There is also here the Order of the Garter, of that same king—twenty-six enamelled red roses on blue shields held together by twists of gold cord; diamonds and pearls make it splendid, and that bit of gospel truth "Evil to him that evil thinks," is written on it in rubies, as it deserves to be written everywhere.
This Frederick must have been a gay fellow; for here stands a glass goblet, five inches in diameter, and fifteen high, out of which he and his set of boon companions fell to drinking one day on wagers to see who could drink the most, and scratched their names on the glass as they drank, each man his mark and record, little thinking that the glass would outlive them three centuries and more, as it has; and is likely now, unless Rosenborg burns down, to last the world out.
The thing I would rather own, of all this Frederick's possessions, would be one—I would be quite content with one—of the plates which Germany sent to him as a present. They are red in the middle, with gold escutcheons enamelled on them; the borders are of plain clear amber, rimmed with silver,—one big circle of amber! The piece from which it was cut was big enough to have made the whole plate, if they had chosen, but it was more beautiful to set it simply as a rim. Nothing could be dreamed of more beautiful in the way of a plate than this.
I told you in my last letter what a stamp Christian IV. had left on the capital of his kingdom. I fancy, withoutknowing anything about it, that he must have been one of the greatest kings Denmark ever had; at any rate, he built well, planned well for poor people, worked with a free hand for art and science, fought like a tiger, and loved—well, he loved like a king, I suppose; for he had concubines from every country in Europe, and no end of illegitimate princes and princesses whom he brought up, maintained, and educated in the most royal fashion. He lived many years in this Rosenborg; and when he found he must die, was brought back here, and died in a little room we should think small to-day for a man to lie mortally ill in; but he lived only one week after he was brought back, and it was in winter-time, so the open fireplace ventilated the room.
The upper half of the walls is covered with dark green moire silk, with gold flowers on it; the lower half is covered with paintings, many portraits among them; and in places of honor among the portraits, the king's favorite dogs, Wild-brat and Tyrk.
Here are his silver compasses and his ship hand-lantern; the silver scales in which he weighed out his gold and silver; a little hand printing-press, dusty and worn, with the brass stamp with his monogram on it,—his occupation in rainy days of leisure. Here, also, are the tokens of his idle moments,—a silver goblet made out of money won by him from four courtiers, who had all betted with him, on one 6th of February, which would be first drunk before Easter. These were the things that I cared most for,—more than for the splendors, of which there were closets full, glass cases full, tables full: goblets of lapis lazuli, jasper, agate, and crystal, gold and silver; lamps of crystal; cabinets of ebony; orders and rings and bracelets and seals and note-books and clocks and weapons, all of the costliest and most beautiful workmanship; rubies and diamonds and pearls, set and sewed wherever they could be; a medicine spoon, with gold for its handle and a hollowed sapphire for its bowl, for instance,—the sapphire nearly one inch across. One might swallow even allopathic medicine out of such a spoon as that: and I dare say that it was when she was very ill, and had a lot of nasty doses to take, that Madame Kirstin—one of the left-handed wives—got from the sympathizing king this dainty little gift. "C" and "K" are wrought into a monogramon the handle, which is three inches long, of embossed gold. Another sapphire, clear as a drop of ocean water with sunlight piercing it, and one inch square, is in the same case with the medicine spoon. A chalice, with wafer-box, paten, and cup, all of the finest gold, engraved, enamelled, and set thick with precious stones, has a gold death's-head and cross-bones on the stem of the chalice; and the eyes of the death's-head are two great rose diamonds, which gleam out frightfully. Another gold chalice has on its under side a twisted network of Arabesque, with sixty-six enamelled rosettes, all openwork on it.
In the room called Christian's workroom is a set of caparisons for a horse,—saddle, saddle-cloth, housing, and holsters, all of black velvet, sewn thick, even solid, with pearls and gold, rubies, sapphires, and rose diamonds. The sight of them flashing in sunlight on a horse's back must have been dazzling. These were a wedding present from King Christian to his son.
In this room also are several suits of Christian's clothes,—jerkin, trousers, and mantle, in the fashion of that day, dashing enough, even when made of common stuffs; but these are of cloth of gold, silver moire, black Brabant lace, trimmed in the most lavish way with gold and silver laces, and embroidered with pearls and gold. There is a suit of dirty and blood-stained linen hanging in one of the locked cabinets which does him more credit than these. It is the suit he wore at the great naval battle where he lost his eye. A shell exploding on the deck, a fragment of it flew into his face and instantly destroyed his right eye. His men thought all was lost; but he, seizing his handkerchief, clapped it into the bleeding socket, and fought on. One reads of such heroic deeds as this with only a vague thrill of wonder and admiration; but to see and touch the very garments the hero wore is another thing. This old blood-stained velvet jerkin is worth more to the Danish people than all the scores of bejewelled robes in the Rosenborg; and I think there are literally scores of them.
Next to Christian IV. came Frederick III.; and in his reign the rococo style ruled everything. Three rooms in the Rosenborg are devoted to the relics of this king's reign; and a great deal of hideous magnificence theyhold, it must be confessed,—cabinets and tables and candlesticks and ceilings and walls, which are as jarring to the eye as the Chinese gong is to the ear, and appear to be just about as civilized. But the rococo had not yet spoiled everything. The jewelled cups and boxes and spoons and miniatures are as beautiful as ever; a set of glass spoons with handles of gold and of agate and of crystal; the gold knives and forks that Frederick III. and his queen used to travel with. In those days when you were asked to tea you carried your own implements; ivory cups, gold goblets, and goblets of crystal, a goblet made out of one solid topaz, and a great tankard made of amber,—these are a few of the little necessaries of every-day life to Frederick's court. His motto was "Dominus providebit;" it is on half of his splendid possessions,—on his mosaic tables and his jewelled canes and pomade boxes; everywhere it looms up, in unwitting but delicious satire on the habit Frederick had of providing for himself, and most lavishly too, all sorts of superfluities, which the Lord never would think of providing for any human being!—such, for instance, as a jewel box of silver, with fifteen splendidly cut crystals let into the sides, so that one can look through into the box and see on the bottom a fine bit of embossed work, the picture of the Judgment of Paris. Around these crystals sixty-two large garnets are set, and these again are surrounded by wreaths of flowers and leaves in embossed work, set thick with more diamonds than could be counted. A very pretty thing in its way, to stand on a dressing-table and hold the kind of rings worn at this time by the kind of persons who reigned in Denmark! Another pretty little thing he had,—not so useful as the jewel-box, but in far more perfect taste,—was a crystal goblet, in shape of a shell, resting on the back of a bending Cupid. Eight beautiful heads are cut on the sides of this cup, and there is standing on its curling base a winged boy. Its translucent shades and shadows are beautiful beyond words. It is said to be the most beautiful specimen in the world of work in pure crystal. The topaz goblet and the amber tankard, however, would outrival it in most eyes. I longed to see the topaz cup held up to the sun, filled with pale wine. I believe you couldhearit shine! The third of the rooms devoted to Frederick and his reignis called the Marble Chamber, and is a superb icy place; floor and walls all marble. In cabinets in this room are some of Frederick's clothes,—every-day clothes, such as dark brown cloth, ornamented down every seam with gold and silver lace; and a dress of his queen's, the only dress of a woman which has come down from that age. It is one solid mass of embroidery in gold and gay colors on silk, stiff as old tapestry; loops of faded pink ribbon down the front, and a long jabot of old point lace all the way down the front. There are also a sword and sword-belt, and a gun bearing the initials of this lady. The gun has a medallion of ivory let in at the butt end, with her initials, "S. A.," and her motto, "In God is my hope." There is something uncommonly droll in these mottoes of faith in God's providing, inscribed on so many articles of luxury by people who must have certainly spent a good part of their time in providing for themselves.
