LETTER FROM LONDON.

Image not available for display: Room in Shakespeare’s Home, Stratford.Room in Shakespeare’s Home, Stratford.

have come,” said the usher. Dinner was in full progress! The room is a cube of forty feet. Such a baronial banquet preparation I never saw. The oldest relic is the door leading into the court, where the fuel is kept, heavy, black, battered, iron-bound oak. From the kitchen to the refectory, with its splendid array of pictures. Going out under the tower, we heard “old Tom” ring out the hour in his sonorous tones. To Magdalen College to see the chapel with its wonderful immense window in brown sepia, three hundred years old, representing the day of judgment, and its reredos extending from the floor to the ceiling and from side wall to side wall. Then to “Addison’s Walk,” the loveliest, most sequestered, serpentine, and then long great vista of greenery, bound on either side by lovely streams and wide meadows edged with pollard willows. To New College, with its rival chapel and great window, designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, representing Faith, Hope, and all the virtues mentionable. Anything more exquisite than Hope was never fashioned by man. The window is made, it is said, of the finest stained glass in the world. We passed by the church where Amy Robsart lies. At Warwick we saw the magnificent tomb of her cruel earl, and the effigy of himself and thirdwife, carved and colored, reposing thereupon. On to the Bodleian Library, with its treasures of books, rare old manuscripts, ancient illuminated works; I can’t enumerate its treasures, but one of the most curious and interesting was some papyrus rolls from Herculaneum, showing the scorch. Its picture gallery was a perfect fascination, with its portraits and busts of a long array of historical persons whom we have admired, reverenced, loved, and hated, all our lives. It was all an aggravating rush from one thing to another, that one wanted to hang over and study and steep the whole being in. I would go to the Ashmolean Museum to see a few things—Alfred’s jewel, a priceless treasure, the chatelaine watch of Queen Elizabeth, in turquoise and gold, with the chain formed of charms in different devices—two of hair. I wondered if either was her own. Cromwell’s watch right beside hers, heavy, thick, not very large, but looking as if it was meant to stand all the battering of the man’s career. One of the most interesting of all the personal trifles—shall I call them?—was a kind of charm worn by John Hampden in the civil war. This was the motto:

“Against my king I do not fight,But for my king and kingdom’s right.”

There is not a spot in Oxford that is not enchanting. We staid at the “Mitre Hotel,” the oldest house in the city. Our room was wainscoted to the ceiling, which was divided into three compartments by rich and pretty panels in rich flowers. I did not like to leave it, though walking its floors was a feat of dexterity worthy of being chronicled, they were so sunken and irregular. We came whizzing through the loveliest lowland country, saw Windsor in a misty veil of light rain, and all at once we were in Paddington Station, in the cab, rolling through London streets and directly at our boarding house. We are delightfully situated. Sunday morning we heard Spofford Brooks. He is just across the street. In the afternoon I went to St. Paul’s to hear Canon Liddon. I was all eyes, if not ears. That splendid pile swallowed me up, mind, body and soul. And now with the din and clatter of four female tongues sounding in my ears, I will close this rambling epistle.

L. G. C.

Grosvenor Hotel, Chester, April 17, 1882.

IAM still in this grandest city of the globe. Every day seems a fresh era in life, each hour ushers in new and more delightful experiences. I am confirmed in my opinion that this “little island,” but mighty kingdom of the earth, is to be more to me than all the rest, and that my plan to spend “the season” in London was the very best I could have had. Indeed that was the one feature of this trip entirely clear to me. For the rest, I had a general outline to make headquarters of each of the great art centers, and let the gods provide the goods. No doubt I shall adhere to this in a way. Governor Chamberlain, who was here last year in August, said he could not have believed it would make such a difference to be here “in the season.” I think you know the months of May, June and July constitute that elect time. Well, I have had as perfect a time as one could have in my way. Of course, there is that other—that means being presented at court, and getting into society, thefirst being the easier of the two! I have not hankered after either. There are some whom I have long admired, it would be a beatitude to know, such as the Earl of Shaftsbury, now eighty-one, whose whole life has been devoted to good and noble works (just last Tuesday he presided at the opening of a bazaar in behalf of a benevolent project), and the Duke of Devonshire and his family, Gladstone, John Bright andsuch. Alas! “they are a pitch beyond my flight,” and so I am content to let all go. What I have drunk deep of is the great institutions—churches, galleries, the Tower, Parliament houses, hospitals, etc.

The boarding house in which we are is kept by English people, just for Americans, and foreigners. English people do not board; it is not “good form” with them. The host, a very intelligent, affable gentleman, and his wife, a bright, kind, out-spoken lady, say “they have known no Americans that have seen London to such advantage.” They evidently regard us with great respect.

Tuesday was a glorious day. We spent it at Windsor, were all over the palace shown to the public, on the terrace, saw the gorgeous Albert Mausoleum, and St. George’s Chapelwith its exquisite monument to Princess Charlotte, the most perfect piece of sculpture I ever saw, and also the touching monument to the Prince Imperial, with his recumbent statue on it, a good likeness in pure white marble. It seems to me quite probable, since seeing it, that Princess Beatrice may have been in love with him. From Windsor we drove through Eaton and a beautiful English lane to Stoke Pogis to see Gray’s grave and the church and graveyard of the “Elegy.” The little church is the most exquisite little gem I ever saw. I wish I dared give you a full description of that day, but it would take a ream of paper.

