to 
 memory this quarter of a century. It 
 begins, ' I often reflect with delight upon 
 the young artist' — " 
 
 "There, that will do," said my glori- 
 ous companion: "you must have filched 
 it from my sketch-book. Whatever the 
 merit of the little jeu cT esprit, it was a 
 study from a living model." 
 
 " Foolish Paul Flemming that I was," 
 I broke in, "to think that a girl of twenty 
 could write thus without a reason!" 
 
 "I will not tell you much, lest I should 
 set you off sentimentalizing. Oblige me 
 by fanning me a little with your Gali- 
 gnani as I talk to you. You must im- 
 agine, then, a young English gentleman- 
 out-of-livery, perfectly gloomy and gen- 
 teel, who had gone as cicerone for us 
 into Italy. He had been dismissed for 
 years and years, you know, when I saw 
 him sketching in the Vatican. Suppose I 
 found out afterward that he had taken a 
 situation in one of those picture-factories 
 where saints and altar-pieces are made 
 for exhibition with stencils, pounce-bags 
 and such things. No matter. I became 
 interested in him, poor fellow ! getting up 
 at daybreak to work in the art-galleries. 
 I wrote out his portrait, as I imagined it, 
 in my album. He sent me a copy of a 
 new poem, one that I had never seen, 
 by young Tennyson : it was all about 
 the maiden and the traveling lord dis- 
 guised as a landscape-painter. At the 
 head of this copy of verses was drawn a 
 darling little illustration, with his own 
 portrait in the part of the Lord of Bur- 
 leigh. Of course then I knew that he 
 
 was a nobleman in disguise, and that 
 love of me had brought him to Italy with 
 us. My mother had trained me to high 
 
 THE FATE OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 aspirations, but somehow I never im- 
 parted to Mrs. Ashburton my faith in 
 Arthur's lofty birth, contenting myself 
 with an impassioned correspondence un- 
 til mamma's death, when we married. 
 My husband's parentage, however, was 
 not noble, his father being an innkeeper 
 — a man from whom all his family had 
 been obliged to flee on account of his 
 shocking habits. My husband, with the 
 pecuniary assistance I gave him, em- 
 barked in the spirit-trade — But why 
 do I tell you this ? Arthur was a kind 
 and devoted husband, except sometimes 
 when he had dined very heartily, on 
 which occasions I was obliged to have 
 recourse to great firmness with him. 
 But all that is in the past, and I have 
 become perfectly accustomed to my veu- 
 vage, certainly the lightest and most in- 
 dependent state in the world. If my 
 darlings had only lived !" 
 
 " Dear madam ! Your children are 
 then lost to you ?" 
 
 " Yes, four of them, poor dears ! and 
 laid to rest in different kingdoms. Han- 
 nibal, the first, who was born while we 
 were crossing the Alps, was the bright- 
 est, and the only one who lived to be 
 five years old. Poor love ! he was so 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 191 
 
 THE JUDENGASSE, FRANKFORT. 
 
 logical ! Having swallowed a lead-pen- 
 cil, and being afraid to confess, he fan- 
 cied that he ought to chew large quan- 
 tities of India-rubber to obliterate the 
 effects : the dear child was seized with 
 cramps in the stomach before my eyes, 
 as he played in the garden, a week 
 after he had begun with that deleterious 
 gum. He sleeps under a caoutchouc 
 tree at Nice. Waterloo lies in Belgium, 
 where he was born ; so does another 
 nameless little love ; Lucia was born 
 and died at sea, at two years' interval, 
 and we carried her to Glasgow, where 
 the spirit-trade is very good." 
 
 Mary Ashburleigh fell into a reverie. 
 It was a privilege to see the plumed 
 eyelids descend and sweep her cheek. 
 The curved corners of her ripe mouth 
 sank a little, carrying with them the faint 
 moustache — down brushed from the wing 
 of Night! — which goes with that style 
 of beauty. Her breathing became more 
 pronounced and rhythmic, and slightly 
 
 stertorous. The book, which I had 
 returned, fell from her hand. I had 
 a hundred things to ask her, but I 
 could not but respect an introversion 
 so profound. 
 
 We had neared Frankfort when, 
 after a long wool-gathering medita- 
 tion on my part, I found the dark 
 eyes of my companion fixed on me. 
 "Mr. Flemming," she said, "I un- 
 derstand that your affairs call you 
 urgently to Paris, but I should be 
 sorry to part before we shall have 
 renewed our acquaintance fairly. 
 Can you not spare two or three hours 
 in the morning ? I am acquainted 
 with Frankfort, and should like you 
 to employ me as cicerone." 
 
 I hastened to say that, notwith- 
 standing the implacable importunity 
 of my affairs, I should be happy to 
 wait on her next day. For the life 
 of me I could not summon courage 
 to propose my companionship be- 
 yond that period, and in fact con- 
 sidered her speech a dismissal. "At 
 what hour shall I bring the car- 
 riage ?" I asked humbly. 
 
 "At nine. It is the number of the 
 Muses, I believe." 
 This brilliant and elevated allusion 
 captivated me afresh. I got little good 
 of my pillow that night, and with early 
 dawn I was out in the street. I went to 
 the post-office, where a letter from Fort - 
 noye was arranged to be sent me, and 
 idly knocked at the closed doors as if 
 there was any possibility of their un- 
 closing for me at such an hour. I thread- 
 ed the city. The Zeil, the finest street in 
 Frankfort, showed me right and left a 
 double range of magnificent buildings, 
 giving me the most exalted idea of the 
 old Free Cities of Germany. Over my 
 head I had a magnificent emperor, in- 
 tended for Charlemagne or Ludwig of 
 Bavaria — I hardly know which, but as- 
 suredly unlike either. Tiring soon of 
 these sculptural splendors, I sought the 
 street of the oppressed, the Jews' Street 
 of Frankfort, the Ghetto, the Juden- 
 gasse. 
 
 At Frankfort there are genuine Jews 
 and Christians, the polemists of the Met- 
 
i 9 : 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 chant of Venice — Christians who hate 
 the Jews, and Jews who hate the Chris- 
 tians. Only some forty years back the 
 Judengasse was closed by iron gates at 
 either end, with bars, locks and senti- 
 nels. These precautions of the Chris- 
 tians against the Jews were amply recip- 
 rocated by the Jews against the Chris- 
 tians, for every son of Jacob fortified 
 himself in his mouldy old house like a 
 besieged captain. Evening arrived, the 
 Jews stole into their quarter, with a fine 
 if behind the hour. The iron gates 
 closed. Then the Hebrews, being barred 
 into their quarter like lepers in a quaran- 
 tine, revenged themselves by fastening 
 up their castles like garrisons in a siege. 
 Now the street is broader and better ven- 
 tilated, but the histories of persecution, of 
 hate, of revenge, are written legibly over 
 the narrow houses : many of them are 
 decrepit and tottering, like the owl- faced 
 old women who stare furtively through 
 the thick window-panes. The improve- 
 ments in the Judengasse are due to the 
 ambition, and in still greater part to the 
 affection, of the brothers Rothschild. 
 Gudula Rothschild, nee Schwapper, of 
 the free city of Frankfort, and widow of 
 honest Mayer Anselm Rothschild, was 
 not to be bought off by any promises 
 of splendor from the house — No. 153 — 
 where her five sons and five daughters 
 were born. Filthy and pestilential as it 
 was, the Judengasse was the street of her 
 preference. She never chose to visit any 
 of the palaces built by her sons in Paris, 
 London or Vienna. She never chose to 
 get into a carriage, or to change in any 
 wise her mysterious, Oriental rites of 
 living. Unable to vanquish this hum- 
 ble and tenacious resolve, and not even 
 daring to touch the crumbling wooden 
 relic where she lived with all her pieties, 
 her sons gave her the only boon that 
 she could not refuse to receive — air and 
 space. They bought a part of the street 
 and tore down the buildings which over- 
 shadowed their mother's windows : thirty 
 houses fell in this demolition, and enor- 
 mous sums were spent to regale the old 
 woman with a ray of sunshine. 
 
 Uneasy and preocccupied as I was, I 
 forced myself to remember the singular i 
 
 foundation of the Rothschild fortunes. 
 It is as honorable as it is curious. 
 
 In the year 1795 the prince of Hesse- 
 Cassel, forced to quit his dominions, and 
 knowing of no one to whom he could 
 well confide a sum of two millions, ask- 
 ed counsel of a trusty friend. The ad- 
 viser pointed out the most honest man 
 he knew, a Hebrew with whom he had 
 had certain transactions. The prince 
 sent for the Jew and remitted the sum to 
 him. The Jew asked whether the money 
 was a deposit or a sum entrusted for 
 speculation. The prince was in a hurry. 
 " Do what you like with it," said he ; 
 "only give me your receipt." On this 
 the Hebrew shook his head, and begged 
 the monarch to take back his money. 
 "You may be captured or you may be 
 killed," said this flatterer: "the receipt 
 will be found on you, and I shall be 
 persecuted." 
 
 Without a receipt the Jew would an- 
 swer for the safety of the money : receipt 
 given, he answered for nothing. The 
 prince looked in the Jew's honest face, 
 and put the money in his hands without 
 guarantee. 
 
 The prince of Hesse-Cassel beat a re- 
 treat with all the other princes his con- 
 freres. At length, however, in 18 14, the 
 treaty of Paris restored to each prince 
 about the value of his former realm ; the 
 earthquakes of empires, which had over- 
 thrown so many thrones between 1795 
 and 1 8 14, had ceased; the prince of 
 Hesse-Cassel re-entered his capital. One 
 morning a Jew was announced. " If the 
 Jews have any petition, let them apply 
 to the ministers." His haughtiness did 
 not affect the Hebrew in the least. His 
 message was to the prince, and only the 
 prince would he address. The Hebrew 
 was introduced. 
 
 It was the Jew of 1795 : it was the 
 same coat, a little more threadbare ; the 
 same face, a little thinner; the same 
 hair, a little grayer ; the same beard, a 
 little more white and long. "Ah, brave 
 man," said His Highness, "it is you ! I 
 hardly expected that we should meet 
 again. And what have you come to tell 
 me ? Has my money been discovered 
 and stolen ? It is a pity, but what mav 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 *93 
 
 not happen in a score of years ? I am 
 not very poor, and I can afford to bid 
 good-bye to my two millions." 
 
 "It is not so," said the son of Abra- 
 ham, bowing at every word. "Thanks 
 to the God of Israel, Your Highness's 
 money is not stolen. But Your High- 
 ness allowed me to speculate." 
 
 "Ah, I see," said the prince: "you 
 have speculated so cleverly that my 
 money is at the bottom of the sea. 
 Well, well, these unhappy times have 
 been bad for commerce." ■ 
 
 " It is not that, Your Highness. The 
 two millions are not sunk." 
 
 " How ?" cried the prince. " You have 
 brought my two millions back ?" 
 
 " It is not that. I have not brought 
 two millions : I have brought six. The 
 money has bred." 
 
 "So much the better. But how do 
 you propose to divide ?" 
 
 " I reserve my commission of six per 
 cent. ; but that is not computed in the six 
 millions. It would take too long to tell 
 Your Highness all the little speculations, 
 but they are explained in the accounts. 
 Will Your Highness be pleased to look ?" 
 
 "And you think I will take all that 
 sum ? I will receive my two millions, 
 but I give you the rest. I do not spec- 
 ulate — I am a prince. If you say an- 
 other word I will not take a florin." 
 
 " Ah, Your Highness, there are laws, 
 13 
 
 even for the poor Jews : I will force you 
 to do it." 
 
 "What! to receive six where I gave 
 but two ? By all Olympus, you are ex- 
 acting !" 
 
 "No," answered the Jew, after reflect- 
 ing a moment — " no, I can't force Your 
 Highness, since you might deny that 
 you ever authorized me to speculate. 
 There is no agreement." 
 
 "Just so, there is no agreement. I 
 never gave you authority to cultivate 
 the two millions, and if you say, another 
 word I will prosecute you for violation 
 of trust." 
 
 "There is no faith left in the world," 
 said the Jew between his teeth. 
 
 "What are you saying there?" de- 
 manded the prince. 
 
 " Nothing, Your Highness. I say that 
 you are a great lord and that I am a poor 
 Jew. There are your two millions in 
 good notes on the treasury of Vienna. 
 As for the other four millions, since you 
 positively refuse them" (the Hebrew 
 sighed), "it is evident that I must take 
 care of them." 
 
 And the Jew, who was Mayer Anselm 
 von Rothschild, returned into Frankfort, 
 carrying back the four millions, and un- 
 derstanding nothing of what this faith- 
 less world was coming to. 
 

 V^ls 
 
 
 ^pissSIs 
 
 m^^W^^^ 
 
 /^w 
 
 Ww ** ilMh^vir^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ fJwKlfl 
 
 
 , 'Win 
 
 \ \ W^NSi 
 
 IS3 
 
 FJtJZZ/T ZIY. 
 
 AN AGREEABLE DUET AT FRANKFORT. 
 
 AN ARYAN SUN-MYTH." 
 
 FINE old generous spendthrifts, those 
 Hessian princes !" I said to Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh at the breakfast - table. I 
 had arranged the story as neatly as I 
 194 
 
 could, and presented it to her all round- 
 ed and compact, as an equivalent for 
 her " Franken-furth :" then, continuing, 
 "This is the proper spot," I observed, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 r 95 
 
 "for the greatest of modern fortunes to 
 take its rise ; for Frankfort was the last 
 Protestant city to relinquish the odious 
 mediaeval custom of persecuting the Jews, 
 
 THE RESURRECTION-BELL. 
 
 and it is a proper compensation when 
 Frankfort creates a Jewish plutocracy 
 through the magnanimity of its prince." 
 
 "Yes," she said, "I certainly like bet- 
 ter to picture to myself the prince cram- 
 ming a Jew's hand full of banknotes than 
 Schinderhannes insulting the Jews' feet. 
 You remember the incident ? Ke met a 
 band of Hebrews while he was engaged 
 in putting to fire and sword the valley 
 of the Nahe : he made them take off 
 their shoes, which he mixed irrecover- 
 ably, and then stood laughing while they 
 shod themselves precipitately at his com- 
 mand, and limped away in each other's 
 shoes to get out of shot from his pistol. 
 Their gait must have resembled that of 
 some of Mrs. Browning's verses. But 
 were the old Hessian princes really so 
 generous ? Did they not spend on their 
 pleasures the money they got by selling 
 their subjects as soldiers to any govern- 
 ment that had a war to make — an Ameri- 
 can Revolution to suppress, for instance ?" 
 
 "The transaction with Rothschild hap- 
 pened after the independence of America. 
 As for a mercenary soldiery, the stain of 
 it attaches no more to those little patri- 
 
 archal German despotisms than to the 
 freest of nations and the grandest of 
 men. Othello, now, was a renegade, an 
 artless hireling, whose sympathies ought 
 to have been with the Otto- 
 mites he undertook to con- 
 quer for pay." 
 
 "No doubt; and this art- 
 less condottiere, if I remem- 
 ber right, caused the death 
 of his wife, his father-in-law 
 and his lieutenant, stabbed 
 his ancient and made away 
 with himself." 
 
 "True ; but those methods 
 of family correction were no 
 reproach to him politically. 
 His broils and battles, com- 
 pletely mercenary as they had 
 been, were the admiration of 
 the Venetian senator, you no- 
 tice, and procured him a mar- 
 riage of ducal rank. In re- 
 cent times no nation has so 
 largely engaged in the sale 
 of soldiers as the model of 
 my native republic — heroic Switzerland. 
 Thorwaldsen's lion at Lucerne commem- 
 orates a few such poor Swiss idiots, who, 
 being republicans, died because they 
 thought they ought to keep republican- 
 ism out of the Tuileries. They were as 
 much slaves to a routine and a fallacy 
 as was Mayer Rothschild the First when 
 he used to be chained in like a dog to 
 his Ghetto at nightfall. How incredible, 
 by the by, that this detestable bigotry 
 should have been in force here within 
 the lifetime of you and me !" 
 
 " Horrid ! Then you have a contempt 
 for the Swiss ?" 
 
 " I ? No : I adore them." 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " Dearest Mrs. Ashburleigh," I ex- 
 claimed, " I have the most violent taste 
 for the Swiss. For a quarter of a cen- 
 tury I have never seen a white, Alpine- 
 looking cloud without asking, Does not 
 Tell walk with Washington, Hyperion- 
 like, on high ? That was one of the 
 finest phrases of my youth, dear madam, 
 and I have never tired of repeating it. 
 No, my friend, I have not lost my in- 
 fatuation with heroes. For me, Wash- 
 
196 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ington still grandly flutters in the clouds 
 and the stars and the stripes. Franklin, 
 whose home at Passy I may be said to 
 occupy, still teaches me, with admirable 
 astuteness, that a man's first business is 
 to save his country — his next, to leave it 
 and live in Paris. Arnold von Winkel- 
 ried leaps upon a point, Curtius leaps 
 into a gulf — the one finding heroism in 
 the form of a prominence, the other in 
 that of a concavity : both are sweet to 
 me. Those three fourteenth-century men 
 of Rutli, Walther Fiirst, Melchthal and 
 Stauffacher, assure me that moonlight 
 conjurations by a lake are as patriotic 
 as they are operatic. Tell convinces me 
 of the absurdity of worshiping a bon- 
 net — " 
 
 "That is a lesson you would not al- 
 ways find it easy to teach me if you had 
 me in Paris." 
 
 This archness conquered me afresh, 
 and I had to close the subject: "I only 
 desire the chance to try. As for Tell, 
 you know he is really an Aryan sun- 
 myth." 
 
 " Perhaps so, but Swiss heroism is not 
 a myth : I shall never believe it while I 
 can see a pair of peasants, in Lyons vel- 
 vet tunics, embrace each other on the 
 borders of a lake by the light of a vacil- 
 lating moon, in the opera. But you 
 spoke of Thorwaldsen's monument to 
 the Swiss guards. Do you know there 
 are fine works of Thorwaldsen's here ?" 
 
 I confessed my ignorance. 
 
 "You must see them before you go. 
 By the way, do you propose a long stay 
 in Frankfort?" 
 
 I yearned to tell her that, as I should 
 never have come but for her, so I would 
 never go but at her side. I stammered 
 that I believed I had visited everything 
 worth seeing except the works of art she 
 mentioned. "In fact, the Judengasse, 
 as the last stronghold of Christianity 
 un-Christianized, or Jewing of the Jews, 
 seems to me the significant thing to see 
 in Frankfort, and this I have seen." 
 
 "But you have seen nothing, then, ab- 
 solutely nothing," she said, laughing de- 
 liriously at my shortcomings. "My guid- 
 ance will be absolutely necessary to you." 
 
 I longed to accept, but I protested. I 
 
 could not bear to trouble her, I said po- 
 litely. 
 
 " You must not think of going until I 
 have conducted you around the city," 
 she insisted. " Listen to reason, dear 
 Mr. Flemming. The taskwork laid on 
 
 frimj 
 
 THE GKJZZLY HEAD. 
 
 you by Monsieur Fortnoye — quite against 
 my wish, it is true, but not the less wor- 
 thy of my sincerest gratitude and friend- 
 ship — is discharged. I have but an 
 hour's journey, to make from Frankfort, 
 and I can make it in broad day; so I 
 feel brave enough to dismiss my escort. 
 It is now my turn to greet you as a free 
 man, and propose my own services. Get 
 a carriage." 
 
 Obedience was rapture. Mrs. Ashbur- 
 leigh presented herself quickly at the 
 porte-cochere, a little basket in her hand. 
 " I will first show you my pet spot. — To 
 the old graveyard," she continued to the 
 driver, raising her deep contralto, so that 
 it rang quite hollow under the arch of 
 the porte-cochere and made the young 
 coachman jump a little way from his 
 seat. 
 
 "Two hours will suffice," she remark- 
 ed, "and I will deliver you up again in 
 time to take the train from Frankfort to 
 Heidelberg, as I myself take that from 
 Frankfort to Mayence." 
 
 I could not imagine why she led me 
 to the cemetery, which was quite out of 
 town, and my inquietude on this subject 
 interfered with my conversation. I sat 
 meditative. Presently, however, I re- 
 marked, "Doubtless it is the tomb of 
 some relative that brings you to this old 
 graveyard, and indeed to Frankfort. I 
 cannot get over my surprise at meeting 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 197 
 
 you here. I have fancied you in Italy 
 always. In making this rencontre at 
 such an unexpected time and in such a 
 place, I am reminded of Petrarch's re- 
 proaches to Charles IV. for resting so 
 short a time in Rome : ' What would the 
 
 Caesars say if they met you descending 
 the farther side of the Alps, hanging 
 your noble head and turning your back 
 upon Italy ?' " 
 
 " My residence among the Italians was 
 not very long," she replied, "and I have 
 lived in England and other places. My 
 
 attraction to the old cemetery of Frank- 
 fort is simply artistic curiosity. It is 
 there we shall find the works of Thor- 
 waldsen. For Thorwaldsen, doubtless, 
 you are willing to take a fifteen minutes' 
 journey, are you not ?" 
 I bowed. 
 
 "Besides, he is an Amer- 
 ican, of the most ancient 
 lineage possible. He is the 
 descendant of Snome, who 
 was born somewhere in New 
 England as early as the year 
 1007, son of the viking 
 Thorfinne Karlsefne and his 
 wife Gudrid. The historical 
 band of Northmen who went 
 to America in that year car- 
 ried back their protege, the 
 Yankee Snome, of whose 
 descendants was Thorwald- 
 sen : the Historical Society 
 of Rhode Island elected him 
 honorary member in 1838 
 on this account, though you 
 will hardly believe me. So 
 much for Thorwaldsen as 
 an American, if that attri- 
 bute is a necessary conduc- 
 tor of your interest. But you 
 must not be surprised at my 
 choosing a churchyard as the 
 point of departure for our 
 discussion. There is noth- 
 ing in God's Acre to dis- 
 please either you, Paul 
 Flemming, as I should fan- 
 cy, or myself. Images of 
 death have trodden on the 
 heels of the most cherished 
 thoughts of happiness for all 
 who are as old as you and I. 
 I know it is so with me. Let 
 me confess it to you: the 
 object of the journey I un- 
 dertake this afternoon is a 
 marriage -union that Heav- 
 en will bless, I trust and hope ; and yet, 
 still, the motive which attracts me with 
 no less power toward the country whith- 
 er I am going is a cemetery." 
 
 She bowed her head to think, looking 
 at once monumental and Rubensesque, 
 while I shrank back appalled to solve 
 
9 8 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 this enigma. A journey undertaken for 
 a marriage ! Whose marriage ? . Her 
 own ? I had seen her yesterday on the 
 arm of Fortnoye. Suppose for a mo- 
 ment that my suspicions of that ubiqui- 
 tous personage had fallen short of their 
 proper aim, and that the real object of 
 his nomadic career was to rob me of my 
 first love — to make me now the widower 
 of her who had never been my wife ! 
 The mere conception and formulation 
 of such an indictment against Fortnoye 
 confused me. After all, I knew nothing. 
 In sheer self-defence I put away the no- 
 tion, and approached the sculptures with 
 a partially-cleared mind. 
 
 The monument of Philip Bethmann 
 Holweg at Frankfort exhibits a series of 
 bas-reliefs in which Thorwaldsen has cel- 
 ebrated an act of courage which touch- 
 ed upon three cities in its effects and 
 doom. The young Holweg had extin- 
 guished a conflagration at Vienna, died 
 from his injuries at Florence, and been 
 brought home to Frankfort for burial. 
 In the principal design he is represented 
 as expiring and handing his civic crown 
 of valor to a brother — the brother who 
 vainly nursed him in Italy : the Genius of 
 Death already leans upon his shoulder, 
 with the stupefying poppies in his hand. 
 Beside, the mother and sisters are weep- 
 ing ; and in another compartment, near 
 the river Arno and the Lion of Florence, 
 is Nemesis — that fatal Nemesis which 
 follows good actions as well as*bad. 
 
 " It is characteristic, composite and 
 eclectic," said Mrs. Ashburleigh with 
 conviction, seating herself upon a neigh- 
 boring tomb. The criticisms of this lady 
 were always inimitable. She looked long 
 at the monument, producing from her 
 light basket a delicate contribution of re- 
 freshments, which we consumed as we 
 gazed upon this elevating work. There 
 were some little tarts, some slices of an 
 admirable sausage, pumpernickel and a 
 bottle of orgeat. 
 
 "I must jot down the main outlines/' 
 she observed. "I have in my sketch- 
 books nearly four hundred designs of 
 tombstones. That is my minor mania. 
 I have a grand mania, which I will tell 
 you of in a moment. I hope you foster a 
 
 mania, Mr. Flemming. I should like to 
 obtain squeezes of some of Thorwald- 
 sen's details, but there will hardly be 
 time. Have you a mania ?" she asked, 
 suddenly, calmly, imperiously, and with 
 a penetrating melancholy. As she sat 
 looking at me from her tomb, with the 
 ruins of the lunch-basket, which she had 
 accidentally crushed, just embossed be- 
 neath her paniers, she reminded me of 
 Rachel sitting upon her teraphim, and 
 I thought that ancient Rama itself had 
 hardly seen a figure more superb, more 
 mournful and more completely childless. 
 
 " I believe I have what you mean by 
 the term, though Hohenfels calls it my 
 lubies. It is geographical in its nature, 
 and is the hope of my life." 
 
 " It is worthless. The progress of Art, 
 upon which the higher welfare of the 
 race depends, is not assisted by discover- 
 ing the North-west Passage or the source 
 of the Nile. My own collections are in- 
 timately associated with the arts and 
 pieties. I collect wall-paper." 
 
 "Wall-paper! Mercy on me! So 
 does old Mere Eulalie the ragpicker." 
 
 "So she may, and I would not discour- 
 age the germs of fancy and aesthetics 
 among the lower orders. My own series 
 of wall-papers will soon be the most 
 complete in existence except that of a 
 certain baroness in Munich, who is going 
 blind, and whose taste, besides, is taking 
 the direction of spiders. Other connois- 
 sieurs may easily exceed me in faience, 
 though I have a considerable cabinet of 
 that. In lacquer, in Hindoo idols, in 
 playbills, in beetles, in snuff-boxes, in 
 etchings and postage-stamps, in Venice 
 glass, in lace, or in empty relic-holders 
 out of the monasteries, I do not com- 
 pete ; but I have distanced them com- 
 pletely in wall-papers, and, I am pretty 
 sure, in tombstones. 
 
 " My portfolios, which are as large as 
 window-shutters, fill three enormous cof- 
 fers. You may see in them the designs 
 of Louis XVI. — a balustrade and a cip- 
 pus, a balustrade and a cippus, ad in- 
 finitum : a later pattern represents the 
 king borne up by figures of Minerva and 
 Fame, the upper part of his figure con- 
 cealed by the repetition of the group, so 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 199 
 
 as to dissemble the loss of his head — a 
 constant succession of headless kings 
 intended to go on thus up to the ceiling: 
 
 it is a protest against his decapitation. 
 There are the patterns of the Directory, 
 with their narrow garlands of drapery, 
 
 THE VISITORS BOOK. 
 
 intercrossing and pendent. There are 
 the griffins and rosettes of the First Em- 
 pire. There are the ' aurora ' - colored 
 papers of 1820, manufactured by Reveil- 
 lon, accompanied by their velvet borders. 
 There is the pattern of 1800, mentioned 
 by About as probably unique, represent- 
 ing green roses on a yellow ground. 
 There are the heroic designs in the style 
 of David, in one tint — Andromache hold- 
 ing her boy, whose round cheeks are 
 modeled with concentric circles of gray 
 shadow. I have them all : it is a whole 
 history." 
 
 "Dear me!" said I : "perhaps I could 
 assist you. I remember an old garret in 
 America papered with the New York 
 Mirror, on which indigo stars have been 
 stamped with a potato." 
 
 "If you could get me a square yard of 
 it I should be eternally obliged. Nothing 
 consoles the ills of life like a mania." 
 
 The sexton interrupted us : Would we 
 like to see the Chamber of the Dead ? 
 
 I shivered at this peculiar invitation. 
 My lovely guide laughed at my fears : 
 "It is one of the sights of Frankfort, and 
 Murray will not forgive you unless you 
 visit it. Besides, let me tell you, it is 
 quite comfortable, homelike and hos- 
 pitable. In winter they keep up a fire. 
 Let me quote the good old guide-book : 
 : The Chamber of the Dead is arranged 
 
 to prevent the danger of premature bur- 
 ial in cases of epilepsy and the like. It 
 is a building composed often small cells, 
 grouped around the office inhabited by a 
 watchman. The dead are left in their 
 burial-cases, but each of the ten fingers 
 is placed in a sort of copper thimble, 
 from which proceeds a wire communi- 
 cating with a bell. The least movement 
 rings the bell and attracts the guardian.' 
 Come and see this strange utilization of 
 thimbles." 
 
 I could but admire the comfortable 
 smile with which she invited me to this 
 awful sight. Mrs. Ashburleigh's nerves 
 must have been indeed strong. Does 
 one smile in entering such a ghastly 
 morgue, where ten lifeless bodies, pro- 
 tected by one hundred copper thimbles, 
 are awaiting the chance of stirring the 
 bell-rope which summons them to a new 
 lease of life ? 
 
 The cells were empty, all but one, 
 whose closed door was the only suggest- 
 ive thing in the place. The watchman 
 sat in the middle smoking a pipe and 
 making a wreath of immortelles. 
 
 " How often are you aroused by the 
 signal of this terrible bell ?" I asked. 
 
 "Up to the present time, sir, I have 
 never heard it." 
 
 " Indeed ! Perhaps you have but re- 
 cently taken charge here ?" 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 " In forty years, sir, the bell has never 
 been rung but once." 
 
 "Ah ! once, at least !" 
 
 " Yes, sir : a bat had got in." 
 
 And Mary Ashburleigh smiled once 
 more as we left the dreadful place. We 
 drove back into the city. On passing 
 the post I saw my man Charles, who was 
 staring vacantly at the city sights, and 
 whom I sent in with my card to ask for 
 letters. One from Fortnoye awaited me : 
 
 "All has gone well at Heidelberg. 
 Kranich is quiet, but apparently backing 
 for a spring. He has asked after you, 
 and without blushing. I am convinced 
 that all the apparent malice of this cool 
 young hand proceeds from calculation. 
 If he could do you an injury he would, 
 but I know how to prevent him. I will 
 only add a word of thanks for your act 
 of chivalry, so brusquely demanded and 
 so obligingly performed. By your deed 
 of courtesy, apparently so trifling, you 
 have assured success to the most im- 
 portant action of my life." 
 