In the last part of the seventeenth century things in Denmark were more and more stamped by the French influence. Christian V., who succeeded to Frederick III., had spent some time in the court of Louis XIV., and wanted to make his own court as much like it as possible. So we find, in the rooms devoted to Christian V.'s reign, tapestries and cabinets which might all have come from France. One of the saloons is hung with superb tapestry, all with a red ground; and the tables and mirrors and chairs are all gilded and carved in the last degree of fantastic decoration. This red room used to be Christian's dining-room; and the plate-warmers still stand before the fireplace,—two feet high, round, solid silver, every inch engraved.
Caskets of amber, of ivory; drinking-horns,—one-third horn and two-thirds embossed silver,—bowls and globes of wrought silver, hunting-cups of solid silver made to fit into deer's antlers and with coral knobs for handles; closets full of fowling-pieces, pistols, silver-sheathed hunting-knives, falcon hoods set with real pearls and embroidered in gold,—orders of all sorts known to Denmark; elephants and St. Georges in silver and crystal and cameo; gold jugs, gold beakers, bowls of green jade, with twisted snakes for handles and dragons' heads at bottom; goblets of solid crystal, of countless shapes andsizes,—one in shape of a flying-fish borne by two dolphins; onyx and jasper and agate and porcelain, made into no end of shapes and uses;—these are a few of the things which "God provided" for this Danish king and queen. One of these rooms is hung with tapestries of lilac silk and gold moire, embroidered with gold and silver threads and colors. These were provided by Frederick himself, who brought them from Italy.
But you don't care a fig who brought the things, or when they were brought; and perhaps you don't care very much about the things anyhow. I dare say they do not sound half as superb as they were; but I must tell you of a few more. What do you think of a room with walls, ceiling, and a large space in the centre of the floor all of plate glass, the rest of the floor being of exquisite mosaic in wood; and of a coat of crimson velvet embroidered thick with silver thread, to be worn with a pale blue waistcoat, also embroidered stiff with silver thread; and of cups cut out of rubies; and a great bowl of obsidian set with rubies and garnets; and of topazes big enough to cut heads on in fine relief? There are hundreds and hundreds more of things I have not mentioned, and hundreds of things I did not see even, in the rooms I walked through; and there were seventeen rooms more into which I did not even go. If I had, I should have seen twelve superb tapestries, 12 feet in height, by 10 to 20 feet broad, each giving a picture of a battle, and all strictly historical; the Royal Font, of solid embossed silver, inside which is placed at every christening another dish of gold; one whole room full of the costliest and rarest porcelain from all parts of the world,—here is the splendid and famous "Flora Danica" service. I saw at a porcelain shop a reproduction of this service, every article bearing some Danish flower most exquisitely painted. A great platter heaped full of wild roses was as lovely as a day in June. Here also are the Danish Regalia, kept in a room hung with Oriental carpets, and with a floor of black and white marble. "In the middle of the floor a pyramid arises behind clear thick plate glass, from the flat sides of which, covered with red velvet, the rays of gold and precious stones flash upon us, whilst the summit is adorned by a magnificent and costly crown." This sentence is from the catalogue written bymy friend the noble Dane, and is a very favorable specimen of his English. Bless him, how I do wish I had gone back to that museum! At this distance of time it seems incomprehensible to me that I did not. But that day I felt as if one more look at the simple door of a museum would make a maniac of me. So this is all I can tell you about the famous Rosenborg. And with the others I will not bore you much, for I have made this so long; only I must tell you that in the Ethnographic, which is in some respects, I suppose, the most valuable of them all, having five rooms full ofPrehistoricantiquities from the stone, bronze, and early iron ages in every part of the world, and twenty or thirty rooms more full of characteristic things,—dresses, implements, ornaments, weapons, of the uncultivated savage or semi-savage races, also of the Chinese, Persians, Arabians, Turks, East Indians, etc.;—in this museum I found a most important place assigned to the North American Indian; and Dr. Steinhauer, the director of the museum, a man whose ethnographical studies and researches have made him known to all antiquarians in the world was full of interest in them, and appreciation of their noble qualities, of their skill and taste in decoration, and still more of the important links between them and the old civilizations. Here were portraits of all the most distinguished of our Indian chiefs; a whole corridor filled with glass cases full of their robes, implements, weapons, decorations; several life-size figures in full war-dress: and their trappings were by no means put to shame, in point of design and color, by the handsomest trappings in Rosenborg; in fact, they were far more wonderful, being wrought by an uncivilized race, living in wildernesses, with only rude paints, porcupine quills, and glass beads to work with. My eyes filled with tears, I confess, to find at last in little Denmark one spot in the world where there will be kept a complete pictorial record of the race of men that we have done our best to wipe out from the face of the earth,—where historical justice will be done to them in the far future, as a race of splendid possibilities, and attainments marvellous, considering the time in which they were made. Here was a superb life-size figure of a Blackfeet warrior on his horse; the saddle, trappings, etc., are exactly the same in shape and style as an old Arabsaddle used hundreds of years ago. On the warrior's breast is a round disk of lines radiating from a centre, in gay colors, of straw and beads, of a device identical with a rich Moorish ornament; the same device Dr. Steinhauer pointed out to me on a medicine-bag of the Blackfeet tribe.