Well, this is Sunday evening. I went to hear Moncure Conway this forenoon at his own chapel. I was so much interested, more than I have been by any one I have heard but Canon Farrar. You may have heard him when he preached in Cincinnati. You may not agree with or approve of his views, but one cannot help being greatly interested and instructed. He has a scholarly look—the bowed head, that trick caught by bending constantly over books and writing, and a lively, expressive countenance, the kind that shows the effect of constant association with high thoughts and noble sentimentsand lofty aspirations. He is in the best sense a teacher. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Taft there, and my friend Miss —— cried out, “Don’t you want to go back and speak to them?” As we were in our carriage, and it was raining, I concluded to forego the pleasure. They are on their way to Vienna. It is rather pleasant to know so many Americans are around, even if you don’t get to speak to them. We have a fresh supply of Bostonians. They are all chattering round the fire like so many daws—mycompanions du voyagehelping their level best. They come and go, come and go, all the time. We often find ourselves laughing at large parties—“Oh! look quick; there they are, another lot of our country-fellows.” They go about in gangs and everybody seems to recognize them at once as “Americans.” I can’t tell how they, the English, know us; but it is very easy for us to distinguish them. Their voices andpronunciationare very markedly different. All have a kind of abdominal pitch and intoning that are very pronounced.

I have found some relatives here, people who settled in England two hundred years ago, when my branch of the family emigrated from Holland to America. They are as purely English as I am American, and this is the firstmeeting since the original separation. One of my newly-found cousins is in the Somerset House, where he has a government office, and hewouldshow us “what it contained of interest.” It is a government building, registering marriages, births, deaths, keeping records, etc. The way he made us skip round and up and down and through long corridors in upper stories, and deep down in almost the bowels of the earth, was good for our circulation if not for our feet. It was just going through a vast library, for all these things are kept in volumes bound in Russia leather and shelved and catalogued. He invited us for Tuesday evening to meet a party of relatives and special friends he wished me to know; so I am counting on something of an introduction to English life. Thereby is a romance, our meeting, etc.; but of this another time.

Well, our time is up, and on Wednesday I have arranged to leave for our Scottish tour. This takes up the eastern side of England, through York and Durham to Edinburgh, where we shall spend a week. Thence through the Tromcho[A]and lakes, Caledonia canal, Inverness and back to “Auld Reekie,” where we shall excursion to Abbotsford, Jedburg, and nextGlasgow and Ayr, and down through western England by the English lakes—Windermere, Coniston, etc., back to London. We may go to Wales, or leave that out for the present and go to the Isle of Wight, and so across the Channel to some place in Brittany or Normandy, where we have “booked” ourselves for a month.

L. G. C.

London, June 11, 1882.

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WE left London on the morning of the 14th, after a seven weeks’ sojourn, and, I must say it, one of perfect delight and satisfaction. Old Londoners could not remember a more charming “season;” the weather called forth rapturous comments, the city was full of attractions, the best and at their best, a most fortunate conjunction; and “all the world” seemed peopling its palaces, crowding its hotels, thronging its temples of art and pleasure, and pushing its way through the packed streets, to enjoy them. Believe me, it took a stout wrench to break away from all that. But as we said to our hostess in response to her amiable urgency to detain us yet longer, “Dear Madam, how shall we ‘see the world,’ unless we ‘move on’?”

A four hours’ railway ride brought us to York, where we “stopped over” till next afternoon to see the Minster, the walls and the ruins of St. Leonard’s Hospital and St. Mary’s Abbey,and the ancient city “in toto.” The sun shone for us in most lavish brilliancy, and we went after lunch to the Cathedral, spending an hour or more wandering “through it with the verger all to ourselves” (which we always account a peculiarly good piece of luck, as much interesting information is to be gained, when he can give you undivided attention).

We stood long before each of the great windows, too rapt in admiration, it must be confessed, to give due heed to the great budget of details our guide was so kindly pouring out for our benefit. The “Five Sisters” was the first that arrested us, consisting of five lancet-shaped lights, fifty-four feet high by thirty wide. It was presented by five maiden sisters, who worked the patterns first. They must have had a busy time of it, and I am glad I was not one of them, but am one who has had the privilege of enjoying their pious handiwork. Next the west and east windows, the first about the size of the “Five Sisters,” the latter said to be the largest in the world. As to the exquisite beauty of each, that is unutterable. We lingered and loitered in nave and choir and transept, till long after the sun had set, and then walked back to our hotel, a palace fit for any queen this worldhas ever throned; the views from its great French plate glass windows Victoria might be glad to claim. The next morning we attended choral service, and gave the entire forenoon to that splendid seat of Episcopal magnificence. From there we went to the ruins, both being in the same inclosure, a large tract laid out in beautiful walks and far-stretching expanses of lawn, with clumps of trees here and there, and beds and borders of flowers. I wish I had time to tell you how old these crumbling structures are, and the various fortunes to which they have been subjected. Suffice it that both are older than the time of the Conqueror, which surely would seem ancient enough.

In the afternoon we were most reluctant to “stick to our program,” and go on to Durham, but we did. We had a reminder of home on the way in an hour’s stop at Newcastle-on-Tyne—as coal begrimed as Pittsburgh. I was glad to leave it behind, and find fresh, clean air coming into my lungs as it vanished from my sight. We ran into Durham in good time for a climb to its Cathedral, “unequaled in situation on a high hill.” Again we had a verger all to ourselves, and he proved a fellow with some wit,with all his overwhelming “stock in trade” of cathedral knowledge in architecture.

