CHAPTER XXIII1881

*****

Yesterday evening, was taken to see Mr. Blaine, the new Secretary of State. His selection is regarded as adding great power to the administration.

I went with General Sherman to Blaine’s home on Fifteenth Street. He entered the dooryard just as we came, and greeted us on the steps. I was in great doubt as to how he would receive me, knowing the attacks on me in the press, and the “reprimand” from his own department.

“You have been giving our country some information on the emigration question,” he said to me, as he hung his overcoat up in the hall.

This was followed by an ominous silence, and we all walked into the drawing-room, and were presented to Mrs. Blaine, who was just leaving. The Secretary walked to the open fire-place, turned his back to it, and, addressing me, said: “Mr. Byers, I want you to understand that I consider that in this pauper emigration matter you have done a good thing--and I am going to support you in it.”

“You can give me the information I want,” he continued,later in the conversation, and invited me to come and see him on the following Monday.

I think the conversation helped Mr. Blaine to make up his mind to send a certain strong letter abroad.

*****

May, 1881.--When at Washington, I was invited to prepare the Decoration Day poem. I wrote “The Nation’s Dead.” The President and many distinguished people were present at its recital.

As I could not be present to read my poem personally, some one suggested that the distinguished Robert Ingersoll should be invited to read it. General Sherman, in a letter to me, objected in strong language. Ingersoll was a friend of his, but he regarded it manifestly improper for an infidel to be delivering poems over the graves of American soldiers.

*****

Before sailing, I visited at the Allen home and school, West Newton. James T. Allen had been one of my best friends in Europe. The school was somewhat on the plan of the celebrated Beust school at Zurich; that is, fewer textbooks and better teachers.

I had a letter to the poet Longfellow, and Mr. Allen suggested that we go over to Cambridge on Sunday afternoon. My letter was from Mr. Longfellow’s nephew.

The poet came into the little drawing-room with a full blown red rose in his buttonhole. He took me by the hand and welcomed me very kindly. I commenced to apologize for coming on Sunday. “Tut--tut,” said he, “no apology; I hope we are not so puritanical as not to want to see our friends on a Sunday.” And then we sat down and talked about his nephew who had been in Switzerland. His language was vivacious, his eye clear, his cheeks rosy, his hair perfectly white. I was surprised to see how small was his figure, for I had always thought of Longfellow as a tall man with a great Leonine head; his pictures make him so.

Vecchio Palace, Florence.

I could not wholly help a glance around the famous room.I am sure he saw it, for he offered to show me some of the things that he knew I had read about. They were not bought bric-a-brac, but souvenirs, or else things his poetry and life had immortalized. Somehow he seemed to me a man to love--simple, pure and beautiful as his verses.

I also had letters to Mr. Bronson Alcott, the transcendentalist philosopher. He received me one morning in a very cordial manner. It was in his library. We talked of books and something of his life. I had just been out to the battlefield of Lexington, looked at the bronze monument of the “Minute Man” there, and was so struck with the verse on it as to commit it to memory. “And Mr. Emerson wrote it,” I said, somewhat uncertain as to my memory. “Certainly, certainly,” said Mr. Alcott. “Of course, that is Mr. Emerson’s. We Americans don’t half know what a poet we have in Mr. Emerson.” He went to the book shelves and brought a volume of Emerson’s poems, presented to him, with this particular poem marked in it, and showed it with evident pride.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

Shortly, he proposed to take a walk. He would show me the town, the old elms, the old, old graveyard and the famous Lecture Hall, “and then,” said he, “we will swing around and call on Mr. Emerson.”

He showed me all about, talking, as only Mr. Alcott could talk. When we reached the unpretentious frame building called the Lecture Hall, in the edge of the bushes, I reflected what great things had been said there, what ideas given wing, and now I felt sure I was about to be overwhelmed with deep philosophy. Nothing of the kind. He spent a full half hour telling me about the cost of the wooden structure and its course of building, from the underpinningto the top of the chimney. I was anxious to move on and be sure to have our call on Mr. Emerson. We really started once, but immediately Mr. Alcott recalled something about the wonderful “Hall” he had not shown me, and we went back.

At last we started in earnest, and reached the white frame house that neighbors and friends of Mr. Emerson had built in place of the one destroyed by fire.