Here was a figure of a chief of the Sacs and Foxes, in full array; by his side the portrait of his father, with the totem of the tribe tattooed on his breast. With enthusiasm Dr. Steinhauer pointed out to me how in one generation the progress had been so great that on the robe of the son was set in a fine and skilful embroidery the same totem which the father had rudely tattooed on his breast. Here were specimens of the handiwork of every tribe,—of their dresses, of their weapons; those of each tribe carefully assorted by themselves. Dr. Steinhauer knew more, I venture to say, about the different tribes, their race affinities and connections, than any man in America knows to-day. When I told him a little about the scorn and hatred which are felt in America towards the Indians, the indifference with which their fate is regarded by the masses of the people, and the cruel injustice of our government towards them, he listened to me with undisguised astonishment, and repeated again and again and again, "It is inexplicable; I cannot understand."
You can imagine what a thrilling pleasure all this was to me. But it was marred by the keenest sense of shame of my country, that it should have been left for Denmark alone to keep a place in historical archives for a fair showing and true appreciation of the "wards of the United States Government."
I might fill another letter with accounts of the "Collection of Northern Antiquities;" but don't be frightened: I won't, only to tell you that it is far the largest and most complete in Europe. And you may see there a specimen of everything that has been made, wrought, and worn in the way of stone, bronze, iron, or gold and silver, in the north countries, from the rude stone chisel with which the prehistoric man pried open his oyster and clam shells at picnics on the shore, and went away and left his shells and "openers" in a careless pile behind him, so that we could dig them all up together some thousands of yearslater, down to the superb gold bracelets worn by the strong-armed women who queened it in Norway ten centuries ago. It is a great thing for us that those old fellows had such a way of flinging their ornaments into lakes as offerings to gods, and burying them by the wheelbarrow-full in graves. It wasn't a safe thing to do, even as long ago as that, however; for there are traces in many of these burial-mounds of their having been opened and robbed at some period far back. In one of the rooms of this museum are several huge oak coffins, with the mummied or half-petrified bodies lying in them, just as they were buried sixteen hundred years ago. The coffins were made of whole trunks of trees, hollowed out so as to make a sort of trough with a lid; and in this the body was laid, with all its usual garments on. There is an indescribable and uncanny fascination in the sight of one of these old mummies,—the eyeless sockets, the painful cheekbone, the tight-drawn forehead; they look so human and unhuman at once, so awfully dead and yet somehow so suggestive of having been alive, that it stimulates a far greater curiosity to know what they did and thought and felt, than it is possible to feel about neighbors to-day. I never see half a dozen of these mummies together without wishing they would sit up and take up the thread of their gossip where they left it off,—so different from the feeling one has about live gossips, and so utterly unreasonable too; for gossip is gossip all the same, and nothing but an abomination in any age, whether that of Pharaoh or Ulysses Grant. If I did not feel a dreadful misgiving that you had had enough museum already, and would be bored by more, I really would like to tell you about a few more of these things: a necklace, found in a peat bog by a poor devil who had begged leave to cut a bit of turf there to burn, and to be sure he found eleven beautiful gold things of one sort and another. The necklace is very heavy to lift. I asked permission to take it in my hands. I laid it around my neck, and it would have hurt to wear it ten minutes. It was a great snake coil of solid gold, the body half as big as my wrist! If Queen Thyra wore it, she must have been a giantess, or else have had a wadded "chest protector" underneath her necklaces. She and her husband, King Gorm, were buried in two enormous moundsin Jutland, some fourteen hundred years ago. The mounds were so high that they nearly overtopped the little village church; and yet, at some time or other, robbers had burrowed into them, and carried off a lot of things, so that when the mounds were scientifically excavated, few relics were found. Stealing from that sort of grave seems to make the modern methods of body-snatching quite insignificant. Even A. T. Stewart's body would have been safe if it had been in a mound as high as the church steeple.
Now I must tell you a little more about Harriet. She leaves me to-morrow, and I shall grieve at parting with the garrulous old soul. Niobe, I call her in my own mind; for she melts into tears at the least emotion. I am afraid nobody has ever been very good to her; for the smallest kindness touches her to the quick, and she cannot refrain from perpetually breaking out into expressions of fondness for me, and gratitude, which are sometimes tiresome. The explanation of her good English is that her parents were English, though she was born in Copenhagen, has lived there all her life, and married a Dane when she was quite young. He was a tradesman, and they lived in comparative comfort, though, as she said, "we never could lay up a penny, because we always sent the children to the best schools; and for ten children, ma'am, it does take a heap of schooling!"
Of the ten children, six are still living; and Harriet, at sixty-four, has thirty-six grandchildren. When she first came to me she looked ten years older than she does now. Good food, freedom from care, and her enjoyment of her journey have almost worked miracles on her face. Every morning she has come out looking better than she did the night before. I see that she must have been a very handsome woman in her day,—delicate features, and a soft dark brown eye, with very great native refinement and gentleness of manner. Poor soul! her hardest days are before her, I fear; for the daughter with whom she lives, and for whom she works night and day, is the wife of that worthless fellow, our commissionnaire. He is a drunkard, and not much more than four fifths "witted." Harriet is pew-opener at the English church, and gets a little money from that; the clergyman is very kind to her, and she has the promise of a place at last in a sort of "Old Lady'sHome" in Copenhagen. This is her outlook! I must send you the verses she presented to me yesterday. I had left her alone for the greater part of the forenoon, and she took to her pen for company. That was the way Katrina used to amuse herself when I left her alone. I always found her sitting with her elbows on the table, a pile of scribbled sheets in front of her, her hair pushed off her forehead, and a general expression of fine frenzy about her. Katrina's English did not compare with Harriet's at all; that is, it was not so good. I liked it far better. It was one perpetual fund of amusement to me; but I think Katrina had more nearly a vein of genius about her, and she was not sentimental; whereas Harriet is a sentimentalist of the first water,—no, of the "seventy thousandth"!
Paris, September 19.