I was so hoarse I could only croak, but too athirst for knowledge to let that hinder. So, as I said something to this effect, “Tell me about that—the book I have does not tell anything, though I got the best I could find”—with the most mischievous smile he burst out, “I think you got something worse, haven’t you?” We were fast friends from that moment till I bowed “good-bye” next day—crossing his willing hand with the inevitable silver shilling. You have read all about this cathedral; that it is a splendid example of Norman, early English, transitional, and perpendicular styles in its different parts; that St. Cuthbert is its patron saint, and his bones rest here; maybe, remember how his monks

“From sea to sea, from shore to shore,Seven years Saint Cuthbert bore.And after many wanderings past,He chose his lordly seat at last,Where his cathedral huge and vastLooks down upon the weir;There deep in Durham’s gothic shadeHis reliques are in secret laid,But none may know the place.”

That was long ago, and now even I “know the place.” I stood upon the flagstones that covered it! Bede is buried there, so I have to tellyou that I leaned upon his tombstone and read the inscription:

“Hac sunt in fossa Bedae venerabilis ossa,”

and recalled the story of the monk’s worry over his hexameter, his lucky nap, and the opportune help of that convenient angel, who fixed it up “all right” while he slept the sleep of the righteous. I saw the carved image of the Dun Cow, from which it got its name. I am not so sure that legend is so familiar to you. It took hard work, innumerable questions, search and research, for me to get hold of it, quaint and simple as it is. In that seven years’ quest for a resting-place for the corpse, the monks had stopped with it at a place called Ward Law, from which they could not move it, it seeming fastened to the ground. This set them all praying to know where they should take it. The answer to their prayer was, “Dunholme” (Durham). As they were searching about in great perplexity, they heard a woman, who was looking for her stray cow, call to her neighbor, asking if she had seen it. The cry back was: “She is at Dunholme.” Behold! this quest was ended. And the cow is a beauty of the kind that makes one wish she could be driven home into his own pasture, to be “a possession forever.” She stands sleek and serenein her niche in the outer wall, and seems to follow you with a watchful gaze as you pluck buttercups and clover-blooms, lineal descendants, beyond a doubt, of those on which her prototype fed in the spacious close beneath her.

We tarried atop that green hill and in those sacred precincts, till the fainter day that is far from twilight, though the sun is long gone, warned us of the late hour. Such an evening as we had in ancient Durham—“a dirty hole in general,” as a little Scotch boy wrote of it in 1820. And a little American woman verifies it to-day. First, a street concert by Highlanders in full national costume, with their screeching bagpipes. They ended and vanished. Then came trooping by a large body of the Salvation Army, with their leader, a woman, facing her forces and keeping time with a stick to their singing. She looked like a wild creature, and the spectacle was one more conducive to speculation than to admiration. As their frantic strains died away in the distance, a sweet, clear-ringing child voice burst forth. It soared up to us like a lark,

“Singing as it soars and soaring as it sings.”

We opened our windows and saw a young boy standing in the street alone and without anyinstrument, singing with an absorption that made him oblivious to his surroundings. He did not even notice the fall of the pennies for which he was singing, till a woman, who had stopped to hear him, gathered them up and put them into his hands.

We felt as if we were listening to an incipient Brignoli. He went too. At eleven o’clock, the daylight not yet merged in night, we fell asleep to harp music, played by a band of Gypsies in most picturesque garb. We hurried to the cathedral next morning for “choral service,” and heard some fine music, which attuned us to our loitering among its ancient memorials. After some hours inside we came out into the lovely day, and strolled off for a walk. From the crest of the hill on which the cathedral is built to the water’s edge its wooded sides are laid out in beautiful shady walks. There we wandered, keeping up a running fire of exclamations at the beautiful broken views, gathering now a wild flower, now a fern, or stretching up for a leaf from the masses of thick foliage on the trees overhead. How the hours shot by! Atop of the hill again, we found our way into a castle, in close neighborhood to the cathedral, a charming old piece of antiquity, with its stores of rare,old curious things. I could fill a quire of old-fashioned letter paper and not do half justice to it. So I shan’t say anything more about it, but shut both eyes and mouth and get away from Durham, already grown fascinating enough to make me wish I could live in the shadow of that ancient pile with its “gothic shade.”

Our route hither lay for the most part of the way along the coast of the German ocean. The white breakers burst right beneath us sometimes, sending their roar to our ears. Away off occasionally glimmered a dream-like sail, or a phantom stretch of smoke from some passing-out-of-our-world vessel. Near enough for a good view we saw,

“Markworth, proud of Percy’s name,”

very literally a “castle by the sea,” as it seemed as if washed by its waves. The country landward was prettily rolling and laid off in fields of grain and pasture. Great flocks of sheep speckled the latter. A Scotch lady got into our “compartment” when we were still some miles from “Dun Edin.” She was very companionable and pointed out all the features of note as they came in sight.

The sun as it went down was a great puzzle to us; it seemed to be setting in the east,and we could not get it to fit the points of the compass stowed away in our craniums. You see it did not set till nearer nine than eight o’clock, and that gave it time to get almost round to where it had started from! The Scotch welcome quite won our hearts. We had written and engaged rooms a week before, so knew we would be expected. The landlady and three daintily-arrayed maids were in the hall, and the former, Mrs. Campbell, stepped forward and took our hands, with the sweetest-voiced welcome! We felt at home at once. Just here I think I must give you a list of the people collected under her roof—tourists, here for a day or weeks, as may chance: an Episcopal High Church curate, from Wales; a Mrs. Smith and her daughter, from Australia; a Mr. Bruce, from the Cape of Good Hope (he was there when Stanley went there with the remnant of the host that made the trip with him “Across the Dark Continent”); a Mr. Masters and wife, from another part of South Africa, he an emigrant from Yorkshire and she a native born, but the daughter of an emigrant; a lady who resides in Oxford and is enthusiastic about it as a place of residence; two young ladies from the south of England; another two, sisters, from London;a Miss Gurley, a Scotch maiden lady, a great traveler and linguist, and altogether charming. She had been to the United States and Canada, three times. While in the United States, she was the guest of Bishop Potter. She belongs to Edinburgh, is living across the Firth, among the hills of Fife, not far from royal Falkland. Add us three Americans, and I think it could be called a mixed household, indeed,

L. G. C.

Edinburgh, July 4, 1882.