“Mr. Emerson is at home, I suppose,” said Mr. Alcott to the girl who answered the door bell. “Yes,” said she, “that is, he has just this moment left for Boston.” I was a bit disappointed, and I think Mr. Alcott was, but he made up for it in fine and kindly talk, and we went back to the library. There was an invitation to stay to lunch, but the hour for my train back to Newton interfered. He gave me a fine photograph of himself. Mr. Alcott was a great and powerful looking man. He had an immense head and face, shaggy eyebrows, and clear deep eyes. He was tall and large in body. His voice was gentle and his manners were delightful and simple.

“Now, is there nothing I can do for you?” he said, as I was about to take my leave. “Thank you, Mr. Alcott,” I answered, “and yet it would be a pleasure if I could have the honor of meeting your daughter.”

“Bless me,” he cried, jumping up; “don’t you know Louise? Louise!” he called out at the top of his voice, “Louise, come in here.” There was no answer. “Come on,” he said; “we’ll hunt her up,” and away we started through the rooms of the house on a chase for the famous woman.

We found her in morning gown, with carpet sweeper in hand, dusting one of the chambers. She was as kindly and simple as her father. She could not hear well, but she was very vivacious and full of fun. She asked me to go with her all about the house, looking at this souvenir and that, as if she herself were not at that moment the greatest sightof all. She dwelt especially on some pictures on the wall that a sister had painted in Paris. My stay abroad must have fitted me to know about paintings, she insisted. These were indeed interesting and good.

As we were talking, two young fellows ran over the stile and out into the street. Mr. Alcott gleefully nudged me on the arm, and said, “Look, the ‘little men.’” We all looked. Miss Alcott smiled and said, “Yes, they are the boys.”

The train was just starting as I reached it at the station, and there I had a glimpse of a tall, intellectual-looking man crossing the platform, apparently looking for some other train. He carried a little hand bag. I heard a passenger next me say, “There is Mr. Emerson.”

*****

Mr. Allen took me to Newton Center, to see the famous Dr. Smith, author of the song “America.” It was dark when we called. His daughter went to fetch matches, and was no little surprised on coming back to find the gas burning brightly. Mr. A. had lighted a match on his shoe and found the gas lamp. Shortly, Dr. Smith came in. Though old and partially deaf, his face was kind and his eyes bright. He liked to talk with us about his past, and told us much concerning the origin of his famous song. I thought his home old and dingy for so famous a man. The people of America could well afford to give him a palace. His song has done more to preserve the American Union than any army ever did. He was interested about music in Switzerland, and asked me to tell him what effect the mountains have on the Swiss character. I told him to judge by their songs. No country in the world has so many music festivals, so many singing clubs. “And the songs they sing?” inquired the doctor. “They are mostly about their country, their mountains, their lakes, their rivers,” I answered. At a great musical contest last year, attended by ten thousand people, forty-six songs were sung in chorus. Nineteen ofthese were about the Alps, or hymns to nature. Seven were about Switzerland, two or three about the Rhine, and ten were love songs.

It was a Sunday evening and we feared to prolong our visit.

*****

After I had reached my post at Zurich, a New Yorker wrote me to send him a book printed in the Swiss language. I had seen but few. There is a Swiss language, all the uneducated speak it; so do many of the cultivated, when among themselves, but not among strangers. It is also spoken much in the family circle. It has many dialects, and some of them are older than the German language itself. An occasional newspaper is printed in these dialects, but books rarely.

ELM AND ALL ITS PEOPLE DESTROYED BY AN AVALANCHE--A FOOT TRIP IN IRELAND--FENIANS--REDCOATS--POVERTY--THE QUEEN HOOTED--OUT OF JAIL AND A HERO--MUCKROSS ABBEY BY MOONLIGHT--AN IRISH FUNERAL--A DUPLICATE BLARNEY STONE-LETTERS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON--THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

September, 1881.--It is a year now since pretty Elm and all its people were buried in an avalanche.

Only a few days before, we had climbed over one of the obscure bridle paths from the Rhine valley to Elm. The path led over a glacier and was 9,000 feet high. All that summer night in Elm we heard the avalanches fall in the neighborhood, for we were in the higher Alps; lofty and awful pyramids of eternal rock and snow were all about us.