 This kindly message enraged me. 
 "The most important action of his life!" 
 Set this against the "wedding-journey" 
 confessed by his magnificent companion ! 
 Their harmony of intentions was a drop 
 of gall in my chalice. I could not con- 
 ceal from myself that the match seemed 
 eligible. Here were two hymeneal fig- 
 ures largely sculptured, with that breadth 
 of style and simplicity of feature only 
 found in Europe — without the tortured 
 nerves and petty weaknesses so common 
 in my own country, and of which I, un- 
 fortunately, showed a fatuous example. 
 Where the American character seems 
 cut up with anxious details and sensi- 
 tive perceptions, the European character 
 often seems stamped in one piece with 
 a die. These two ample natures might 
 pass a life of harmony and calm — she 
 collecting her wall-papers from city to 
 city, and he irrigating Europe with his 
 wines. Either of them knew the world 
 a thousand times better than I did. My 
 interest in Mrs. Ashburleigh increased 
 most poignantly as this root of jealousy 
 began to pierce through my being. 
 
 I lost myself in a labyrinth of specu- 
 lation. Mrs. Ashburleigh had not con- 
 
 cealed her vast regard for Fortnoye, to 
 assist whom, she declared, as Francine 
 had declared in answer to a similar de- 
 mand of mine, she would throw herself 
 into the flames. This formidable fellow, 
 then, had the secret of outmanoeuvring 
 all the men and charming all the women ! 
 Poor Francine ! what was her part in the 
 whole mystery? The part, maybe, of a 
 sacrificed rival ! She had been carried 
 
 THE SUMMONS. 
 
 off from Carlsruhe by a mysterious sum- 
 mons : perhaps, with the illogical con- 
 clusions of young girls, she had allowed 
 some less worthy suitor to bear her away 
 from her dreams of Fortnoye. This 
 other — could it possibly be the repulsive 
 young calculating-machine who called 
 himself Kraaniff or Kranich ? That 
 would explain his quarrel with Fortnoye 
 perhaps ; but I had seen him at Heidel- 
 berg, apparently alone. In any case, 
 poor Francine ! And poor Flemming ! 
 
 Under so lovely a surveillance I was 
 guided till I was giddy. Dismissing the 
 carriage, Mrs, Ashburleigh took me to 
 the Staedel Museum, to the Bethmann 
 Museum, to the Exchange. With her 
 taste to aid me, I bought on the Zeil 
 enough Bohemian glass to have furnish- 
 ed the basket of Cogia Hassan. The 
 great caryatides (so common in the ho- 
 tel-architecture of Frankfort) glared and 
 grinned at me in a hundred bronze or 
 marble grimaces as I panted along with 
 my pockets full of toys, or with my hands 
 oppressed under the bouquets and bon- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 20I 
 
 bons which she sweetly allowed me to 
 purchase : scores of Vulcans and Atlases, 
 leaning their enormous shoulders against 
 the balconies, beheld me toiling without 
 
 ^^ W J£> \ 
 
 THE SAGE AND THE SHADOW. 
 
 compassion or offers of assistance. At 
 last my companion herself, taking pity 
 on me, showed me how to have my 
 treasures packed by the aid of a com- 
 missionnaire, and forwarded to my 
 bankers at Paris. 
 
 "The bouquets are more personal," 
 she said: "they cannot be despatched 
 to a banker." 
 
 This charming sentiment, marked with 
 all the amiable and considerate traits of 
 this incomparable woman, melted my 
 soul within me, and compensated a mil- 
 lion times for the slight menaces of her- 
 nia and dislocation which assaulted my 
 arms and the pit of my stomach. It 
 was as a bower of bloom, an ambulant 
 arbor or a processional Guy Fawkes, that 
 I presented myself at the Kaisersaal with 
 my adorable commander. 
 
 A public square with fine mediaeval 
 buildings, and with a couple of foun- 
 tains, fronts the grand old triple-gabled 
 hall. One of these fountains has a fig- 
 ure meant for Justice ; only, as the scales 
 are placed in its left hand, it is more 
 commonly taken for Injustice. 'Twas 
 in this square that the emperors were 
 proclaimed — 'twas in the hall that they 
 were elected. 
 
 From 911 to 1556 — that is to say, from 
 
 Conrad to Ferdinand I. — the elections 
 were had at Aix-la-Chapelle. Maximil- 
 ian II. began in 1564 the series of em- 
 perors crowned at Frankfort. The cere- 
 mony at Aix I will not 
 presume to explain, since 
 the reader has a vivid if 
 rather loose idea of it all 
 from Ernani. Idle to go 
 over again that immense 
 Fourth Act, toward the 
 close of which the king 
 of Bohemia and the duke 
 of Bavaria (in red baize 
 with Canton- flannel 
 facings) bring in a superb 
 crown of bullion and 
 pasteboard to the new 
 emperor, who has been 
 sitting in the tomb of 
 Charlemagne like a ghoul. 
 The ceremony as re- 
 moved to Frankfort 
 appears to have been not a whit less 
 dramatic. The hall, it seems, was by this 
 time called the Romer, its usual appel- 
 lation at present : the Italian merchants 
 coming up from Lombardy and install- 
 ing themselves in the Saal had caused 
 it to take a Latinized designation. These 
 mercers and money-changers had made 
 niches around the walls to the number 
 of forty-five, for the purpose of display- 
 ing their wares. The unknown archi- 
 tect who distributed those niches proved 
 to be a better prophet than Nostradamus. 
 Thus it was : # in decorating the place for 
 the imperial elections the forty-five niches 
 were assigned to hold portraits of the 
 emperors. Thirty-six had been elected 
 at Aix. Their busts were introduced : 
 an old woman said, "When the niches 
 are all filled the German empire will 
 be at an end." In 1765, when Joseph 
 II. mounted the throne, he looked with 
 apprehension at the fatal range of niches, 
 for only one more place was left vacant 
 for himself, and there was none for a 
 successor. When Francis II. was elect- 
 ed the round of the hall had been made. 
 There was a grand discussion raised as 
 to the proper place for the new emperor's 
 effigy, when, in 1806, Napoleon shatter- 
 ed the empire with the cannons of Wa- 
 
202 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 gram, and the courtiers were relieved of 
 their difficulty. 
 
 But I was about to give a word to the 
 electoral ceremony, comparing it with 
 Ernanu 
 
 "You will fancy, dear madam," I said 
 to Mrs. Ashburleigh, "the square here 
 filled with a privileged crowd, among 
 whom the big butchers and carvers have 
 attained the best places by main strength. 
 In the middle an ox roasts entire. One of 
 yonder jets is replaced by a fountain of 
 red and white wine, flowing respectively 
 from the two heads of an enormous eagle. 
 On another side is a mass of oats heaped 
 three feet high. Near the hall is an urn 
 of gold and silver money. The crowd 
 waits with impatience the moment when 
 the judges — the electoral archbishops of 
 Mayence, Treves and Cologne, the rep- 
 resentatives of Bohemia, Bavaria, Saxony 
 and the rest — have announced the re- 
 sult, and the emperor appears, crowned, 
 at the middle window. Then a trumpet 
 sounds, and the arch-marshal forces his 
 horse into the pile of oats up to the 
 saddle-girth, fills a silver measure with 
 the grain and gives it to the emperor — a 
 sign that the stables are provisioned. 
 And the arch-cupbearer, also on horse- 
 back, fills two silver cups at the eagle- 
 fountain, and hands the red and white 
 wassail to the emperor in token that his 
 cellar is replete. It is now the people's 
 turn, and when the arch-treasurer scat- 
 ters abroad handfuls of the money, and 
 the arch-steward flings out great slabs 
 of beef, it is who can grasp the most, 
 and who can win in the fight the ox's 
 head, to be hung in the butchers' hall 
 for a perpetual trophy." 
 
 "The lucky ones must have looked 
 somewhat as you do at this moment un- 
 der your burdens." 
 
 "A good omen ! I accept the person- 
 ation, and am ready to shout a million 
 loyal vzvas,'but it will be at the election 
 of an empress, not an emperor." 
 
 On that we entered. Our application 
 to see the Kaisersaal resulted in pro- 
 ducing a shrill voice and a grizzly head, 
 the latter looking out from an opening 
 upon us as if we were contemptible enig- 
 mas, hardly worth to this CEdipus the 
 
 trouble of a guess. The voice, which 
 was a very high one. I really supposed to 
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 belong to this bearded head, until I per- 
 ceived that the mouth was hermetically 
 sealed with a thick clay pipe. " I am mere- 
 ly hunting for the key," said the voice, 
 still appearing to come supernaturally 
 from the sealed-up hermit. Presently a 
 figure emerged — the figure of a female, a 
 blowsed beauty, who was tying her apron 
 and running pins into her hair, and who, 
 I am convinced, had been occupied rather 
 with research of coquetry than of keys. 
 We penetrated a door inscribed "Kaiser- 
 saal " in great capital letters, and devoted 
 ourselves with much concentration to the 
 range of portraits, desiring to leave this 
 lady a fair chance to arrange her hair- 
 pins according to whatever preconceived 
 ideal she may have had. We ran the 
 Caesars down, from Conrad to Francis 
 II., that fortunate father-in-law of Napo- 
 leon who died simply emperor of Aus- 
 tria by his adopted son's doing. 
 
 Our examination was done, though, 
 before the janitress's toilet. Several un- 
 mated hooks remained to her dress, and 
 I think several pins in her mouth, when 
 at last she said, "Madam has doubtless 
 seen finer halls, but she knows that a 
 plain book sometimes has held great 
 thoughts." 
 
 "True," said Mrs. Ashburleigh. "I 
 hardly know where else one could be in 
 a chamber with forty-five emperors." 
 
 "To see the archives, that is fine," add- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 203 
 
 ed the woman. "They will show you the 
 Golden Bull." 
 
 "The golden bull ! Is it carved by the 
 arch-steward?" I asked absently. I was 
 wondering if this janitress, who only per- 
 formed a toilet in the presence of visitors, 
 •was anxious to get back to her den merely 
 to unpin herself. 
 
 Our little pecuniary acknowledgment 
 to this guardian went into her mouth, 
 mingling with the bodkins there collect- 
 ed. Six kreutzers more admitted us to 
 the archives, and among them we exam- 
 ined the bulla of gold, named from the 
 foil with which they cover the seal to 
 preserve it from decay. This bull was 
 given by Charles IV. in 1556, and be- 
 came the fundamental law of the em- 
 pire. For near three hundred years the 
 great charter, written on forty-five skins 
 of parchment, and beginning with the 
 solemn words, Omne regnum in se di- 
 vision desolabitur, was the bulwark of 
 imperial power. Napoleon one fine 
 morning gave the city of Frankfort to 
 the Prince Charles of Dalberg, under 
 whom it became simply the capital of the 
 grand duchy ; the act of the Congress of 
 Vienna in 1815 made Frankfort the seat 
 of the Diet of the Germanic Confedera- 
 tion ; finally, the other day, Bismarck 
 swept the Golden Bull, with the Iron 
 Crown and many other baubles, into the 
 old portmanteau with which he has sent 
 his master out carpet-bagging (as we 
 Americans say) over the ingredient prov- 
 inces of his great domain. The bulla 
 was only shown to us through a glass 
 sash, but the attendant had the gallantry 
 to offer to my companion a neat engrav- 
 ing of the seal, underneath which was a 
 note addressed rather to me than to her, 
 perhaps, as it was upon me that it acted 
 in the way of a fiscal aperient. The note 
 was expressed thus : " 12 kreutzers." 
 
 We came away from the Romer. " It 
 affects me strangely," said Mrs. Ashbur- 
 leigh. The remark was both subtle and 
 touching — touching, in that she should 
 have cared for all the dead emperors ; 
 and subtle, in that her emotion was 
 " strange," a word chosen well to express 
 the profound depth and distance of feel- 
 ing with which we contemplate that long 
 
 Augustan succession. We sought out 
 Goethe's house ; and here it was my 
 turn to be touched, for I found in the 
 old visitors' book my own name. 
 
 My reader may be a battered stager, 
 callous to most of the emotions, but I 
 defy him to forbid his heart to speak 
 softly forth when he finds his name on 
 some ancient tourists' register. Old 
 schemes, old routes of pleasure, old 
 friendships that were meant to be per- 
 petual and are now dead enough, — how 
 they start into the memory at sight of 
 one's own pert autograph relieving itself 
 there on the page, just as spirited as in 
 that day when the hand was so lively 
 and the foot so firm ! 
 
 "You have, then, visited Frankfort 
 before, Mr. Flemming?" said my com- 
 panion. 
 
 "Yes, and so I have visited many other 
 places in the New World and the Old. 
 But it was before I had met you ; and, 
 in the words of Laertes, both the worlds 
 I give to negligence, counting nothing 
 noteworthy or remarkable that I do not 
 behold by your side." 
 
 The house is in the Hirsch Graben, 
 No. 74. Visitors are expected to enter 
 and contemplate the modest chamber 
 where, on the 28th of August, 1749, the 
 little Wolfgang first saw daylight. We 
 found out the house, and stood before 
 the portal, where a page of white marble 
 gives the fact and the date. 
 
 " I used to please myself by making 
 out Goethe to be like our own Franklin," 
 I observed — "a kind of rhymed Ben 
 Franklin : many of his little maxims 
 seem nothing more than versifications 
 of Bonhomme Richard. His practical 
 tendency and love of science were the 
 same: in 1799, at the age of forty, he 
 published his Meta?norfihoses of Plants, 
 a work on which Auguste de Saint-Hi- 
 laire founded his Vegetable Morphology." 
 
 "Was that a specimen of your literary 
 criticism when you were young ?" asked 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh, royally indifferent to 
 Goethe's correspondence with Franklin. 
 " I suppose you were a botanist even 
 then. For my part, I have a strong ob- 
 jection to Goethe. It is not only for his 
 views on love and friendship, which every 
 
204 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 woman is bound to find detestable from 
 mere esprit de corps, but for another 
 reason. I have always thought it con- 
 temptible in him to aid tradition in vili- 
 fying Faust, while he drew such vast 
 profit from Faust's invention, and taxed 
 it so heavily." 
 
 " But Faust — Faust is moral disease : 
 Faust was specially tempted of the devil," 
 I suggested. 
 
 "Not so," she said simply. "Every 
 one has that personage at his shoulder 
 if he will but turn his head." 
 
 I looked askance at this strange wo- 
 man, to surprise in its flight her Socratic 
 aphorism, so naturally and forcibly utter- 
 ed : it was not one of her great mots, 
 with their burden of poetry and senti- 
 ment, but its honesty gave it value. So, 
 then, Faust, with his dark career, was 
 but the terrible commonplace of human- 
 kind — of humankind, whether man or 
 woman ; and even our little Marguerites, 
 pleasing themselves in the company of 
 the men of wit, are a kind of Faust, 
 signing away their souls because they 
 love intellectual distinction ; and Herr 
 Wolfgang Goethe himself, coining as it 
 were the heats and generosities of his 
 heart into hard type, he is a Faust of 
 more unpleasant aspect than any. 
 
 So do I interpret the chance axiom 
 which Mrs. Ashburleigh, out of the 
 wealth of her experience and her intel- 
 lectuality, sowed upon me like seed by 
 the wayside. We left the house of 
 Goethe. As we emerged from the door 
 a little ragged dwarf, who leaned like 
 Asmodeus on a crutch, sprang up as if 
 from the ground, and offered to translate 
 the inscription of the entablature. " I 
 know five languages, and therefore am 
 as good as five men," he said, in fair 
 English. 
 
 "You are somewhat less than one," 
 I answered. 
 
 " There was a man !" said the dwarf, 
 indicating the name of Goethe. "Those 
 are the family arms of the Goethes," he 
 continued, pointing with his crutch to 
 three little lyres sculptured in the frame- 
 work of the door. 
 
 " I imagined as much," I observed 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE LYRE. 
 
 coolly, not caring to accept the friend- 
 ship of this chance interpreter. But it 
 was not easy to abash him : he looked 
 up at us with the sparkling points of two 
 deep-set black eyes, haunched his shoul- 
 ders like an oracular raven and contin- 
 ued : "Beware of the official guides and 
 ciceroni ! Beware of Murray and Bae- 
 deker ! The idiots of Frankfort will tell 
 you how Goethe's father, impressed with 
 some miraculous foreknowledge that a 
 great poet was to be born, adopted 
 those three lyres for the family arms. 
 Don't you believe a word of it. Grand- 
 father Goethe had been a horse-farrier. 
 He got rich and built this house. In 
 gratitude to the trade which had aug- 
 mented his comforts, he adopted three 
 horseshoes for emblems. The father of 
 Wolfgang, who was the blacksmith's 
 grandson, was a lawyer. When he made 
 an ambitious marriage with the daugh- 
 ter of Senator Textor, and brought the 
 bride into his house, where the three 
 horseshoes humbly swung from the lin- 
 tel, he was seized with shame for those 
 signs of plebeian origin. So he strung 
 them with cords and they became harps. 
 That was the way in which the poet's 
 lyres had their origin at a time when the 
 poet was but indistinctly dreamed of. 
 There is the truth, sir, and a good joke 
 it is." 
 
 And Asmodeus, shouldering himself 
 away on his crutch, disappeared with 
 sulphurous laughter. But not before he 
 had deigned to accept two or three 
 chance kreutzers. 
 
ZPJ^ZR/T ZXZAT. 
 
 EN ROUTE AGAIN 
 
 "sorrows of werther. 
 
 "IT fills me with strange thoughts, this 
 -L bidding adieu to Frankfort. I re- 
 call, dear madam, my previous exit from 
 the same city. I was a boy then, and I 
 was with a young friend, Hohenfels. I 
 recollect how we sat in the theatre after 
 they had put out the lights, among the 
 empty stalls and in the smoky twilight. 
 We wanted to destroy the illusion, you 
 know : boys can afford to destroy illu- 
 sions, because they have a vast provision 
 of them remaining to draw upon in the 
 future, and so they are pitiless toward 
 their own card-castles. And then we 
 got up and shook off the dust of Frank- 
 
 fort, and trudged on through Hochheim 
 to the Rhine, and so to Schlangenbad 
 and Langenschwalbach. Did you ever 
 hear of the Stella, Mrs. Ashburleigh ? 
 The Stella was doing cachucas in the 
 Frankfort theatre then. The lightest 
 heel you ever saw. Stella might have 
 said, like Beatrice, ' There was a star 
 danced, and under that I was born.' 
 We two lads sat in the pit, recovering 
 from our illusions and enjoying some 
 raisins and filberts ; and then in the 
 darkness we heard Stella's husband say- 
 ing, just as if he had spoken of a horse, 
 ' I shall run her six nights at Munich, 
 
 205 
 
206 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 and then take her on to Vienna.' We 
 were greatly shocked, and I suppose felt 
 complacent in being shocked ; for we 
 knew we were a pair of fine sentimental 
 fellows." 
 
 " I think I remember Stella and Ana- 
 tole," said Mrs. Ashburleigh. "Stella 
 
 DANNECKER S ARIADNE. 
 
 was as thin as a fiddle ; and Anatole, 
 who was her grandfather and very re- 
 spectable, once danced his wreath off, 
 with the hair it encircled." 
 
 " How little it takes to satisfy youth !" 
 I pursued. " I know I thought Stella as 
 beautiful as a bird, but it was before I 
 met you at Interlaken." 
 
 The image of the theatrical goddess 
 rose up for one moment beside the sub- 
 lime actuality of the Dark Ladye who 
 was deposited monumentally on a camp- 
 stool. The triumph of the rich reality 
 pleased me : for a single instant I just 
 fancied the peerless Mrs. Ashburleigh 
 curved across the footlights and raising 
 her toe toward the boxes in the slow and 
 measured style they practice in ballets. 
 Her superiority was crushing : excelling 
 as she did all women in everything, I 
 need not say how instantaneously she 
 finished the Stella. The poor chalky 
 wraith of that performer sank beneath 
 the weight of contrast like a stucco 
 pedestal under a marble angel. Truly 
 I had not, when I called Stella fair, en- 
 
 countered the peerless realism of British 
 beauty. 
 
 " I have not danced, I think, since the 
 death of Vestris," said my commander 
 simply, and motioning for my field-glass 
 with one imperial fore finger. 
 
 But where was this tagrag of conversa- 
 tion uttered ? And why, if we 
 were still at the sign of The Ro- 
 man Emperor, was Mrs. Ashbur- 
 leigh put upon so unusual a piece 
 of hotel-furniture as a camp-stool ? 
 And why did I hand her the field- 
 glass ? And why did I recall a 
 previous exit from Frankfort ? 
 From that city our paths were to 
 lie far apart: she was going to 
 Mayence, and I was returning to- 
 ward Marly. Yet behold us still 
 together, and evidently no long- 
 er amid the street-scenes or bal- 
 cony-caryatides of Frankfort. 
 
 No. Frankfort is left behind, 
 and I am on my route again. It 
 is a naval edifice on whose un- 
 stable seats I am jotting down 
 my notes. This fine river is 
 broader than the Main. I am 
 clear of Frankfort, and did the Fates en- 
 courage me I might go homeward. But 
 here I am, pushing perversely forward 
 instead of back, urged by another move 
 on that chessboard of destiny which has 
 already found me at many advancing 
 posts of a fatal game — at Strasburg and 
 Carlsruhe and Baden-Baden and Hei- 
 delberg. 
 
 I recalled to Mrs. Ashburleigh a pre- 
 vious exit from Frankfort. Let me re- 
 call this last to myself. 
 
 We left the house of Goethe, and the 
 crippled Asmodeus slunk away with his 
 stick as if he were vanishing into the 
 ground. 
 
 "Goethe fatigues me," said Mrs. Ash- 
 burleigh. " His Werthers and Fausts 
 are out of date : they hang on his shoul- 
 ders like that eternal coat with the long 
 skirts which we see in every window on 
 the statuettes of Goethe. People may 
 object to the modern spasmodic schools 
 and their passions in tatters : passions in 
 tatters are bad enough, but they are not 
 so bad as passions from the ready-made 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 207 
 
 clothing-shops — things that did not fit in 
 the first place, and are long since old- 
 fashioned." 
 
 It was perhaps a little tyrannical, for 
 she had made me buy the statuette whose 
 protracted garments she was now using 
 for her satire ; but woman's tyranny is in 
 proportion to her loveliness. I agreed 
 instantly with all she said, and quoted 
 Titmarsh's lines to the effect that Char- 
 lotte "was a married lady" whose pas- 
 sions were in the nature of bread and 
 butter : 
 
 So he sighed and pined and ogled. 
 
 And his passion boiled and bubbled, 
 Till he blew his silly brains out, 
 
 And no more was by it troubled. 
 Charlotte, having seen his body 
 
 Borne before her on a shutter, 
 Like a well-conducted person 
 
 Went on cutting bread and butter. 
 
 Yet I could not help wondering if her 
 feelings had not changed a little. In the 
 old days by the Staubbach, when I stole 
 from her album the stories about stu- 
 dents and painters, would she have rel- 
 ished a sarcastic allusion to Werther ? 
 Fatigued with this psychological inquiry, 
 I had recourse to a bit of the pumper- 
 nickel and sausage which remained in 
 brown paper at the bottom of my pocket. 
 I offered some to her, and she accept- 
 ed it simply, spreading her bread and 
 sausage with that large tranquillity that 
 goes with great natures. Charlotte was 
 eclipsed. So we brought up at the Beth- 
 mann Museum. 
 
 It is there that we find the Ariadne of 
 Dannecker. I did not forget how I had 
 once greeted the sculptor in his old age, 
 in his room at Stuttgart, where he used 
 to pass hours in looking at engravings 
 after Canova's statuary. Canova, too, is 
 out of fashion at present, and perhaps 
 Dannecker also ; and indeed I do not 
 know how many of my boyish idols have 
 not been laid flat or corroded by the 
 purism of the modern critics, the Neo- 
 Grec revival of the Second Empire, and 
 the aesthetics of ugliness taught by Eng- 
 lish pre-Raphaelites. But, at any rate, 
 Dannecker was another of the good genii 
 of my youth — one who had met me kind- 
 ly and bidden me good - speed on my 
 pilgrimage. He had praised my Flan- 
 
 ders cognomen, reminding me that Paul 
 Flemming was one of the old Minne- 
 singers ; and I made in return one of 
 
 VENUS OF MILO. 
 
 my best compliments, telling him thai 
 his head, with hair flowing to the shoul- 
 der and pale-blue eye, made him look 
 like Franklin. Further than that I could 
 not go as a connoisseur of heads or a 
 connoisseur of Franklin. 
 
 But on reviewing the Ariadne at Frank- 
 fort in such company as it was permitted 
 me to have, I hardly saw the technical 
 merits of the work. I studied its symbol 
 only. Immortal allegory of widowhood, 
 eternal encouragement to second mar- 
 riages, the myth of Ariadne in Naxos 
 shines down through the centuries, cast- 
 ing a silver gleam of poetry on the very 
 statistics of divorce-courts, and cheering, 
 as with wine, whatever modern marriage- 
 tables may chance to be furnished with 
 funeral bakemeats. And I was looking 
 on this figure with one whose claims, 
 both to beauty and bereavement, were 
 undeniable ! 
 
 The Ariadne of Dannecker reposes 
 upon one of the symbolic panthers which 
 Bacchus brought over after his conquest 
 of India, and turns forward and upward 
 a soft forehead, from whence the new 
 hope has just chased every lingering 
 
208 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 shadow of desolation. Even so, it seem- 
 ed to me, did Mrs. Ashburleigh, imper- 
 fectly supported by the remains of the 
 spirit-trade, turn a trustful front to the 
 
 HERK CUYPKR S INCOMPLETED TASK. 
 
 dawning future, and just hold a marble 
 ear in a receptive posture for whatever 
 promise might be in the wind from the 
 wandering Hymen, 
 
 whose usual trade is, 
 Under pretence of taking air. 
 To pick up sublunary ladies. 
 
 I have ever rejected, as coarse and 
 unworthy, the specious explanation that 
 the original Ariadne of Crete was an au- 
 gust but ill-advised princess who, after 
 an unhappy love-affair, had rushed into 
 habits of intoxication. Mary Ashbur- 
 leigh, however, seemed to give some 
 credit to this interpretation, or at least 
 to have heard of it ; for she said : " Do 
 you think the sculptor has disposed her 
 
 in a horizontal posture to indicate that 
 she is not able to stand ?" 
 
 I was relieved from replying to this 
 conjecture, which I thought able but un- 
 likely, by the assistant's putting the 
 machinery in motion. The statue 
 of Ariadne is occasionally turned 
 round on its pedestal under a col- 
 umn of perpendicular light, which 
 passes through a pink drapery, and 
 gives to the revolving figure the hue 
 and air of life. The pale nymph 
 flushed, turned, looked slowly 
 around, and softly guided her pan- 
 ther away from our indiscreet gaze, 
 while carnation hues and undulating 
 reflections played fitfully over her 
 soft limbs. And again Mrs. Ash- 
 burleigh obliged me with one of her 
 penetrating criticisms : "Just like the 
 ballet, is it not ?" 
 
 And indeed the exhibition is too 
 theatrical. My guide continued, 
 piqued perhaps by a little becoming 
 sense of rivalry : "Was the Stella as 
 pretty as this ?" 
 
 "I don't think she was quite so 
 stagey," I said. 
 
 Near at hand was a cast of the 
 beautiful puzzle found at Melos — 
 the Venus, or Victory, or whatever 
 divinity it may be, who, with the 
 arms she lacks the possession of, 
 has drawn all the world in admira- 
 tion to her foot. 
 
 " It has been restored at Naples as 
 fondling a Cupid ; it has been re- 
 stored at Paris as disarming Mars ; it 
 has been restored at Brescia with wings, 
 and made to write with a pencil on a 
 shield. That armless figure," I said, 
 " has set all the archaeologists to wrest- 
 ling." 
 
 " I would restore it as a Diana," said 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh," and I would make 
 her in the act of shooting an arrow at the 
 entire race of impertinent young gentle- 
 men. The Dianas, you are aware, know 
 how to make themselves respected." 
 
 "No, no," I said: "Diana is no such 
 bitter enemy of a whole sex as you rep- 
 resent her. I can give you an argument. 
 You remember, in the same Louvre which 
 enshrines yonder Venus is the Huntress 
 
THE NE W HYPERION. 
 
 209 
 
 Diana, the Diane a la Biche. Well, the 
 biche, modest little doe as she runs at 
 the side of her goddess, is there repre- 
 sented with a pair of well - developed 
 antlers — ornaments which in Nature be- 
 long only to the male. The symbol of 
 Diana is thus the harmonizing of the 
 two sexes, not their enmity." 
 
 "Since you are so analytical," said 
 my commander, " I can tell you another 
 of the public secrets of the Louvre. The 
 Venus of Milo is not only separated at 
 the waist, in the manner that has been 
 discussed so widely, but the knot of hair 
 is a separate piece of marble fastened on 
 to her head. The Paris Venus is there- 
 fore very appropriately the inventress of 
 the false chignon." 
 
 Rarely have I met so well-informed a 
 critic. With a certain amount of tuition 
 from her husband, joined to her taste for 
 art and some taste for surgery, Mary 
 Ashburleigh had become a matchless an- 
 atomist. It was while examining the lit- 
 tle plaster Goethe that she alarmed me 
 by suddenly making me throw my head 
 back, and dissecting with a sharp crayon 
 my sterno - hyoid, omoplat - hyoid and 
 thyro-hyoid muscles, with the digastric, 
 mylo-hyoid, and all that was visible of the 
 sterno-cleido-mastoid above the necktie. 
 
 During this unusual tete-a-tete, "Un per- 
 missible Fortnoye that you are," I cried 
 to myself, "who would carry away so 
 resplendent a creature ! It will be the 
 very shame of shames if you attach for 
 the second time to the wine-trade this 
 divine Ariadne !" 
 
 At the foot of Dannecker's statue she 
 said suddenly, "And to think all this 
 while a whole congress of dressmakers 
 and hatters are awaiting me at Mayence ! 
 These antique belles are so superior to 
 the needs of costume that they make us 
 quite forget. Draw your watch, Mr. 
 Flemming, and tell me if I have time to 
 get to the station." 
 
 Instead of the hour, I told her the history 
 of my repeater : she laughed musically, 
 and we strolled to the Parade-ground. 
 