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WE spend our days as usual, “sight-seeing.” The first place we sought was Holyrood Palace. It is not palatial compared to Windsor, Hampton Court, and the situation is not a cheerful one—low, in a kind of a hollow. I can imagine it oppressively gloomy to a young girl of nineteen, just from gay and sunny Paris, and one of the ornaments of its brilliant court. In the picture gallery there is a lovely, full-length portrait of Mary; but there is a still lovelier picture of her at the castle. I saw her apartments, her bed with its faded velvet hangings, that are slowly dropping to pieces too; one of her paintings on marble, much chipped and defaced, showing no little merit; a piece of her embroidery in a glass case; the little mirror hung on the wall she doubtless took much pleasure in seeing her fair face in; the small supper-room, with its closet, where the dreadful murder of Rizzio was begun, and the splotch of blood on the landing at the head of the stairs, where it was finished. How well we seem to know all about her—poor

Image not available for display: Mary Queen of Scots, Edinburgh.Mary Queen of Scots, Edinburgh.

queen, unfortunate and to be pitied, even if as wicked as her worst enemies think. At the castle, on the hill that springs up in the very heart of the city, another suite of “Queen Mary’s apartments” is shown, in one of which her son was born. The situation of the castle is incomparably fine. It overlooks the entire city and a wide and varied range beyond. Ben Lomond and Ben Ledi show themselves to the north-west, and on a fair day the Pentland hills lie low and purple in another direction; the Firth carries the gaze with it to the sea in the east, and it is dotted with pretty islands, and its thither side is bounded by the misty shores of Fife. This same view is commanded by Arthur’s Seat and Calton Hill. Arthur’s Seat is the highest point—everybody and every guide-book says so, and I know it fromexperience, having climbed its 823 feet. We make all kinds of excursions in the environs, and find it the easiest thing in the world to keep up our ecstasies.

Alexander Swift says, “Every true Scotsman thinks Edinburgh the most picturesque city in the world.” No wonder. It certainly possesses every feature requisite to constitute that preeminence—“hill, crag, castle, rock, blue stretch of sea, the picturesque ridge of the oldtown, the squares and terraces of the new”—the quaint streets with their ancient houses “peaked and jagged by gable and roof, and windowed from basement to cope” with those small diamond-paned sashes that seem meant only “to make darkness visible,” and yet other streets of a later and more stately architecture; the Nor’ Lock converted into a dreamland of park and gardens; the splendid monuments arresting the eye in every direction to recall the illustrious dead and give proof of the appreciation and taste of the living; the hills, crags and slopes that “stand dressed in living green,” and the squares and terraces a mass of verdure and flowers—all these and more are the charms of this “Edina, Scotia’s darling.” Add to them the innumerable resorts, historic, beautiful, grand!—Oh! everything—all around in every direction, and one’s sympathy leaps forth to meet that of “every Scotsman.”

Now, shall I tell you what a “Bohemian” I have grown to be? Perhaps you will be shocked, but really it is the most fascinating life conceivable, and not to be condemned untried. We go where, and when, andhowwe please;en grandes dames, in the conventional splendor of full dress and the swellest turnout of thestand, this always “under protest.” Oftener, we set our own “locomotives” to the way and find unsuspected Edens. But oftenest and to my heart’s delight, we mount to a super-royal perchatop of the “tram,”as the street car is called here, and “view the landscape o’er” at such advantage as no crown or throne can command. And that’s the way we went to Morning Side, Edinburgh’s Clifton, and to Portobello, its sea-bathing resort. Don’t be alarmed though; we are not setting a fashion, only following one already established. If only this mode of traveling were practicable for everywhere. Alas! instead the railway comes in to sadly curtail the enchantment of “views.” We had to submit to it in order to see Roslyn Chapel, that ideal morceau of architecture, that exquisite efflorescence of solid rock, that chapel of chapels, “one among ten thousand and altogether lovely.” First we struck through Hawthorden, a walk of three miles, beginning with an ordinary park that quickly led to an ivy-mantled ruin, hung on the very brink of a beetling crag, the rock-ribbed foundation of which dropped almost sheer to a swift and clamorous stream two or three hundred feet below. In this underlying basement of rock, queer caverns had been hewn, butfarther back than dates reach. We explored them notwithstanding some hesitation, which, however, gave way to the liveliest enthusiasm. In one we came across a sword of Robert Bruce in an open wire case. The meshes were about an inch in length; by counting them I found the sword measured fifty-eight inches. I wondered how much taller the warrior was than his weapon of warfare! Leaving these caverns we were soon descending a path that brought us to the edge of the stream and then ran along it the rest of the way. Anything wilder or more beautiful is rarely met, but I have seen Trenton Falls in my own native land, and it surpasses. Climbing the hill again at the end of the three miles we reached the chapel. Another day we spent at Dunfermline. In the Abbey we stood on the grave of Robert Bruce; it is right under the pulpit. In the ancient and long-disused, but well-preserved, nave we saw that inexplicable caprice or trick of architecture, one of the great Norman columns that scanned from one place shows the upper half much smaller than the lower; from another, the reverse effect, and from yet another, a pillar of perfect proportion. The ruins of the old palace and part of the abbey are very touching and beautiful.It too has “a den,” as every deep wooded and rocky glen with a stream running through its dark length is called. We sat on the rustic seat under a grand old tree and looked at the ruins and moralized, raved over the vistas, shadows, flashing sunlight and—munched our lunch. Saturday we skimmed away on the wings of the delicious morning as well as the wings of steam to Dalkeith and Newbattle Abbey to spend the day between the two. The former is the favorite seat of the Duke of Buccleugh, the latter that of his son-in-law, the Marquis of Lothian. The ducal palace is positively ugly; but it has its complement of grand state apartments filled with fine pictures and the usual quota of superb articles of vertu and bric-a-brac.