I kept my letter and brought it here to tell you about Ole Bull's funeral, full accounts of which reached the H——'s just before we left Munich on the 9th. It was a splendid tribute to the dear old man; I shall always regret that I did not see it. His home is on a beautiful island about sixteen miles from Bergen. If it were only possible to make you understand how much more the wordislandmeans in Norway than anywhere else! But it is not. To those of you who know the sort of mountain pasture in which great hillocks of moss and stone are thrown up, piled up, crowded in, in such labyrinths that you go leaping from one to the other, winding in and out in crevice-like paths, never knowing where moss leaves off and stone begins,—where you will strike firm footing, and where you will plunge your foot down suddenly into moss above your ankles; and to those of you who love the country and the spring in the country so well that you know just the look of a feathery young birch-tree on the first day of June, and of slender young spruce-trees all the year round, it is enough to say that if you take a dozen miles or so of such a pasture, and make the hillocks many feet high, and then set in here and there little hollows full of the birches, and a ravine or two full of the young spruces, and then launch your hillocks and birches and spruces straight out into deep blue sea, you'll have something such an island as there are thousands of on the Norway coast. Ole Bull'shome was on such an island as this, and he had made it an ideally beautiful place. Eighteen miles of pathway he had made in the labyrinths of the island; had brought soil from the shore, and set gardens in hollows here and there. The house is a picturesque and delightful one; and in the great music-room, nearly a hundred feet long, there he lay dead, two days, in state like a king, with steamers full of sorrowing friends and mourning strangers coming to take their last look at his face. The king sent a letter of condolence to Mrs. Bull, and the peasants came weeping to the side of his bed; from highest to lowest, Norway mourned. On the day of the funeral, after some short services at the house, the body was carried on board a steamer, to be taken to Bergen. The steamer was draped with black and strewn with green. I believe I have told you of the beautiful custom the Norwegians have of strewing green juniper twigs in the street in front of their houses whenever they have lost a friend. No matter how far away the friend may have lived, when they hear of his death they strew the juniper around their house to show that a death has given them sorrow. It was a commentary on human life (and death!) that I never went out in Bergen without seeing in some street, and often in many, the juniper-strewn sidewalks. As the steamer with Ole Bull's body approached the entrance of Bergen harbor, sixteen steamers, all draped in black, with flags at half-mast, sailed out to meet it, turned, and fell into line on either side to convoy it to shore. Bands were playing his music all the way. At the wharf they were met by nearly all Bergen; and the body was borne in grand procession through the streets, which were strewn thick with juniper from the wharf to the cemetery, at least two or three miles. The houses were all draped with black, and many of the people had put on black. The golden wreath which was given him in San Francisco was borne in the procession by one of his friends, and a procession of little girls bore wreaths and bouquets of flowers. The grave was hidden and half filled with flowers; and last of all, after the body had been laid there,—last and most touching of all, came the peasants, crowds of them, gathering close, and each one flinging in a fern leaf or a juniper bough or a bunch of flowers. Every one had brought something, andthe grave was nearly filled up with their offerings. It is worth while to be loved like that by a people. Whatever scientific critics may say of Ole Bull's playing, he played so that he swayed the hearts of the common people; and his own nation loved him and were proud of him, just as the Danes loved Hans Christian Andersen, with a love that asked no indorsement and admitted no question from the outside world. The school of music to which Ole Bull belonged has passed away; but what scientific art has gained the people have lost. It will never be seen that one of these modern violinists can make uneducated people smile and weep as he did. The flowers that are dying on his coffin are all immortelles. Such blossoms as these will never again be strewn by peasant hands in a player's grave.
It took two days to come from Munich to Paris,—two hard days, from seven in the morning till six at night. We broke the journey by sleeping at Strasburg, where we had just one hour to see the wonderful cathedral and its clock. The clock I didn't care so much about, though the trick of it is a marvel; but the twilight of the cathedral, lit up by its great roses of topaz and amethyst, I shall never forget as long as I live. In my next letter I will tell you about it. But now I have only time to copy Harriet's verses, and send off this letter. Here they are:—
DENMARK.When again in your own bright land you are,And with all that dearly you love,And at times you look up at the Northern StarThat stands on the sky above,Remember, then, that near forgot,Here, near the Gothic strand,There is on the globe a little spot,—'T is Denmark, a beautiful land.Now at harvest time from there you flew,Like the birds from its tranquil shore;They return at springtime, kind and true:May, like them, you return once more!Dear Mrs. Jakson, I remain your humble and thankful servant,Harriet.
DENMARK.
When again in your own bright land you are,And with all that dearly you love,And at times you look up at the Northern StarThat stands on the sky above,Remember, then, that near forgot,Here, near the Gothic strand,There is on the globe a little spot,—'T is Denmark, a beautiful land.Now at harvest time from there you flew,Like the birds from its tranquil shore;They return at springtime, kind and true:May, like them, you return once more!
When again in your own bright land you are,And with all that dearly you love,And at times you look up at the Northern StarThat stands on the sky above,Remember, then, that near forgot,Here, near the Gothic strand,There is on the globe a little spot,—'T is Denmark, a beautiful land.Now at harvest time from there you flew,Like the birds from its tranquil shore;They return at springtime, kind and true:May, like them, you return once more!
When again in your own bright land you are,
And with all that dearly you love,
And at times you look up at the Northern Star
That stands on the sky above,
Remember, then, that near forgot,
Here, near the Gothic strand,
There is on the globe a little spot,—
'T is Denmark, a beautiful land.
Now at harvest time from there you flew,
Like the birds from its tranquil shore;
They return at springtime, kind and true:
May, like them, you return once more!
Dear Mrs. Jakson, I remain your humble and thankful servant,
Harriet.
Poor thing! when she bade me good-by she began to shed tears, and I had to be almost stern with her to stoptheir flow. "Tell your husband," she said, "that there's a little creature in Denmark that you've made very happy, that'll never forget you," and she was gone. In about ten minutes a tap at the door; there was Harriet again, with a big paper of grapes and a deprecating face. "Excuse me, ma'am, but they were only one mark and a half a pound, and they 're much better than you'd get them in the hotel. Oh, I'll not lose my train, ma'am; I've plenty of time." And with another kiss on my hand she ran out of the room. Faithful creature! I shall never see her again in this world, but I shall remember her with gratitude as long as I live. Surely nowhere except in Norway and Denmark could it have happened to a person to find in the sudden exigency of the moment two such devoted servants as Katrina and Harriet; and that they should have both been rhymers was a doubling up of coincidences truly droll.
Paris is as detestable as ever,—literally a howling and waste place! Of all the yells and shrieks that ever made air discordant, surely the cries of Paris are the loudest and worst. My room looks on the street; and I should say that at least three different Indian tribes in distress and one in drunken hilarity were wailing and shouting under my windows all the time! As for the fiacre-men,—how likefiasco,fiacrelooks written!—they drive as if their souls' salvation depended on just grazing the wheel of every vehicle they pass. When two of them yell out at once, as they go by each other, it is enough to deafen one.
III.