 The time of separation was come. I 
 was preparing to arrange a system of 
 correspondence, which I proposed to 
 make very warm on my part, sure that 
 
 I could in that way introduce a course 
 of ideas which I found it impossible to 
 conduct among the interruptions and 
 hourly impertinences of travel. I was 
 murmuring a few words, and she was 
 glancing at the windows, eager and pre- 
 occupied. The porters from the hotel, 
 marking their prey, gathered round us, 
 and she and I were beating them off in 
 two or three languages. I pressed my 
 card upon her, with my hybernating ad- 
 dress at Passy. 
 
 "I shall have you there next winter?" 
 I importuned. 
 
 "je serais ravie /" said she. 
 
 " Heaven forbid !" said I. 
 
 I stared after her retreating form. She 
 disappeared in the hall, and the crowded 
 Parade-ground with its throngs appeared 
 to me the very desolation of the earth. 
 
 A figure from a shop close by attract- 
 ed my notice by bouncing suddenly 
 against me. It was my faithful assist- 
 ant, Charles. He was admiring some- 
 thing in his hand, to the exclusion of all 
 other claimants of attention : the object, 
 no doubt intended for Josephine the 
 cook, was a ball of wax-fuse, wound 
 upon itself like twine, and painted ex- 
 ternally with a wreath of forget-me-nots. 
 
 " Stupid !" said his employer. " Where 
 are the trunks ? Have you forgotten 
 them in that tallow-chandler's shop?" 
 
 I had instructed him in the morning 
 how to convey my trunks and botany- 
 box, properly lettered and directed for 
 the Frankfort-Heidelberg line. 
 
 "Monsieur will not be alarmed," said 
 Charles with several bows, which under 
 the circumstances looked as though ad- 
 dressed to the taper, still retained in his 
 hand. "The baggages are safely at the 
 railway. On my road I met the hotel-por- 
 ter. He was wheeling off the trunk of 
 the English lady in a large barrow, and, 
 since monsieur is traveling with madam, 
 I simply completed the load of the por- 
 ter with the wardrobe of monsieur." 
 
 "Triple cretin !" I exclaimed, with an 
 ardent impulse to strangle my good and 
 affectionate prodigy. "Charles," I al- 
 most sobbed, "you have made me ap- 
 pear like an intriguer, a pursuer, a bore, 
 a sticking-plaster, and I don't know what 
 
2IO 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 CHARLES AS IDIOT. 
 
 "Not at all. 
 
 else, in the eyes of a most 
 critical and intelligent 
 lady. She will never be- 
 lieve that I didn't tell you 
 to lose those trunks at the 
 wrong station. Run 
 straight back and fetch 
 them. No, stay! lean- 
 not wait fuming here. I'll 
 go with you." 
 
 As we descended from 
 our carriage at the depot, 
 Mary Ashburleigh got 
 out of hers: "What! you 
 here, Mr. Flemming ?" 
 ' I said anxiously. "At 
 least, it is only because you have got my 
 clothes in your wheelbarrow." 
 
 " I have your clothes ? What can you 
 possibly mean ?" 
 
 "Dear madam," said I, "allow me to 
 explain. Charles is an idiot." 
 
 " I can hardly see how his idiocy im- 
 pels you to travel so much farther in my 
 direction than you said." 
 
 "Only hear and believe me, dearest 
 madam, and I'll convince you that I am 
 not going in your direction." 
 
 " Oh ! then you 
 are not going to 
 Mayence ?" 
 
 " By no means. 
 Appearances are 
 against me." 
 
 "Whither do 
 you go then, Mr. 
 Flemming ?" 
 -to Heidelberg, Stras- 
 burg and Epernay." 
 
 " I thought you had just been to those 
 places." 
 
 " That is true ; and I hope to see them 
 again without loss of time. But Charles, 
 by a blunder, has thrown me in a heap 
 upon the tender mercies of your trunk." 
 "My trunk!" said Mary Ashburleigh 
 in sincere alarm. "There are four un- 
 cut dresses in it. For the sake of old 
 times, Paul Flemming, go and see if my 
 trunk is marked for Castel." 
 
 I investigated. The baggage, my own 
 included, was on the train, marked by 
 the hotel-porter for Castel, opposite May- 
 ence : I could extricate nothing. 
 
 THE TRUNKS. 
 
 Where I said- 
 
 "Then I am satisfied," said Mrs. Ash- 
 burleigh. A great relenting and heavenly 
 charity now took possession of this love- 
 liest of women. She said: "Your bag- 
 gage is imprisoned. You had better get 
 into prison too." And she pointed to 
 the railway-coach. 
 
 In fact, I wondered that I had not de- 
 termined to go home by way of Mayence 
 and the choicest part of the Rhine, rath- 
 er than by my old tiresome itinerary of 
 errors. With my commander pointing 
 that supreme fore finger of hers, to obey 
 was to be happy. 
 
 The divinity, once assured that she 
 was not bankrupt with her dressmaker, 
 ameliorated like a summer morning. 
 And thus once again I traveled by her 
 side : our talk was sculpture, books and 
 anatomy. In renewing our relations I 
 could but growl once more, "Unbearable 
 Fortnoye !" 
 
 In the course of an hour we arrived at 
 Castel, where Mrs. Ashburleigh plunged 
 into abstinence and retirement with her 
 syndicate of dressmakers. It was a 
 moral rather than a material separation 
 which rose between us : physically, there 
 was but the bridge between Castel and 
 Mayence, in whose Hotel d'Angleterre 
 I established myself, but morally there 
 was the gulf of Dress. I could get noth- 
 ing uttered, yet I was not repulsed. My 
 most ardent speeches were extinguished 
 with woolens and silks, yet I was allow- 
 ed to communicate day by day, bearing 
 in my pockets across the bridge a tele- 
 graphy of buttons and sewing-silks — the 
 Exchange quotations in those matters 
 of the Castel and Mayence sides of the 
 river. 
 
 And so I lay that lovely May night — 
 while Hohenfels was fighting my battles 
 in Heidelberg — under the moon-painted 
 Dom of Mayence, whose outlines are 
 clotted by builders' materials amassed 
 by Herr Architect Cuypers. 
 
 Like the spire of my own life, which 
 still shot ineffectually toward its Ely- 
 sium when I last came hither, the cathe- 
 dral of Mayence is a romance of the 
 Middle Age — unfinished. 
 
fj^rt xrsn. 
 
 EMBARKATION AND VOYAGE FROM MAYENCE. 
 
 THE HORROKS OF HYMEN. 
 
 HERE in Mayence, as in the city 
 of Florence and in many a con- 
 tinental town, I have meditated on the 
 strange slow gestation of a cathedral. 
 Begotten when faith was strong, or at 
 least when bishops were lively and tem- 
 porally powerful in their judicial seats, 
 your cathedral starts on a grand scale, 
 and sucks up a principality's wealth in 
 the pores of its great hulking body : its 
 career continues through nine or ten 
 centuries of unachieved intentions, oddly 
 marked off to the beholder's eye by dif- 
 ferences in the architecture. Probably 
 some features essential to the original 
 plan, as the fleches of Notre Dame in 
 Paris or the facade of the Duomo in 
 
 Florence, never get put on, and the poor 
 abortion heals up, as it were, in an atmo- 
 sphere that affords no more germs of 
 growth, and desolately persuades itself 
 that it looks better without. The crown- 
 ing satire is when a cathedral front is 
 elegantly and languidly completed, as a 
 matter of aesthetics, by a government en- 
 gaged in persecuting the Church which 
 founded it. 
 
 I threaded the complicated interior of 
 the Dom, where the episcopal monu- 
 ments with their stone embroideries 
 came back upon my sight like the tan- 
 gled furniture of a dream. Long years 
 before I had paced the same bowers 
 and gardens of Gothic-work, but that 
 
 211 
 
212 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 was in my previous existence, before I 
 had seen the Dark Ladye. In youth 
 what I had demanded of the turkey- 
 cock beadle was the tomb of Meissen 
 the Frauenlob, who lies here, where the 
 ladies of Mayenc^ carried him, in his 
 
 CHAPEL AT MAYENCE. 
 
 tomb among the cloisters of St. Willigis. 
 In maturity I sought the monument of 
 Charlemagne's best-loved wife, Fastrada. 
 Then, the young man's heart was wist- 
 ful and curious, searching the future for 
 the promised boon of love : now, the vet- 
 eran's soul was crowded with undigest- 
 ed experience, and demanded some im- 
 age of satisfied affection to rest its emo- 
 tions upon. 
 
 The cathedral of Mayence, like some 
 rich agglomerated crystal, consists of 
 two or three churches grown together: 
 this peculiarity gives it, instead of the 
 single or double spire with which other 
 churches are content, an opulent crown 
 
 of towers, brimming over the lid-like 
 roof and pushing from every corner up 
 to heaven. The east choir and its en- 
 trance are of the tenth century, erected 
 under Bishop Hatto ; the west choir is 
 of the twelfth ; the nave, of the eleventh ; 
 and the chapels extending along the 
 side-aisles are of the early part of the 
 fourteenth century, or, as I should 
 think from the style, as late as the 
 sixteenth in some portions. 
 
 Schwanthaler's monument to Frau- 
 enlob, put up since my early pilgrim- 
 age in the most spasmodic taste of 
 German romanticism, might have at- 
 tracted my attention if I had still been 
 the vaguely-yearning troubadour : it 
 is on the south wall, and represents 
 a lady putting a wreath on a coffin. 
 But, as I say, I was now bent on find- 
 ing images of love crowned and test- 
 ed by matrimony ; so I made my 
 way, without any turkey-cock assist- 
 ance, to where the tablet of Fastrada 
 leans out from the wall, close to the 
 "Beautiful Doorway." The st'one 
 which witnesses the queen's virtues 
 and Charlemagne's devotion bears a 
 Latin inscription, beginning, " Fastra- 
 dana pia Caroli conjunx vocitata." 
 I made a sketch of it for Mrs. Ash- 
 burleigh, still busied with her milli- 
 ners ; and it was of Mrs. Ashburleigh 
 I thought as I called upon the Carlo- 
 vingian queen. 
 
 If Kaiser Karl loved no woman 
 like Fastrada, it was not that he had 
 not with three previous alliances pur- 
 sued the hope of conjugal happiness, 
 and after being for the third time incon- 
 solable taken this clever princess to wife 
 Think of that, O widowed ringdove of 
 my dreams ! and see if the fable of 
 Ariadne be not here repeated with im- 
 provements and appendices ! 
 
 Fastrada was an astute princess. "Four 
 affinities are enough for Charles," she 
 observed : " a fifth would be ridiculous, 
 and the idea disturbs me." Meantime, 
 Carolus Magnus, disgracefully uxorious, 
 spent all his time with the queen. The 
 cabinet could get no sessions, the bish- 
 op no tithes, the courtiers no audience. 
 "We must have recourse to the doctor," 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 213 
 
 said they ; and the doctor proved equal 
 to the emergency. He came, prescribed 
 and conquered. So Fastrada, when she 
 felt herself about to die, concealed be- 
 neath her tongue the magic ring, the 
 gift of the serpent, which secured to her, 
 so long as she wore it, her lord's affec- 
 tion. The effect on Carolus was pecu- 
 liar : he loved his wife even in the clay, 
 and long after the poor thing had fallen 
 to pieces he was found inseparable from 
 her remains, caressing the bones and 
 fondly winding the long hair around his 
 fingers. These posthumous connubial- 
 ities became embarrassing. Turpin, the 
 archbishop of Rheims, and the courtiers, 
 and the sexton, and the architect — who 
 had received orders for a splendid tomb 
 for Fastrada, but who could not bury Fas- 
 trada while she was still enjoying the cov- 
 erture and protection of her husband — 
 all were scandalized. At length, Turpin, 
 with some white fiction about a message 
 straight from Heaven, contrived to be- 
 guile the king away ; and then the queen- 
 ly skeleton was removed, and the ring 
 found fast between the teeth. The affec- 
 tion, however, which Charlemagne had 
 felt for Fastrada was transferred with 
 magic promptness to the present holder 
 of the talisman. This happened to be 
 Bishop Turpin himself, who had thought 
 no harm in slipping the bauble on his 
 plump and white episcopal little finger. 
 Charlemagne loved him with fulsome 
 tenderness, overwhelming him with pres- 
 ents of wimples, coifs, Mechlin lace and 
 stomachers. The pious ecclesiastic was 
 so persecuted by the imperial love that 
 he gathered up his gown and took to 
 his heels. Arrived at Aix, he threw the 
 ring into the lake which surrounds the 
 castle of Frankenstein. The monarch 
 thenceforth, and to the end of his life, 
 loved Aix-la-Chapelle as a man loves his 
 wife, and determined to be buried there. 
 This fantastic tale is better authenti- 
 cated than many a plain one. Bishop 
 Turpin himself is the chronicler of the 
 fact, and Petrarch, when traveling in 
 Germany, learned the history, and has 
 repeated it. [Epistolcs familiares, lib. I., 
 cap. iii.) As a persuasive toward re- 
 peated matrimony I know no legend so 
 
 wholesome as that of Fastrada and her 
 amulet. I copied the tombstone for 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh's collection, though 
 my artistic hand was badly out, and 
 many a year is in its grave since the 
 drawing-master smiled upon my album. 
 Inside the design — in that spirit of per- 
 petual half-courtship which I had now 
 established, and which my noble inam- 
 orata seemed to permit — I wrote a sen- 
 timent. It was an improvement upon 
 poor old Fastrada's eulogy, and I wrote 
 it not in Latin, but in good plain French. 
 "Look not amerement" I said, "after 
 the Past : he comes not again back. Go 
 forth to meet voire futur without fear 
 and with a trustful heart." 
 
 Every day, as I trudged over to Castel 
 with my little sheaves of entertainment 
 or of wisdom, I poured out my diurnal 
 riches at those adorable feet, which did 
 not trample on my poor offerings. Once 
 she even received me in a wrapper. My 
 homage she took with a careless famil- 
 iarity, never choosing to see the point ; 
 and I, for my poor part, had no courage 
 to risk our happy relations by an im- 
 pertinence. Yet I wished that custom 
 had permitted Mrs. Ashburleigh to man- 
 ifest, by a kind of openness similar to 
 that I used myself, the exact progress of 
 her feelings day by day, instead of being, 
 so constantly bland, sunny and absorb- 
 ent. I wished it were leap-year — I even 
 wished it were that fatal year of 1780 
 which the men of Mayence still recall 
 with terror. 
 
 In the year 1780 — I have the story 
 from a stout old gentleman of the hotel- 
 table — an archbishop of Mayence, ex- 
 ercising the vestiges of judicial power 
 that had come down with his seat from 
 the days of Charlemagne, decreed that 
 every promise of marriage should be 
 binding, on the simple declaration of the 
 female. The good archbishop reckoned 
 without his host. In a month after the 
 edict the mayor of the city was dragged 
 to the altar by a fair and relentless gov- 
 erness, who, truly or not, made the prop- 
 er declaration. The hapless mayor had 
 evidently not had time to study the new 
 law. From that day forth all the maids 
 of Mayence — the portionless spinsters, 
 
214 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 the chits, the minxes, the old girls gone 
 to seed, the large-nosed girls, the blue- 
 spectacled girls, the clever little seam- 
 stresses — descended into the arena and 
 gave battle. It was terrible to see the 
 gentle creatures, armed with incredible 
 quantities of ribbon, velvet, flowers, lock- 
 ets, gloves, gaiter-boots and other sedu- 
 cers, engaged in set warfare with the 
 male sex, and bent by all artifices on 
 leading the enemy into ambush. A hunt 
 
 Mephistopheles cursed the day when he 
 provided the jewels, for here was retri- 
 bution rising on every side, pale and 
 implacable, before a thousand wretched 
 Fausts : Marguerite was avenged. By 
 an odd transition bashfulness and back- 
 wardness passed from the ranks of girls 
 to those of young men. In all the crowds 
 of Mayence there were but two or three, 
 awkward schoolmasters or discouraged 
 bachelors, who did not curse the arch- 
 
 or battue was organized against elder I bishop's law 
 
 THE REVENGE OF MARGUERITE. 
 
 sons and possessors of small vested com- 
 petencies. Several honest citizens fell 
 into the trap, and, nibbling at a rosebud 
 or a dish of tea, gave the requisite prom- 
 ise. The ladies of marriageable age lost 
 all reserve and all mercy : with eyes 
 closed and elbows rigid they plunged 
 precipitately into those gulfs of coquetry 
 from which the traditions of a thousand 
 years had warned them. The men were 
 panic-stricken. Boaz, fearing lest Ruth 
 should glean his fields like the locust, 
 set a sentry at his tent and covered his 
 feet with goloshes before going to rest. 
 
 It was suppressed, but 
 not before most of 
 the milliners and 
 washerwomen had 
 become bankrupt to 
 the jewelers. In the 
 fell purpose to be 
 come irresistible 
 they had gone insol- 
 vent. So the mar- 
 riage - law was re- 
 placed by a law of 
 abstinence in mat- 
 ters of toilette, and 
 the women of May- 
 ence, except those 
 of fixed income, 
 wear a simple ker- 
 chief over their yel- 
 low braids. 
 
 " I thank you for 
 your story," I said to 
 my table-companion 
 apropos of all this: 
 "it is for many ears 
 a tale of warning, 
 doubtless; but I 
 know a man who 
 only wishes that he 
 could go from here and shout out bru- 
 tally a promise of marriage over a fair 
 hand that should be legally bound by 
 the declaration." I sighed. The burgh- 
 er stared and left the company, tapping 
 his forehead. The band in the dinner- 
 room breathed out serenades from Don 
 Giovanni, and the boy's wistful sadness 
 of 1 8 — throbbed back to me from horns 
 of Elfland faintly blowing ; for I remem- 
 ber the youthful days when those very in- 
 struments at those very tables had soothed 
 my soul-thirst — days when I could think 
 of Love simply as an unwritten poem, 
 
 = ±=^W~^^-£^ r &*' i ± 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 215 
 
 while I listened at Mayence to dinner- 
 table lectures from the smooth-forehead- 
 ed gentleman on Jean Paul, the Only- 
 One. 
 
 That night, after I had crossed the 
 swinging boat-bridge and poured my 
 day's gossip and a few yards of lace into 
 the lap of Mary Ashburleigh, I said, 
 " The Mayence men are lucky on leap- 
 years sometimes." 
 
 "How so?" said the lady absently, 
 counting the glass bugles on a belt she 
 was embroidering. 
 
 "Oh, they may be betrayed to their 
 good." And I recounted the case of the 
 inveigled gentlemen of 1780. In my 
 little tale it was the parures and orna- 
 ments of the feminine wooers that struck 
 my listener. She raised up the belt — 
 and a handsomer (and longer) bit of en- 
 amel and needlework need not be seen 
 — and said as she examined it, " So, in 
 1780, women ruined themselves for dress 
 and lay in wait for husbands in mas- 
 querade ?" 
 
 "After a manner, yes." 
 
 "No doubt some of the men were 
 equally good actors too, and made use 
 of their fine figures or sported in bor- 
 rowed titles before the rich widows or 
 plain-faced heiresses of whom they want- 
 ed to be the victims." 
 
 " No doubt ; though that may be done 
 outside of leap-year." 
 
 " I am thinking of a legend of Frank- 
 fort ; for you must allow me to go back 
 for my illustrations to the place we last 
 left, since you know I have only lived 
 here like the lobster in the cave to which 
 it goes to change its shell. I will tell 
 you how a well-favored knave at Frank- 
 fort got a noble partner at a ball." 
 
 I placed myself at her feet on a stool, 
 where she allowed me to string beads. 
 She pursued the tale, weaving legend 
 
 and embroidery together into the web 
 of her fascination : 
 
 "At the Romer or Kaisersaal there 
 was a grand festival for the coronation 
 of Ludwig of Bavaria. Among the en- 
 tertainments graced by the presence of 
 the court was a grand masked ball. 
 The costumes were very rich, but the 
 most noticeable among the splendid 
 dresses was that of one stately man, who 
 had had the natural good taste and sense 
 of distinction to come in plainest black. 
 He moved gracefully through the gaudy 
 throng all in velvet, and resembling a 
 shadow detached from a moonlight turf 
 and planted upright. The young em- 
 press remarked him, and was secretly- 
 anxious to dance with him, so that when 
 he knelt at her throne and requested th^ 
 favor of a waltz, there was no difficulty 
 about granting it. Moving in his skill- 
 ful arms was such a luxury that the one 
 waltz became four. Meantime, as the 
 black mask threaded in a lordly manner 
 the figures of the waltz, another mask 
 approached the ear of the emperor and 
 asked him if he knew who was dan- 
 cing with Her Majesty. ' No,' answered 
 Ludwig. ' It is some sovereign prince, 
 doubtless.' — ' Not quite such a high rank 
 as that,' said the incognito.—' He is some 
 lord, then, some count or baron.' — ' Low- 
 er than that,' said the mask. — ' Can he 
 be a simple chevalier ?' — ' Come down 
 still farther.' — 'Some bold equerry?' — 
 4 Lower still.' — ' Can it be that the em- 
 press would dance with a page ?' — ' You 
 have not got it yet, sire.' — ' With a ser- 
 vant, a hostler, a clown?' — 'Ask the 
 man himself,' said the confidant in his 
 most sinister tones. 
 
 "'Who are you?' demanded the em- 
 peror sternly of the graceful chevalier in 
 black. — ' Sire,' said the unknown, ' I'm 
 an author.' — ' That, at least, is an honest 
 
 THE WORKS OF THE "AUTHOR IN BLACK. 
 
2l6 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN THE RHINE. 
 
 though beggarly employment,' said the 
 emperor, ' and an author may be favor- 
 ably known even to princes through his 
 works.' — ' Alas, sire !' said the stranger, 
 4 mine have all fallen dead ; yet there 
 is a long list of them, enough to fill a 
 church, and I contemplate the line of 
 my works with pride — some in editions 
 trochees, some in boards, but all distin- 
 guished by the skillful suspension of the 
 interest or the keen edge of the style.' 
 The emperor took off the black mask, 
 revealing the face of his hangman ! 
 ' Sire,' said the man, falling on his knees, 
 ' though you were to kill me you could 
 not abrogate the fact that the empress 
 has danced with me four times. Do a 
 better trick, sire. Give me your cross 
 and knight me. Then, if any one at- 
 tacks your glory, I will defend you with 
 the same sword by whose means I exe- 
 cute your justice.' The emperor studied 
 a minute and complied, the empress 
 danced with the new knight for a fifth 
 time, the Knave of Bergen became the 
 last of nobles and the first of citizens, 
 and still in ceremonial parades the exe- 
 cutioner walks alone behind the peers 
 and in front of the burghers. The orig- 
 inal Knave of Bergen always kept the 
 mask and the black velvet which had 
 won him an imperial partner. 
 
 " I find myself dwelling unduly on 
 costumes, masquerades, disguises, man- 
 traps — I know not what," proceeded Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh. 
 
 "And I on widows, Ariadnes, second 
 marriages, Fastradas, fourth marriages, 
 and leap-years," chimed in my own un- 
 uttered thought. 
 
 " I think I am unhinged by so much 
 dressmaking," pursued my commander. 
 "The idea of coming to a quiet little 
 place like this where I could moult in 
 secresy was good enough, from a strate- 
 gic point of view, but it has affected my 
 mind. To-morrow my things will be 
 ready, and I shall proceed down the river. 
 There will be a final trying-on, and you 
 may come over and act as congregation, 
 if you like. Then you may escort me 
 over Mayence, which I have hardly seen ; 
 and then, after putting me on the boat, 
 you may bid me good-bye — if you like." 
 
 I attended the trying-on. There was 
 a little ecstatic German dressmaker, in 
 a dress covered with ribbons, but made 
 of a material so often dyed that its odors 
 filled the room, and the expression of 
 whose mouth was so altered by pins that 
 she could never smile without dropping 
 five or six of them. By this priestess 1 
 was placed in a dark corner, and Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh, in a high light, was allow- 
 ed to revolve upon me. There was a 
 dress in the mediaeval style, the skirt 
 finished with embrasures and machico- 
 lations around the edge, corner turrets 
 at either shoulder, cheveaux - de - frise 
 about the neck, and a hanging wallet 
 like a beggar's scrip. I forget most of 
 them, but there was one painted over 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 217 
 
 with garlands which I believed in my 
 heart was made of wall-paper. 
 
 This exhibition, from which Mrs. Ash- 
 burleigh every minute derived new beau- 
 ties, new roses and new volume, lasted 
 until dinner, instead of merely through 
 the morning hours, as intended. The 
 morrow had been fixed for her departure. 
 However, we snatched a flying view of 
 Mayence, and saw the fine shops, and 
 the Platz with the Standbilder of Goethe 
 and Schiller and Gutenberg. The Guten- 
 berg interested us, from our previous 
 studies of Thorwaldsen : the twelve-feet- 
 high giant, modeled in 1835 at Rome 
 from the Danish sculptor's sketches, was 
 cast in bronze in Paris. Dumas, who 
 professes to find the statue ugly, relates 
 how he was to some extent responsible 
 for its erection. 
 
 He must reproach himself, he remarks, 
 for having contributed his share to this 
 bad business. When all the blandish- 
 ments had been exhausted by which sub- 
 scriptions are usually wrung from reluc- 
 tant pockets, there was still a deficiency 
 of eight thousand francs. The idea then 
 occurred to give a benefit representation 
 for the object, and the drama selected 
 was Dumas's Kean, translated into Ger- 
 man. This play, which Thackeray cov- 
 ered with his ridicule, succeeded so well 
 in Germany from the patriotism or play- 
 loving character of the Mayenc.ais, that 
 ten thousand francs were gained by the 
 single representation. Walking after- 
 ward at Mayence in the shadow of the 
 monument, Dumas took shame to him- 
 
 self for having been instrumental in its 
 erection. For our own parts, though 
 well enough content to find the figure 
 of Gutenberg in his native city, we were 
 scandalized to see no corresponding 
 monuments to Faust and Schoeffer, and 
 asked indignantly where were the priv- 
 ileges of collaboration. 
 
 In the antique part of the town, among 
 the dark buildings around the Dom, 
 Mary Ashburleigh succeeded in stripping 
 away some quaint old patterns of wall- 
 paper. Then we prepared to bid fare- 
 well to das goldene Mainz. One last 
 time I crossed the fluctuating bridge of 
 boats as I went to deposit my companion 
 in her resting-place at Castel. Return- 
 ing to my hotel, I rested long on the 
 swaying causeway. .The constellation 
 of the Bear sank into the broad water 
 as I looked over among the floating 
 shoes and fish-baskets to 
 
 where the Rhene 
 Curves toward Mainz, a woody scene. 
 
 No young lover ever drew deeper sighs 
 than I as I thought of my Dark Ladye 
 sleeping with satisfied heart among her 
 new dresses. Next day I had the. honor 
 of depositing (while Charles saw to the 
 trunks) her satchels and shawls on the 
 tables of the steamer bound for Co- 
 logne ; and — I can hardly say how it 
 was — my botany - box lay there also 
 among them. 
 
 The hardy navigator who trusts his 
 vessel to the Rhine must think often of 
 those who have floated on it before him. 
 The current is full of voices, echoes from 
 
 " SPIRITS TWAIN HAVE CROSSED WITH ME. 
 
218 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 poets who have been impressed as he 
 is now impressed ; and he feels like the 
 earlier Spanish sailors to America, who 
 
 SALUTATIONS OF SIMROCK. 
 
 peered through the sunsets of those dim 
 golden seas for the Castilian flag, and 
 ever hoped to catch on the spice-winds 
 that shuddered with loneliness the echoes 
 of the Spanish all-hail. Two literary 
 sailors of the Rhine above all others have 
 caught the ripple of its water upon their 
 page and made it talk — Hugo, Dumas. 
 As I boarded the steamer I said mental- 
 ly to the gentleman at the ticket-office, 
 "Take, O boatman! thrice thy fee : spir- 
 its twain have crossed with me ;" imi- 
 tating, as the reader knows, that song of 
 Uhland's in which the thrifty bard pro- 
 poses to acquit himself for a celestial 
 revelation by paying triple fare. I have 
 always found something deeply and com- 
 fortably German in the notion of meet- 
 ing the apparition of departing souls with 
 an equivalent of twenty-five cents. 
 
 But, Uhland apart, the world of ro- 
 mance into which I am now floating has 
 already been conquered by a Victor and 
 an Alexander — a Hugo and a Dumas. 
 There is little room for such as I to say 
 anything. 
 
 In the first place, I hear one author of 
 the twain deliver himself of a kind of 
 grand somnambulistic snore. It is he 
 who contemplates the ocean, he who 
 wrote The Cultivators of the Sea : 
 
 "What a precipice the Past! Descent 
 lugubrious ! Dante would hesitate at it. 
 The Ego, the Hugo, does not. The Ni- 
 
 agara flows from a Sea and falls into an 
 Abyss. The Rhine flows from an Abyss 
 and falls into a Flat. Paroxysmal para- 
 dox. The Lurlei sings at Saint Goar, and 
 the bugpiper plays the bugpipe at the 
 First of Fourth. The 14th July delivered ; 
 the 10th August thundered ; the 21st Sep- 
 tember established. 1789,1793,1830. In 
 1690 a child was abandoned on the rocks 
 of Portland, in 1800 the rocks of Portland 
 were broken into Portland cement, and 
 in 1845 tne Portland Vase was cemented, 
 after being broken by a young man 
 named William Lloyd. John Brown, 
 Montgolfier, ./Eschylus, Bug Jargal, Job. 
 The facts appear, as connected with the 
 Rhine, to the author, grave." 
 