Newbattle Abbey is a charminghome. Its park boasts some rare old trees, among them a giant beech that is “a monarch of the forest” verily, measuring twenty-three feet in girth. Thursday we start on our excursion to the Highlands; it will take a week. We shall return here for a fresh departure. Then look out for another half quire of this moving matter.

L. G. C.

Edinburgh, July 21, 1882.

IN Heidelberg. Think of it! What an energetic idler I am grown! The Neckar lies a pistol-shot from my windows; high hills rise on the thither side, looking so home-like—Maysville home, like Mr. W.’s, where you came once upon a time. When my glance darts out the windows and rests upon them, suddenly I catch my breath, and I am not sure whether it is pain or pleasure I feel. Half way up they are cultivated, but the tops are wooded. Just over my head the old castle looms up among the trees. “The Gardens” of this pension where I am lead right up to it. I shall climb to it to-morrow for the first time. Reached here day before yesterday, late; got settled yesterday for a good rest; shall stay here till the latest season for Switzerland; then it and on to Munich for another rest.

Here’s “a mere mention” of where I have been since I wrote from “Edina, Scotia’s darling.” From there to the English lakes we saw ten each lovelier than the last. I wish you

Image not available for display: Pension and Garden to which Goethe wrote a Poe$3, Heidelberg.Pension and Garden to which Goethe wrote a Poem, Heidelberg.

were within sound; how I wouldraveto you! Then ruins. Furness Abbey and Fountain’s Abbey, both beyond Melrose, and Dryburg in some respects. London for a week (where we parted). Then to Rochester for its cathedral, castle (a ruin) and Gad’s Hill, Canterbury. Oh! Oh! Oh!

Dover, Ostend, “The Belfry of Bruges,” Ghent, Brussels, seeing the king and queen gratis, Antwerp, The Hague, Rotterdam (the loveliest and liveliest of them all), Amsterdam, Cologne, Bonn, and a pilgrimage to the graves of Niebuhr and Bunsen, Coblenz, Mayence—from Bonn to Mayence being the grand Rhine trip. “The castled crag of Drachenfels,” and innumerable other castled crags, sometimes as many as three in sight; the Lurlieberg; the sweet, song-famous Bingen; the world-wide known wine district, Rheingau, whence come the costliest wines in the world—Johannisberger, Reiderheimer, Steinberger, etc. I saw the Schloss Johannisbergers crowning a lovely vine-clad knoll, the entire vineyard or vineyards comprised in forty acres. The Schloss is a very extensive chateau, but ugly; belongs to Prince Richard Metternich, and yields a neat little income of £8,000 ($40,000). Some of our tobaccoacres do almost as well! We climbed the precipitous rock on which “the majestic fortress of Ehrenbrietstein” is situated. It is opposite Coblenz, and we crossed the Rhine to reach it on a bridge of boats. I saw three bridges of this kind. I guess they have been handed down since Caesar’s time. I could not find out their special merit. They are not particularly striking—just a number of boats, sharp at both ends, side by side, with the solid flooring and railing of any bridge.

The view from the fortress is one of the finest on this glorious stretch of seventy miles, and I was glad to see it.

I wish I could lend you my eyes for a few minutes, so you could see what I saw. You’d come over and see it all, if it cost you that farm you spoke of in one of your letters, or another book!

L. G. C.

Heidelberg, August 15, 1882.

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IAM just home, this is “home” for the present, from a week’s delight at Nuremberg. “Delight,” how feeble that sounds. Enchantment, fascination, the absorption that makes one lovingly linger and loth to come away. It is the quaintest, most charming old city, I verily believe, that the sun shines on. From its streets, sometimes wider, sometimes narrower, but always crookeder, to its curious houses with their high-peaked gables and red-tiled roofs, with regular rows of such funny hooded windows let into them, and the upper stories all cut up into the most lavishly ornate towers, balconies, and sculptures; from its ramparts with towers of various forms at intervals, and its dry moat, thirty-five yards wide and thirty-five feet deep, to the river running through and dividing the town into nearly equal parts, spanned by old and historic bridges; from the churches, museums and galleries filled with the masterpieces of Durer, Kraft, Stoss and Vischer, to the shops with their bewildering medley of carvings in wood andivory, and castings in terra-cotta, bronze and brass, by the thousand nameless artists of to-day; from—oh! everything to everything. Just leave all the rest of Europe out if you can’t get it and Nuremberg in. Think how you’d feel to see a lime tree planted by Queen Kunigunde in the year 1002! or a lamp that has never been allowed to go out since it was first lighted in 1326! or a wedding in the Rathhaus! I saw them all. And saw besides, the Crown Princess and her daughter, and was not struck blind by the sight! And there was a great exposition in progress, and yesterday the anniversary celebration of the victory at Sedan. The exposition was a grand and most artistic spectacle; and all “United Germany” a spectacular display of multitudinous flags, and processions enlivened with human huzzas and band music! I wish I dare tell you the half I saw, or a tithe of the ravishment of mind and soul wrought by that picturesque, haunting, old ancestral city of mine. My great grandfather went to America from it. Did I ever tell you? Do you wonder I could not bear to tear myself away? I am going back some day if I have the ghost of a chance.