Right behind the little inn, where we staid that night, frowned a threatening, almost perpendicular mountain, 12,000 feet high. What if that dark pile should tumble over on the village, we thought, as we looked out into the moonlight. How little we dreamed what was about to happen. We were hardly back in our home in Zurich, when a telegram announced that the mountain had fallen, that Elm and all the people had been destroyed.

Shortly, Consul Mason, of Basel, and myself hurried by rail to Schwanden, and in a little wagonette went up the comparatively easy valley road to what was once Elm. The sight was terrific. A part of the mountain overhanging thevillage slipped off on Sunday, just as the people had returned from afternoon church services. The mighty debris of rock and earth overwhelmed and buried the pretty village. It filled the valley for half a mile. Mason and I climbed over granite boulders and broken rocks as big as a house. Nothing of the town was to be seen, the houses had been torn to pieces and buried fifty feet below. Nearly everybody had been killed. There were no funerals, for till this day the peasants of Elm sleep under the mountain that overwhelmed them. The few who had escaped, by being on hillsides or out looking at their herds on the higher fields, wandered about as if dazed. They shed no tears. To them, the end of the world had come. Some of them told me, without a tremor in their voices, how they stood on some high place and saw their wives, their fathers or their children first thrown into the air by the awful concussion and then buried with their houses. The keeper of the little inn where we stopped that night had been spared, and told us how he saw the big iron bridge across the river Sernf tossed a hundred feet into the air, twisted like a straw, and thrown against a hillside.

The river bed had been dammed up by the falling rock, and the waters now wandered aimlessly over the ocean of debris above the people’s homes. It is all silent now, up there in the Alps where Elm stood, silent save where the winds from the mountain peaks on moonlight nights moan a requiem to the sleeping dead.

September 20.--President Garfield died yesterday at 5A. M.(Swiss time), and all the world went into mourning. I draped the flag here, and put it out at the consulate. Many people called to express their sorrow. A more unprovoked murder of a ruler never occurred. The President’s agony since July 2d has been terrible, and his courage to bear it has been tremendous.

Early this month, I made a little foot tour in Ireland. Everybody said, “Don’t go!” Even in Dublin, a friendwarned me, saying: “It is a terrible time in Ireland. Landlords are being murdered and farmers locked up in prison. You are a stranger here. The English soldiers, on the watch everywhere, will take you for an American Fenian. The Irish will take you for an English spy.”

It was all a mistake, as to myself at least. I went everywhere unmolested. True, the tourists were frightened out of the country. British redcoats were being sent up and down the island looking for “boycotters” and assassins. The people everywhere were sullen, and ominous silence reigned in many places. The country seemed to be sitting on a volcano. I often walked miles on country roads without meeting a soul, and nobody at all dared to be abroad at night. At little country inns where I stopped, people did not talk about the situation. I suppose they dared not.

By accident I picked up a newspaper one day and read a warning signed by New York Fenians against any one’s traveling to Europe on an English steamer. “They would blow them all up.” To my horror another item told how an “infernal machine” was believed to have been put on board the “Adriatic,” that had sailed on the 8th. This might go off in mid-ocean and destroy the ship. My wife and two children were on board that vessel, and the ship had sailed. There was nothing to do but wait, and fear. Besides, it did not seem possible to me that the friends of Ireland could resort to such crimes. In Ireland itself, however, there was little respect for law, and for England none at all.

Once I was on a railroad train near Mallow. I was in the third class, because there I could see the common people. A Fenian, out of jail that very morning, sat next to me. He would not talk about the government, but constantly asked me to “look out at the green fields”--they were so beautiful to him after months of imprisonment.

Many redcoat soldiers, in charge of prisoners wearing handcuffs, were on the train. The prisoners yelled: “Down with England! Hurrah for free Ireland!” and sang the“Wearing of the Green.” The soldiers could not help themselves and simply laughed.

The train stopped at a little country village and I saw a great mass of people running towards us. The soldiers said they were coming to stone the train. I wished now that I had listened to the “warnings.” Instead of stoning us, however, the mob rushed into the car where I was, seized the man by my side and bore him out on their shoulders. The men hugged him, the women kissed him, and everybody cried for “free Ireland.” It was his welcome home from prison. The redcoats said nothing and did nothing. As the train moved on, I could see the mob still carrying the man up the street, while the village band marched at their head.

I wanted to go to Limerick for the races next day, but I saw a train with three hundred armed and uniformed policemen going to the same place, so I stayed away, and took to the quiet and safer country roads.