Dear People,—I couldn't give you a better illustration of what happens to you in foreign countries when you pin your faith on people who are said to "speak English here," than by giving you the tale of how I went from Copenhagen to Lubeck. To begin with, I explained to the porter of the König von Denmark Hotel, who is one of the English-speakingattachésof that very good hotel,that I wished, in going to Lubeck, to avoid water as much as possible. I endeavored to convey to him that my horror of it was in fact hydrophobic, and that I could go miles out of my way to escape it. He understood me perfectly, he said; and he explained to me a fine route by which I was to cross island after island by rail, have only short intervals of water between, and come comfortably to Lubeck by eight in the evening, provided I would leave Copenhagen at 6.45 in the morning, which I was only too happy to do for the sake of escaping a long steamboat journey. So I arranged everything to that end; explained to the one waiter who spoke English that I must have breakfast on the table at 5.40, as I was to leave the house at 6.15. He understood perfectly, he said. (I also commissioned him to buy a pound of grapes for my lunch-basket; the relevancy of this will appear later.) I then carefully explained to the worthy old lady who had promised for a small consideration to take me to Munich, that she must be on the spot at six, with her luggage; and that she was on no account to bring anything to lift in her hands, because my own hand-luggage would be all she could well handle. Then I asked for my bill, that it might be settled the night beforehand, to have nothing on hand in the morning but to get off. This was doubly important, as the landlord had promised to change my Danish money into German money for me,—the Danish bankers having no German money. They so hate Germany that they consider it a disgrace, I believe, even to handle marks and pfennigs. The clerk, who also "speaks English," said he understood me perfectly; so I went upstairs cheerful and at ease in my mind. In half an hour my bill arrived; and I sent down by the waiter, who spoke "a leetle" English, five hundred Danish crowns to pay my bill, and have four hundred crowns returned to me in marks. Waited one hour, no money; rang, same waiter appeared.
"Where is my money?"
"Yees, it have gone out; it will soon return. He is not here."
Waited half an hour longer; rang again.
"Where is my money?"
"Yees, strachs. He shall all right, strachs."
"But I am very tired; I wish to go to bed."
"Yees, it shall be kommen."
Waited another half-hour,—it was now quarter of eleven; wrote on a bit of paper, "I have gone to bed; cannot take the money to-night. Have it ready for me at six in the morning." Rang, and gave it to the waiter, ejaculating, "Bureau;" and pointing downstairs, shut the door on him and went to bed. The last thing I heard from him, as I shut the door, was, "Strachs, strachs!" That means "Immediately;" and there is a Norwegian proverb that "when the Norwegian says 'Strachs,' he will be with you in half an hour."
At twenty-five minutes before six I was in the dining-room, bonneted, all ready; no sign or symptom of breakfast. I went to the little room beyond, where the waiters are to be found. There was the one who speaks least English. "Oh, goodness!" said I, "whereisWilhelm?" Wilhelm being the one mainstay of the establishment in the matter of English, and the one who had waited upon me during all my stay.
"Ya, ya. Wilhelm here; soon will be kommen."
"But I must have my breakfast; I leave the house in half an hour."
"Ya, ya. Wilhelm is not yet. He sleeps." And the good-natured little fellow darted off to call him. Poor Wilhelm had indeed overslept; but he appeared in a miraculously short time, got my breakfast together by bits, got the money from the clerk, and did his best to explain to me how it was that a given sum of money was at once more and less in marks than it was in kroner. I crammed it all into my pocket, and ran downstairs to find—no old lady; her "knapsack" on the driver's seat, but she herself not there. Four different people said something to me about it, and I could not understand one word they said; so I stepped into the carriage, sat down, and resigned myself to whatever was coming next. After about ten minutes she appeared, breathless, coming down the stairs of the hotel. She had mounted to my room, and, unmindful of the significant fact that the door was wide open and all my luggage gone, had been waiting there for me. This augured well for the journey! However, there was no time for misgivings; and we drove off at a tearing rate, late for the train. Suddenly I spied a mostdisreputable-looking parcel on the seat,—large, clumsy, done up in an old dirty calico curtain, from which a few brass rings were still hanging.
"What is that?" I exclaimed.
"Only my best gown, ma'am, and my velvet cloak. I couldn't disgrace you, ma'am."
"Disgrace me!" thought I. "I was never before disgraced by such a bundle."
"But I told you to bring nothing whatever to carry in your hands," I said; "you must put that into your knapsack. My roll and basket are all you can possibly lift."
"Oh, ma'am, it would ruin it to put it in the knapsack. I'm not a rich lady, like you, ma'am; it's all I've got: but I'd not like to disgrace you. I was out last night trying to hire a small trunk to bring; but you wouldn't believe it, ma'am, they wanted eight kroner down for the deposit for the value of it. But I'll not disgrace you, ma'am, and I'll forget nothing. I've a good head at counting. You'll see I'll not overlook anything."
"Never mind," I said; "you must wear your cloak [she had on only a little thin, clinging, black crape shawl,—the most pitiful of garments, and no more protection than a pocket-handkerchief against cold], and the dress must go into the knapsack at Lubeck. I will put it into my own roll as soon as we are in the cars."
At the station—luckily, as I thought—the ticket-seller spoke English, and replied readily to my inquiry for a ticket to Lubeck,by rail, "Yes, by Kiel." Then there came a man who wanted three kroner more because my trunk was heavy, and another who wanted a few pfennigs for having helped the first one lift it. I tried for a minute to count out the sum he had mentioned, and then I said, "Oh, good gracious, take it all!" emptying the few little coppers and tiny silver bits—which I knew must be, all told, not a quarter of a dollar—into his hand. He said something which, in my innocence, I supposed was thanks, but Brita told me afterwards that he was a "fearfully rough man, and what he said was to call me a 'damned German devil!' You see, ma'am, they all hate the Germans so, and hearing me speak English, he thought it was German. The French, too, ma'am,—they hate the Germans too. They say that Sara Bernhardt,—I dare sayyou've seen her, ma'am,—they say she nearly starved herself all in her travelling through Germany, because she wouldn't eat the German food."
At the train to see me off were two dear warm-hearted Danish women,—mother and daughter,—to whom I had brought a letter from friends in America. With barely time to thank them and say good-by, I and my old lady and her bundle and my own three parcels were all hustled into a carriage, the door slammed and locked, and we were off. Then I sank back and considered the situation. I had fancied that all that was necessary was to have a person who could speak,—that if I had but a tongue at my command, it would answer my purposes almost as well in another person's head as in my own. But I was fast learning my mistake. This good old woman, who had never been out of Denmark in her life, had no more idea which way to turn or what to do in a railway station than a baby. The first five minutes of our journey had shown that. She stood, bundles in hand, her bonnet falling off the back of her head, her crape shawl clinging limp to her figure; her face full of nervous uncertainty,—the very ideal of a bewildered old woman, such as one always sees at railway stations. The thought of being taken charge of, all the way from Copenhagen to Munich, by this type of elderly female, was, at the outset, awful; but very soon the comical side of it came over me so thoroughly that I began to think it would, on the whole, be more entertaining.
When she had told me the day before, as we were driving about in Copenhagen, that she had never in her life been out of Denmark, though she was sixty-four years old, I said, "Really that is a strange thing,—for you to be taking your first journey at that age."