To-day I have been resting; too tired for church, for anything but this careless scamperover a sheet of paper. Had an interruption in a call from some Cape Colony English ladies, tourists as we are, whom we met at Inverness and went with to the battle-field of Culloden; and again at Dunkeld. My traveling companion, Miss S—— of Boston, struck them quite unexpectedly again yesterday on the “Old Bridge” that crosses the Neckar, which I think I called Maine in my last to you. They are very agreeable, and their party consists of the mother and five daughters. Well, I do think the sheets of paper of the present day have the most limited capacity. I am not half begun and this is used up! Pshaw!

L. G. C.

Heidelberg, September 3, 1882.

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AS a reward for your reformation I write to you on this precious sheet. You see I have come to be wonderfully attached to Heidelberg, the beautiful, the quaint, the historically poetic, learned and picturesque old town on the Neckar. It seems like another home. So I could not show my appreciation of you in a more complimentary way than by sending this little series of pictures. Have you ever been here, I wonder? You did not say, but you wrote as if you knew it by sight as well as by heart. As I cannot know, I will venture an explanation. The panorama speaks for itself. Put on your “specs” and look at the castle, half way up theberg, “the Jettenhuhl, a wooded spur of the Konigestuhl.” Look at it from the “Terrasse.” Thus you’ll get something of an idea of it. The Gesprente Thurm is the one that was blown up by the French. The thickness of the walls, twenty-one feet, and the solid masonry, held it so well that only a fragment, as it were, gave way. It still hangs as if ready to be replaced.“Das Grosse Fass Gebaude,” too, you will have no difficulty in making out. If you only had it with its 49,000 gallons of wine, but wouldn’t you divide with your neighbors! The columns in the portico that shows in the Schlosshof are the four brought from Charlemagne’s palace at Ingelheim by the Count Palatine Ludwig, some time between 1508-44. The Zum Ritter has nothing to do with the castle, but is an ancient structure (1592) in the Renaissance style, and one of the few that escaped destruction in 1693. It is a beautiful, highly ornamental building, and I wish you could see it, if you have not seen it.

All the above information, I beg you to believe, I do not intend you to think was evolved from my inner consciousness, but gathered from the—nearest guide-book!

I am so much obliged to you for mapping out Switzerland to me. I have been trying my best to get all those “passes” into my brain. Now, thanks to your letter, I have them all in the handiest kind of a bunch. Ariel like, “I’ll do my bidding gently,” and as surely, if I get there. But there are dreadful reports of floods and roads caved in and bridges swept away and snows and—enough of such exciting items as sets one thinking—“to go or not to go?” Weare this far on the way. Reached here this afternoon. Have spent the evening sauntering in the gardens, the Conversationhaus, the bazaar, mingling with the throng, listening to the band, and comparing what it is with what it was. It was a gay and curious spectacle, but on the whole had “the banquet-hall deserted” look. The situation is most beautiful. It lies, you know, at the entrance of the Black Forest, among picturesque, thickly-wooded hills, in the valley of the Oos, and extends up the slope of some of the hills. The Oos is a most turbid, turbulent stream; dashes through part of the town with angry, headlong speed. There is an avenue along its bank of oaks, limes and maples, bordered with flower-beds and shrubberies, and adorned with fountains and handsome villas. We shall devote to-morrow to seeing all there is to be seen, and go to Strassburg to-morrow evening for two or three days. From there to Constance, and then holdour“Council” as to further movements.

L. G. C.

Baden-Baden, September 19, 1882.

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JUST after I last wrote I left my companions to worry along over their “German lessons,” and ran away to Nuremberg. A very pleasant party was going there on the way to Vienna, and wished me to go along. Of all Germany, divided or united, Nuremberg was my objective point; for in addition to its special attraction as “the most perfect surviving specimen of mediaeval architecture in Europe,” it has a nearer interest to me in that it was the home of my father’s paternal ancestors, as far back as 1570. So I went with alacrity. We left Heidelberg at the reasonable hour of 10:50 a. m. Thanks to the moderate form of tourist life I have adopted, neither the hours of my “beauty sleep” nor that last supreme “forty winks” of the luxuriant morning sleeper, are ever interfered with. Our way lay up the Neckar, and as the train left the Carlsthor it glided—literally glided, the rate of speed not exceeding from twelve to fifteen miles an hour, and it “the fast train,” too!—along the bank of the river, under an avenueof trees, giving ample time for one to take in views that one might delight to shut her eyes and recall in the dreamland hours of some future paradise. There were cone-shaped, beautiful, castle-capped mountains, the long winding valley with the river showing in many a lovely curve and shoot; village after village, in the mellowest tints of Indian red, brown, and drab, gathered around its church or chapel, almost every one with an amazing tall spire; ranges of wooded hills that came together in one direction, or retreated from each other in another, disclosing wonderful vistas;—and the weather! One moment a burst of sunlight; the next a veil of fleecy white clouds that changed into the mistiest blue; presently a dash of rain; then the brilliant clearing up again. Thus continued both views and weather to Heilbronn, forty-two miles. There are two historic points, Wimpfen am Berg, which occupies an old Roman station destroyed by the Huns under Attila; and Sinzheim, where Turenne gained a victory in 1674. I own their history was not half so interesting to me as their beauty. From Heilbronn to Nuremberg, over a hundred miles, the country was one great stretch of farming land, fine soil, and admirably cultivated.