I passed lovely scenes in the neighborhood of Killarney. The lakes equal the Swiss lakes in beauty; there are bright waterfalls there, groves, grand estates, ruined castles, and wretched poverty.

Saw Muckross Abbey by moonlight--nothing more romantic conceivable. The grand old trees, the broken arches, the ivy-covered walls, the graveyard with its bones of long-dead Irish kings, all silent and lone under the soft light of a summer moon, impressed me.

A young Irishman and his newly wedded wife, stopping at the inn, had joined me in the wish to see Muckross by moonlight. We walked down the road to the entrance of the ground. The care taker at the gate was upstairs in the lodge in bed. When we called to him to unlock the gate, he poked his head out of a window and ordered us away instantly. We offered him good pay to come down and let us into the grounds. “Not for a dozen pounds would I come down there,” he yelled back at us. “How do I knowwhat you are or who you be, tramping around the roads this time of night. You might be going to blow the top of the head off of me. I tell you go along wid you.” We went along further down the road, climbed over into the enclosure, and without blowing off tops of heads of anybody, had a good time. We knew the man would not venture from his lodge. His fear showed the kind of times Ireland was living in.

The next day I saw an Irish funeral at Muckross Abbey. The coffin was borne on men’s shoulders, at first. When they passed out of Killarney village, they put it on top of an immense hearse, the shape of an omnibus, and behind it capered along a company of old women and girls, groaning, bawling and shrieking by turns. Occasionally, on seeing a friend at the roadside, these hired mourners rested themselves a moment and greeted the friend with a grin. It seemed a hideous performance. The grave was not dug when the procession reached the abbey, and there was nothing to do but wait till some one came with shovel and spade. In the meantime I slipped away.

I had many long walks through the country as I footed it off towards Cork. Most of the peasants seemed sticking close to their wretched little hovels, called houses. Excepting an occasional magnificent estate that I saw walled in at the country roadside, all seemed wretchedness. In a hundred miles I did not see a farmhouse that an American would regard as anything more than a barn or pig sty. These huts are of stone, one or one and a half stories high, covered with straw, and no floor but the ground.

Wherever I talked, pitiable tales were told of bad living, high rents, extortionate landlords. In the midst of all the wretchedness and the present danger (and danger there is, for arrests and murders and crimes are going on all the time), the peasants seem rather jovial and cheery, though not contented. It is amazing where they get the money to pay the landlords. One man told me he paid thirty dollarsa year for a dirty little hut without a foot of ground or garden. It was all the house would sell for. “Yes,” said the man, “and I would be tumbled into the road in six minutes if my rent were not paid; that’s what all them constables are hanging around for.” I went into many of the little dark farmhouses. All I saw was wretchedness--a pig or two, a few chickens--maybe a cow staked outside--some dirty children--a woman, cheery in spite of it all.

At one little hut a peasant woman asked me to stay and see what her dinner was. Shortly she gave a call and the “brats” came running in. She took a pot from the fire and gave to each a few potatoes, some salt and a piece of bread, nothing more. The boys took their dinners in their caps.

I was affected to tears, when the good woman put some potatoes on a plate and offered to divide with me, as I stood looking on in the doorway. “Oh, sir,” she said, and even cheerfully, “there are many worse off than we. We cannot complain.” The husband was off at the coast at work. On Sundays, he brought home a part of his wages to pay the rent and part of the wages he spent for drink. He brought a little coarse fish with him, too.

In some houses no meals were had. The potato pot hung by the fire, and each helped himself out of it, whenever he felt hungry.

And that was peasant life in Ireland.

Potatoes and bread, with a bit of meat or fish on Sundays, seem to be the regular rations of the family. What would have happened had Sir Walter Raleigh never introduced the potato there? And what did the people live on before they had potatoes?

The Irish are full of hope, and all the people look to the new “Land Bill” to save them. But it won’t do it!

One day I overtook two Americans who, like myself, were wandering about Ireland on foot. We went together to Blarney Castle. We did not see the herd of white cows that rise up out of Blarney Lake at night, but we climbedto the top of the castle tower (120 feet), where the youngest of the party caught hold of an iron bar at a window and let himself down outside the tower until he could reach the Blarney stone. Few ever venture so foolhardy a feat, or have the muscle to hang on by one hand at so perilous a height. The rest of us thought him a dead man. No wonder the ancient Irish firmly believed that if one could kiss this stone it would give him eloquence, because they knew itcould notbe kissed, not by one mortal in a million.