 It is very impressive, and perhaps that 
 is the reason that we like Alexander Du- 
 mas rather better. This jolly sailor does 
 not know much about German history, 
 but he can tell us a hundred facts about 
 Rhine wine. His association with May- 
 ence is of the tombstone in preparation 
 
 for Lady S , pending the completion 
 
 of which he meets Lord S and a 
 
 friend rolling promiscuously up and 
 down the river and tearfully drinking 
 fourteen bottles a night "to the memory 
 of that dear lady." He knows on what 
 rock, sun - baked under the " Prussian 
 blue," the grapes of Prince Metternich 
 are culled. He chuckles over the fruit- 
 ful jest of Jules Janin, who, when Metter- 
 nich asked his autograph, wrote: "Re- 
 ceived of the prince one dozen of Johan- 
 nisberger" — a receipt which the noble- 
 man was in honor bound to vindicate 
 with a hamper of the coveted nectar. 
 Metternich, as a great vintner, and per- 
 haps for other reasons, interests him ; 
 and he preserves the family legend — 
 how, when the founder of the race, a 
 simple bowman of the fifteenth century, 
 held his ground alone against the foe, 
 he was sent for by the emperor, and 
 gave his name as Metter. The sovereign 
 said, " My subjects retreated, but Metier, 
 nicht : Metternicht shall he be called," 
 and sealed the bargain by dubbing him 
 a knight. Wherever Dumas goes, cheer 
 and hospitality await him, and the land 
 flows with Liebfrauenmilch and Ingel- 
 heim. At Bonn (whence he journeyed 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 219 
 
 southward to Mayence) he was received 
 as a guest of honor by Herr Simrock, a 
 brother of the poet Karl Simrock, but 
 himself a hotel-keeper. Dumas and the 
 Amphitryon greeted each other on equal 
 literary ground — that is to say, respect- 
 fully brushed the earth with their fore- 
 locks ; and the novelist has particularly 
 advertised the noble wines which Herr 
 Simrock excavated for him from his own 
 private cellar. He rewards the host's 
 hospitality, notwithstanding, by an error, 
 in forgetting the name of the house of 
 which the poet's relative was proprie- 
 tor, and calling it the Etoile d'Or. The 
 Etoile d'Or has long been kept by one 
 Joseph Schmitz — on principles of the 
 strictest prose. The matter is a trifle, 
 except as showing the overcoming effects 
 of Rhenish wine upon the memory and 
 intellect of a gifted writer. And, truly, 
 Dumas seems to have seen the very col- 
 or of the Rhine rubescent. Indeed, since 
 Brennus first brought the vine into Gaul 
 it can hardly have had a more ardent 
 
 11k - •■> @a/ 
 
 and corybantic priest than Dumas, who 
 
 makes it a touchstone of virtue wherever 
 
 he goes, estimates 
 
 kings and princes 
 
 according to their 
 
 cellars, 
 
 And labels with the bless- 
 ed sign 
 
 The shaggy heathens of "~2—— 
 
 the Rhine. -^ — ~^— ' 
 
 There are pas- the label. 
 
 sages, too, in his 
 
 hnpressions de Voyage where the red 
 blood of the grape seems to have got 
 into his pen, tinctured his style and giv- 
 en a rich unction to his descriptive pow- 
 ers. Apropos, accept this vivid little spot 
 of color in which he paints the Rhine in 
 its via mirabilis, its Appian Way, its 
 Street of Wonders, marked with golden 
 milestones of sunny castles — the famous 
 distance from Mayence to Cologne : 
 
 "Here, vanquished, enclosed and as 
 if fettered by its mountains, thanks to 
 the granite cuirass against which it in- 
 
 THE PRETENTIOUS YET HOLLOW HERON. 
 
220 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 effectually throbs, it twists itself about, it 
 rolls, it doubles on itself like a fighting 
 serpent, and, in its conscious powerless-. 
 
 ness, even while pressed to flight it men- 
 aces in flying." 
 
 But this gladiator aspect is not per- 
 
 UMW 
 
 FULL CROPS. 
 
 ceived at once on leaving Mayence. 
 Until Bingen it is comical-pastoral, scene 
 individable and poem unlimited. The 
 sleepy banks stretch ignobly forth, un- 
 dulating into graceful hills on the right 
 shore, while on the left they are tattered 
 away into boggy islands that gurgle and 
 choke with all their bulrushes in the lap- 
 ping waters. These islets, whoever might 
 be their proprietors, presented to my 
 own and my companion's gaze no more 
 amusing or edifying rent -payers than 
 the herons, moping motionless and stiff 
 like that which guarded the water-lily 
 for poet Hood. The heron, I suppose, 
 has the prescriptive right to stand senti- 
 nel in front of mouldy castles, deserted 
 Rhine-towers and haunted manors, but 
 I find him, for my part, a very transpa- 
 rent and contemptible character. He is 
 evidently longing to be drawn, arsenick- 
 ed and stuffed. He regards that con- 
 summation as an alderman regards the 
 glory of having his likeness painted ; 
 and until it can be attained he bloats 
 and poses all day in a ridiculous portrait- 
 of-a-gentleman attitude, carefully imita- 
 ting the stilted look of the preparation, 
 and so glares at himself eternally in the 
 water, a padded Narcissus. 
 
 I was better pleased with the storks I 
 had observed at Strasburg. Humanity ex- 
 pects two didactic services from the stork : 
 in the first place, to build in your chim- 
 ney without being disturbed by pedantic 
 theories of draught either on its own or 
 
 your account; second, to carry its pa- 
 rents pickaback. The sacred ibis of 
 Strasburg does not appear to fail in these 
 particulars. We have tasted so many 
 smoked Strasburg pies that the civic 
 chimneys must evidently be well stuffed 
 up. As for the filial part, I saw, when 
 rattling away from Kehl, groups of elder- 
 ly, rheumatic, stoop - shouldered storks 
 picking up worms for their young ; and 
 evidently this assiduity would not have 
 been practiced unless the stripling storks 
 had been satisfactory in their part of the 
 contract, and had been in the habit of 
 loading on the old folks as luggage in 
 most of their excursion-trains. And is 
 there not a touching story of the stork at 
 the time of the late German bombard- 
 ment of Strasburg ? — how the birds, 
 frightened at the din, resolved to leave 
 the city, though it was long before the 
 usual date of migration, and held a town- 
 council on the eaves of the cathedral, 
 where they talked and fluttered a huge 
 while, and finally spread their white 
 wings above the gunpowder-smoke and' 
 sailed away ? In this intelligent move- 
 ment Fancy cannot doubt but that the 
 storks acted up to all the requirements 
 of literary tradition : she perceives each 
 ornithological hero taking his little one 
 in his claws, getting the broad of his 
 back well under the old Anchises, with 
 instructions to hold on grimly yet with- 
 out prejudice to respiration, and so fly- 
 ing through the scorched sky from the 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 221 
 
 flames of the Ilium. Only, as the re- 
 treat was at night-time, the manner of 
 it could not well be verified. 
 
 Among the white villages which punc- 
 tuate the flowing hills of the dexter 
 bank we saw now and then a pretty- 
 sight — geese, queenly waddlers, com- 
 ing down to the river like creeping 
 threads of waterfall, or cattle, or 
 quaint row-boats. One exhibition, 
 more in the style of Dumas, was 
 pointed out to us by Charles, who, as 
 usual, revenged himself for an un- 
 merited scolding of mine by being 
 uncommonly attentive. It is here- 
 abouts that on the rocky hills some 
 of the most famous wines are made. 
 The soil retains the sun's warmth, 
 and the grapes manage to extract 
 from them a delicious juice. Near 
 by are found the glorious vineyards 
 of the Rudesheim, the Geisenheim, 
 the Markobrunner, the Steinberg, 
 the Johannisberg brands. In certain 
 hamlets on the left bank, along by 
 Ingelheim, the wine is made and the 
 plants tended by women alone : the 
 men drink the result, and are report- 
 ed well content with this division of 
 labor. Farther down, near Ander- 
 nach, where the basaltic rocks are 
 quite black and absorb a tropical 
 heat from the sky, the vines grow in 
 baskets of earth, which nestle over a 
 hundred and fifty acres of the crag : an 
 exquisite nectar proceeds from this gid- 
 dy hanging-garden. 
 
 The discovery I speak of on the part 
 of Charles was announced in his own 
 fashion by the abrupt cry : "Well, if I 
 am ever believed again ! A blackbird 
 cultivating wall-fruit !" 
 
 And we saw a little white church at 
 the edge of a sparkling village complete- 
 ly encircled with a cornice of blooming 
 vines. On a ladder against the wall, in 
 the strongest possible relief, was the sil- 
 houette of the sacristan, who was occu- 
 pied in training the grapes. Snipping 
 and peering, now crushing an insect, 
 now decimating a faulty cluster of buds, 
 now tying up his turbulent garlands with 
 bulrushes from the river, and all the 
 while ticklishly afraid of falling, he pre- 
 
 sented a cheerful picture of bustling old- 
 maid's labor. 
 
 " He makes a good pendant to Dan- 
 necker's Ariadne," I suggested ; and add- 
 
 
 WORKING IN THE ECCLESIASTICAL VINEYARD. 
 
 ed : "Let us hope those consecrated 
 grapes all go to the altar's use, and never 
 leak out into the profane wine-trade." 
 
 A little shocked to have called the 
 wine-trade profane in the hearing of Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh, I settled her in her shawls 
 and turned to promenade the deck for a 
 few minutes. The scenery so far re- 
 quired but slight attention, and I was 
 not sorry. I paced the boat in a medi- 
 tative, Napoleon-like attitude, somewhat 
 surprised to find how difficult it was to 
 fold my arms over my doubt-racked 
 heart. The journey had evidently agreed 
 with me, and I was getting better than 
 ever. Ah me ! how easily I crossed these 
 arms when first I journeyed up the Rhine 
 in the youthful years that were for ever 
 gone ! 
 
 I could not but remember that the 
 stretch of travel now before me was the 
 same by which I had begun my earliest 
 
222 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 journey — the journey which had led me 
 to Mary Ashburton and all the ashen 
 orchards of Sodom. Behind was May- 
 
 STABBED WITH THE COMPASSES 
 
 ence, whose Walhalla-like table-d'hote 
 of a forty- pound sirloin in a Mediter- 
 ranean Sea of brewis I shall never for- 
 get so long as I have a palate or gastric 
 apparatus. Before me was Bingen, where 
 in the White Horse tavern I had taken 
 a slate roof and chimneys for ruins on 
 the Rhine. Beyond that, Andernach, 
 where I had emptied to my own health 
 a bottle that looked like a church spire. 
 
 And now, as I crossed the arms of 
 melancholy over the waistcoat of well- 
 being, I could but ask myself if I were 
 the same Paul Flemming. And the river, 
 reflecting my roseate gills, appeared real- 
 ly to doubt the assumption. Was it wise 
 for me to go telling again the stations by 
 which I had marked in boyish years my 
 Hyperion-like ecliptic over the earth ? 
 Had I not abjured the Rhine, the en- 
 chanted serpent-river whose wisdom and 
 lore have power to charm all the charm- 
 ers, and which had now tempted me into 
 its coils once more ? It was a moment to 
 review the past. Of all my loves, which 
 remained to bless me ? Of all my friends, 
 which was at my side ? 
 
 "Mr. Flemming ! Mr. Flemming !" my 
 commander appealed in a voice like a 
 golden bell as I passed her on my beat, 
 "you don't show me the ruins. Where 
 are the ruins?" 
 
 The ruins ! The ruins, Mrs. Ashbur- 
 leigh, are here. If you want a Palmyra, 
 if you wish for a Karnak, if you desire to 
 
 be accommodated with a Herculaneum, 
 here, in this heart, madam, is the lava 
 and the desolation. And you, you too, 
 are a sojourner and 
 a pilgrim. Yet in 
 this desert shall ever 
 be an oasis, a spring, 
 a softened shadow 
 for you. Rest your 
 regal form a while, 
 tired queen, upon 
 my granite ! 
 
 She was resting it 
 a little too trustfully 
 on an artist's stool 
 left inadvertently by 
 a Swiss painter who 
 had gone to sketch 
 over the railing at 
 the stern. As I picked up the fragments 
 and assisted her to a stouter seat, " The 
 ruins, madam, are coming," I said, "but 
 for you and me they are obsolete. They 
 begin with the Rheinstein yonder, which 
 is not a ruin : it is a residence. Yon tow- 
 ers are fitted up with stained glass and 
 baubles, and the owner shows them like 
 a kaleidoscope for a groschen or two. 
 The rest are on their way to us, and you 
 will soon have them importunate enough. 
 The heights down yonder are much alike, 
 and afford, in the first place, a brand of 
 wine which connoisseur-travelers must be 
 able to discriminate and talk about with 
 supernal wisdom ; secondly, a girl who 
 at some epoch has jumped into the river; 
 and thirdly, a thief who built a strong- 
 hold and stole from all the caravans that 
 passed his side of the river. One of 
 them, wiser in his generation, built his 
 castle, the Pfalz, in the middle, and took 
 his toll from both banks." 
 
 "Drink, death and thieves !" said Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh, estimating the charms of 
 the Rhine. "But where, then, shall we 
 find romance ? where is poetry ?" 
 
 "Ah, madam, have you not heard the 
 news? Poetry is dead, killed by rule 
 and line." 
 
 And I read to my commander the little 
 poem testifying to the fact by that very 
 Simrock whose brother was Dumas's host 
 at Bonn. 
 
 But Mrs. Ashburleigh, I thought, looked 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 223 
 
 hurt at the brusque way in which her 
 favorite Muses were treated. So I gave 
 her another story, more appropriate to 
 the place, and pretended to read 
 from an old book in my hand 
 
 THE TRUE RECORD OF LORLEI. 
 
 In nomine Patris, el Filii, et 
 Sfiirilus Sancti : Before me, Jo- 
 han de Haga, ecclesiastical judge 
 and grand penitentiary, commit- 
 ted to this inquisition by my 
 lords of the Chapter of Saint 
 Ewald, in the presence of our 
 lord Conrad of Hochsteden, 
 archbishop, on the plaints and 
 quarrels of many good and wor- 
 shipful brothers of the Church, 
 have been heard the ensuing 
 testimonies as to the behaviors 
 of a demon vehemently suspect- 
 ed to have taken the form of a 
 woman, at present in the gaol 
 of the chapter. And to arrive at 
 the verity of said quarrels and 
 griefs have I opened this hearing, 
 after mass duly performed, to 
 this end to record the witness- 
 ings of one and all as to the said 
 demon ; the same to be thereupon put 
 to the question and judged according to 
 the laws provided against devils, wheth- 
 er demon, incubus, succubus, undine, or 
 warlock's familiar. In this inquest hath 
 assisted me, that all may be written and 
 established, Gulielmus Geestmund, rubri- 
 cator of the chapter, a clerk skilled and 
 learned. 
 
 In the first place, hath come before 
 us my lord the palsgrave of Bacharach, 
 who, by me reverentially besought to en- 
 lighten the religion of the Church, hath 
 responded that he hath great willingness 
 thereunto, and engageth his faith of loyal 
 knight to say nothing but what he hath 
 seen or believed. Hath thereupon de- 
 clared that his eldest son, after his first 
 sojourn and siege in the lands of infidels, 
 had brought back in guise of bride-be- 
 trothed a white wife of Venice, or female 
 appearance thereunto resembling. That 
 the young count had wellnigh immedi- 
 ately departed for his second crusade, 
 being so incited by two special and mov- 
 
 ing reasons — first, because he would win 
 fame and great dower for his lady, the 
 said Venetian ; and second, because he, 
 
 THE JUDGE OF THE COURT ECCLESIASTIC. 
 
 the palsgrave now speaking, having en- 
 gaged the hand of the young man to the 
 dowager-widow of Rheinstein, had des- 
 patched him about his affairs with much 
 personal correction and with many sa- 
 cred promises and oaths of further chas- 
 tisement ; the which oaths, being meas- 
 urably repeated in court, have not been 
 recorded in these minutes by the rubri- 
 cator. 
 
 That about twenty months thereafter 
 the said wife of Venice had, to his know- 
 ledge, emerged from the convent where- 
 unto she had been committed, and had 
 been by agents to him unknown set up 
 in state within the castle of Saint Goar. 
 That the common report of the vulgar 
 had been to the effect that the living 
 body of his son, or otherwise his wraith 
 and apparition, had marvelously her in- 
 stalled in Saint Goar, having appeared 
 boat-carried on the river to that end in 
 the second quarter of the moon. That 
 this rumor was openly incorrect, because 
 the young man had never manifested 
 
224 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 himself unto him his father, though he 
 had published many offers of paternal 
 correction and discipline, and offered 
 
 A CLERK SKILLED AND LEARNED. 
 
 large reward for the body of his son, 
 alive or dead. That the said offers hav- 
 ing been wholly ineffectual, evident it 
 was that his son was no more. That 
 having at all times avoided the castle 
 of Saint Goar, abominating its lights and 
 its music, its glamour and its melancho- 
 lious seclusion, he had no direct witness- 
 ing to proffer on the diabolical character 
 of the said white wife or widow, having 
 heard but her harp from the river. 
 
 Being asked whether it had been borne 
 in unto his mind to have masses perform- 
 ed for the perilous state of his son's soul, 
 he devoted twelve thousand crowns to 
 that use, and departed in all honor. 
 
 Secondly hath appeared, on the priv- 
 ilege extended by us not to be required 
 to kiss the cross, and on the promise of 
 liberty to retire in all freedom for the 
 resumption of his traffic, a Jew named 
 Shiloh al Rathschild, who hath by us 
 been heard, maugre the infamy of his 
 person and his faith, with the single end 
 of enlightenment on the behavior of the 
 said demon. Accordingly, hath been 
 absolved from all oaths the said Shiloh, 
 seeing that he is beyond the pale of the 
 Church, and to us hath said that to the 
 said sorceress or female appearance, who 
 had come from the southern countries 
 with intent to establish herself in these 
 lands, he had leased, with records of 
 bail, the castle of Saint Goar, fallen 
 within his hands through bankrupture. 
 That, as sureties, had given themselves 
 up divers lords, squires and gentlemen 
 drawn to the assistance of said sorceress 
 by virtue of the charms, philtres and en- 
 
 chantments to her belonging. That the 
 gathering of the rents agreed upon had 
 ever filled him with amazement, seeing 
 that when led into her presence by one 
 her servitor, a strange Moor half clothed, 
 black and with white eyeballs, he had 
 found the said female in rooms of pur- 
 ple, vested in mourning weeds and blaz- 
 ing with jewels, clothed in her Venetian 
 locks of gold, evermore singing dirges 
 of heavy dole in a voice whose sweet- 
 ness could not be portrayed. That from 
 time to time, in the way of his traffic, 
 he had bargained unto the said female 
 many things of cost, as plates of silver- 
 gilt, chandeliers, Persian carpets, birds, 
 stuffs, clavecins and other instruments 
 of music curiously adorned, and dia- 
 monds. Had likewise sent to her, on 
 the behalf of neighboring lords, more 
 than a thousand rare gifts. That the said 
 female to the external eye presented no 
 appearance of diabolical arts, but wore 
 the guise of a comely woman mourning 
 for her liege in all innocency. The said 
 Shiloh al Rathschild, his castle of Saint 
 Goar being confiscated to the Church 
 for the vile and unholy usage to which 
 he had put the same, was permitted to 
 withdraw without being tortured. To 
 the said Jew, before his departure, was 
 shown the Moor or African, whom he 
 recognized as the page of said demon. 
 
 Thirdly, the aforesaid Moorish man 
 (who, black from head to foot, hath been 
 found to be deprived of the beard with 
 which all Christian men are habitually 
 furnished), having persevered in uttering 
 no word after various torments and rack- 
 ings, during which he hath complained 
 in a high voice, is convicted of not 
 speaking Christian language. 
 
 Fourthly, hath come before us the most 
 high, noble and puissant princess of 
 Schwartz, and hath declared to us with 
 tears, on the faith of the Evangels, to 
 have laid in the earth her only son, dead 
 by the deeds of the said female demon. 
 The which noble youth, aged twenty 
 years, having frequented the residence 
 of said demon, in the manner of all the 
 young lords of fifty leagues' vicinage, 
 who had every one the habitude of vis- 
 iting the sorceress with intent to make 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 225 
 
 her change her widowhood, had in great 
 despair thrown himself from the rock, 
 rashly and blameworthily. And the said 
 dame hath in addition said: "Alas, my 
 lord ! this priceless treasure hath been 
 taken from me and dropped into the pit 
 by the demon. My poor boy, his hopes 
 and his inheritance, his life and his eter- 
 nal welfare, all of himself, and more than 
 himself, saw I dashed on the rocks like 
 a grain of corn in the teeth of a dragon. 
 Therefore have I no other expectation of 
 joy than to see in flames this sorceress 
 nourished with blood and gold. Burn and 
 torment the vampire who destroys souls. 
 See, my lord judge, to the tormenting of 
 this devil who has made me an orphan 
 in my old days : she has all the flames 
 of the fiery lake in her eyes, the strength 
 of Samson in her locks, and instruments 
 of unearthly music in her voice. She 
 charms that she may kill body and soul 
 in one blow. Oh, my son ! my son !" 
 And the said princess of Schwartz, hav- 
 ing purchased the burial of her son's 
 body in consecrated ground for fifty 
 thousand crowns, and bought two annual 
 masses for his soul, hath retired in great 
 dole, followed by a body of men-at-arms 
 to her palace, at the command of the 
 archbishop. 
 
 Then fifthly hath appeared Hugo 
 von Engelheim, aged twenty-and-one, 
 brought into court by the sompnour and 
 guarded by twelve pikemen, under ac- 
 cusation of having conspired with divers 
 lawless youths to lay siege to the gaol of 
 the archbishopric and chapter, with in- 
 tent to deliver the said sorceress. Not- 
 withstanding his evil design, we have 
 commanded Hugo von Engelheim to 
 testify truly what he knew of the demo- 
 niac in question ; who to our great out- 
 rage hath said : " I swear the woman ac- 
 cused of sorcery to be an angel, a perfect 
 woman, and more worshipful of soul 
 than of body — nowise evil, but generous, 
 greatly given to aid the poor and suffer- 
 ing. And this beloved wife of Venice, 
 having sworn never to replace her knight 
 of Bacharach, and thrown into despair 
 many nobles, hath in pity granted me 
 the worship of her chaste heart, of which 
 she has made me the suzerain. There- 
 's 
 
 upon, electing the wife of Venice to be 
 evermore my lady, admitted to breathe 
 her air and to hear her voice, I find my- 
 self happier than the lords of paradise. 
 
 THE PALSGRAVE. 
 
 Making it my task day by day to become 
 the worthier of her patronage, I receive 
 from her a thousand good advices ; as, 
 to acquire the fame of a bold chevalier ; 
 to become a strong knight, fearing naught 
 but Heaven ; to honor the ladies, serving 
 only one, and loving them all for her 
 memory ; then, after many dangers and 
 stout deeds, if her heart be still pleasing 
 to mine, to hope that she might be my 
 own in heaven, for assuredly she would 
 give herself to none other than her dead 
 crusader." Many further things hath 
 said the young knight with a speed and 
 vociferousness little considerate toward 
 the secretary, and also with tendency to 
 show clearly the abominable, unheard- 
 of, fraudulent and damnable powers of 
 the said female demon over the souls of 
 youth. And hath been borne guarded 
 to his father, with the intention to define 
 the extent and tenure of his estates, and 
 to know what might be the fine in his 
 power to pay as the penalty for his dis- 
 turbance of the force of justice. 
 
 Sixthly, hath been drawn from gaol and 
 brought before us the said woman pre- 
 
226 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 sumed to be a manifestation of the devil ; 
 who, much broken by torture and the sal- 
 utary effects of the rack, hath remained 
 back-bowed and head-buried during all 
 
 ercion. Master Geestmund the clerk 
 hath, by force of Nature, dropped the 
 quill and retired from court, declaring 
 that he could not, without incredible agi- 
 tations which harrow 
 the brains, be witness 
 to the torture. Thus 
 concludeththe session 
 and end these me- 
 moirs, finished by the 
 hand of me, Johan de 
 Haga, the judge. 
 
 THE ARTICLE OF DEATH. 
 
 the reading of the testimonies precedent. 
 And, asked if she had practiced many sor- 
 ceries and melodies, charms and witch- 
 crafts on divers knights of the Palatinate, 
 made answer: "My knight lies deep in 
 Rhine : let me join him." And asked if 
 she had caused the death of the hered- 
 itary prince of Schwartz, had replied : 
 "My knight lies deep in Rhine: let me 
 leap into his bed." And questioned on 
 the spells and glamours of her house, on 
 the tapers, and requiems, and mourning 
 weeds, and palls, and spice -burnings, 
 and rich harness, and intolerably sweet 
 sounds reported thence to the court, had 
 replied likewise: "My knight lies deep 
 in Rhine: let me join him." 
 
 Whereupon by us hath been required 
 that she acknowledge herself to be a de- 
 mon and redivest her body for the tor- 
 mentor ; when suddenly hath she risen 
 upright and dropped her mantle, crying, 
 "lama woman, and mortal. Kill me !" 
 Upon the sight of her face and throat, 
 and the dropping of her hair, maliciously 
 revealed of a sudden for the perversion 
 of justice, and resembling the drawing 
 of the curtain from the Italian altar-pic- 
 ture in the cathedral, have I the judge 
 been swiftly overclouded in the brain, 
 unable to clearly see in the presence 
 of those carnal beauties, which exercise 
 over the will of man a supernatural co- 
 
 This is from the act 
 of extreme confes- 
 sion made in his last 
 hour and within the 
 article of death by 
 Johan de Haga, pen- 
 itentiary of Saint 
 Ewald : 
 After trial had and performed, I visited 
 the gaol of the wife of Venice, or female 
 demon. When I was within the closure 
 of the gates I saw no more any appear- 
 ance of a prison, because that evil spirits 
 under authority of witchcraft had filled 
 the place with wines and meats, with 
 flowers and perfumes. There saw I the 
 wife of Venice, in form of a damsel white 
 and little, on a carpet of Persia, wrapped 
 in the hairs of her head and weeping; the 
 chief gaoler and torsionary at her feet, 
 which he rubbed with ointment after the 
 torment. The damsel looked up and 
 asked me why I would needs hurt her. 
 Then, having been drawn by the remem- 
 brance of her aspect in court, and by the 
 special cords of diabolical temptation, 
 into the focus of her sorcery, my strength 
 departed from me. On questioning the 
 demon I was bewildered with such terms 
 of answer that it appeared to me in all 
 firmness of persuasion that I should do a 
 crime in punishing a poor soft maid, the 
 which sobbed like a little infant. Then 
 fell I further into the toil, my head being 
 filled with warm light, my heart with 
 young and leaping blood, and my be- 
 witched body falling prostrate before 
 her. I asked her to be my daughter, 
 my joy, my treasure, my chatelaine, my 
 wife. And she answered: "My knight 
 lies deep in Rhine: let me go to him." 
 
7W.fi: A'EW HYPERION. 
 
 227 
 
 Thereupon got I home in fever, of which 
 dow I fail, and desire the unction of the 
 Church. 
 
 This is a parcel from out the private 
 chronicles of the Geestmund family, and, 
 written in very clerkly style, appeareth 
 to be in the hand of Gulielmus Geest- 
 mund, in guise of his last testament and 
 wiil : 
 
 My only and well -beloved son: 
 Before thou canst read this I shall be in 
 the tomb, imploring thy prayers. Gov- 
 ern well the family after that I am gone, 
 for I have written these counsels from a 
 sharp sense of the injustice and topping 
 willfulness of men. In my youth, seeing 
 the Church before me as mine alone way 
 of promotion, I learned not only to read, 
 but to write ; and by the aidance of Mas- 
 ter Johan, the penitentiary, did assume 
 the quill and inkhorn for the chapter of 
 Saint Ewald in my thirtieth year. It was 
 then that the process arose up against 
 the demon of the Lorlei ; which, until the 
 production of the culprit in court, was 
 heard by Johan with wisdom and discre- 
 tion ; but at the view of her face was Jo- 
 han suddenly and shamefully persuaded 
 of the said nymph's innocence, and died 
 soon after dishonorably, much mourned 
 for his apostasy, of fevers in which he 
 saw many idle visions and splendors. 
 Then Rufus of Fulda, a rigid and holy 
 man, succeeded him as judge, and quick- 
 ly brought the embroilment to an end ; 
 for, perceiving that the only proceeding 
 needful for the condemnation of said 
 nymph, and the acquisition of her rich 
 gems and moneys to the Church, was the 
 retraction of the verdict of said Johan, 
 he persuaded him into such a confession 
 as deprived his first ruling of all credit 
 and force. Thus confessed Johan the 
 judge to her magics and the rich state 
 she still kept up in her gaol, being per- 
 suaded thereto by threats of the depriva- 
 tion of extreme unction in his death-bed. 
 In that time all believed the sorceress to 
 be so abundantly provided with gold that 
 she could, if so minded, buy the whole 
 Palatinate ; yet did not the gold, when 
 weighed and melted, suffice for more 
 *han the overlaying of the high altar, to 
 
 the niggardly cheating and cheapening 
 of the Church's revenue. Now, I, Geest- 
 mund, in visiting the gaol after the 
 nymph's second torture, had found a 
 
 THE LEAP OF LORLEI. 
 
 chain of diamonds hidden in her hair, 
 with some of which she had bought the 
 gaoler to her, and, prudently possess- 
 ing myself of said jewels without words 
 spoken, was immediately (on the gaol- 
 er's word, though I offered him a share) 
 deprived of mine office, and forced to 
 feign illness and privily forsake the land : 
 they are the gems which hang about the 
 neck of Saint Ludmilla in the north cha- 
 pel. The clout being now wrung dry, 
 the widow's possessions sequestered to 
 holy use, her residence confiscated, and 
 the souls of her victims solaced with 
 many and costly masses, nothing fur- 
 ther remained but to bury her out of 
 sight, the formality of execution first be- 
 ing had and observed upon her body. 
 She was tortured, led up to penance ; 
 tortured, let out to confession ; tortured, 
 let go ; tortured, and released to the sol- 
 diers. 
 
 Of all which had I small care, being 
 now in Flanders, and disgraced by those 
 whom for prudence I do not name. Yet 
 did the circumstance of her death reach 
 unto mine ears, having caused huge talk 
 in the country, and is still recited in 
 
228 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ballads after vespers, secretly, with vain 
 additions of them called poets. For when 
 led to the stake this sorceress did over- 
 come the men-at-arms with her suppli- 
 cations and with the remanent enchant- 
 ments of her beauty. So that they let 
 her go on before, being likewise awed 
 by the throng of youthful nobles and of 
 beggars, her friends, who closed about 
 them. Also were some present of the 
 House of Bacharach, who deemed their 
 kinsman insulted in the person of his 
 widow ; for it seemeth that verily the pals- 
 grave's son had returned from the infidel 
 wars, and had lived certain months in 
 bridal with her, until drowned a-fishing; 
 but this the Church ever denied. Now, 
 she, being got nigh Saint Goar, asked 
 grace to go up for one more season unto 
 the rock whence she had always thrown 
 her dirges and musics athwart the stream ; 
 and breaking away, the soldiers also 
 making small resistance, she fled forth, 
 much admired by all, and clomb from 
 pinnacle to pinnacle of the rock, going 
 very lightly on her feet, bruised from 
 the torment ; and when mounted and 
 all alone she flung nimbly out into the 
 
 abyss; for they lie who say she first 
 sang a dirge, but she went forth silently, 
 falling like snow, only since hath she 
 been heard to rise and sing. Thus was 
 she undone, and I disgraced, who went 
 into the butchering business, and am 
 become a rich flesher. And now being 
 in age, yet clear of head, I put certain 
 thoughts into writing, my son, for thy 
 guidance. In the first place, to live hap- 
 py needs is it to abide far from those of 
 the Church and from the nobles. Sec- 
 ondly, always remain in the condition of 
 butchery — marry thy daughters to good 
 butchers, and nourish them in honor of 
 flesh. So shall not any get hold of the 
 Geestmunds, neither the State, nor the 
 Church, nor the nobles, to whom, as it 
 may fall out, and they being the strong- 
 er, it will be necessary to lend certain 
 crowns without ever indulging the hope 
 of seeing them again. Thus shall every 
 one, at all seasons, love and despise the 
 Geestmunds, the poor Geestmunds ; and 
 they shall not be burned or quartered 
 for the advantage of Church or king. 
 