"Oh, well, ma'am," she said, "I'm such a child of Nature that I shall enjoy it as much as if I were younger, and I've all the Danish history, ma'am, at my tongue's end, ma'am. There's nothing I can't tell you, ma'am. Though we've been very hard-working, I've always been one that was for making all I could: and I've been with my children at their lessons always,—we gave them all good schooling; and I've a volume of Danish poetry I've written, ma'am,—a volumethatthick," marking off at least two inches on her finger.
"Danish?" said I. "Why did you not write it in English?"
"Well, ma'am, being raised here, the Danish tongue is more my own, much as I spoke English always till my parents died; but I'll write some in English for you, ma'am, before we part."
So I had for the third time alighted on a poet. "Birds of a feather," thought I to myself; but it really is extraordinary. Norwegian, Dane—I wonder, if I take a German maid to carry me to Oberammergau, if she also will turn out "a child of Nature" and a scribbler of verses.
The way from Copenhagen southward and westward by land is delightful. It plunges immediately into a rich farming-country, level as an Illinois prairie, and with comfortable farm-houses set in enclosures of trees, as they are there; and I presume for the same reason,—to break the force of the winds which might sweep from one end of Denmark to the other, without so much as a hillock to stay them: no fences, only hedges, and great tracts without even a hedge, marked off and divided by differing colors from the different crops. The second crop of clover was in full flower; acres of wheat or barley, just being sheaved; wagons piled full, rolling down shaded roads with long lines of trees on each side. Roeskilde, Ringsted, Soro,—three towns, but seemingly only one great farm, for seventeen miles out of Copenhagen. Then we began to smell the salt water, and to get a fresh breeze in at the windows; and presently we came to Kosör, where we were to take boat. A big man in uniform stood at the door of the station, looked at our tickets, said "Kiel," and waved his hand toward a little steamer lying at the dock.
"They say they fear it will be rough, ma'am, as the wind is from the southeast," said the old lady.
"Oh, well," said I, "it is only an hour and a half across. We cross the Big Belt to Nyborg."
She accepted my statement as confidingly as a child, and we made ourselves comfortable on the upper deck. It was half-past nine o'clock. I took out my guide-book and studied up the descriptions of the different towns we were to pass through after our next landing. A green dome-like island came into sight, with a lighthouse on top, looking like the stick at the top of a haystack. "That's inthe middle of the Belt, ma'am," said Brita. "In the winter many's the time the passengers across here have to land there and stay a day, or maybe two; and sometimes they come on the ice-boats. Very dangerous they are; they pull them on the ice, and if the ice breaks, jump in and row them."
It seemed to me that we were bearing strangely to the south: land was disappearing from view; the waves grew bigger and higher; spray dashed on the deck; white-caps tossed in all directions.
"I believe we are going out to sea," said I.
"It does look like it, ma'am," replied the "child of Nature." "Shall I go and ask?"
"Yes," I replied, "go and ask." She returned with consternation in every line of her aged face.
"Oh, ma'am, it's strange they should have told you so wrong. We're on this boat till four in the afternoon."
And so we were, and a half-hour to boot, owing to the southeast wind which was dead ahead all the way. Everybody was ill,—my poor old protectress most of all, and for the first time in her life.
"Oh, ma'am, I did not think it could be like this," she gasped. "I never did feel so awful." I sat grimly still in one spot on the deck all that day. What a day it was! About noon it occurred to me that some grapes would be a relief to my misery. Opening the basket and taking out the bag in which the English-speaking waiter had told me were my grapes, I put in my hand and drew out—a hard, corky, tasteless pear! Thanks to the southeast wind, we came a half-hour late to Kiel, and thereby missed the train to Lubeck which we should have taken, waited two hours and a half in the station, and then had to take three different trains one after the other, and pay an extra fare on each one; how we ever stumbled through I don't know, but we did, and at half-past eleven we were in Lubeck, safe and sound, and not more than three quarters dead! and I shall laugh whenever I think of it as long as I live.
Lubeck is an old town, well worth several days' study; and the Stadt Hamburg is a comfortable house to sleep and be fed in. You can have a mutton-chop there, and that is a thing hard to find in Germany; and you canhave your mutton-chop brought to you by an "English-speaking" waiter who speaks English; and you may have it delicately served in your own room, or in a pretty dining-room, or on a front porch, walled in thick by oleander-trees, ten and fifteen feet high,—a lustrous wall of green, through which you have glimpses of such old gables and high peaked roofs, red-tiled, and scooped into queer curves, as I do not know elsewhere except in Nuremberg. It all dates back to 1100 and 1200, and thereabouts,—which does not sound so very old to you when you have just come from Norway, where a thing is not ancient unless it dates back to somewhere near Christ's time; but for a mediæval town, Lubeck has a fine flavor of antiquity about it. It has some splendid old gateways, and plenty of old houses, two-thirds roof, one-third gable, and four-fifths dormer-window, with door-posts and corners carved in the leisurely way peculiar to that time. Really, one would think a man must have his house ordered before he was born, to have got it done in time to die in, in those days. I have speculated very much about this problem, and it puzzles me yet. So many of these old houses look as if it must have taken at least the years of one generation to have made the carvings on them; perhaps the building and ornamentation of the house was a thing handed down from father to son and to son's son, like famous games of chess. Nothing less than this seems to me to explain the elaboration of fine hand-wrought decorations in the way of carving and tapestries, which were the chief splendors of splendid living in those old times. There is a room in the Merchants' Exchange in Lubeck, which is entirely walled and ceiled with carved wood-work taken out of an ancient house belonging to one of Lubeck's early burgomasters. These carvings were done in 1585 by "an unknown master," and were recently transferred to this room to preserve them. The panels of wood alternate with panels of exquisitely wrought alabaster; two rows of these around the room. There were old cupboard doors, now firmly fastened on the wall, never to swing again; and one panel, with a group of wood-carvers at work, said—or guessed—to be the portraits of the carver and his assistants. The old shutters are there,—each decorated with a group, or single figure,—every face as expressive as if it were painted in oil by amaster's hand. Every inch of the wall is wrought into some form of decorations; the ceiling is carved into great squares, with alabaster knobs at the intersections; a superb chandelier of ancient Venetian glass hangs in the middle; and the new room stands to-day exactly as the old one stood in the grand old burgomaster's day. It is kept insured by the Merchants' Guild for $30,000, but twice that sum could not replace it. The Merchants' Guild of Lubeck must contain true art-lovers; a large room opening from this one has also finely carved walls, and a frieze of the old burgomasters' portraits, and another fine Venetian glass chandelier, two centuries old. Through the window I caught a glimpse of a spiral stair outside the building; it wound in short turns, and the iron balustrade was a wall of green vines; it looked like the stair to the chamber of a princess, but it was only the outside way to another room where the Merchants held their sittings.