We ran into Nuremberg in a pelting rain. All the hotels full. After being turned away from five, with the most proper apologies be it said, we found lodging, but “no rations” except breakfast, at a private house. This was duly served: coffee, rolls, butter and eggs, the lastraw! Fancy our amusement. Having left our names at the various hotels for the first vacancy, next morning the Golden Eagle found a place for us beneath its sheltering wings. We were fortunate in the time of our visit—a grand exposition was in progress. Nearly all of “united Germany,” as well as “little Bavaria,” seemed thronging the hotels and crowding the streets. The Crown Prince and his family occupied two hotels. The exposition continues, and is really a superb attraction. As for the quaint, picturesque old city itself, I cannot believe there is another so fascinating. From its streets, sometimes wide, oftener narrow, always crooked; its houses, eight and ten stories high, with their lofty-peaked gables and red-tiled roofs, with five or more tiers of the funniest little windows; its churches, monuments, and repositories of the best productions of that brilliant constellation of workers—Durer, Kraft, Vischer, Stoss and Hirschvogel—who lived and flourished there together; itsshops, tempting with pictures, carvings, castings, and—toys; its museums, that it would take days to tell you about; its curious old bridges spanning the river Pegnitz, that divides it into two parts; the fortifications, consisting of a rampart running round the entire old city, with towers at intervals, and a dry moat, thirty-five feet deep and as many yards wide; its old berg, or castle, that rises on a lofty sandstone rock with “the wide extended prospect” from its walls and windows, and the old lime tree in the court, planted by Queen Kunigunde somewhere from 1004 to 1024; to the cemetery where Durer is buried, with its singular, but the most impressive monuments, plain, massive, low monoliths, with large plates inserted in the tops bearing the inscriptions. From first to last, everywhere and everything, the old town, all alive with the quickest beating of the pulse of the nineteenth century, was a delight and wonder.

Do not dream of a half description of anything; there was too much for one pen—too much for a thousand pens. But you never saw lions, life size, made out of soap, did you? Or temples, pagodas, monuments of every design, made out of buttons, matches, tacks, not mere toys, but big enough for out doors?

Among others of these artistic and architectural structures, was a tall shaft monument of tobacco, fine-cut, twist, stem, and leaves, labeled—fancy my heart-throb on reading—“Maryland,” “Virginia,” “Kentucky.” And these are some of the innumerable sights I saw at the exposition. What else did I see?

“Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat, where have you been?I have been to London to see the Queen.”

I saw the crown princess and her daughter! I looked at them and they looked at me—took me in as they did the shop-windows, trees, whatever came within the sweep of their roving glance—just as I did them! Such a plain, insignificant little party as they were! The crown prince was not with them. Just two ordinary open carriages, the princess in the first, with her daughter by her side; in the other, a lady and gentleman in attendance. They came out from a shop of carvings just as we were approaching it to enter. And I saw a wedding at the chapel of the Rathhaus (town hall)! Neither the bride nor groom was on the sunny side of forty. She was dressed in a rich heavy black silk, with a white illusion head-dress, that was voluminous enough for a veil, though evidently not intended for one. The ceremony was apparently a simple civilservice, conducted by the magistrate, or whatever he was, and an assistant. The bridal party was accompanied by one person only—a gray-haired old gentleman.

How the days sped by! The first thing I knew, ere I was half ready to leave, my last day had come. I bought a package of Nuremberg’s famous gingerbread, and bidding my pleasant party “good-bye,” most reluctantly betook myself to my home-bound train. Traveling, as I was, alone, I was put in the special “ladies’” car, “Fuer Damen,” as it is labeled. Presently, another “lone female” was put in, who proved to be a young German lady. I began to stumble in German to her. She smiled, and replied in tolerable English, it being one of the five languages of which she was in a manner mistress; and she was just beginning the sixth! “I have so much time,” she said simply, in explanation of such learning. She was educated in Geneva. If she is an average example of its pupils, Geneva’s schools must be indeed desirable. And the next thing I knew, our five weeks at Heidelberg were gone, and it was time to “move on” again.

We started for Munich via Baden-Baden, Strassburg and Switzerland—an attractive programme,but not less did it hurt to say another “good-bye” to the pleasant friends we had made—the beautiful Pension, which had come to have a real home feeling; the romantic “ancient university town,” and the grand old castle, both Longfellow-haunted to me; and to the various charming places in the environs—become almost as familiar as the favorite haunts of childhood. Our bright little Fraulein, whose dainty motions made one think of a bird’s, said in her very best English: “You must tired once more get, and soon again come home.” Her eyes were brimming with tears. The good frau mother took me in her arms, and in German fashion pressed each of my cheeks against each of hers. It was a most charming family.