:pjl:r,t jcvxx. 
 
 THE CURRENT OF FATE. 
 
 ,^IVi V\|' N \(Nj 
 
 LATTER-DAY REFORMERS. 
 
 I FINISHED my screed of Lorlei, and 
 pocketed the old Tauchnitz edition 
 of Ingoldsby out of which I had feigned 
 to read it. "These antique records," I ob- 
 served, "shed a curious light on the real- 
 ities of church history." And I glanced 
 at Mary Ashburleigh, who had heard the 
 recital not unconcernedly. 
 
 " True," she said ; "but was the Church 
 ever so grasping and so cruel ?" — Adding, 
 with an indescribable smile, " Those were 
 tiresome times for vagabond widows." 
 
 I gave Mrs. Asburleigh a little bolus 
 of wisdom: "You must remember what 
 is remarked by Lea, the authority in 
 church history: ' Almost everything is to 
 be forgiven to the mediaeval clergy, who 
 represented an idea in times when phys- 
 ical force was the only power respected.' 
 The Dark Ages are, you must remember, 
 past the virgin days of Christianity: she 
 is now rather a widow grasping for her 
 thirds among the close-fisted and nig- 
 gardly executors. Her lucky day is over 
 
 229 
 
230 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 — the day in which Charlemagne lent 
 all the power of the State to the Church, 
 which he used as an instrument in con- 
 structing his evanescent civilization." 
 
 " How impure, even in the greatest 
 times of the Church, were the sources of 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE CREEDS. 
 
 its power!" said my commander with 
 her pretty sententiousness. 
 
 "Millenniums are treacherous affairs," 
 I answered. " Men usually get tired, and 
 yawn them out of the way. Just here- 
 abouts, you know, they claim that Chris- 
 tianity, as a worldly empire, took its rise. 
 It was over Andcrnach, the Germans 
 will tell you, that Constantine saw the 
 cross in the sky." 
 
 "What a thought," said Mrs. Ashbur- 
 leigh, kindling and letting fall her Bae- 
 deker, "that combination and fusion of 
 the Roman empire with Christianity ! 
 The force that swayed the whole world 
 made one with eternal Truth ! No dreams 
 could have seemed too wild and beauti- 
 ful for the faithful then. How I should 
 like to have been some saint or holy wo- 
 man of the time, just to have seen the 
 emperor bow his helmet, and to catch 
 the last shadows of the fading Cross as 
 it rose out of the Rhine to embrace the 
 world with its shadowy arms of air!" 
 
 " There were such saints and holy 
 monks, and their dreams were as bright 
 as you can possibly imagine. With Rome 
 converted, it seemed to them that the 
 earth would become identical with heav- 
 en. Lactantius, rejoicing after Constan- 
 tine's adhesion, boasted, ' How blessed 
 would be that golden age among men 
 when love and kindness and peace and 
 innocence and justice and temperance 
 
 and faith should spread throughout the 
 world, and neither prisons nor the sword 
 of the judge would be wanted !' But the 
 world wearied of its millennium, and for 
 the sword of the judge Christianity soon 
 became a most keen and persevering 
 aspirant." 
 
 "Using it on helpless wretches like 
 poor Lorlei," put in Mrs. Ashburleigh. 
 "The fact is," I went on, "the ideal 
 of the mediaeval Church was too unnat- 
 ural to last. When the clergyman can 
 make humanity a strong worker in the 
 state and in society, lending his relig- 
 ion to the purging of politics and to the 
 pleasantness of his own breakfast-table, 
 then comes the statelier Eden back to 
 men — not when they make their saint 
 a stagnant solitary in a cell." 
 
 "The statelier Eden will never come 
 back to men," said Mrs. Ashburleigh 
 archly, "without a woman in it." 
 
 "Why, that is just the conclusion — 
 don't you see? — that Christianity was 
 forced to come to. And so at length 
 you have the monk that married Cath- 
 arine Bora." 
 
 "You mean — " asked Mary Ashbur- 
 leigh, whose attention, a little overtaxed, 
 was wandering. 
 
 "I mean Luther, of course. Germany 
 may well be proud, for when Luther ar- 
 rived, and stretched out his dark-robed 
 arms in the attitude everybody knows 
 from Kaulbach's Reformation - picture, 
 then Constantine's cross came and stood 
 a second time in the German sky." 
 "What a rich country in prodigies!" 
 " Precisely. And Germany, more than 
 any other nation, has got accustomed to 
 them and impatient of them. Never was 
 there such a people for yawning away 
 its millenniums. As for its Luthers, in 
 these latter times they have become a 
 mere drug. They call themselves Kant 
 and Fichte and Herbart and Schelling 
 and Hegel, and they appear with a new 
 German millennium in their right hand 
 and a new German Bible in their left." 
 
 "And how many reformers have there 
 been, then, for mercy's sake?" 
 
 "Oh, the first was the serpent, as Heine 
 will assure you. That footless blue-stock- 
 ing, he says, that lithe lecturer, that pri- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 231 
 
 vate expounder who addressed his class 
 from a tree in the garden of Eden, ex- 
 plained the whole of Hegel's system six 
 thousand years before Hegel was born. 
 
 This professor, to use Heine's words, 
 1 clearly showed how the absolute con- 
 sists in the identity of being and know- 
 ing ;' or, in more familiar terms, ' Ye 
 
 HE DRAGOMAN. 
 
 shall not die, but shall know good from 
 evil as gods.' " 
 
 "Then reform," said my commander, 
 "is one of the oldest of earthly privi- 
 leges?" 
 
 " Evidently. Did not the wisest of 
 men, the prize pupil of the serpent, de- 
 clare that there was nothing new under 
 the sun, and no end of rewriting the 
 biblosr 
 
 We were on one of the "reformed" 
 steamers, the American boats as they 
 call them — handsomely making Ameri- 
 canism a synonym for improvement in 
 fluvial navigation. Most of the little 
 comforts to which the Yankee is accus- 
 tomed on his Sound steamers or Missis- 
 sippi triremes were around us. At first 
 the voyage was quiet enough : there had 
 been but few passengers from Mayence. 
 Until Bingen nothing in particular attract- 
 ed our attention, and Mrs. Ashburleigh's 
 sketch-book lay in her lap ominously 
 gaping, like a voracious lion waiting to 
 be fed. For me the flat transit was a 
 
 grateful, dreamy period. I thought the 
 river paused to hear my story of poor 
 Lorlei : I thought the gentle banks roll- 
 ed and fawned at the feet of me and my 
 adored. 
 
 But at Bingen our calm was violently 
 interrupted. A precipitous invasion of 
 tourists took place. Not only were there 
 Bavarian opera-singers, Prussian officers, 
 homeward-bound Leyden clerks and rat- 
 tling Viennese, but there was at least one 
 company from whose midst I could hear 
 my own mother-tongue. I did not clear- 
 ly distinguish the individuality of this 
 party at first. The tourists rolled down 
 the companion-way to deposit their bags 
 and shawls. The stout porters of Bingen 
 were handling immense trunks as ten- 
 derly as egg-baskets. A confusion of 
 boxes, crates and hampers rattled into 
 the boat. A Swiss youth brought on a 
 velocipede ; a governess appeared with 
 a spaniel and a consumptive monkey ; 
 there was a corpulent English mother in 
 a wheeled chair; and a photographer, 
 
232 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 OEEKWESEL. 
 
 fresh from the slaughter of unnumber- 
 ed tourists beside the river Nahe, jumped 
 red-handed among us, his camera in the 
 arms of a servant, and ready to transfix 
 us in groups at every pause of the voy- 
 age. The porters trampled each other, 
 couriers shouted, the monkey swore, and 
 from the wheeled chair Boadicea, stand- 
 ing loftily charioted, raved and shrieked 
 between her daughters in her fierce vol- 
 ubility. It was at the height of the tu- 
 mult, just before pushing off from Bin- 
 gen, that I was aware of a calm voice pro- 
 ceeding from the English-tongued com- 
 pany I speak of, and controlling the tur- 
 moil like an orchestral baton when ev- 
 erybody is tuning: "The next coupon 
 wanted will be the green one : if each lady 
 will select her green coupon and stuff 
 it into her left glove, it will be ready for 
 the dinner. By our arrangement, ladies, 
 you dine at precisely two shillings in- 
 stead of three ; the knowledge of which 
 need spoil no one's appetite." 
 
 I looked at the group in question. A 
 circle of British spinsters had by some 
 magic obtained possession of the bows. 
 They were unencumbered ; their knap- 
 sacks were stacked and ticketed down 
 below with military precision ; their 
 sketching-albums were ready on their 
 laps ; their faces were calmly receptive, 
 
 shaded by ample hats and gig-tops of 
 sensible patterns. In the midst of them 
 stood a gentleman with mutton - chop 
 whiskers, his body diagonally bisected 
 by the straps of his opera-glass, a little 
 Mercury's hat on his head. Correctness 
 and reliability shone all over his person 
 like a varnish. He wore a white cravat, 
 and looked much like Berkley in a tour- 
 ist suit. He was now addressing the 
 whole dovecote with a studied oration 
 in which could by turns be heard the 
 names of Rolandseck and Drachenfels, 
 the Seven Mountains, Andernach, Linz, 
 Stolzenfels, Marksburg, Ehrenbreitstein, 
 Herzenach and Oberwesel. By a slight 
 attention to his discourse I found that it 
 was a judicious mosaic of paragraphs 
 from Murray, Baedeker and Joanne. 
 
 I listened to this Homer chanting the 
 Odyssey of the Rhine. It was very com- 
 plete : the proper stories were introduced, 
 the suitable quotations from Byron, and 
 the mild jokes appropriate to the local- 
 ity. I waited to hear what the minstrel 
 would say about the cliffs this side of St. 
 Goar, from whose top the Lorlei leaped. 
 
 It was not long in comi»g : " The rocks 
 fancifully assigned to the Lorlei are four 
 hundred and forty-seven feet in height. 
 A man at the cottage will blow a horn 
 and discharge a gun, to afford a test of 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 2 33 
 
 the echo : the expense of the 
 powder is borne by the steam- 
 boat company. The partic- 
 ular rock from which the 
 nymph leaped is now pene- 
 trated by the railway tunnel." 
 
 All the spinsters put down 
 the figures 447 in their al- 
 bums. "Your sketch-books, 
 ladies, will not be strictly ne- 
 cessary before Oberwesel. 
 The surroundings of Ober- 
 wesel seem to have been ar- 
 ranged expressly for artistic 
 purposes : nothing is wanting 
 there for the picturesque, 
 whether woods, waters, ruins, 
 rocks, rustic belvederes and 
 aussichten, or cascades. The 
 late mayor of Oberwesel, an 
 artist of some repute, has pub- 
 lished adrawing-book in 
 which all the beauties are 
 taken from his own surround- 
 ings. This is the origin of the 
 famous jest, that when you 
 ask the echo for a definition 
 of the burgomaster of Ober- 
 wesel, you are answered — " 
 
 "Oh, 1 know," said one of 
 the ladies, the oldest. 
 
 "What?" asked the gen- 
 tleman with the opera-glass. 
 
 "Easel! Don't you see, 
 girls ? — an artist's easel." And 
 the fair tourist collected her 
 tribute of little laughs, better satisfied 
 with her answer than if it had been the 
 right one. 
 
 The Mentor did not correct her. He 
 continued: "Just beyond St. Goar we 
 shall find the Neu-Katzenelnbogen and 
 the Thurnberg. The first-named castle, 
 known to English travelers as the Cat, 
 is interesting as showing the obvious 
 origin of Perrault's story of ' Puss-in- 
 Boots.' This fastness, putting on at first 
 the humble airs of a lowly hermitage, 
 hardly lifted its walls from the level of 
 the earth, and watched softly from be- 
 hind a simple palisade of wood. It 
 seemed less occupied with attack than 
 self-defence. But all the while puss-in- 
 sabots was not idle, but, like many seem- 
 
 THE MOUSE. 
 
 ing cowards, amassed a quantity of se- 
 cret spoils from the wealthy merchant- 
 trains that came up the Rhine ; so well 
 that, by a judicious alternation of force 
 and strategy, it made of its master one 
 of the richest robbers on the river — a true 
 marquis of Carabas. His end was that 
 of all who in those days measured them- 
 selves with the Church. The owner of 
 the Cat aroused the jealousy of Bishop 
 Hatto, surnamed ' The heart of the king.' 
 A strong castle was built opposite, not 
 on the hillside, but on the summit of the 
 mountain, and Hatto called it the Mouse, 
 declaring that this time the mouse should 
 eat the cat. This was easily done, and 
 the bishop made no bones of the pow- 
 erful robber opposite, whose spoils and 
 
234 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 gold soon went to enrich the great church 
 at Mayence. But Hatto went a little too 
 far with his holy zeal, and, having spec- 
 ulated in corn, was eaten up in his fast- 
 
 
 CALVAKY OF ANDERNACH. 
 
 ness by an army of mice, who devoured 
 first his tabbies and then himself." 
 
 And the guide, as a matter of course, 
 recited Southey's poem, with sufficiently 
 good accent and discretion : 
 
 The cat sat screaming, mad with fear 
 At the army of rats that were drawing near. 
 They have whetted their teeth against the stones, 
 And now they pick the bishop's bones. 
 
 "Who can he be?" I asked of Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh. "Some kind of a courier, 
 I suppose ?" 
 
 " He does not look to me at all like a 
 courier," said my leader in a tone of re- 
 buke, her eyes fixed approvingly on the 
 fluent cicerone. 
 
 When I next listened he had got still 
 farther down the stream : he was evident- 
 ly keeping his party posted well ahead. 
 He described a town which was not with- 
 out old and tender associations for me : 
 
 "Andernach is largely built of black 
 basalt taken from the neighboring hills. 
 Some of you may have heard a curious 
 but unsupported tradition of the Christ 
 on the wayside cross of Andernach bow- 
 ing its head : this legend is unconfirm- 
 ed, and the citizens, unable to vouch for 
 it, have carried the wooden figure inside 
 
 the church. The anecdote doubtless 
 came from the fact that the head of the 
 principal figure was one day found 
 broken and lying at the foot of the cal- 
 vary in the church- 
 yard, a renaissance 
 structure erected in 
 the Greek taste." 
 
 "Do you know, I 
 fancy," said I con- 
 fidentially to Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh, "that 
 this must be the hon- 
 est man who makes 
 the guide-books for 
 Murray? I never 
 imagined before that 
 the person had any 
 particular existence 
 in the flesh, but he 
 must be somebody 
 or other of corporeal 
 substance." 
 
 "He is a mysteri- 
 ous but not unfasci- 
 nating person," said the Dark Ladye : 
 " he reminds me — But no matter. Who 
 can the ladies be?" 
 
 "I can hardly guess, Probably they 
 are his short-hand writers to take down 
 his notes. They all have albums." 
 
 "Rolandseck, ladies," said the inexor- 
 able voice, " is celebrated as having been 
 built by Roland after he had been killed 
 at Roncesvalles. From this remarkable 
 specimen of posthumous construction we 
 get the best view of the ' castled crag of 
 Drachenfels,' opposite. This latter is 
 one of the heights of the Siebengebirge, 
 or Seven Mountains, so named because 
 there are eleven of them. The village 
 of Konigswinter will afford us a dozen 
 donkeys, housed with a dozen scarlet 
 saddle-cloths, by which to make the as- 
 cent of ten hundred and sixty-six and a 
 half feet. In climbing this hill you will 
 enjoy another benefit from our system : 
 the usual fee for the ascent is twelve and 
 a half silbergroschen for each donkey, 
 and a little less, or ten groschen, for the 
 guide. Our arrangement affords this trip 
 at six silbergroschen apiece, all around, 
 for men and animals ; which, besides its 
 economy for ourselves, avoids the draw- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ing of invidious and disparaging distinc- 
 tions between the donkeys and the dri- 
 vers. For this enterprise, ladies, the blue 
 tickets will please be in readiness." 
 
 But the most copious of wells may 
 pump itself dry, and there came a mo- 
 ment when the eloquence of the man in 
 the spyglass-strap came to a stop. At a 
 signal from himself each lady extracted 
 from a square tin box, made to resem- 
 ble a Murray, a little thong of Australian 
 meat and a few ounces of bread. Soon, 
 instead of the steady voice of their en- 
 tertainer, I could hear nothing from that 
 quarter but the little mandibles of those 
 fair beings. The man himself seemed 
 to have no appetite except for his own 
 mutton-chops, which he was fingering 
 and chewing over the rail as I approach- 
 ed him. 
 
 "I beg pardon," I said, "but it is so 
 pleasant to hear my native language — 
 and one is so glad to meet a man of 
 information — and 1 can hardly be mis- 
 taken in thinking you in some sort a pub- 
 lic character." 
 
 The man bowed, left his whisker alone, 
 and plunged for a card-case. I was as 
 quick as he. 
 
 " My name is — My card," I observed. 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," he answered 
 with equal civility: "my own is, as you 
 
 2 35 
 My 
 
 will perceive — This is my card, 
 name is 
 
 COOKSON & JENKINSON." 
 
 I acquiesced with another bow, though 
 the gentleman's plurality of name left 
 me considerable choice, and his " card " 
 was a pamphlet of fifty pages. 
 
 " I have no disposition to conceal my 
 name, which represents perhaps the fore- 
 most enterprise of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. I surmise that you are a fellow- 
 countryman of mine?" 
 
 "That I can hardly say," I replied with 
 a smile, "until I know your own nation- 
 ality. But even then I should be shy of 
 claiming you as a compatriot, for I haven't 
 the faintest idea what country I belong 
 to myself. I have long been a renegade 
 from my own nation, without attaching 
 myself to any other. In fact, I am a 
 Progressive Geographer in search of his 
 home." 
 
 "The very thing!" said the traveler: 
 " we will find it for you. It is quite in 
 our line. Our Tours include every coun- 
 try on the face of the earth. We will 
 establish you in little more than no time 
 on the most advanced principles of eth- 
 nographical distribution. We already 
 cover the globe with our Advertised 
 Routes. Our terms " (and he took out a 
 
 m^^^m^ 
 
 URACHENFELS. 
 
236 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 THE SERVILE WAR. 
 
 long zigzag ticket resembling an accor- 
 deon) "are arranged with an advantage 
 to the purchaser of from twenty-five to 
 fifty per cent. We ensure satisfaction, 
 avoid extortion and guarantee sound 
 sleep, for we fine landlords for all hard 
 or unclean beds. In a few years travel- 
 ing will be unknown except through us 
 — in fact, impossible but by our assist- 
 ance. We are arranging objects of in- 
 terest along all routes that are a little 
 deficient in incident. Wherever a de- 
 ficiency of ruins exists we supply the 
 need. The Rhine will be quite another 
 
 SERVILE RECONCILIATION. 
 
 thing when you next pass, my dear sir : 
 the proprietors have done a little here- 
 abouts in the way of artificial ruins, but 
 nothing to what we contemplate." 
 My Ariadne had now approached, 
 
 and was listening to the details of this 
 new Bacchic conquest of India. Her 
 face wore a look of great interest and 
 sympathy. "May I ask whom you have 
 with you ?" she inquired. 
 
 "They are governesses and school- 
 teachers, madame, doing the Rhine un- 
 der my auspices. The party is small, 
 but most intelligent." 
 
 "But how did you manage to collect 
 so many ladies of similar age and con- 
 dition ?" 
 
 "Not the least trouble in the world, 
 madame. I combed them from the ad- 
 vertising columns of the Times in 
 three days." 
 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh took me aside. 
 "That is the image of the man I have 
 dreamed of," she said hastily. "I 
 perceive that for the present my des- 
 tiny is cast with his. Do not ask me 
 further : I feel all you would say. I 
 confess to you that my heart has been 
 touched. We shall meet again. But 
 for this time I shall enter the company 
 of that gentleman. It only remains 
 for you to seek, at the next stopping- 
 place, the best excuse for leaving me." 
 This mysterious advertisement 
 quite overcame my courage. What 
 did she mean — rejection, encourage- 
 ment or general mystery ? As for the 
 pretext of which she spoke, accident 
 furnished it, most unfortunately for me, 
 at Coblenz. 
 
I=»-AJE5,T XATIII. 
 
 THE DIFFICULTY OF CATCHING UP. 
 
 TOMB OF HOCHE AT WEISSENTHURM. 
 
 "TT7HAT are these cruel words?" I 
 VV cried to Mrs. Ashburleigh, "and 
 why, after so faithful an attendance, am 
 I overslaughed in a moment by a cou- 
 rier?" 
 
 "I never saw him before. He is a 
 link, Mr. Flemming— a link. As for my 
 cruel words, though we have not time 
 for many speeches, I will repeat them. 
 I confess freely that my present journey, 
 if it has found my heart sleeping, has 
 
 not left it untouched. Now seek your 
 pretext and abandon me : yonder is 
 Coblenz." 
 
 And now my factotum Charles, work- 
 ing in dark collusion with Fate, proceed- 
 ed to give the pretext in question. It 
 was his chance, and he magnified it— 
 so successfully that the great sunstroke 
 suffered by Charles at Coblenz has be- 
 come an historical epoch among my 
 friends. 
 
 237 
 
»3« 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 THE COLPORTEUSE. 
 
 Some of the English schoolmistresses, 
 whose occupations were of a noisier na- 
 ture and indisposed them for listening 
 to the travel- 
 i n g-agent's 
 lectures, had 
 found a nook 
 on the deck to- 
 ward the stern. 
 From this 
 group a cry of 
 female shriek- 
 ers roused me. 
 The school- 
 mistress who 
 was declaim- 
 ing the part 
 of Thekla in 
 Wal lens tein 
 broke off ab- 
 ruptly ; the two 
 schoolmistresses who were going over 
 the German declensions broke up their 
 mutual quizzing-class ; the hoarse school- 
 mistress with a talent, who was running 
 up the vocal scales of an absolute prima 
 donna, and who learnt in suffering what 
 to teach in song, left her exercises : they 
 all screamed, the vocalist embracing the 
 opportunity to discharge her highest head- 
 note, finished with a shake. The elder 
 lady-grammarian approached me, say- 
 ing, " Don't distress yourself, sir, but I 
 fear your man's overpowered — " 
 
 " My man overboard ? Can I believe 
 my ears ?" 
 
 "You can't believe your ears, and the 
 man's not overboard. I said overpower- 
 ed, as plainly as lip;; could utter the com- 
 pound." 
 
 And she deserted me, flouncingly. 
 Through the aperture left by her person 
 I perceived a marble group, consisting 
 of Charles, insensible, and the traveling- 
 agent, rigid as a sculptured Charity : the 
 latter sustained the former with one hand, 
 and with the other inundated him with 
 hartshorn. 
 
 "Help me down with him into the 
 saloon. I have a battery among my 
 baggage which has recuperated whole 
 regiments of fainting females," said this 
 man of resources. 
 We got him down the stairs. Mrs. 
 
 Ashburleigh, never de trofi, was now par- 
 ticularly useful, for she stood in an atti- 
 tude of astonishment in the gangway, 
 which she completely blocked, prevent- 
 ing the mass of ladies from precipitating 
 themselves upon us. 
 
 " I shall continue the hartshorn, with 
 cupping and galvanism. The lower or- 
 ders like an abundance of physicking. 
 Leave Cookson & Jenkinson alone for 
 dealing with the servile classes !" con- 
 tinued the excellent man, while I, over 
 come with sorrow for my poor friend, 
 was indisposed to pay much attention. 
 "The management of domestics is one 
 of our specialties. At first we counted 
 against us every Swiss chambermaid and 
 Alpine guide. I have had them point- 
 ing after me as a man accursed, but now 
 they follow me like little dogs ; and it is 
 all owing to our happy idea of a matri- 
 monial agency." 
 
 "You marry people, too ?" 
 
 " We began with the lower orders. But 
 we are working upward. We distributed 
 the servant-girls among the guides that 
 go up the mountains — the shrillest wench 
 to the guide of greatest altitude. We 
 had our circular printed on red cotton 
 handkerchiefs and given away at fairs, 
 until the remotest Black Forester knows 
 us, and every washerwoman is a matri- 
 monial colporteuse. You will find the 
 wedding-card the last coupon." (And 
 the man actually showed me the formula, 
 
 GALIGNANI. 
 
 in pink, at the end of his zigzag paste- 
 board.) "I believe the lady in your 
 company is one of our patrons: I am 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 239 
 
 sure she corresponded with us from Hei- 
 delberg." 
 
 "Let us attend to our patient," said I, 
 not exactly liking the last allusion, but 
 unable to think much of anything 
 but my unlucky Charles: "he is 
 opening his eyes." 
 
 The poor fellow revived enough to 
 turn a dark purple and to grasp my 
 hand. While his brow was burning 
 to the touch he complained of cold 
 and his teeth chattered. The im- 
 promptu physician shook his head. 
 " It is a more serious case than I like 
 to undertake," said he : "you had 
 better give him rest and a good 
 doctor. Get him on land the first 
 time we stop." 
 
 As he spoke the steamer was com- 
 ing to a pause at Coblenz. And so, 
 with my big great baby half in my 
 arms, my trunks forgotten, and only 
 my tin box strapped to me — denuded as 
 when I started on my walk to Marly — I 
 found myself staggering to the shore. 
 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh found time to console 
 me as I left the boat stunned and heart- 
 broken. " Never fear," she said. " I am 
 in experienced hands, and shall do ex- 
 tremely well. If you discover any curi- 
 ous wall-papers in Coblenz, do not for- 
 get that in me you have always a true 
 and grateful friend." 
 
 The representative of Cookson & Jen- 
 kinson grasped my fingers, in which he 
 left a little printed matrimonial scheme. 
 In the confusion of our disembarking, 
 the admirable woman I adored, whose 
 very bewilderments had an inspiration 
 in them, lost her balance in such a way 
 as to set her weight on Charles's instep, 
 
 I had the pain of seeing the travelers' 
 agent assume Mrs. Ashburleigh, whom 
 he seated among his clients with a pro- 
 tecting manner very hard for me to bear. 
 
 THE SYMPOSIUM. 
 
 EXTINGUISHED. 
 
 and I am certain that nothing that had 
 been done for him was of so stimulating 
 an effect as this primitive application. 
 
 As I had parted with Francine at Carls- 
 ruhe, as I had parted with Berkley and 
 Hohenfels at Heidelberg, as I had parted 
 at Wildbad with the revelers of £pernay, 
 so I now saw my Ariadne drifting away 
 on the tide of destiny. My Ariadne, do 
 I say ? Nay, rather was / the Ariadne, 
 and Coblenz my Naxos ! 
 
 On our route to the nearest hotel 
 Charles's complaint took a pronounced 
 form of menengitis. His brain seemed 
 to wander, for he asked in a low, thick 
 voice for his " young master." The peo- 
 ple at the Traube inn received us with 
 positive rudeness, the landlord declaring 
 that he had no room for maniacs and 
 gentlemen without baggage. I was un- 
 able to see that want of baggage would 
 tax his room more heavily than the pres- 
 ence of it, but I readily agreed with him 
 to leave his premises as soon as possible. 
 I asked for the address of some sanitary 
 establishment away from the noise of the 
 town, and the eager host poured out the 
 names of a whole college of doctors. A 
 happy accident led me to choose the ther- 
 mal establishment of Herr Elssasser in 
 the village of Capellen, beneath the cas- 
 tle of Stolzenfels, a league or so from the 
 city. Blessed be the chance that led us 
 to this Samaritan ! He keeps remedies 
 for the mind as well as for the body. Up 
 
240 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 to the second day my humble friend's 
 hallucinations increased, while his pro- 
 prietor poured out a stream of letters to 
 Mary Ashburleigh, with the direction left 
 
 blank upon the envelopes, because neith- 
 er she nor I had attended to that import- 
 ant little specification. On the fifth day 
 Charles took his first soup, and I was 
 able to water the poignant recollection 
 of the Dark Ladye with a gentle thought 
 or two directed to Francine : on the same 
 day I applied myself, not without dif- 
 ficulty, to some letters for my male ac- 
 quaintance. In ten days my patient was 
 lustily calling for kidneys and coffee, and 
 my own sombre spirit had recovered so 
 much of its natural versatility as to no- 
 tice that Charles's nurse, a maiden from 
 Saverne of the name of Gredel, was a 
 model for grace and as handsome as the 
 "beautiful chocolatiere." 
 
 On the twelfth morning, as Charles 
 was trifling with a jelly in his easy-chair, 
 and his master — or servant rather, as the 
 case then stood — was translating news 
 for him out of the broad page of Galig- 
 nani, a footstep resounded through the 
 corridor. 
 
 " It is Gredel," said Charles : " she has 
 new shoes on." 
 
 But I called him an idiot, resuming 
 with his recovery my usual endearments. 
 The step was the step of Hohenfels, as 
 I knew very well. I rose from my seat 
 
 quite guilty and troubled. I turned to- 
 ward the door : the latch rattled, and the 
 baron appeared, a volume of poetry in 
 his hand. He shambled up to me, and 
 after his dear immemorial custom kissed 
 my cheeks and wished me well. 
 
 "Am I not to be scolded ?" I asked. 
 
 "For the sickness of your aide-de- 
 camp ? I am hardly so unreasonable. 
 I wish to interest you in my chemical 
 experiments. Was it not here you for- 
 merly learned the tale of the archbishop 
 who lived in the Stolzenfels and prac- 
 tised alchemy according to the Hermetic 
 philosophy ?" 
 