The old poet was safe in saying:

“There is a stone thereThat whoever kisses,Oh, he never missesTo grow eloquent.”

There is a kind of duplicate “Blarney stone” placed at a convenient and easy spot on the castle for kissing, and the old woman in charge smiles as she pockets the tourist’s shilling, turns the key in the door and says to herself: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

At Queenstown I met my wife and two little ones returning from America, the little girl suffering with a pain that shortly took her sweet life away from us.

*****

At the request of the Harper’s Magazine editor for something of the kind, I have written an article called “My Farm in Switzerland.” My wife has illustrated it, as well as the one on “The Swiss Rhine.”

The farmers here seem to be doing as well on ten acres as our people do on quarter sections. There is the same complaint about mortgages and all that, of course; but with it all, at the end of the year, the Swiss peasant, like the American farmer, has made a living.

The investigation necessary for this paper showed me two things. First, the Swiss are better farmers than the Americans. Second, they are ten times as economical, elsethey would starve to death. Economy is a fine art here. There is no other way to explain how it is a Swiss lives, even poorly, on ten acres, while the Yankee requires one hundred and sixty. Grass land here costs $200 an acre, grape land $1,000. Big farms are impossible at such prices.

Suppose the Swiss has five acres of grape and garden land and ten of pasture and meadow. His investment is $7,000. He lives from it with less hard work than the American has, who owns one hundred and sixty acres, worth $60 an acre or $9,600. The American’s investment is much more than that of the Swiss, his labor must be double, his income the same--aliving. What is the matter? It is this. The onesaves; the otherwastes. Expensive farm machinery does not lie around the fields rusting to pieces in Switzerland. Horses and cattle are not thinned down and killed off by exposure to bad weather. Care for what you have earned, is the Swiss peasant’s motto. Waste everything you get, is the practice of the American. After a while, careful foreigners will own all the farms in America, and the American farmer will be loafing around village stores, starving. Swiss economy applied to American land culture, would enrich every farmer in America. Economy is the thing that keeps the Swiss farmer from the poor-house.

*****

I give two letters from General Sherman; the first, with something about the Duke of Wellington, and the science of war; the second, about President Garfield’s assassination. The little girl, referred to in the first letter, was our little Helen, now drifting away from us, although we did not think it.

“Washington, D. C., October 4, 1881.

“Dear Byers:--I have your good letter of September 21, with the slip from the LondonTimes, which I have read with profit. The English cannot discuss any proposition without bringing in the Duke of Wellington. No man, ifliving, would be quicker to avail himself of improved transportation and communication than the Duke, but it would astonish the old gentleman to wake up and read in theTimesof all events in America and Asia the same day of their occurrence.

“The science of war, like that of natural philosophy, chemistry, must recognize new truths and new inventions as they arise, and that is all there is of change in the science of war since 1815. Man remains pretty much the same, and will dodge all the risks of war and danger if by electricity and nitroglycerine he can blow up his enemy ten miles off. Nevertheless, manhood and courage will in future wars be of as much use as in the past, and those who comprehend the object and come to close quarters will win now as before.

“I am very sorry to hear that your little girl is in such precarious health, and hope with you that the complete change in surroundings may bring her back to her wonted health. All my flock is about as well as usual, but now scattered. I expect Rachel home from Europe by the Celtic, which leaves Queenstown October 21. My aide McCook lost his wife at Salt Lake City and Bacon lost both his children, boys, this summer.

“We all feel the effect of Garfield’s death yet, but next week the called session of the Senate will meet, and then the political pot will begin to boil and bubble. The telegraph keeps you so well advised that it seems useless to attempt anything by letter.

“Give my best love to your wife and family and believe me as always,

“Your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

*****

“Washington, D. C., Dec. 14, 1881.