We spent a night at Baden, the great Spa—the ex-gambling hell—the beautiful city that has risen from its degradation and put on robes of innocence. This is due to the efforts of the present and the preceding grand duke, both men of exceptionally noble characters, and warmly honored and loved. The former prosperity and popularity given by the seductions of the gambling bank have been succeeded and surpassed by attractions of a different and higher kind. Instead of the dreadful fascinations of the Cursall,the palatial Friedrichsbad, said to be the most complete bathing establishment in the world, offers the healing and luxury of its thermal and mineral baths. It takes its name from the reigning grand duke, who was its chief and most intensely interested projector. But his wise exertions and princely tastes have apparently known no restrictions. They have been shown in the erection of other magnificent buildings, in the laying out and exquisite adornment of public parks and promenades; indeed in doing everything possible to render Baden not only a delightful summer resort, but suitable for a permanent home.

It is provided with theaters, balls, fine music, scientific lectures, etc. The results justify his efforts and sagacious foresight. Wealthy families of rank all over Germany are making it a home. Do I seem to dwell on Baden and its grand duke? Well, I may as well admit, all the homage I am capable of is evoked by such a man and such a work. I have his photograph and many little pictures of his Baden! Have you ever read in a way that impressed you to remembrance of the beautiful situation of Baden? The highest compliment that can be bestowed, as the guide-book says, is this: “It vies with Hiedelberg.”It lies among picturesque wooded hills, at the entrance of the Black Forest, on the Oehlbach; it is on the right bank of the stream, and runs up “a slope of the Battert,” the summit of which is crowned by the New Schloss, one of the grand duke’s residences. It has a Saratoga look. Haven’t all watering places a close kin look? But it has its own foreign look too, and distinctive features, even from those of Weisbaden, its rival.

On the left bank of the Oos—“the well corrected Oos,” as I have seen it called somewhere, because it has been confined for some distance between high stone walls—are the pleasure grounds, the Conversationhaus (the old Cursaal), the Trinkhalle on one side of an open square, full of avenues of shade trees, and in one corner of which is the gay and fanciful “Music-Kiosk,” where the band plays, and the Lichtenthale Allee. This last is an avenue of “vanishing distances,” of lime trees, oaks, maples, flower-beds, shrubberies, fountains, and all kinds of ornamental seats scattered through it. The Oos, the most turbid, turbulent strip of a river, dashes along as if in a perfect fury at those confining walls. The walls themselves, though, are a special feature of the rare loveliness that meetsthe glance on every side; they are so festooned and draped with vines one can scarce more than guess at the stones so veiled. The Virginia creeper was so in excess the river seemed rushing between a running fire of crimson flames. It was indeed “exceeding beautiful.” In the evening we walked in the brilliantly lighted square, peering into the gay shop windows, stopping to listen to the band, mingling with the throngs of well-dressed people, and bringing up in the “great saloon” (fifty-four yards long and seventeen wide) of the Conversationhaus for a rest and a study of the novel scene. Finally we strolled through the two old gambling saloons (the Landscape and the Italian) and ever so many others, and lost ourselves in admiration of the beauty and comfort. The next day we spent in driving to the Old Schloss, six miles from town, on a high “berg,” and to all the points of most interest. The Old Schloss is a very romantic old ruin, and commands the finest views around Baden. From it we went to the New Schloss, and were shown through a number of handsome saloons and the apartment of the grand duke and duchess. It was such a perfect little gem of an apartment that I must give you a peep into it. A comparatively quitesmall oblong room, with two doors opposite each other and in the middle of each wall. One end of the oblong was a dead wall, the other a large bay window of the loveliest stained glass, in pictures of all the choicest points about Baden. Only the center pane was plain glass; it too, though, framing a lovely view of the scene outside. The doors were rather doorways, being, I should think, ten feet high by four wide, all apparently one solid magnificent mirror. As one steps across the threshold, himself or herself is beheld before, behind, on either hand, overhead, in infinite repetition. The French custodian made merry in showing off this ingenious and amusing trick of reflecting surfaces. After this came the Friedrichsbad, with its innumerable varieties of baths, the Trinkhalle and a glass of its steaming water, and—“and other things too numerous to make mention of,” to quote from our old town crier.

With decided reluctance we set our faces toward Strassburg, where, to be sure, we wished to go, but we did not feel ready to leave Baden.

We spent two days at Strassburg. You know there was the grand Cathedral, with its grander clock, to see, the fortifications, some fine public parks, and the immense Alsatian bowswith the women attached, besides a lunch on the famous local dish, pates de foie gras. I circumnavigated the Cathedral, loitered through and through it, and finally sat down before the clock at the stroke of eleven, to watch it through the next hour. I saw the little boy come out and strike his quarter and disappear, the youth, the middle-aged man, the old man; and then the grand midday procession of puppets representing the Apostles, pass before another puppet representing Christ, making fitting reverence, all but that dreadful Judas, who turned his back on him. The cock, too, performed beautifully, flapped his wings and stretched out his neck, and crowed a sure-enough chanticleer crow, loud enough and cheerily enough to waken the soundest sleeper and make the laziest willing to creep out of bed. The little angel turned his hour-glass, the show was over, and I came away very much impressed with that wonder of mechanism which has been running and regulating itself ever since 1842, and is calculated to do this for an unlimited number of years. And don’t you think I did right to shut my ears and refuse to listen to a young Yankee “Paul Pry,” recently from a six months’ sojourn in Strassburg, who wished to make me believethere was a man behind performing a la—the organ-grinder! The Alsatian bows were a perpetual feast of fun, but as a feast of the palate once is often enough for me of the pates de foie gras.

From Strassburg through the Black Forest by rail was a run of 728 miles. We had a series of thirty-eight tunnels in succession. The very foundation rocks of the earth seem to have been blasted and dug through to make this admirable road; the round charms of which could not be summed up in a Summer day’s gossip.

L. G. C.

Munich, September 27, 1882.

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