 "It is true, my friend, that I abode 
 here in Capellen for a season when very 
 young, and gave my mind a great deal 
 to the old archbishop who tried to make 
 unto himself a child in the manner taught 
 by Paracelsus — a foolish homunculus in 
 a glass bottle. But I told all the story in 
 a book written long ago, and Heir Els- 
 sasser informs me that I told a fib, for 
 that the Stolzenfels was a ruin long 
 before 1 541, the year in which Eremita 
 Paracelsus died in Salzburg." 
 
 And the baron plunged with me into 
 chemistry as if we had only parted since 
 breakfast. As the science became, in 
 his descriptions, seriously mixed up with 
 the Schiller he had been reading, and 
 as my own enthusiasm for chemistry is 
 entirely mediaeval and scholastic, we did 
 not add much to what is known of the 
 subject. But Hohenfels and Berkley, 
 with the assistance of young Von Ramm, 
 had invented an artificial whey out of 
 substances entirely mineral, which Berk- 
 ley was coming to explain to Doctor 
 Elssasser. 
 
 Before the baron of Hohenfels would 
 take a seat he drew from his pocket- 
 book a couple of notes and handed them 
 to me. They both presented the view 
 Of a broken or unlatched seal, and a 
 superscription addressed to my friend. 
 "Read," he said: "they concern you 
 rather than myself." 
 
 The first, signed " Fortnoye," recalled 
 to monsieur the baron's recollection the 
 pleasant friendship mutually formed at 
 Heidelberg, and desired news of Mr. 
 Paul Flemming. It begged to know 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 241 
 
 whether I was actually residing at Paris 
 or at Marly, or was on the route of my Ger- 
 man peregrinations. The writer's 
 intended wife, who kept me "in 
 the very kindest remembrance," 
 desired to have me for grooms- 
 man at the wedding. 
 
 "And who is this vintner's no- 
 ble landlady ?" asked the baron 
 with the very faintest possible in- 
 terest ; "and how comes it that 
 she has kept you so very kindly 
 in her memory ?" 
 
 I turned and stared. "Don't 
 you know ?" I asked. 
 
 " H'm ! Not in the least," said 
 Hohenfels, who was carefully set- 
 ting his watch. 
 
 "H'm," said I myself. "The 
 proposed bride of M. Fortnoye is 
 an enchanting little fairy in an 
 artisanne cap — No, no, not at 
 all ! I mean to say, the object of 
 M. Fortnoye's attentions is a superb Eng- 
 lishwoman of the most brilliant accom- 
 plishments and highest distinction — 
 No, that is not right, either. When I 
 come to think of it, I have not the re- 
 motest idea whom that insupportable, 
 meddling marplot of an odious Fortnoye 
 is going to marry. Hohenfels, I don't 
 know what he is going to do. That per- 
 son has sealed the wretchedness of my 
 existence." <. 
 
 " How has he done that, if you don't 
 know what he is doing ?" 
 
 "The fact is, Hohenfels, I am but try- 
 ing to deceive myself. I do know his 
 intended : I have the fact from her own 
 lips." 
 
 "And who is the fair object ?" 
 
 "She says," I answered, now fairly in- 
 renched behind my handkerchief, "that 
 ohe would pass through fire to save him. 
 I have myself been the accomplice of 
 my own destruction, for I have escorted 
 her on what she confessed to be a wed- 
 ding-journey — a wedding that Heaven 
 will bless, she hopes. Fortnoye had some 
 romantic association with her at a grave 
 in Laaken ; besides, the lady's previous 
 husband was in the spirit-trade. Her 
 name is Ashburleigh, and she is the most 
 graceful authoress in Europe." 
 16 
 
 "As you like," said Hohenfels, looking 
 narrowly at me. " Have you settled on 
 
 HOW HOCHE CROSSED THE RHINE. 
 
 a wife for the wine-agent ? I only want 
 you to make up your mind. Have you 
 quite decided ? Whatever contents you 
 will suit me perfectly." 
 
 " My friend, I cannot deny it. I am in 
 the lady's confidence : I have but just left 
 her on the river yonder. I brought her 
 from Schwetzingen to Frankfort, from 
 Frankfort to Castel, and from Castel to 
 Coblenz." 
 
 " Very well," said the baron. " If you 
 have decided, you may as well read 
 the second letter. But I fear it conflicts 
 fatally with your theory. The lady in 
 question, this distinguished authoress and 
 accomplished widow, at the moment when 
 she is going to marry another seems to 
 have become an unresisting prey to your 
 enchantments. For the proof, read!" 
 
 It was a note from my cook. She 
 poured upon Hohenfels a deluge of con- 
 fidences, blamed him for not taking bet- 
 ter care of Monsieur Flemming, protested 
 that she was palsied from idleness, and 
 promised to leave the key in the door 
 and instantly seek other service. She 
 knew, by the most positive information, 
 that I was paying my addresses to a trav- 
 eling adventuress of the watering-places, 
 a self-styled widow, a great brune — a 
 Mrs. Asburlais, or some such name. 
 
242 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 Then renewed lamentations: she was 
 not accustomed to having a lady in the 
 kitchen, she was about to suit herself 
 elsewhere, etc. 
 
 I knew my good servitor, and I made 
 
 TAKING EXERCISE. 
 
 little of her threats. But who could have 
 been the tale-bearer ? who could have 
 been the sender of the "positive infor- 
 mation " ? As I looked around inquiring- 
 ly, with the letter in my hand, my eye 
 met the eye of Charles. My valet twist- 
 ed himself uneasily in his easy -chair. 
 The author was confessed. 
 
 " Do you know," said Hohenfels, " you 
 are getting to be a hard horse to bridle ? 
 I have given you your head long enough. 
 I supposed you already at Marly, and 
 had prepared to follow you thither. As 
 I was strapping my trunk I got a letter, 
 undated, as usual, but with the postmark 
 of Coblenz : a day or two after your good 
 cook writes me that you are marrying a 
 soldier of fortune. You need not try to 
 protest. I was alarmed. You are nei- 
 ther young nor beautiful, but you are cut 
 out for the victim of an adventuress. I 
 interrupted my chemicals, left Berkley 
 in a bath of artificial whey, and rushed 
 to Coblenz. Thence to Stolzenfels, where 
 I was prepared to meet the Lorlei and 
 dispute the prey with her. Happily, I 
 learn from Dr. Elssasser that your skirts 
 are clean, or rather that you brought no 
 skirts into Capellen. The defendants are 
 acquitted, the house is pure, but I have 
 no confidence in you for the future. To 
 
 make things sure, you must accoutre 
 yourself with your botany-box once more, 
 and come along with me." 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" I cried. 
 "Charles is the doctor's most beautiful 
 case : I cannot break up Dr. Elssasser's 
 clinic. Besides, as a minor annoyance, 
 the thing would be fatal to Charles." 
 
 "Nonsense! We shall leave Charles 
 here. Berkley is coming immediately to 
 this establishment, which he has known 
 for years, and where he has drunk oceans 
 of whey." 
 
 I deliberated a minute: "The fact is, 
 I cannot support the effort. It may seem, 
 Hohenfels, but a slight service to attend 
 the wedding of this fatal Epernay wine- 
 agent, for whom I have had a sort of 
 fascinated attachment ever since I saw 
 him in a white beard befogging that 
 Scotch quack, but the marriage will tear 
 my heartstrings, and it is asking too 
 much — asking too much." 
 
 " I care but little for your Epernay 
 vinegar-man in a beard. All I want is 
 to set you in motion again. You need 
 not return by way of Epernay, where 
 your doings, as I have heard, were rather 
 discreditable. We will go quite around 
 by the north, taking Cologne and Brus- 
 sels. Next Sunday you may be at home 
 among your geography-books." 
 
 All I could obtain was a furlough till 
 the next morning. Hohenfels wished to 
 see Ehrenbreitstein. We took a carriage, 
 rolled into Coblenz, and thence over the 
 Rhine, crossing the bridge, to the moun- 
 tain on which, in its new, bare strength, 
 sits the stark fortress. Like the serpents 
 in the cradle of a just-born Hercules, the 
 Moselle and the Rhine wind in from the 
 distance. Then we drove down again 
 into the town, winding round and round 
 the mountain as in the ascent, and so 
 losing foot by foot the broad panorama 
 of palace - studded plain. And then 
 across the bridge once more, through 
 the fashionable quarters of common- 
 place Coblenz, and back to our nest un- 
 der Stolzenfels. Through the twinkling 
 twilight-lamps of Capellen I now began 
 to look out for Charles, at such an hour 
 usually to be found, since his convales- 
 cence, supporting a street-corner, com- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 ^43 
 
 Training with his soul and staring at the 
 donkeys. But not in street or doorway 
 lurked Charles at this final hour of a final 
 day. I found him, when I went to order 
 his early attendance for the next 
 morning, enthroned in the kitchen 
 amid a symposium of maids and 
 male nurses, freely distributing the 
 sparkling Moselle that he had pur- 
 chased himself, and absorbing gust- 
 ily a good marrowy soup that Gredel 
 had made in special honor of his 
 departure. 
 
 "Call me at six, Charles," said I, 
 "that we may get bright and early 
 into Coblenz." 
 
 " Certainly, monsieur," replied 
 the invalid, a monarch here in his 
 own country. "What wine may I 
 offer monsieur, that he may toast 
 the ladies ?" 
 
 The next morning, as a matter 
 of course, it was I who woke up 
 Charles, whom I found extinguish- 
 ed under his nightcap in his hos- 
 pital-cot, dreaming the sweet dreams 
 of innocence and Moselle. We took a 
 sunrise review of good Doctor Elssass- 
 er and his agreeable family. The phy- 
 sician, his perpetually head- kerchiefed 
 wife, Gredel (who had accepted my toast 
 with piquant bashfulness), the honest 
 gymnasts and acrobats who nursed the 
 patients, had all aided me in one way 
 or another, and gave me a pleasant 
 hand -shake at departure. Even Blitz, 
 the great bull-dog that kept the cab- 
 bage-garden and had looked on me at 
 first as a natural enemy, relented and 
 gave his paw. 
 
 We left Coblenz just as the morning- 
 mists were rolling off the Broad Stone 
 of Honor and the dewy lights and shad- 
 ows chased each other along the Rhine- 
 shores. There was a heavenly girl in 
 the principal English party on deck, with 
 a sweet veiled hat and admirably short 
 skirts. But why do I mention her ? Why 
 mention Gredel ? Hohenfels was be- 
 side me, guarding me with his motherly 
 blue eye ; and besides, had I not an en- 
 emy who made it a point to intercept 
 me whenever a chance acquaintanceship 
 with some lovely woman arrived at the 
 
 point where it became interesting ? Was 
 there no Fortnoye in the air, hovering 
 fatally between me and female beauty ? 
 Fortnove would affront me had I the 
 
 THE AMATEUR BOAT-STEWARD. 
 
 mind to wive as abundantly as the Grand 
 Turk. By reason of Fortnoye I shall 
 die a bachelor, henpecked by my cook, 
 and with constant threats of divorce even 
 from her. 
 
 The last thing I noticed at Coblenz 
 was the famous Russian pleasantry, 
 which, as the only Russian joke I ever 
 happened to meet with, has stuck in my 
 mind. While Napoleon's army was on 
 its way to conquer the kingdom of the 
 Czars, the French mayor in occupation 
 wrote on the fountain here a little brag- 
 gart epigram, to the effect that this was 
 a mere milestone on the way to the 
 French province of Russia : after the 
 Corsican's fall it was the turn of Russia 
 to make epigrams, and the Czar's com- 
 mandant in the city inscribed his name 
 just beneath, like the vise on a passport, 
 only biting it in deeply with the indelible 
 pen of the stonecutter: ''Seen and ap- 
 proved by us, Russian commandant in 
 Coblenz." It was the eloquence of events 
 that made the jest tell. 
 
 But just below lies the body of Hoche, 
 whose audacious crossing of the Rhine 
 under the very swords of the Austrians 
 gives a real dignity to the French name 
 
244 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 hereabout. It is a little difficult to see 
 the lustre of his reputation across the 
 intolerable sulphurous splendor of Na- 
 poleon's, which obscures, as by the ex- 
 plosion of a volcano, the glories that 
 
 MUTUAL ESTEEM. 
 
 came immediately before him in date. 
 Hoche, Marceau, Desaix, Kleber formed 
 a worthy and noble group of standard- 
 bearers who gave consideration and dig- 
 nity to the first French republic. Of all 
 their names, that of Hoche is perhaps 
 the loftiest. It seems to make higher, 
 by some hundreds of feet, the little trun- 
 cated pyramid at whose base it is carved 
 on the circular tumulus at Weissenthurm. 
 The generals of the First Revolution were 
 brave and devoted. But from out that 
 earlier constellation one planet, at first 
 unnoticed, rose and swelled and bright- 
 ened so terribly, and cast such long-dart- 
 ed shadows on the earth below, and cut 
 such chasms in heaven when it burst, 
 that the cluster beyond it looked pale 
 and poor, and thus hardly anybody con- 
 jures by or honors this bold young dawn- 
 star lying where it fell beside the Rhine. 
 As we passed Weissenthurm I uncov- 
 ered to the tomb of Hoche, as I felt that 
 my exemplar, Franklin, would have done. 
 Any one of those brave heroes would 
 have been, with only opportunity given, 
 a La Fayette, and his name been sung 
 to glorious rest, night after night, by 
 sweet lips all over the American conti- 
 
 nent. As I uncapped to the pyramid, 
 Hohenfels chanted Becker's popular ode 
 as a sort of challenge : " It never shall 
 be France's, the free, the German Rhine !" 
 I could not help muttering for my own 
 part, upon that, the keen, taunting reply 
 to Becker by Alfred de Musset, I have 
 heard it rise from so many studios and 
 cabarets, with the magnificent snarl in 
 its chorus . "Nous Tavons eti voire Rhin 
 AUemand /" 
 
 But we did not carry this conflict of 
 national predilections too far. The lav- 
 ish beauties of the route were constantly 
 interposing themselves as harmonizing 
 objects, and my own soul was busy strew- 
 ing regrets and memories, like wreaths of 
 immortelle, on every jutting corner of 
 the way. At Andernach, as at Capellen 
 and Coblenz and Salzig, I had precious 
 reminiscences to cook and to serve, hot 
 and hot, for the baron: "A century's 
 rounded quarter lies between these scenes 
 and my earliest familiarity with them, 
 Hohenfels : it makes me feel, somehow, 
 as if I were looking at everything at an 
 angle of forty-five degrees. These places 
 I saw in boyhood, as I was journeying 
 to meet you in Heidelberg : their images 
 lie for me, distinct and precious, at the 
 
 THE SLUMBER OF HEALTH. 
 
 end of all that swelling arc of time. 
 Resuscitating them thus is like digging 
 up the fabled treasures that lie at the 
 bottom of the rainbow. From Salzig a 
 
THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 2 45 
 
 fair boatwoman rowed me away down to 
 Kamp, telling me the while a legend of 
 
 lenz I remember how I called to my ser- 
 vant, a fellow as universally and reliably 
 
 Geraldine of the Liebenstein. At Cob- I ignorant as Charles, for the meaning of 
 
 cologne: the hotel de ville. 
 
 the Man in the Kaufhaus. At Ander- 
 nach I wondered over quaint stories of 
 the wooden Christ that mended the leak 
 in the roof of pious Frau Martha, and 
 of the tower-keeper's daughter. Which 
 are the true images, baron — the pictures 
 of that olden time or those I enjoy with 
 you to-day ? The early ones almost seem 
 the more real, for besides the fact that they 
 were seen with the clearness of youth, 
 they were crystallized and made tangible 
 by being put into a book." 
 
 And I remembered, what I did not re- 
 call to my companion, that these first 
 wanderings were undertaken in the hor- 
 rible restlessness of having lost a dear 
 friend, in the exile of a shattered home, 
 and because, to use the old words, Paul 
 Flemming "could no longer live alone 
 where he had lived with her." Were 
 the fair faces more lately encountered 
 lost as irrevocably? To say nothing of 
 pretty Gredel, was I to bid farewell also 
 to Mary Ashburleigh and Francine ? 
 
 So we made Bonn. Charles, in view 
 of his sunstroke, was not allowed to show 
 
 his nose above-decks. Hohenfels and I 
 were about equally concerned for this 
 burly invalid. Immediately on boarding 
 the boat at Coblenz the baron had taken 
 Charles firmly by the elbow and march- 
 ed him down stairs into the mysterious 
 region which in a steamer is divided off 
 into saloons and baggage - bins : here, 
 as the patient must not lack exercise, 
 Hohenfels marched him conscientiously 
 up and down. It was not the least droll 
 of spectacles to see the baron achieving 
 this sanitary duty, the natural aimlessness 
 of his long legs increased by obstacles 
 and by the throbbing of the engine — 
 leading Charles blindly over mounds of 
 baggage, plumping him up against doz- 
 ens of waiters, cutting him with the edges 
 of tables and delivering him upon plush 
 divans. After thirty minutes of these de- 
 lights he left the sick man to his devices 
 and came up on deck to read poetry to 
 me. A few minutes afterward, uneasy for 
 Charles in my turn, I went down to see 
 what had become of him. Knowing 
 his modest instincts, I was hardly sur- 
 
246 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 prised to find that he was in neither sa- 
 loon nor in among the baggage. But 
 when the passages and byways of the 
 boat had been searched without effect, 
 down to the oily and coaly recesses oc- 
 
 THE ETERNAL RUBENS. 
 
 cupied by the engines and the fires, I 
 began to be alarmed, and really feared 
 that another delirium had sent my poor 
 man over the ship's side. There was, 
 however, a little lean-to chamber exca- 
 vated under the stairs for the use of the 
 chief cook, and here my master was dis- 
 covered at last, perspiring and humming 
 for contentment like a warm tea-kettle, 
 occupied in scraping saucepans and 
 rinsing dishes for the use of the stew- 
 ards. He could not stand still doing 
 nothing below-decks, he explained : he 
 was not used to it. 
 
 I marched up stairs satisfied. Hohen- 
 fels was looking for me about the deck. 
 "Apropos of Fortnoye, whom I scarcely 
 know," said he, "have you written to him 
 about this wedding ? He appears to be a 
 good fellow, and to appreciate my play- 
 ing on the accordeon." 
 
 "You know I have not: I don't know 
 his address in Epernay." 
 
 "You might have written in care of 
 any of the champagne-merchants." 
 
 "I shall write when we three are snug 
 at Marly. It is hardly worth while to try 
 and establish a communication with him, 
 when to avoid him we have taken all 
 this detour. There is always plenty of 
 
 time to write when it is a refusal you are 
 sending." 
 "So you shall refuse ?" 
 "I refuse absolutely. I would not de- 
 lay my return to Marly by two hours to 
 see your own wedding, my mediaeval 
 baron." 
 
 "You may be right, Flemming. 
 At your age it is best not to frequent 
 either weddings or interments : a 
 spectator is so often persuaded by 
 the force of example." 
 
 " My age ? You know it : I am 
 forty-eight." 
 "At least." 
 
 Arriving at Bonn, I haled Charles 
 from his well, wheiice he came up 
 glowing and candid, like Truth. His 
 adieux with the cook were touch- 
 ing: never had he had such piles 
 of plates to wipe, and his spirits 
 rose with the occasion. He was brisk 
 and active, mending visibly beneath 
 our eyes. He took on himself, for 
 the first time since his attack, the func- 
 tions of service, and terribly incom- 
 moded the baron and myself by inces- 
 sant and needless changes of our books, 
 newspapers, glasses, etc. Finally, at Co- 
 logne, in the Hotel de Hollande, I had 
 the pleasure of seeing him sink into a 
 cherubic, natural sleep in broad day- 
 light — the sleep of utter weariness, con- 
 tent and health. 
 
 The Hollande is a convenient house, 
 because it is just over the principal pier 
 of the great bridge, and most of the life 
 of the city comes pouring beneath your 
 window like a stage-pageant. Crowds 
 rush constantly to and fro, even as the 
 allegorical beings who poured across the 
 bridge of Mirza. Like Mirza's bridge, 
 too, this causeway of fourteen hundred 
 feet breaks open now and then with a 
 sudden pitfall, into which no doubt an 
 unwary passenger may tumble occasion- 
 ally : the drawbridge is opened, that is 
 to say, the driving crowds collect in des- 
 peration, and are often detained half an 
 hour or more before the vessel passes 
 and the lid is shut. But I cannot de- 
 scribe bridges and architecture. Let an- 
 other try to get up a joke on the eleven 
 thousand virgins who grin at St. Ursula 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 247 
 
 from their shelves above the faces of the 
 little school-girls kneeling there at con- 
 fessional. I saw them, but I heeded not. 
 The commissionnaire, who had been a 
 
 THE FIRST YOUNG MAN. 
 
 valet of Chevalier Bunsen's, remarked 
 to me in English that Attila"put she's 
 all in a carrt and meurrtrred she's." 
 And I replied, "It would take an un- 
 common cart to hold her." The honest 
 fellow bowed, not knowing that I meant 
 Mary Ashburleigh. I dreamed of noth- 
 ing but her, my own, my old, original 
 best half. My love for her was ancient 
 and gray, while her eidolon in my eyes 
 was the achieved image of perfect youth. 
 Could I ever have given Fortnoye reason 
 to believe that I would be the grooms- 
 man of him and this paragon ? Had she 
 spoken of him to me as her intended 
 husband, or extinguished in my breast 
 by her behavior the fluttering hope that 
 I might yet conquer a place in her re- 
 gard ? 
 
 I only remember how I was wearied 
 with the eternal Rubens. That inex- 
 haustible man was baptized though not 
 
 born here, and, taking the names of St. 
 Peter and St. Paul, devoted a great pari 
 of his life to celebrating their histories. 
 He has endowed the church of St. Peter's 
 with one of his acrobatic chefs-d'oeuvre, 
 and Hohenfels actually wanted me — me, 
 a man with not only an Ashburleigh but 
 a Francine upon my bosom ! — to admire 
 the impasto and appreciate the brio and 
 befog myself in the Chiaroscuro ! Let no 
 lover travel in Germany to soothe his 
 heart-pain. The churches — which are 
 exactly like the galleries — all offer you 
 the same distractions : a Rubens, always, 
 in my opinion, hung upside down — the 
 martyrdom of St. Peter certainly is ; and 
 certain Diirers and Holbeins, esteemed 
 more sacred in feeling than the Rubenses, 
 simply because they are stiff and formal, 
 but with no better glimpse of holy or any 
 other sentiment than a signboard. In each 
 of these places, when you have visited all 
 the apparent curiosities, and paid your 
 toll to the young man who has accom- 
 
 rn 
 
 THE SECOND YOUNG MAN. 
 
 panied you, another young man, exactly 
 like the first, springs fuming out of the 
 ground, shakes some keys, and shows 
 you a still more sacred Durer or Holbein. 
 
248 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 The second young man charges twice as 
 much as the first young man. You now 
 believe in the doppelganger. 
 
 " Do you know," said I dreamily to 
 Hohenfels, "that Agrippina was born 
 
 here ; that the ruins date from Claudius ; 
 that the cathedral was built by Satan, 
 and that the Christians have never suc- 
 ceeded in finishing it ; that the town-hall 
 is a pompous Renaissance structure in 
 
 CHURCH OF THE HOLY APOSTLES AT COLOGNE. 
 
 which you see the busts of the Hanseatic 
 commissioners all cast in iron ; that Co- 
 logne provides breathing-places for its 
 population to the extent of thirty-seven 
 public squares — " 
 
 " I suppose, to nullify the seventy-two 
 well-defined and several stinks ; but even 
 that gives us about two smells to a square, 
 with only a couple of perfumes wanting. 
 They ought to blow up the Farina estab- 
 lishments once a week, all the thirty of 
 them, and flood the city with cosmetic 
 water. But I, for my part," continued 
 Hohenfels, "have been more exercised 
 with the ' pavements fanged with mur- 
 derous stones.' I have seen all the sights 
 while you were watching the slumbers 
 of Charles. I have seen St. Cunibert's, 
 St. Pantaleon's, and the Holy Apostles'. 
 I have seen the tablet on the birthplace 
 of Rubens, who, it happens, was really 
 born in Siegen. His patroness, Marie 
 de Medicis, who gave him the biggest 
 order he ever had in his life at the time 
 
 she was adorning the Luxembourg, came 
 hither to die — in a garret, they say. I 
 have been looking up the scene of her 
 death, and I went to the cathedral to see 
 the slab under which lies that stiff and 
 self-asserting heart which sustained the 
 widow so long in a perpetual duel with 
 Richelieu." 
 
 " I admire a stout-hearted widow of all 
 things. You may go on, Hohenfels." 
 
 "Marie de Medicis," pursued the baron, 
 "was rather hard-hearted than stout- 
 hearted, I fancy — like one of the mothers- 
 in-law you find in Thackeray. On the 
 French coins of her regency she has thin 
 lips, and a pinched nose that looks as if 
 it were red. However, the unfortunate 
 soul had her troubles, and crept about 
 through England and Holland telling 
 the rulers that she was a widow who had 
 seen better days." 
 
 " Poor queen !" said I — " poor Ariadne ! 
 Go on, my dear Hohenfels. Did they not 
 find her a Dionysos and an apotheosis ?" 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 249 
 
 " It appears they only found her a gar- 
 ret. Her apotheosis had been painted 
 by Rubens. And I will go on, an it 
 please you. If you recollect, Flemming, 
 when we were lads and you wrote 
 a book about us, you gave your- 
 self all the eloquent speeches. ,== 
 Now that we are grown, and are L^^ 
 simply talking for conversation, I pHB 
 mean to take my fling." 
 
 " It was only because you were 
 such a pump, Hohenfels. Where 
 I talked pages you talked oceans. 
 If I had undertaken to report you, 
 I should have written a library 
 instead of a book." 
 
 "I went to see the slab that 
 covers her heart, Flemming. 
 While I looked a poor match-girl 
 entered the cathedral, set down 
 her sulphurous basket on the 
 heart of Marie de Medicis, said 
 a prayer or two, and went out 
 absolved. The interior was 
 thronged with Christ's poor. 
 The scene was a rare one, Paul. 
 I looked around me in the gold- 
 en altar- lights. I thought I was 
 in a forest — a forest at sunset. 
 The choir was almost filled with 
 rising incense, touched with the 
 yellow flare of the tapers, and 
 it seemed through the columns 
 like a vista into the clouds. The 
 grand stems of the arcades rose 
 thickly crowded, only they fell 
 into a natural order and align- 
 ment like the trunks of pines : 
 overhead they rolled to meet each other, 
 breaking out everywhere into stiff, thick- 
 set needles and tufts of Gothic - work. 
 Vast patches and shields of prismatic 
 hues lay rounded against their mighty 
 cylinders. But this forest was not a sol- 
 itude : it was crowded with speechless 
 figures, thick as thoughts. And it was 
 not silent, or simply whisper -haunted, 
 like the real woods. It was all inflated 
 and swelled and dazzled and broken with 
 pomps of organ-music that almost over- 
 came the heart, and made the pillars 
 seem to reel and the painted windows to 
 rock in the Jove-like storm. The beauty 
 of the cathedral is that it is not finished. 
 
 A Gothic church ought to be ever grow- 
 ing, like the branching laces of the forest. 
 If a day should come when we could say, 
 It is done, why, then we would seem to say, 
 
 INCOMPLETE GREATNESS. 
 
 It is dead. And that is just the difference 
 between the cathedral and the basilica. 
 The Northern architecture has in it the 
 forest's life and its voice. The Italian ba- 
 silica, an immense cube with a triangular 
 pediment, is fixed like a crystal, and if 
 it is not finished it is unmeaning. Your 
 basilica, founded on the old Roman law- 
 court, is something arrested and positive. 
 Your cathedral, founded on old primitive 
 woodland rites, I suppose — what is the 
 Gothic founded on, Paul ? — is full of as- 
 piration and unachieved desires. The 
 former is Authority — the latter, Love." 
 
 This lecture of the baron's, which I 
 cannot be accused of cheapening in the 
 
250 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 recital, occupied us till dusk, and I felt it 
 incumbent on myself, as Charles's body- 
 servant, to return and see how that wor- 
 thy was getting on. He was found at a 
 window overlooking the bridge, a bowl 
 on his knee containing his second sup- 
 per, and his eyes fixed on a cart that was 
 going across to Deutz filled with lambs 
 tied together — the poor little involuntary 
 criminals ! The observation made by 
 Charles was that the nourishment in this 
 hotel was very good, and that he feared 
 he should not be able to leave before 
 morning. 
 
 I was burning to attain Marly, where I 
 meant, in the security of home, to make 
 
 a full confidant and fellow-plotter of 
 Hohenfels, as yet very imperfectly ac- 
 quainted with my heart-history in rela- 
 tion to the Dark Ladye. We filled in the 
 evening with a concert, where the invo- 
 lutions of Wagner's compositions allow- 
 ed me to dream undisturbed, as you may 
 beneath a headless and tailless sermon. 
 The most comprehensible morceau was 
 the Adelaide, grandly sung by an emi- 
 nent tenor, but I spoiled it in the hearing, 
 for into its noble polysyllabic continuity 
 I was ever trying to fit the two soft ac- 
 cents of " Mary." 
 
■£>J±RT ZIX. 
 
 TYING UP THE CLEWS 
 
 CiESAR S PENNY. 
 