The largest of the Lubeck churches is the Church of Saint Mary. This was built so big, it is said, simply to outdo the cathedral in size, the Lubeck citizens being determined to have their church bigger than the bishop's. The result is three hundred and thirty-five feet of a succession of frightful rococo things, enough to drive the thought of worship out of any head that has eyes in it. The exterior is fine, being of the best style of twelfth-century brick-work, and there are some fine and interesting things to be seen inside; but the general effect of the interior is indescribably hideous, with huge grotesque carvings in black and white marble and painted wood, at every pillar of the arches. In one of the chapels is a series of paintings, ascribed to Holbein,—"The Dance of Death." It is a ghastly picture, with a certain morbid fascination about it,—a series of fantastic figures, alternating with grim skeleton figures of Death. The emperor, the pope, the king and queen, the law-giver, the merchant, the peasant, the miser,—all are there, hand in hand with the grim, grappling, leaping skeleton, who will draw them away. Under each figure is a stanza of verse representing his excuse for delay, his reply to Death,—all in vain. This chapel had the most uncanny fascination to my companion.
"Oh, ma'am! oh, indeed, ma'am, it is too true!" she exclaimed, walking about, and peering through her spectaclesat each motto. "It is all the same for the pope and the emperor. Death calls us all; and we all would like to stay a little longer."
By a fine bronze reclining statue of one of the old bishops she lingered. "Is it not wonderful, ma'am, the pride there is in this poor world?" she said. The reflection seemed to me a very just one, as I too looked at the old man lying there in his mitre, with the sacred wafer ostentatiously held in one hand, and his crosier in the other; every inch of him, and of the great bronze slab on which he lay, wrought as exquisitely as the finest etching.
At twelve o'clock every day a crowd gathers in this church to see a procession of little figures come out of the huge clock; the Lubeck people, it seems, never tire of this small miracle. It must be acknowledged that it is a droll sight: but one would think, seeing that there are only forty thousand people in the town, that there would now and then be a day without a crowd; yet the sacristan said, that, rain or shine, every day, the little chapel was full at the striking of the first stroke of twelve. The show is on the back of the clock, which detracts very much from its effect. At the instant of twelve a tiny white statue lifted its arm, struck a hammer on the bell twelve times; at the first stroke a door opened, and out came a procession of eight figures, called the Emperor and the Electors; each glided around the circle, paused in the middle, made a jerky bow to the figure of Christ in the centre, and then disappeared in a door in the other side, which closed after them. The figures seemed only a few inches tall at that great height; and the whole thing like part of a Punch and Judy show, and quite in keeping with the rococo ornaments on the pillars. But the crowd gazed as devoutly as if it had been the elevation of the Host itself; and I hurried away, fearing that they might resent the irreverent look on my countenance.
There are some carved brass tablets which are superb, and a curious old altar-piece, with doors opening after doors, like a succession of wardrobes, one inside the other, the first doors painted on the inside, the second also painted, and disclosing, on being opened, a series of wonderful wood carvings of Scriptural scenes, these opening out again and showing still others; a fine canopy ofwrought wood above them, as delicate as filigree. These are disfigured, as so many of the exquisite wood carvings of this time are, by being painted in grotesque colors; but the carving is marvellous. The thing that interested me most in this church was a tiny little stone mouse carved at the base of one of the pillars. You might go all your life to that church and never see it. I searched for it long before I found it. It is a tiny black mouse gnawing at the root of an oak; and some old stone-worker put it in there six hundred years ago, because it was the ancient emblem of the city. There was also a line of old saints and apostles carved on the ends of the pews, that were fine; a Saint Christopher with the child on his shoulder that I would have liked to filch and carry away.
In the Jacobi Kirche—a church not quite so old—is a remarkable old altar, which a rich burgomaster hit on the device of bestowing on the church and immortalizing his own family in it at the same time. To make it all right for the church, he had the scene of the crucifixion carved in stone for the centre; then on the doors, which must be thrown back to show this stone carving, he had himself and his family painted. And I venture to say that the event justifies his expectations; for one looks ten minutes at the burgomaster's sons and daughters and wife for one at the stone carving inside. It is a family group not to be forgotten,—the burgomaster and his five sons behind him on one door, and his wife with her five daughters in front of her on the other door. They are all kneeling, so as to seem to be adoring the central figures,—all but the burgomaster's wife, who stands tall and stately, stiff in gold brocade, with a missal in one hand and a long feather in the other; a high cap of the same brocade, flying sleeves at the shoulder, and a long bodice in front complete the dame's array. Three of the daughters wear high foolscaps of white; white robes trimmed with ermine, falling from the back of the neck, thrown open to show fine scarlet gowns, with bodices laced over white, and coming down nearly to their knees in front. Two little things in long-sleeved dark-green gowns—"not out" yet, I suppose—kneel modestly in front; and a nun and a saint or a Virgin Mary are thrown into the group to make it holy. The burgomaster is in a black fur-trimmed robe, kneeling with abook open before him,—the very model of a Pharisee at family prayers,—his five sons kneeling behind him in scarlet robes trimmed with dark fur.
The sacristan said something in German to Brita, which she instantly translated to me as "Oh, ma'am, to think of it! They're all buried here under our very feet, ma'am,—the whole family! And they'd to leave all that finery behind them, didn't they, ma'am?" The thought of their actual dust being under our feet at that moment seemed to make the family portraits much more real. I dare say that burgomaster never did anything worthy of being remembered in all his life; but he has hit on a device which will secure him and his race a place in the knowledge of men for centuries to come.
In the Rathhaus—which is one of the quaintest buildings in Lubeck—there is an odd old chimney-piece. It is downstairs, in what one would call vaults, except that they are used for the rooms of a restaurant. It has been for centuries a Lubeck custom that when a couple have been married in the Church of Saint Mary (which adjoins the Rathhaus), they should come into this room to drink their first winecup together; and, by way of giving a pleasant turn to things for the bridegroom, the satirical old wood-carvers wrought a chimney-piece for this room with a cock on one side, a hen on the other, the Israelitish spies bearing the huge bunch of the over-rated grapes of Eshcol between them, and in the centre below it this motto: "Many a man sings loudly when they bring him his bride. If he knew what they brought him, he might well weep." It is an odd thing how universally, when this sort of slur upon marriage is aimed at, it is the man's disappointment which is set forth or predicted, and not the woman's. It is a very poor rule, no doubt; but it may at least be said to "work both ways." There used to be an underground passage-way by which they came from the church into this room, but it is shut up now. While we sat waiting in the outer hall upstairs for the janitor to come and show us this room, a bridal couple came down and passed out to their carriage,—plain people of the working class. She wore a black alpaca gown, and had no bridal sign or symptom about her, except the green myrtle wreath on her head. But few brides look happier than she did.