“Dear Byers:--I have owed you a letter for a long while, and though we have had enough in all conscience here to furnish fit topics for letters, I have known that the telegraph would be a long way ahead. In Europe you know as muchof the tragedy of Garfield’s shooting and death as our own people in the interior, and many returned travelers describe the intense interest of all classes in Garfield’s fate, as long as he clung to life. The patient submission of our people, and their continued endurance of the brutal Guiteau till he shall have had a fair trial, is most honorable to us as a law-abiding people, but even I am sometimes impatient at the law’s dallying, as this trial draws its slow length along. I think the court means to make the trial so full, and so perfect, that all the world will be convinced of the justice of the sentence of death. So intense is public feeling that if the fellow was turned loose, he would be stoned to death by the boys.

“The transition of power from Garfield to Arthur has been so regular, so unattended by shock, that it proves the stability of the Government. I have never known a time when there was so little political excitement, or when the machinery of government worked more smoothly than now. There is the same outward pressure for place, but President Arthur fends it off with the skill of an old experienced hand. So I infer there will be as few changes as possible. Blaine goes out to-day and Frelinghuysen in, but it makes no more noise than a change of bank presidents. In the army the same general composure prevails, and we believe Congress will give us our 30,000 men, which will increase the strength of companies and thereby increase the efficiency of the establishment.

“All my family continuesstatu quo, reasonably well, in our house on Fifteenth Street. Our season also seems mild for December, for this far we have had no signs of winter.

“With my best love to all your folks, I am as ever,

“Your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

On Sunday, as often happens after church here, the people were at the polls, voting as to the adoption or rejection of a batch of laws that had been adopted by the parliament.This is the “Referendum” in action. Absolute order and decency prevailed, and there were no intriguing ward politicians hanging around the polls, to buttonhole voters. Voting is a responsible, dignified act with the Swiss. A majority of the people seem to think the “Referendum” operates well enough with a people so intelligent and patriotic as themselves, and in so small a country. Yet, thousands here ridicule the idea of submitting great questions of state to be voted on by the intelligent and ignorant alike. In great cities, the world over, the ignorant and vicious are in the majority, and the laws would all be bad if such citizens had the decision of them. My own observation is that even the Swiss misuse this Referendum and adopt just as many bad laws as they do good ones.

VISIT NORTHERN ITALY--AMERICAN INDIANS IN ZURICH--DEATH OF THE POET KINKEL--LETTERS FROM CARL SCHURZ AND THE POET’S WIFE--LETTER FROM SHERMAN AS TO THE BOUNTEOUS MISSISSIPPI VALLEY--A SECOND LETTER FROM SHERMAN--THE PRESIDENCY--CONVERSATIONS WITH SCHERR, THE WRITER--THE POET KINKEL’S SON--HIS POWERFUL MEMORY--WE VISIT BERLIN--MINISTER SARGENT’S TROUBLE WITH PRINCE BISMARCK OVER AMERICAN PORK--SARGENT IS APPOINTED TO ST. PETERSBURG--INDIANS AGAIN--BABY LIONS--VISIT AMERICA AGAIN--FUNERAL OF THE AUTHOR OF “HOME, SWEET HOME”--SWISS NATIONAL EXHIBITION--THE SWISS WAR MINISTER VISITS ME--WE HAD BEEN COMRADES IN LIBBY PRISON--TROUBLE WITH FRAUDULENT INVOICES--ORIGIN OF EXPERT SYSTEM AT CONSULATE--I SUCCEED IN STOPPING THE FRAUDS--MY ACTION IS REPORTED AT WASHINGTON AS SAVING A MILLION DOLLARS TO THE GOVERNMENT--ANOTHER LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--HIS COMING RETIREMENT FROM THE ARMY.

January, 1882.--The lake and the mountains and the white city do not seem so beautiful to us to-day, for the little girl who loved them most of all, lies in the next room covered with flowers.

Juliet’s Tomb, Verona.

*****

All was changed to us this past summer. In October we made a fourth trip to Italy; this time to the lake regions at the foot of the Alps. There is something about life inNorthern Italy that seems to make a stay there almost more desirable than in other places in the world. The scenery is still Alpine, but it is the Alps with perpetual sunshine on them, and warm laughing lakes about them. I think the peasants more picturesque here than elsewhere. They carry red umbrellas, and the peasant women wear short skirts, showing bright stockings of red or white or blue. The low, white wooden sandals, with the red leather band over the instep, worn by the women, are very pretty, too. Only one wonders how they keep them on their feet. With every step the sandals go click, clack, up and down, at the heels. The headgear of the girls is a bit of black lace thrown over the head and hanging down behind. The whole outfit, with the pretty black eyes of the girls, the bright faces, and the merry demeanor, make one think that here, in the sunshine of North Italy, is a happy peasantry. The men also wear bright colors; the poorest has at least a cravat of blue and a red band on his roguish soft felt hat.