 IN leaving Cologne for Aix-la-Chapelle 
 you turn your back to the river — a 
 particular which suited my mood well 
 enough. The railway bore us away from 
 the Rhine-shore at an abrupt angle, and 
 in my notion the noble Germanic god- 
 dess or image seemed at this point to 
 recede with grand theatric strides, like a 
 divinity of the stage backing away from 
 her admirers over the billowy whirlpool 
 of her own skirts. As I dreamed we 
 penetrated the tunnel of Konigsdorf, 
 which is fifteen hundred yards long, and 
 
 which seemed to me sufficiently pro- 
 tracted to contain the slumber of Bar- 
 barossa. The thought gave me a useful 
 hint, and I fell into a light sleep, while 
 Charles and Hohenfels pervaded the 
 darkness merely by their perfumes — 
 the former with whiffs at a concealed 
 bottle of Farina, the latter with a pastille 
 counterfeiting the incense of the cathe- 
 dral. In a couple of hours from the 
 Hotel de Hollande we reached Aachen, 
 as the fond natives call the burgh so dear 
 to Charlemagne. Deprived of that mag- 
 
 251 
 
252 
 
 THE NEW IlYrEKION. 
 
 nificent mirror, the Rhine, the pretty 
 towns throughout this part of Germany 
 seem but like country belles. We should 
 hardly have paused at Aix but for the 
 
 HE THRONED CORPSE. 
 
 sake of affording a rest to Charles, who 
 grew worse whenever lunch -time com- 
 peted with railway-time. As for the dull 
 little city, for us it was a wilderness, with 
 the blank cleanliness of the desert, ex- 
 cept in so far as it was informed and pop- 
 ulated by the memory of Charlemagne. 
 Here he died, and entered his tomb in 
 the church himself had founded. Into 
 this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. 
 dared to penetrate in the year 997, im- 
 pelled by a motive of vile and varlet-like 
 curiosity. They say the dead monarch 
 confronted his living visitor in the great 
 marble chair in which he had been seat- 
 ed at his own command, haughty and 
 inflexible as in life, the ivory sceptre in 
 his ivory fingers, his white skull crowned 
 with the diadem of gold. The peeping 
 
 emperor looked upon him with awe, half 
 afraid of the mysterious and penetrating 
 shadows that reached forth out of his 
 rayless eyes. Before he left, however, he 
 peered about, touched the scep- 
 tre and the throne, fingered this 
 and that, and having, as it were, 
 trimmed the nails and combed 
 the beard of the great spectre, re- 
 tired with a valet's bow. Observ- 
 ing that Charlemagne had lost 
 most of his nose, he caused it to 
 be replaced in gold very delicate- 
 ly chiseled and enchased. The 
 sacrilege was repeated by Fred- 
 erick Barbarossa in 1165, who 
 went farther and forced Charle- 
 magne to get up from his chair 
 before him. The corpse, in ris- 
 ing, fell in pieces, which have 
 been dispersed through Europe 
 as relics. We saw such of them 
 as remain here at the Chapelle. I 
 was allowed, for about the equiv- 
 alent of an American dollar, to 
 measure the Occidental emperor's 
 leg — they call it his arm. And 
 then, as a makeweight in the bar- 
 gain, the venal sacristan placed 
 in my hands the head of Charle- 
 magne. 
 
 I thought Hohenfels would have 
 sunk to the ground with disgust. 
 He colored deeply and dragged 
 me into the air. "I am ashamed 
 of every drop of German blood in my 
 veins," he cried. "What are we to think 
 of the commerce of these wretches, for 
 whom the very wounds of Caesar are the 
 lips of a money-box ?" 
 
 I had given back the skull, as Hamlet 
 returns the skull of Yorick to the grave- 
 digger, and was dusting my fingers with 
 a handkerchief, as hundreds of Ham- 
 lets have dusted theirs. I said, " ' Thrift, 
 thrift, Horatio.' " 
 
 " At Kreutzberg there are twenty monks 
 on the counter ! This morning, at St. 
 Ursula's, it was the eleven thousand 
 virgins, their skulls ranged like Dutch 
 cheeses above our heads or in rows 
 around the walls, with a battery-full of 
 them in the neighboring apartment, like 
 a cheesemonger's reserved magazine. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION 
 
 53 
 
 Here, the very leader of modern ideas, 
 the creator of our form of civilization, is 
 shown for so many pennies to any gro- 
 cer who wants to weigh the 
 head of a king ! Profanation ! 
 Barbarians! Philistines!" 
 
 I turned rather hastily, 
 while my hands were yet 
 clammy with the skull, think- 
 ing that this accusation of 
 Philistinism was aimed at me. 
 But Hohenfels thought of 
 nothing less than of a per- 
 sonality, being in his cloud- 
 iest mood of generalization. 
 So I only concealed the hand- 
 kerchief, while I said, as easily 
 as I might, "You need not 
 accuse your German blood, 
 for I have lived long enough 
 in my American's Paradise to 
 know that civilized Paris is 
 considerably worse in this 
 particular respect, with the 
 addition of a certain goblin 
 levity particularly French. 
 How often have I seen babies 
 frightened by the skulls in 
 the dentists' windows, with 
 their cynical chewing action ! 
 It is said that a child sat next 
 a dentist's apprentice once in 
 an omnibus, and was observed 
 to turn rigid, fixed and white, 
 but unable to speak : he had 
 sat on one of these skulls, and it had 
 bitten him. Silver -mounted skulls set 
 as goblets, in imitation of Byron, are 
 to be seen at any of the china - shops 
 rubbing against the chaste cheeks of 
 the old maid's teacup. Skeletons are 
 sold, bleached and with gilded hinges, 
 to the medical students, who buy the 
 pale horrors as openly as meerschaum 
 pipes. Have I not often found young 
 Grandstone supping among his doctors' 
 apprentices of the Ober restaurant after 
 theatre-hours, a skeleton in the corner 
 filled with umbrellas like a hall - rack, 
 and crowned with the triple or quintuple 
 tiara of the girls' best bonnets? Ay, Mi- 
 mi Pinson's cap has known what it is to 
 perch on the bony head of Death. The 
 juxtaposition is but an emblem. The 
 
 sewing -girl, like Hood's shirtmaker, 
 scarcely fears the ' phantom of grisly 
 bone.' Poor Francine ! where have you 
 
 taken _y<?wr artisanne's cap to, I wonder? 
 Are you left alone, all alone again, and 
 thinking of the pretty solitude you have 
 left behind you at Carlsruhe ? Who uses 
 those polished keys now ?" 
 
 Hohenfels interrupted me, complain- 
 ing that my monologue was uninterest- 
 ing and diffuse, and was interfering with 
 the railway time-table. But I finished it 
 in the car: "And the railway! What 
 has a person of fixed and independent 
 habits to do with railways but to growl 
 at them ? Before I was tempted upon 
 the railway by that impertinent engineer 
 at Noisy, I got up and sat down when I 
 liked, ate wholesome food at my own 
 hours, and was contented at home. Con- 
 fusion to him who made me the victim 
 of his engineering calculations ! Con- 
 
254 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 fusion to Grandstone and his nest of ser- 
 pents at Epernay ! Did they not intro- 
 duce me to Fortnoye, who has doubly 
 destroyed my peace ? Where are the 
 
 conspirators, that I may pulverize them 
 with my maledictions?" 
 
 This question — which Hohenfels called 
 peevish as he buried himself in his book 
 
 — was not answered until we had passed 
 Verviers, Chaudfontaine and Liege. I was 
 aroused from a sulky slumber in the sta- 
 tion at Brussels by Hohenfels, who said, 
 in his musical scolding way, like the busy 
 wheeze of a clicking music-box, "You 
 may say what you like, with your left- 
 handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, 
 and you may praise Ariadnes and wid- 
 ows to the end of the chapter. You are 
 sorry at this moment not to be at Eper- 
 nay to see the destroyer of your peace 
 married : you had rather assist at the 
 making of a wife than at the making of 
 a widow." 
 
 I was just sending Fortnoye to the 
 gloomiest shades of Acheron when a 
 strong hand entered the carriage-door, 
 helped me handsomely down the steps, 
 and then began warmly to shake my own. 
 Fortnoye ! — Fortnoye in flesh and blood 
 was before me. While my mouth was yet 
 filled with maledictions he began to pour 
 out a storm of thanks with all his own 
 particular warmth, expressing the most 
 effusive gratitude for the trouble I had 
 taken in forsaking my route to be his 
 
 wife's bridesmaid. That is what he call- 
 ed it. "She has but one other," said 
 Fortnoye. At the same time I began to 
 recognize other faces not unknown to me, 
 crudely illuminated by the raw colors of 
 the railway-lights. They all had black 
 wedding -suits and enormous buttonhole 
 nosegays of orange - flowers. I picked 
 them out, with a particular recognition for 
 each : 'twas the civil engineer of Noisy ; 
 the short gentleman named Somerard ; 
 James Athanasius Grandstone, with his 
 saintly aureole upon him in the shape 
 of a Yankee wide-awake ; the nameless 
 mutes, or rather chorus, of the cham- 
 pagne-crypt; in short, my nest of ser- 
 pents in all its integrity. Still entangled 
 with my slumbers, I hesitated to respond 
 to the friendly hands that were every- 
 where thrust centripetally toward me. 
 
 I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He 
 was chuckling. 
 
 At Heidelberg, making the acquaint- 
 ance of M. Fortnoye contemporaneously 
 with my departure, he had become more 
 enthralled than he ever confessed to this 
 radiant traveler — whom he called a 
 
THE NEW HYPER I OX. 
 
 255 
 
 packman, but regarded as a Mercury — 
 and his pretty scheme of matrimony in 
 motion. Even now, if I can believe my 
 eyes, he goes up to the " vintner " and 
 "peddler" of his objurgations, and meek- 
 ly whispers into his ear with the air of a 
 conspirator reporting a plot to his chief. 
 Having engaged to produce me at the 
 wedding of Fortnoye, and finding me 
 unexpectedly recusant, he had adopted 
 a little stratagem for bringing me to the 
 scene while thinking to escape from it. 
 
 "Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave 
 it up. It only remained for me to return 
 all round, after five minutes of petrified 
 stupidity, the hand-grasps that had been 
 offered from every quarter of the com- 
 pass-box. 
 
 Next morning, at an early hour, I was 
 interrupted by a knock, just as Charles 
 had buttoned my gaiters and the young 
 man from the perruquier's (who had 
 stolen in with that air of delicacy and of 
 almost literary refinement which belongs 
 to his gentle profession) had lathered 
 me. A nick he gave my chin at the 
 shock made my countenance all argent 
 and gules, and the visitor entering saw 
 me thus emblazoned, while the barber 
 and Charles, "like two wild men sup- 
 porters of a shield," could only stare at 
 the untimely apparition. 
 
 " Do you know him, Charles ?" I asked, 
 not recognizing my guest, and putting 
 over my painted face a mask of wet tow- 
 eling. 
 
 "I know him intimately," replied my 
 jester-in-ordinary: " I would thank Mon- 
 sieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do 
 you remember, monsieur, a sort of beg- 
 gar, with a wagon and a stylish horse 
 and a pretty wife, who limped a bit with 
 his right hand, or perhaps his left hand ? 
 Does monsieur know what I mean ? He 
 used to come and see us at Passy ; and 
 monsieur even had some traffic with him 
 in a little matter of two chickens." 
 
 "Father Joliet!" I cried. 
 
 "Present!" shouted the personage thus 
 designated at my appeal to his name. 
 I turned round, toweled, and he grasped 
 my hands. The unusual hour, appropri- 
 ate as I supposed only to some porter 
 or other stipendiary visitor of my hotel, 
 
 caused to shine out with startling reful- 
 gence the morning splendors in which 
 Papa Joliet had arrayed himself. He 
 wore a courtly dress, appropriate to the 
 
 PERRUQUIER. 
 
 most formal possible ceremony ; his black 
 suit was glossy ; his hat was glossy ; his 
 varnished pumps were more than glossy 
 — they were phosphorescent. Gloves only 
 were wanting to his honest hands. 
 
 Soaped, napkined and generally ex- 
 tinguished, I could only stammer, " You 
 here in Brussels ? What a droll meet- 
 ing!" 
 
 "Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with 
 a huge surprise, which lasted him all 
 through his next sentence. "I come 
 here to marry my daughter. Everything 
 is ready ; we count on your presence at 
 the wedding; the lawyer has drawn up 
 the contract ; and the breakfast is now 
 cooking at the best restaurant in the 
 place." 
 
 " Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet !" 
 I exclaimed. And, going back to my 
 apprehensions at her furtive disappear- 
 ance from Carlsruhe, and to my conjec- 
 tures of some amorous mystery between 
 her and her Yankee traducer, Kraaniff, 
 I added gravely, "It is very creditable !" 
 
256 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 " How, creditable — and droll ?" repeat- 
 ed the honest man, evidently much sur- 
 prised at my own accumulating surprises. 
 " Did not you hear?" 
 
 "Not the faintest word," I said, "but I 
 am none the less gratified to find this 
 
 FATHER JOLIET. 
 
 affair ending, as it should, in the presence 
 of a lawyer. As for your wedding-invi- 
 tation, my good friend, you are a little 
 tardy in delivering it, for it is exactly to- 
 day that I am obliged to attend at the 
 marriage of one of my friends, M. Fort- 
 noye." 
 
 "Ah, that is a good joke !" cried Joliet, 
 breaking into an explosion of laughter 
 and clapping me pleasantly on the shoul- 
 der — an action which caused a slight 
 frown on the -part of Charles. "You 
 always would have your jest, Monsieur 
 the American ! Tease me and scare me 
 as much as you like : I like these hoaxes 
 better before a wedding than after. Hold 
 that," he added, extending his hand as 
 if it were a piece of merchandise. 
 
 I "held" it, and he went on, dwelling 
 slowly on his words : " If you are at Henri 
 Fortnoye's wedding you will be at Fran- 
 cine Joliet's also, for both of these per- 
 sons are to be married at one church." 
 
 "Impossible!" I exclaimed, dropping 
 the hand and stepping back. 
 
 "What ! again ?" said Joliet, his man- 
 ly face visibly darkening. " Droll ! and 
 creditable ! and impossible ! Why im- 
 possible ?" Then he dropped his head 
 and looked angrily at the floor. "Ah, 
 yes, even you," he said, his eyes still fix- 
 ed on the boards, "believed that a French 
 girl, trained as French girls are trained, 
 would flirt and expose herself to remark ; 
 and all on account of such a man as 
 your compatriot, the other American ! 
 Well ! well ! you ought to know your 
 countrymen best." 
 
 "I know of no harm," I interposed 
 hastily. " I should always have thought 
 Kraaniff hard to swallow as a mere mat- 
 ter of taste. I can but recollect, Father 
 Joliet," I went on more seriously, "that 
 the last time I met you you begged me 
 not to talk of Francine if I would not 
 break your heart. I have to add to this 
 the news brought me from Heidelberg, 
 that this Kraaniff was a serpent who 
 had fascinated some young girl for an 
 approaching meal. — How dare you, 
 Charles," I cried suddenly, recalled to 
 the consciousness of his presence by 
 this souvenir of his oratory, "stand here 
 staring ? Show the young man out di- 
 rectly, and pay him." 
 
 I will not answer for Charles's having 
 got much farther away than the door. 
 Joliet continued: "But his aunt knows 
 him now for what he is. Kraaniff, say 
 you ? I call him Kranich, though he 
 had better change his baptismal record 
 
 THE CATECHISM. 
 
 than disgrace one of the best nam~s m 
 Brussels." 
 
 " Frau Kranich, then, my old friend, is 
 really his aunt?" 
 
 "Madame Kranich, whom I have 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 257 
 
 known in your parlor, is really Fran- 
 cine's godmother. Did you never know 
 of all her secret kindness ? That rigid 
 lady would commit a perjury to deny 
 one of her own good actions. Young 
 Kranich has written her a letter con- 
 fessing his lies. Don't you know ? 
 The very same day when you were 
 determined to fight him in a duel — " 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," I said, a little 
 confused. "We will change the sub- 
 ject and leave my ferocity alone. Let 
 us understand one another. In regard 
 to Fortnoye's marriage, was there not 
 some talk of a Madame Ashburleigh ?" 
 
 " I believe you. Madame Ashbur- 
 leigh is the very key of the manoeuvre. 
 Madame Ashburleigh — don't you per- 
 ceive ? — lost a child." ^ 
 
 " For that matter, she has lost four. 
 I know the lady confidentially, and 
 she told me their histories and pres- 
 ent address. Lucia lies in Glasgow, 
 Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo sleeps 
 somewhere hereabout, as well as an- 
 other nameless little dear." 
 
 "She is a good woman. She has 
 collected all her proofs, and has come 
 hither with them voluntarily — has per- 
 haps already arrived. Brussels, where 
 two of her marmots rest, is one of her 
 most frequent stations. That censori- 
 ous Madame Kranich made a scene, but 
 she had to yield to conviction." 
 
 "A censorious Madame Kranich ! Is 
 the young duelist married?" 
 
 "What? No, no! It is Francine's 
 guardian I speak of. Of late years she 
 has become a sort of Puritan abbess, 
 seeking the Protestant society which 
 abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her 
 husband, whom they say she used to 
 drug with opium." 
 
 "Then is she not Kranich's aunt?" 
 
 "Oh yes, an aunt by marriage ; but he 
 is not her nephew : I will die before I 
 call him so." 
 
 " Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You 
 are as full of information as an oracle, 
 but you are not coherent. This month 
 past I have been hunting down a chi- 
 msra, a hydra with a dozen heads : each 
 head shows me by turn the portrait of 
 Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or 
 17 
 
 Kranich, or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever 
 since Noisy I have been meandering 
 through the folds of a mystery. My 
 
 FRAU KRANICH. 
 
 head is turning with it. If you want to 
 save me from distraction, sit down in 
 this chair and answer me a long cate- 
 chism, without saying a word but in re- 
 ply to my questions." 
 
 " I am sure I talk as plain as a pro- 
 fessor. Look ! You frightened me at 
 first with your doubts and your impos- 
 sibilities. You have only to make Kra- 
 nich's aunt agree with Francine's guard- 
 ian, and at the same time forgive Fran- 
 cine's husband for having assumed the 
 undertaker's bill for Madame Ashbur- 
 leigh's baby." 
 
 "Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are 
 clearer than Euclid." And I adminis- 
 tered a category of questions. Joliet, 
 with his fatherly joy bursting out of him 
 in the longest of parentheses, kept quiet 
 in his refulgent shoes and answered as 
 well as he could. 
 
 Francine, he protested, had never beer 
 
258 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 a flirt (I have met no Frenchmen who 
 were ignorant of that one English word, 
 to which they give a new value by pro- 
 nouncing it in a very orotund manner, 
 as flort). When she came to be ten 
 
 " TO MY ARMS," 
 
 or twelve, Frau Kranich — until then a 
 well-preserved lioness with an appetite 
 for society — ceased to give her dolls and 
 promised to give her an education. At 
 the same time, the banker's widow left 
 Paris, and repaired with her charge to 
 Brussels, where the little girl received 
 some good half-Jesuitical, half-English 
 schooling, of the kind suggested in the 
 Bronte novels. Her diploma attained, 
 Francine begged to accompany her Eng- 
 lish teacher back to London : she wished 
 to become a meess, she said, and be com- 
 petent to teach like a new Hypatia. She 
 had hardly bidden her kind protectress 
 adieu when Frau Kranich's nephew ar- 
 rived at Brussels, exceedingly dissatisfied 
 with his American business in the bar- 
 rooms of the grand duke of Mississippi. 
 A sordid jealousy of Mademoiselle Joliet's 
 claims upon his aunt took possession of 
 this prudent spirit. He took up a watch- 
 post at a university town on the Rhine. 
 He began to whisper vague exaggera- 
 tions of her coquetries and liveliness, 
 which the Protestant circle that revolved 
 about Madame Kranich did not fail to 
 bear in to her. This lady admired her 
 nephew, sure that his want of manners 
 
 was the sign of a noble frankness. She 
 wrote to Francine, bidding her come im- 
 mediately from London. The girl not 
 replying, the hopeful nephew was put 
 upon her track. He went away. His 
 letters from England reported that Fran- 
 cine was no longer in that country, but 
 was probably come back to Belgium. 
 "I know not in what suburb of Brussels 
 our very independent miss may this in- 
 stant be hiding," he wrote. 
 
 About the same time, in the circle of 
 French exiles at Brussels, a young ro- 
 mantiquc named Fortnoye was reported 
 as weeping and lavishing statues over the 
 grave of an unknown infant in the church- 
 yard at Laaken. It was a delicious mys- 
 tery. Kind meddlers approached the 
 sexton, who said that all he knew of the 
 babe's mother was that she was a beau- 
 tiful lady from London. Kranich car- 
 ried the story dutifully to his aunt, add- 
 ing his own ingenious surmise: "Can 
 Francine have become sufficiently Angli- 
 cised to contract secret marriages with 
 roving revolutionists, and scamper about 
 the country with ardent young French- 
 men in the style of Gretna Green ?" In 
 fact, it was really from London that Mrs. 
 Ashburleigh was proceeding, for the pur- 
 pose of taking care, in the Rhenish city 
 where he was dying, of her handsome, 
 dissipated, worthless husband. Taken 
 suddenly ill at Brussels, she left her in- 
 fant to the unequaled chill of a strange, 
 unknown cemetery, hastening thence 
 with tears and despair to the bedside 
 where duty called her. 
 
 Has my reader forgotten the dim, tear- 
 swollen story which I heard — not at all 
 improved in the telling — from my gen- 
 erous young friend Grandstone — how an 
 impulsive Frenchman had laid to rest, 
 in flowers and evergreens, the unnamed 
 baby of a woman he had never seen ? 
 Jealous as I was of Fortnoye, I never 
 could think without tenderness of this 
 singular action. To make the tomb of 
 this helpless Innocence the young man 
 braved the curiosity of his comrades — 
 despised the rumor, the obloquy, and, 
 hardest of all, the jests. Well has the 
 wise dramatist decided that Ophelia must 
 needs be laid in Yorick's bed 1 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 259 
 
 Poor Francine, gay, frivolous, inno 
 cently vain of her little travesty of Eng 
 lish behavior, found her accomplish- 
 ments and graces received by her 
 guardian's circle with incomprehen- 
 sible coldness. Hurt and humiliated, 
 she asked to pay a visit to her father. 
 The honest rustic received her with a 
 miserable confusion of doubt and se- 
 verity, for her escapade to England 
 had never pleased him, and her re- 
 turn from her godmother's home wore 
 to him the air of a repudiation. At 
 her father's house, however, she was 
 discovered by Fortnoye, who had 
 never heard the ingenious Kranich's 
 theory of his own private wedding 
 with Francine, and who thought to 
 find in her the veiled unknown of the 
 cemetery. He saw for the first time, 
 in the flowery home at Noisy, that 
 fresh ingenuous beauty, a little over- 
 cast with disappointment. His gen- ^ 
 erous nature was touched ; and, with 
 his talent for administration and plan- 
 ning, he conceived the idea of estab- 
 lishing Francine in the pretty bird's 
 nest -at Carlsruhe, distant alike from 
 the strongholds of her calumniators, 
 Belgium and France. 
 
 Fortnoye now had an object in life. 
 "There is a very young person in the 
 cemetery of Laaken who is much in need 
 of a chaperone," he said. The frank 
 proofs of his own relations with this 
 churchyard would not only do credit to 
 his own reputation, but would gratify the 
 best friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and 
 at least one other lady. To attain these 
 proofs he had to step over the coiling, 
 writhing bodies of a whole nest of ru- 
 mors. When he seized by the throat 
 the especial slander that he himself was 
 the husband of the babe's mother, he 
 found written on its crest the signature 
 of John Kranich. He sought the aunt. 
 This lady gave him several interviews, 
 the Lutheran prayer-book for ever in her 
 hand. " Why does the dear girl not come 
 to me ?" she would say, weeping, but 
 she refused to hear a word against her 
 precious nephew, the personification of 
 bluff frankness. As if to make crushing 
 him impossible, young Kranich had now 
 
 withdrawn to America, leaving his rep- 
 utation in that best possible protection, 
 
 THE FUTURE OF FFARINA. 
 
 the chivalry that is extended toward the 
 absent. Fortnoye was baffled. " I will 
 ask the baby at its tomb for its mother's 
 and father's name," he cried. In the 
 pretty God's Acre he found a fresh har- 
 vest of flowers and a new statue over 
 the well-known grave. It was a pretty 
 miniature of Thorwaldsen's Psyche, on 
 which the proud copyist had inscribed 
 his name. A respectful correspondence 
 with Mrs. Ashburleigh, to whom he was 
 guided by the sculptor, and who was now 
 taking the waters at Wildbad, soon put 
 the whole tangled story to rights. Fort- 
 noye had the happiness of conducting 
 Francine, by this time his affianced wife, 
 to the good Frau Kranich, who, con- 
 vinced that she had wrongly judged her, 
 threw her arms ardently around her re- 
 covered jewel, letting the eternal little 
 book fly from her hand like a projectile. 
 "But the most singular part of the 
 story," concluded Father Joliet, "is the 
 
260 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 letter which Fortnoye, after two or three 
 quarrels, forced out of young Kranich 
 when the latter had returned to Europe, 
 full of triumph and debts, to take pos- 
 session of his aunt for the rest of his 
 life. Here it is," added the good man, 
 opening a pocket-book. "The hand- 
 writing is drunken, but the sense is clear 
 as Seltzer-water. The scholars tell me 
 in vino Veritas est, but it appears to me 
 that truth really comes out in the repent- 
 ance and headache that follow." 
 
 " My dear Aunt " (ran the letter which 
 Charles had seen forced from the alliga- 
 tor after his unlucky game of dominoes) : 
 
 "You have known me as the soul of 
 candor. It is this happy quality which 
 compels me to state (for I am something 
 of a Rousseau) that if I ever playfully 
 accused your pretty pet Francine of be- 
 ing a flirt, I knew nothing about it. The 
 best proof is that she absolutely refused 
 to join her expectations with mine, though 
 I am something of an Adonis. If you 
 believed that she and the wine-peddler 
 had made a match, I pity your credulity 
 and ignorance of human nature. I am 
 certain that neither the peddler nor my- 
 self would touch the enterprise until you 
 had shown exactly what you would (pe- 
 cuniarily) do. For my part, I have act- 
 
 HOHENFELS FAILURE. 
 
 ed throughout on the most exact and ad- 
 vanced scientific principles. Intending 
 to modify the spirit-trade in America, 
 and especially to introduce the exclusive 
 agency of the Farina essences, I found 
 that the sinew particularly needed for this 
 leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your 
 bounties toward Francine, I at first pro- 
 posed matrimony. This offer was made 
 without any enmity toward the girl, as 
 my next move was without affection, 
 though it seems to be resulting to her 
 benefit. I became her accuser as coolly 
 as I had been her lover. Passion has 
 nothing to do with the combinations of 
 strategic genius : I am something of a 
 Washington. My theory of her clandes- 
 tine marriage was one of the most mas- 
 terly fictions of the age — a plot worthy 
 of Thackeray. If I could have succeed- 
 ed in mutilating the statue in the grave- 
 
 yard, I might have carried it, while you 
 would have admired my act of icono- 
 clasm with all your Puritan nature. In 
 the momentary abandonment of my 
 plans, owing to the machinations of my 
 enemies, you will conceive that I am not 
 very rich. My college-debts and other 
 expenses I am obliged to leave for your 
 kind attention. The main point of this 
 letter, which M. Fortnoye has persuaded 
 me to set down as distinctly as in my 
 present feeble state I can, is that Fran- 
 cine is a pretty little maid who has nev- 
 er passed by Gretna Green. There ! that 
 is my credo, and I will subscribe to it, 
 "Your loving nephew, John. 
 
 " P. S. Address, with such an enclosure 
 as your generosity will prompt, Jean K. 
 Ffarina, sole representative and cos- 
 metical chemist in America on behalf of 
 the Farinas of Cologne, at New Orleans, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 261 
 
 where I am going to beat my adversa- 
 ries like Old Hie — " 
 
 At this point the tipsy scrawl became 
 illegible. 
 
 " This is not a very handsome apology. 
 Did Fortnoye accept it?" I asked, turn- 
 ing over the clammy and mal- 
 odorous epistle. At this inquiry 
 the crack of the door widened and 
 Charles appeared, on fire with en- 
 thusiasm, and so possessed with 
 self-importance that he forgot the 
 betrayal of his indiscretion. 
 
 " I can reply to that question," 
 said Charles. "When M. Fort- 
 noye received the paper from the 
 duelist he read it over and said, 
 'You have meant to impose on 
 me, monsieur, with an incomplete 
 confession. But, in return for your 
 imperfect restoration of Made- 
 moiselle Joliet's portrait, you have 
 unconsciously set down such a 
 masterpiece of yourself that I am 
 certain your aunt will see you as 
 she never did before.' " 
 
 Charles, having thus added him- 
 self to our cabal without rebuke, 
 took a lively interest in what fol- 
 lowed. The proud father contin- 
 ued : " My son-in-law, after some 
 business preliminaries, wrote me a 
 handsome letter demanding what he had 
 already effectively possessed himself of. 
 I wrote to Francine, already returned to 
 her duties, to be a good girl and make 
 her husband obey her in all things." 
 
 "That may have been," said I, "what 
 made Francine take to laughing all day 
 and all night, as I heard she did some 
 little time after my departure from her 
 house. The next news of her," I pur- 
 sued, "was that she had been spirited 
 away by some sly old kidnapper. I 
 almost suspected Kranich." 
 
 "The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laugh- 
 ing heartily at the compliment, "is the 
 man now talking to you. I wanted to 
 take Francine to her godmother. I turn- 
 ed the key in the door at Carlsruhe, set 
 the geographers all upon their travels to 
 explore new worlds, and we have been 
 living ever since quite close to Ma- 
 
 dame Kranich, who treats me like an 
 emperor." 
 
 It was easy now to understand why 
 the young Kranich, as soon as he could 
 identify me as a protector of Francine, 
 had been thrown off his guard and tempt- 
 ed to attack me with his clumsy abuse. 
 
 READING THE CONTRACT. 
 
 It was not very mysterious, even, why 
 he had wished all handsome girls to be 
 drowned in the Rhine. For him a pret- 
 ty damsel was simply a rival in trade. 
 
 Had I stopped at Wildbad with the 
 party of orpheonists, I should have en- 
 countered rather sooner the fatal beau- 
 ties of Mary Ashburleigh. It was to 
 meet her that Fortnoye had paused at 
 that resort, considering her introduction 
 to Frau Kranich almost indispensable 
 to the success of his scheme. She had 
 no hesitation in following the protecting 
 angel of her lost child. "My object in 
 this journey is a happy marriage," she 
 had told me when to my unworthy care 
 her guardianship had been transferred. 
 If I timorously suspected the marriage 
 to be her own, whose fault was it but 
 mine ? My heart leaped up at the suc- 
 cessive stages of this recital, its hopes 
 
262 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 confirmed by every additional fact : the 
 Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free. 
 Fortnove, I should surmise, was not too 
 
 INTERRUPTED REPOS 
 
 desirous to abandon this magnificent 
 companion at Schwetzingen ; but the 
 serpent, he knew, was left behind, in 
 company with two or three of his and 
 my friends : it was necessary to take the 
 youth by the ear, as it were, and dismiss 
 him from the country, without loss of 
 time, to his future of counter-jumping. 
 His dueling experience may be of some 
 use to him among the bowie-knives of 
 Louisiana. If his subsequent path is 
 not strewn with roses, let him rejoice 
 that it is at least lubricated with cologne- 
 water. 
 