The Rathhaus makes one side of the Market-place, which was, like all market-places, picturesque at eleven in the morning, dirty and dismal at four in the afternoon. I drove through it several times in the course of the forenoon; and at last the women came to know me, and nodded and smiled as we passed. Their hats were wonderful to see,—cocked up on top of a neat white cap, with its frill all at the back and none in front; the hats shaped—well, nobody could say how they were shaped—likehalfa washbowl bent up, with the little round centre rim left in behind! I wonder if that gives an idea to anybody who has not seen the hat. The real wonder, however, was not in the shape, but in the material. They are made of wood,—actually of wood,—split up into the finest threads, and sewed like straw; and the women make them themselves. All the vegetable women had theirs bound with bright green, with long green loops hanging down behind; but the fishwomen had theirs bound with narrow black binding round the edge, lined with purple calico, and with black ribbon at the back. Finally, after staring a dozen of the good souls out of countenance looking at their heads, I bought one of the bonnets outright! It was the cleanest creature ever seen that sold it to me. She pulled it off her head, and sold it as readily as she would have sold me a dozen eels out of her basket; and I carried it on my arm all the way from Lubeck to Cassel, and from Cassel to Munich, to the great bewilderment of many railway officials and travellers. Before I had concluded my bargain there was a crowd ten deep all around the carriage. Everybody—men, women, children—left their baskets and stalls, and came to look on. I believe I could have bought the entire wardrobe of the whole crowd, if I had so wished,—so eager and pleased did they look, talking volubly with each other, and looking at me. It was a great occasion for Brita, who harangued them all by instalments from the front seat, and explained to them that the bonnet was going all the way to America, and that her "lady" had a great liking for all "national" things, which touched one old lady's patriotism so deeply that she pulled off her white cap and offered it to me, making signs that my wooden bonnet was incomplete without the cap, as it certainly was. On Brita's delicately calling her attention to thefact that her cap was far from clean, she said she would go home and wash it and flute it afresh, if the lady would only buy it; and three hours later she actually appeared with it most exquisitely done up, and not at all dear for the half-dollar she asked for it. After buying this bonnet I drove back to the hotel with it, ate my lunch in the oleander-shaded porch, and then set off again to see the cathedral. This proved to me a far more interesting church than Saint Mary's, though the guide-books say that Saint Mary's is far the finer church of the two. There is enough ugliness in both of them, for that matter, to sink them. But in the cathedral there are some superb bronzes and brasses, and a twisted iron railing around the pulpit, which is so marvellous in its knottings and twistings that a legend has arisen that the devil made it.
"How very much they seem to have made of the devil in the olden time, ma'am, do they not?" remarked Brita, entirely unconscious of the fact that she was philosophizing; "wherever we have been, there have been so many things named in his honor!"
The clock in this church has not been deemed worthy of mention in the guide-books; but it seemed to me far more wonderful than the one at Saint Mary's. I shall never forget it as long as I live; in fact, I fear I shall live to wish I could. The centre of the dial plate is a huge face of gilt, with gilt rays streaming out from it; two enormous eyes in this turn from side to side as the clock ticks, right, left, right, left, so far each time that it is a squint,—a horrible, malignant, diabolical squint. It seems almost irreverent even to tell you that this is to symbolize the never-closing eye of God. The uncanny fascination of these rolling eyes cannot be described. It is too hideous to look at, yet you cannot look away. I sat spellbound in a pew under it for a long time. On the right hand of the clock stands a figure representing the "Genius of Time." This figure holds a gold hammer in its hand, and strikes the quarter-hours. On the other side stands Death,—a naked skeleton,—with an hour-glass. At each hour he turns his hour-glass, shakes his head, and with a hammer in his right hand strikes the hour. I heard him strike "three," and I confess a superstitious horror affected me. The thought of a congregation of people sitting Sunday afterSunday looking at those rolling eyes, and seeing that skeleton strike the hour and turn his hour-glass, is monstrous. Surely there was an epidemic in those middle ages of hideous and fantastic inventions. I am not at all sure that it has not stamped its impress on the physiognomy of the German nation. I never see a crowd of Germans at a railway station without seeing in dozens of faces resemblance to ugly gargoyles. And why should it not have told on them? The women of old Greece brought forth beautiful sons and daughters, it is said, because they looked always on beautiful statues and pictures. The German women have been for a thousand years looking at grotesque and leering or coarse and malignant gargoyles carved everywhere,—on the gateways of their cities, in their churches, on the very lintels of their houses. Why should not the German face have been slowly moulded by these prenatal influences?
Above this malevolent clock was a huge scaffold beam, crossing the entire width of the church, and supporting four huge figures, carved with some skill; the most immodest Adam and Eve I ever beheld; a bishop and a Saint John and a Mary,—these latter kneeling in adoration of a crucifixion above. The whole combination—the guilty Adam and Eve, the pompous bishop, the repulsive crucifixion, the puppet clock with its restless eyes and skeleton, and the loud tick-tock, tick-tock, of the pendulum,—all made up a scene of grotesqueness and irreverence mingled with superstition and devotion, such as could not be found anywhere except in a German church of the twelfth century. It was a relief to turn from it and go into the little chapel, where stands the altar-piece made sacred as well as famous by the hands of that tender spiritual painter, Memling. These altar-pieces look at first sight so much like decorated wardrobes that it is jarring. I wish they had fashioned them otherwise. In this one, for instance, it is almost a pain to see on the outside doors of what apparently is a cupboard one of Memling's angels (the Gabriel) and the Mary listening to his message. Throwing these doors back, you see life-size figures of four saints,—John, Jerome, Blasius, and Ægidius. The latter is a grand dark figure, with a head and face to haunt one. Opening these doors again, you come to the last,—a landscape with the crucifixion in the foreground, and other scenes from the Passion of theSaviour. This is less distinctively Memling-like; in fact, the only ones of them all which one would be willing to say positively no man's hand but Memling's had touched, are the two tender angels in white on the outside shutters.
We left Lubeck very early in the morning. As we drove to the station, the milkmen and milkwomen were coming in, in their pretty carts, full of white wooden firkins, brass bound, with queer long spouts out on one side; brass measures of different sizes, and brass dippers, all shining as if they had been fresh scoured that very morning, made the carts a pretty spectacle. And the last thing of all which I stopped to look at in Lubeck was the best of all,—an old house with a turreted bay-window on the corner, and this inscription on the front between the first and second stories of the house:—