 An hour had passed, and into my 
 room from his own adjoining one now 
 ambled amicably my friend the baron. 
 He greeted Joliet as an old friend. Many 
 a smoking-match had they had in my 
 garden at Marly. But Hohenfels this 
 morning was in robes of state, with shoes 
 that shone even beside old Father Joliet's, 
 and as a concession to elegance he had 
 abandoned his cavernous pipes in favor 
 of cigarettes. A scroll of this descrip- 
 tion, flavored with his Cologne pastille 
 and very badly rolled, was trying to ex- 
 hale itself between his lips. 
 
 "What a genius for conversation you 
 have to-day, my Flemming ! This hour 
 I have rocked back and forth in bed, 
 trying to understand your observations 
 or to cover my ears and go to rest. 
 Your tongue has been like the tongue of 
 a monastery-bell summoning all hands to 
 
 penance." But I had hardly spoken ten 
 consecutive words. The ears of the bar- 
 on were this corning quite muffled, I 
 think, with the abundance of his hair, 
 which he had evidently been dressing 
 with an avalanche of soap and water, 
 for the topknot was as harsh and tight 
 >> as a felt. He had lemon-blossoms on 
 ^ his lappel and lemon kids on his fists. 
 ^ It was then I remembered that my 
 \ bags were all in the steamer, where 
 I had left them when surprised by 
 Charles's indisposition. My tin box 
 ; would possibly yield me a button- 
 j nosegay, but otherwise I might beat 
 my breast, like the wedding-guest in 
 the Ancient Mariner, for I heard the 
 summons and was unable to attend 
 in right attire. "We two must take 
 you out in the street and dress you," said 
 Hohenfels. 
 
 Although I had never been dressed in 
 the street, I yielded. It was a grand pub- 
 lic holiday, and the sounds of festivity, 
 which had floated into my chamber with 
 the entrance of Hohenfels, were in full 
 cadence outside. Everybody was pour- 
 ing out to the city-gate, or returning from 
 thence, where, in honor of some visit 
 from the king of the Belgians and count 
 and' countess of Flanders, a festival was 
 going on in imitation or rehearsal of the 
 grand annual kermesse. These festivals, 
 retained in Belgium 
 with a delightful fidel- 
 ity to the customs of 
 antique Brabant, 
 would fit the brush of 
 Teniers better than 
 the pen of a mere be- 
 wildered tourist. Still, 
 I will try, copying prin- 
 cipally from the re- 
 ports of Charles (who 
 contrives to peep at 
 everything, with an 
 interest whose amount 
 is in ratio with the ^^~^~-~ *~ 
 square of his distance COA1 ^ VSm coats. 
 from his master), to 
 give a few features of the scene, which 
 he spread in detail before the attentive 
 Josephine during many an evening after. 
 The principal fair-ground — though the 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 263 
 
 occasion crammed the whole city with 
 revelers — was just outside the gate. It 
 was a veritable town in miniature, with 
 a pattern of checker-board streets — Col- 
 umbine street, Polichinelle street, Avenue 
 des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of 
 the Chanson, and the like. There were 
 more than five hundred booths, all num- 
 bered — shops and restaurants. There 
 were the Salon Curtius, the Menagerie 
 Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the Cafe Bataclan, 
 the American Tavern. From one of the 
 little costumers' shops, Charles — with a 
 higher evincement of antiquarian taste 
 than I should have expected — managed 
 to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, 
 which I afterward conferred on Mary 
 Ashburleigh with great applause : it was 
 Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles 
 Dix, and was entirely covered with gi- 
 raffes in honor of that puissant and ele- 
 gant monarch. The above establish- 
 ments were near the entrance, to the 
 right. 
 
 At the left were more attractions: an- 
 other menagerie, a heap of ostensible 
 gold representing the five milliards paid 
 by France, a gallery of astonished wax 
 soldiers representing the Franco-Prussian 
 war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" con- 
 fectionery. Farther on, in the Theatre 
 Casti, was exposed the "renowned buf- 
 foon Peppino," breveted by His Majesty 
 the " king of Egypt ;" then came the Chi- 
 arini Theatre ; then the Theatre Adrien 
 Delille, an enchantingly pretty structure, 
 where receptions were given by a little 
 creature who should have sat under a 
 microscope: she was "the Princess Fe- 
 licia, aged thirteen, born at Clotat, near 
 Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes 
 and measuring forty-six centimetres — a 
 ravishing figure, admirably proportioned 
 in her littleness and tout a fait sympa- 
 thique" 
 
 The announcements were heard, it was 
 thought by Charles, to the very centre 
 of the city. A low-browed animal with 
 rasped hair was shouting, " Messieurs 
 and ladies, come and see — come and 
 see the theatre of the galleys ! The only 
 one in the world ! This is the place to 
 view the real instruments of torture used 
 on the prisoners — chains four yards long 
 
 and balls of thirty-five pounds. All au- 
 thentic, gentlemen and ladies. You will 
 see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon 
 who killed his father, Madame Cottin 
 
 THE JESTER AT THE FEAST. 
 
 who ate her baby. Come in, come in, 
 gentlemen and ladies ! Fifteen centimes ! 
 'Tis given away ! You enter and go out 
 when you like. Come in ! It is educa- 
 tional : you see vice and crime depicted 
 on the faces of the criminals !" 
 
 In another place a malicious Flemish 
 Figaro explained the analogy betwen een 
 sftimiekop and eene meisie, the perspi- 
 ration streaming over his face ; and my 
 ancient minnesinger's blood stirred with- 
 in me at the report of the pleasantries 
 which were improvised by this Rabelais 
 of the people, and I remembered that I 
 too was a Flemming. 
 
 The bands belonging to the different 
 booths tried to play each other down, 
 forming a stupefying charivari, with trib- 
 utary processions that quite overflowed 
 the city. The house of "confections" 
 yielded me no broadcloth of a cut or di- 
 mension suitable to my figure. But my 
 two friends chose me a hat, a light pale- 
 tot (my second purchase in that sort on 
 this eventful journey), a scented cambric 
 handkerchief, a rosebud, and a snowy 
 waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepul- 
 chre, I concealed the decay of my toilet. 
 These changes were judged to be suffi- 
 cient for my accoutrement. They might 
 have done very well, but on my way 
 back I paused at a lace-shop window to 
 inspect some present for Francine. A 
 band, with many banners and figures in 
 
264 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 masquerade, swept past, followed by a 
 shouting crowd. My friends lost me in 
 a moment, and I lost my way. I turned 
 into a street which I was sure led to the 
 
 ... : Mill 1'1,'H 
 
 ST. GUDULE. BRUSSELS. 
 
 hotel, gave it up for another, lost that 
 in a blind alley, and finally brought up 
 in a steep, narrow canon, where I was 
 forced to ask a direction. The passer- 
 by who obliged me was a man bearing 
 a bag of charcoal. He answered with a 
 ready intelligence that did honor to his 
 heart and his sense of Progressive Geog- 
 raphy. But he left on my white waist- 
 coat, alas ! a charcoal sketch, full of 
 chiaroscuro and coloris, representing his 
 index-finger surrounded with a sort of 
 cloud-effect. My waistcoat had to be 
 given over in favor of the elder garment 
 buttoned up in the all-concealing over- 
 coat. 
 
 The ceremonies of the day, I soon 
 found, were to consist in an early and 
 informal breakfast at the house of Frau 
 Kranich ; then the civil wedding at the 
 mayor's office, followed by the usual 
 church-service, from which the Protest- 
 ant godmother of Francine begged to be 
 excused ; the day to wind up with a gen- 
 eral dinner at a place of resort outside 
 the city at four o'clock, the usual dining- 
 hour in old Brabant. 
 
 The early breakfast gave a renewal 
 of my friendship with good Frau Kra- 
 nich and a glimpse of the bride, with her 
 sweet, patient, dewy face shadowed like 
 a honey-drop in the gauzy calyx of her 
 
 artisanne cap ; for she was in the sim- 
 plest of morning dresses — something 
 gray, with a clean white apron. The 
 quaint, old-fashioned house where we 
 met was decorated with 
 ^ exquisite trifles, the me- 
 
 morials of the mistress's 
 old fashionable taste, but 
 scattered over the tables 
 also were lecture pro- 
 grammes, hospital reports 
 and photographs of emi- 
 nent philosophers. As I 
 took up for a plaything a 
 gold pen-case, well used, 
 which rested on a mag- 
 nificent old fan, the Kra- 
 nich said, with just a rem- 
 iniscence of her former 
 vivacity, "You find me 
 much changed, Mr. Flem- 
 ming. I used to be the 
 grasshopper in the fable — now I am the 
 ant." 
 
 "I bless any change, ma'am," said I, 
 "which increases your kindness toward 
 this charming girl." 
 
 "Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty 
 Francine, "how nice and shabby you 
 look ! You will do admirably to stand by 
 a poor girl — so poor that she has hardly 
 a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indi- 
 gent as you were at Carlsruhe." Upon 
 this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her 
 waist from behind as I kissed her fore- 
 head. 
 
 The lawyer, a professionally bland old 
 man, with a porous bald head like an 
 emu's egg, said as he was introduced, 
 "Ah, I have heard of you before, mon- 
 sieur. You are the man of the two chick- 
 ens." 
 
 Joliet was so enchanted with this rare 
 joke, laughing and clapping all his near- 
 er neighbors on the back, that I could 
 not but accept it graciously. For this 
 exceptional day, at least, I must bear my 
 eternal nickname. Was not the maid 
 now present whose dower had been 
 hatched by those well -omened fowls? 
 and was not the dower now coming to 
 use ? Hohenfels paired off with the no- 
 tary, and discussed with that parchment 
 person the music of Mozart, and, what 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 265 
 
 would have been absurd and incredible 
 in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe 
 understood it ! 
 
 Our party had to wait but ten minutes 
 for the groom and his men. Fortnoye, 
 in a grand blue suit, 
 with a wondrous daz- 
 zle of frilling on his 
 broad chest, looked a 
 noble husband, but 
 was preoccupied and 
 silent. His chorus sup' 
 ported him — Grand- 
 stone, Somerard, my 
 engineer and the oth- 
 ers — in dignified black 
 clothes, official bou- 
 tonnieres and cere- 
 monial cravats: they 
 greeted Frau Kranich 
 with awe, and bowed 
 before the polished 
 head of the lawyer 
 with the parallelism of 
 ninepins. My little group of fellow-trav- 
 elers was almost complete. The young 
 duelist, of course, was not expected or 
 wanted. The Scotch doctor, Somerard 
 told me, had been obliged to fly to Lon- 
 don, where a mammoth meeting of the 
 homoeopathic faith was in progress. 
 
 The great feature of the breakfast came 
 on when every crumb of breakfast had 
 been eaten. Charles and the maid clear- 
 ed away the table, and the notary stood 
 up to read the marriage contract. The 
 reading, ordinarily a dull affair, was in 
 this instance vivified by curious incidents. 
 In the first place, Frau Kranich, amend- 
 ing the injustice her over -credulity had 
 caused, gave her protegee a wedding-pres- 
 ent of twenty thousand francs, accom- 
 panying the gift with some singularly tart 
 remarks about her nephew : this sum was 
 increased by the groom to sixty thousand. 
 The second incident was when Joliet, 
 amid the almost incredulous surprise of 
 the whole table, raised the gift, by the ad- 
 dition of ten thousand, to seventy thou- 
 sand francs : the money was the product 
 of his former house and garden — that 
 house of shreds and patches which had 
 cost him ten francs. When it came to 
 affixing the signatures, the notary appeal- 
 
 ed to Joliet for his name. He could not 
 sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of 
 pen-practice, but he responded to the 
 question as bold as a lion : "John Thom- 
 as Joliet, baron de Rouviere," throwing 
 
 SQUARE OF THE HOTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS. 
 
 to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers bear- 
 ing witness to the validity of the title ; 
 after which he added, no less proudly, 
 "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at 
 the sign of the Golden Chickens, Noisy." 
 
 In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully 
 borne the title of baron de Rouviere, but, 
 ruined by '48, had abandoned the prac- 
 tice of signing it. Joliet resumed it for 
 this special occasion, having every war- 
 rant for the act, but whispered to me that 
 he should never so call himself in future, 
 greatly preferring the enumeration of his 
 qualities on his business-card. 
 
 Poor Francine meanwhile had looked 
 so timid and blushed so that Frau Kra- 
 nich nodded to her permission of ab- 
 sence. She gave one glance at Fort- 
 noye, buried her face in her hands, 
 laughed a sweet little gurgle, and fled. 
 When her presence was again necessary, 
 she reappeared, drowned in white. We 
 went to the mayor's office, where she lost 
 a pretty little surname that had always 
 seemed to fit her like a glove ; then to 
 the church, an obscure one in the neigh- 
 borhood of Frau Kranich's house. But 
 at the door of the sacred edifice the elder 
 lady said, with much conciliatory grace 
 in her manner, "I claim exemption from 
 
266 
 
 THE AEW HYPERION. 
 
 
 
 
 witnessing this part of the ceremony ; and 
 you, Mr. Flemming, must resume or dis- 
 cover your Protestantism and enter the 
 carriage with me. I must show you a 
 little of the city while these young birds 
 are pairing." 
 
 No objection was made to this rather 
 strange proposal. The bride, between 
 her father and hus- 
 band, forgot that 
 she had no friend 
 of her own sex to 
 stand near her. 
 We arranged for a 
 general meeting at 
 the dinner. 
 
 In the carriage 
 she said, " I brought 
 you away because 
 I am devoured 
 with uneasiness. 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh 
 wrote me that she 
 would certainly be 
 here for at least the 
 principal part of 
 the ceremony. I do 
 not know what to 
 make of it. It may 
 be of no use, but we will scour the city. 
 These throngs, this noise, make me un- 
 easy. I fear some accident, having," she 
 added with a smile, "one lone woman's 
 sympathy for another lone woman." 
 
 I peered through the crowds at this, 
 right and left, with inexpressible emotion. 
 Perhaps this accidental sort of quest was 
 that which destiny had arranged for the 
 solution of my life-problem. To light 
 upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal 
 throngs, perhaps wanting assistance, per- 
 haps calling upon my name even now 
 through her velvet lips, was a chance the 
 mere notion of which made my blood 
 leap. 
 
 When Brussels gives herself over to 
 holiday-making, she does it in a whole- 
 souled and self-consistent way that has 
 plenty of attractiveness. The houses 
 seemed to have turned themselves inside 
 out to replenish the streets. People in 
 their best clothes, equipages, processions, 
 bands, troops of children, filled the av- 
 enues. Some conjecture that there might 
 
 
 JIVERS DIVERSIONS. 
 
 have been a mistake about the church 
 took us to the cathedral of St. Gudule. 
 Here, amid the superb spectrums of the 
 stained windows, we searched through 
 the vari-colored throngs that covered the 
 floor, but no familiar face looked upon 
 us. Strange to us as the old, impassive 
 monumental dukes of Brabant who oc- 
 cupy the niches, the people made way to 
 let us pass from the doorway between the 
 lofty brace of towers to the high altar, 
 which is a juggler's apparatus, and has 
 concealed machinery causing the sacred 
 wafer to come down seemingly of its 
 own accord at the moment when the 
 priest is about to lift the Host. All was 
 unfamiliar and splendid, and we came 
 away, feeling as if our own little wed- 
 ding-group would have been lost in so 
 magnificent a tabernacle. The Grande 
 Place, on which lay the wedge-like shad- 
 ow of the high-towered Hotel de Ville, 
 was perhaps as thronged a honeycomb 
 of buzzing populace as when Alva look- 
 ed out upon it to see the execution of 
 Egmont and Horn. Among all the good- 
 natured Netherlandish countenances that 
 paved the square there was none that re- 
 sponded to my own. 
 
 We drove vaguely through the princi- 
 pal streets, and then, baffled, made our 
 way to the faubourg in which is situated 
 the zoological garden, toward which a 
 considerable portion of the inhabitants 
 was going even as ourselves. At the en- 
 trance our carriage encountered that of 
 the bride and groom, and soon the whole 
 party of the breakfast-table assembled 
 by the gate, for the great coffee-rooms 
 at which our meal was laid were close 
 by the garden, and a promenade in this 
 famous living museum was a premedi- 
 tated part of the day's enjoyment. We 
 entered the grounds in character, frankly 
 putting forward our claims as a wedding- 
 procession. That is the delightful French 
 custom among those who are brought up 
 as Francine had been : her father would 
 have been heartbroken to have been de- 
 nied the proud exhibition of his joy, and 
 Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too 
 cosmopolitan, to object to a little family 
 pageant that he had seen equaled or ex- 
 ceeded in publicity in most of the Cath- 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 267 
 
 olic countries on the globe. Francine, 
 her artisanne cap for ever lost, her gleam- 
 ing dark hair set, like a Milky Way, with 
 a half wreath of orange-blossoms, the 
 silvery gauzes of her protecting 
 veil floating back from her fore- 
 head, strayed on at the head of 
 the little parade. She was wrap- 
 ped in the delicious reverie of the 
 wedding-day. She was not yel- 
 low nor meagre, nor uglier than 
 herself, as so many brides con- 
 trive to be. Her air of delicacy 
 and tenderness was a blossom 
 of character, not a canker of ill- 
 health. Her color was hardly 
 raised, though her head was per- 
 petually bent. Fortnoye, hold- 
 ing her on his firm arm, seemed 
 like a man walking through en- 
 chantments. Just behind, pro- 
 tecting Madame Kranich with an 
 action of effusive gallantry that 
 must have been seen to be con- 
 ceived, walked the baron de Rou- 
 viere, his brave knotted hands, 
 for which he had not found any 
 gloves, busily occupied in point- 
 ing .out the animated rarities that 
 to him seemed most worthy of 
 selection. The hilarious hyenas, 
 the seals, the polar bears plung- 
 ing from their lofty rocks, all at- 
 tracted his commendation ; and 
 we, who walked behind in such 
 order as our friendships or famil- 
 iarity taught us, were perpetually 
 tripping upon his honest figure 
 brought to a halt before some 
 object more than usually inter- 
 esting. Exclamations of delight 
 at the bride's beauty, politely 
 wrapped in whispers, arose on 
 all sides as we penetrated the 
 throng: it was a proud thing to 
 be a part of a procession so distinguished. 
 My good Joliet beamed with complacen- 
 cy, and drove his little herd up and down 
 and across and about till the greater part 
 of the garden was explored. The zoo- 
 logical garden of Brussels has the beau- 
 ty of not showing too obviously the cha- 
 racter of a prison. It is extensive, um- 
 brageous, and the poor captives within 
 
 its borders have enough air and space 
 around their eyes to give them a sem- 
 blance of liberty. For the special feast- 
 day on which we visited it the place had 
 
 THE MIMIC HUNT. 
 
 been arranged with particular adaptation 
 to the character of the time. There were 
 elephant-races and rides upon the camels 
 free to all ladies who would make the 
 venture. In addition to the zebras, gnus 
 and Shetlands, there was that species of 
 race-horse which never wins and never 
 spoils a course, being of wood and con- 
 structed to go round in a tent, and never 
 
268 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 to arrive anywhere or lose any prizes. 
 The pelicans were in high excitement, 
 for all along their beautiful little river, 
 where it winds through bowery trees, a 
 profusion of living fish had been emptied 
 and confined here and there by grated 
 dams, so that the awkward birds had op- 
 portunity to angle in perfect freedom and 
 to their hearts' content. In the more 
 wooded part of the garden a mimic hunt 
 had been arranged, and sportsmen in cor- 
 rect suits of green, with curly brass horns 
 and baying hounds, coursed through the 
 grounds, following a stag which, though 
 mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been 
 a descendant of the fawn that fed Gene- 
 vieve of Brabant. We had re-entered 
 one of the grand alleys, and were re- 
 ceiving again the little tribute of enco- 
 miums which the greater privacy of the 
 groves had pretermitted — we were parad- 
 ing happily along, conscious of nothing 
 to be ashamed of, our orange-blossoms 
 glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth 
 and wedding-favors gleaming — when we 
 met another group, which, though more 
 furtively, bore that matrimonial charac- 
 ter which distinguished our own. 
 
 At the head walked Mr. Cookson & 
 Jenkinson. He still wore that species 
 of shooting-costume which he had made 
 his uniform, but it was decked with roses, 
 and his hands were encased in milk- 
 white gloves : on his hands, besides the 
 gloves, he had the two grammatical la- 
 dies from the Rhine steamboat in guise 
 of bridesmaids. Behind him walked 
 Mary Ashburleigh. And emerging from 
 the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress, 
 with the embarrassed happiness of a 
 middle-aged bridegroom, was — no ? yes ! 
 no, no ! but yes — was Sylvester Berkley. 
 
 I will not expose what I suffered to 
 the curiosity of imperfectly sympathetic 
 strangers. I did not faint, and I believe 
 men in genuine despair never do so. 
 But I felt that weakness and unmanage- 
 ableness of knee which comes with strong 
 mental anguish, and I sank back impo- 
 tent upon the baron, whose lingering legs 
 repudiated the pressure, so that we both 
 accumulated miserably upon Grandstone. 
 My eyes closed, and I did not hear the 
 Dark Ladve's salutations to Frau Kra- 
 
 nich. But I awoke to see with anguish 
 a sight that drew involuntary applause 
 from all that careless crowd. 
 
 It was the salute of the two brides. 
 Imagine, if you can, two great purple 
 pansies, flushed with all the perfumed 
 sap of an Eden spring-time, threaded 
 with diamonds of myriad-faceted dew, — 
 imagine them leaning forward on their 
 elastic stems until both their soft velvet 
 countenances cling together and ex- 
 change mutually their caparisons of 
 honeyed gems ; then let them sway gen- 
 tly back, and balance once more in their 
 morning splendor. Such was the effect 
 when these two imperial creatures ap- 
 proached each other and imprinted with 
 lips and palms a sister's salute. Mary Ash- 
 burleigh, whom the throng recognized 
 as a natural empress, was arrayed this 
 morning as brides are seldom arrayed, 
 but with a sense of artistic obedience to 
 her own sumptuous nature and person- 
 ality. The royal purple of her velvets 
 was cut, on skirt and bodice, into one 
 continuous fretwork of heavy scrolls and 
 leafage, and through the crevices of this 
 textile carving shone the robe she carried 
 beneath: it was tawny yellow, for she 
 wore under her outward dress a com- 
 plete robe of ancient lace, whose cob- 
 web softness was more than half sacri- 
 ficed — only perceived as the slashes of 
 her velvets made it evident. It was such 
 dressing as queens alone should indulge 
 in perhaps, but Mary Ashburleigh chose 
 for once to do justice to her style and her 
 magnificence. 
 
 I was leaning against a tree, stunned 
 in the sick sunshine. I heard, while my 
 eyes were closed, a sort of voluminous 
 cloudy roll, and the Dark Ladye was 
 beside me. She whispered quickly and 
 volubly in my ear, " I tried to confide in 
 you, but I could not get it spoken. Yet 
 I managed to confess that my heart had 
 been touched. It was only this summer 
 — at the Molkencur over Heidelberg — 
 he lectured about the ruins. 'Twas in- 
 formation — 'twas rapture! I found at 
 once he was the Magician. We were 
 quietly united at the embassy this morn- 
 ing. And now he can leave that dread- 
 ful consulate and has got his promotion, 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 269 
 
 for he is to be charge here in Brussels. 
 It is sudden, but we were positively afraid 
 to do it in any other way, I am such a 
 timid creature. When I saw the travel- 
 ers' agent on the steamboat, I was at first 
 struck with his manly British bearing and 
 his resemblance to Sylvester. Then I 
 found he had the matrimonial prospectus, 
 and perceived he might be a link. He 
 has managed everything beautifully. I 
 had no idea — With his assistance you 
 need no more mind being married than 
 going into a shop for a plate of pudding. 
 You must come up and be presented, to 
 show you bear no malice." 
 
 I cannot tell how I did it, but I allow- 
 ed Sylvester and the agent to grasp my 
 hands, one on either side. Berkley, as 
 to his collar, his cravat, his face and his 
 white gloves, presented one general sur- 
 face of mat silver. He clasped me with 
 some affection, but his intellect had quite 
 gone, and he said it was a fine day. 
 
 I did not rally in the least until after 
 my fourth glass of champagne at the 
 dinner. We made one party : indeed, 
 Mrs. Ashburleigh had brought her hus- 
 band hither in that expectation. Fort- 
 noye vanished a minute to arrange the 
 banquet-room ; and as his wife rushed 
 in to find him, followed by the rest of us, 
 he snatched a great damask cloth from 
 the table, and there was such a set-out 
 of flowers and viands as has seldom been 
 seen in Belgium or elsewhere. The table, 
 instead of a cloth, was entirely laid with 
 young emerald vine-leaves : our places 
 were marked, and at each plate was a 
 gift for the bride, ostensibly coming from 
 the person who sat there, but really pro- 
 vided by the forethought of Fortnoye. 
 In front of my own cover two pretty 
 downy chicks were pecking in a cottage 
 made of crystal slats and heavily thatch- 
 ed with spun glass — the prettiest bird- 
 cage in the world. On the eaves was an 
 inscription : "The Man of the Two Chick- 
 ens." It happened that the little keep- 
 sake I had found for Francine consisted 
 of wheat-ears in pearls and gold, adapt- 
 ed for brooch and eardrops ; so I only 
 had to drop them in beside the chickens 
 and the present was appropriate and 
 complete. 
 
 I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ash- 
 burleigh swept into that splendid ban- 
 queting-room, one long pyramid of vel- 
 vet pierced with webbed interstices of 
 light. If the largest window of St. Ur- 
 sula's church had come down and en- 
 tered the room, the spectacle could not 
 have been so superb. One item struck 
 me : the younger bride, of course, wore 
 orange buds; but for the Englishwoman, 
 a beauty ripe with many summers, buds 
 and blossoms were inappropriate ; she 
 wore fruits : in the grand coronal of plaits 
 that massed itself upon her head were set, 
 like gems, three or four small, delicious, 
 amber-scented mandarin oranges. With 
 this piece of exquisite apropos did the 
 infallible Mary Ashburleigh crown the 
 edifice of her good taste. The two brides 
 sat opposite each other. A small watch, 
 which I had happened to buy at Coblenz, 
 I managed to detach and lay on the Dark 
 Ladye's plate as my offering. On a card 
 beside it I merely wrote, "Another 
 Time!" 
 
 Who knows ? Perhaps Sylvester may 
 fill and founder as the other has done. 
 He looks miserably bilious and fright- 
 ened. 
 
 I had rather partake of a rare dinner 
 than describe one. The wines alone rep- 
 resented all the cellars of the Rhine and 
 the whole champagne country. Fort- 
 noye, who gave the feast, entertained 
 both Sylvester's party and his own with 
 regal good cheer. Think not that Henri 
 Fortnoye was the ordinary obfuscated, 
 superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On 
 the contrary, assuming immediately the 
 head of his own table, he took the re- 
 sponsibility of the party's merriment, 
 and made the good humor flow like the 
 wine. I know not how it was, but ere 
 the meal was over I found myself join- 
 ing in one of his choruses ; Frau Kra- 
 nich forgot her asceticism and exhumed 
 all her youthful air of gayety ; James 
 Athanasius Grandstone promised the 
 host to set his wines running in every 
 State of America. But the prettiest mo- 
 ment was when the two brides rose and 
 touched glasses, mutually and to the 
 health of the company, apropos of a 
 little wedding-song which Fortnoye had 
 
270 
 
 THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 composed and was trolling at the head 
 of our willing chorus. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I have arrived at Marly, and, with the 
 assistance of much sarcasm from Hohen- 
 fels, am getting on with considerable spir- 
 it at my Progressive Geography. When 
 a man's Hope ceases temporarily to take 
 a merely Human aspect, may it not suf- 
 fer a fresh avatar and begin in a new 
 and Geographical form its beneficent 
 career? The Dark Ladye has sunk be- 
 neath my horizon, but speculations over 
 the Atlantean and Lunar Mountains are 
 still succulent and vivifying. 
 
 I fled, lashed by a hundred despairs 
 and by many symptoms of headache 
 and dyspepsia, from the wedding-feast at 
 
 Brussels. Charles and the baron of Ho- 
 henfels accompanied me. It was a night- 
 train. The spectacle of so much wedded 
 happiness was too much for me, too much 
 for Hohenfels. The effect was, contra- 
 rily, rather stimulating to Charles, who 
 has made a match with Josephine, and 
 with her assistance is now listening, the 
 tear of sensibility in his eye, to Mendels- 
 sohn's "Wedding March" as executed 
 by the village organ ! 
 
 We passed Valenciennes, Somain, 
 Douai, Arras, Amiens, Clermont, Criel, 
 Pontoise — the last points of merely bod- 
 ily travel that I shall ever make : here- 
 after my itineracy shall be entirely the- 
 oretical. We took a carriage at Pon- 
 toise, and traversed the woods of Saint- 
 Germain. As I neared home I bowed 
 right and left to amicable and smiling 
 neighbors, who waved me good - day 
 
 my 01: ~ 
 
 CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE. 
 
 ARGUS AND ULYSSES. 
 
THE NEW HYPERION. 
 
 271 
 
 from their doors. So did my 
 Newfoundland, who broke his 
 chain and leaped upon my 
 shoulders, flourishing his tail 
 — overjoyed to salute the re- 
 turning Ulysses. 
 
 In the British Museum, 
 among the Elgin Marbles, 
 Phidias has carved a pile of 
 heaped-up marble waves, and 
 out of them rise the arms of 
 Hyperion — the most beautiful 
 arms in the world. Homesick 
 for heaven, those weary arms 
 try to free themselves of the 
 clinging foam. Another min- 
 ute and surely the triumphant 
 god will leap from his watery 
 couch and guide with unerring hands the 
 coursers of the Dawn ! But that reluctant 
 minute is eternal, and the divinity still 
 remains incapable, clogged and wrapped 
 in the embrace of marble waves. Yet 
 the real sun every morning succeeds in 
 equipping himself for his journey, and 
 arrives, glad, at his welcome bath in the 
 western sea. 
 
 The inference I draw is : If you want 
 a career to be eternal instead of transi- 
 tory, hand it over to Art. 
 
 "HAND IT OVER TO ART. 
 
 The true moral of it all is, that we are 
 all savage myths of the Course of the 
 Sun. We disappear any number of times, 
 but we rise and trail new clouds of glory, 
 and our readers or our audiences perceive 
 that it is the same old Hyperion back 
 again. The youth who by the faithful 
 hound, half buried in the snow, is found 
 far up on the most inaccessible peaks 
 of imagination, is perceived to grasp still 
 in his hand of ice that Germanesque and 
 strange device — Anf Wiedersehen. 
 
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