The soft Italian language, and the singers with their guitars in the moonlight by the lakes, add to the real romance of the scene.

The people of the lake regions are rather poor, spite of the rich productiveness of the soil. There are too many of them, and too many rocky heights, and mountains and lakes. The little stone-built villages cling to some of these heights like crow nests on tree tops, but somewhere, near to every height, on some spot of land beautiful as Eden, we see the gardens and villas of the rich. These are the summer homes of the aristocrats of Milan and cities farther south.

Villa Carlotta on Lake Como, sitting among the lemon trees, its gardens washed by the blue waters, its halls and salons filled with the works of genius, could tempt one to want to live there always.

And Villa Giulia, on that fair promontory running out into Lake Lecco at Bellagio, seen of a summer eveningwith the deep blue waters on either side, the snow white Alps in front of it, and groves of citron and boxwood and lemon behind it, wakes the feeling in one that here indeed is the fairest scene of all; here one could be happy.

*****

The other morning the staid old city of Zurich was suddenly awakened by the whoop of a band of American Indians. Had a cloud fallen, some of the people could not have been more stirred up. The wild men were the genuine article, in war paint and feathers. Not one Swiss in a thousand had ever seen a real Indian before. It was part of a band of Chippewas, being carried around Europe for exhibition. The show was a great success. Everybody went to see it, and even followed the strangers about the streets in crowds. The Indians had their difficulties, however. An occasional one with too much “fire water” lay prone on the sidewalk or rested in the lockup. They also had quarrels with their manager, and daily for a time this painted band of my fellow countrymen came to the consulate and held pow wows on the floor of the office. They were a helpless lot of human beings there alone, knowing nothing of the language, with a manager supposed to be robbing them. I got them out of the lockup, and out of their other many difficulties as best I could, and won their esteem and gratitude.

November 16, 1882.--Three days ago the great Gottfried Kinkel was carried to the graveyard out by the foot of the mountains. He had been a warm friend since the day we came to Zurich. He was passionately fond of the Swiss mountains, and we have had delightful little excursions together. His death was sudden. One day he was stricken with apoplexy and could not speak. He motioned his wife to help him to the window, where he could once more look out at the beautiful mountains. He looked long and wistfully at them and then waving them a farewell with his hand went to his bed and died. Poetry and art and allthings beautiful wept when Kinkel died. His funeral was the greatest ever seen in Zurich. He was buried by torchlight by the students of the University. When the grave was closed and the great procession of uniformed corps students with badges, flags and torches came back into the city, they marched to a public square, formed an immense circle and, casting their torches into a great funeral pile in the center, watched them burn to ashes.

December 14.--Our American statesman, Carl Schurz, had been a friend of the poet, patriot Kinkel in the revolutionary times, and had also rescued him from prison and death.

I wrote him a description of the funeral and received his reply to-day.

“Dec. 4, 1882.“My Dear Sir:--I have just received your very kind letter of November 21st in which you describe Kinkel’s funeral, and I thank you most sincerely for it. His sudden death had been reported by cable, but your letter gave me the first information about the last days of his life, the circumstances of his death and the touching demonstration of popular feeling at his funeral. The letter will appear as a special correspondence in the EveningPostto-morrow.“I enclose a letter of condolence to Mrs. Kinkel, which I shall be greatly obliged to you for delivering or forwarding. I venture to ask this favor of you as I do not know whether, after Kinkel’s death, Mrs. Kinkel remained at Zurich or not. I have no doubt you know where she is, and where the letter will reach her.“Believe me, dear sir,“Very truly yours,C. Schurz.”

“Dec. 4, 1882.

“My Dear Sir:--I have just received your very kind letter of November 21st in which you describe Kinkel’s funeral, and I thank you most sincerely for it. His sudden death had been reported by cable, but your letter gave me the first information about the last days of his life, the circumstances of his death and the touching demonstration of popular feeling at his funeral. The letter will appear as a special correspondence in the EveningPostto-morrow.

“I enclose a letter of condolence to Mrs. Kinkel, which I shall be greatly obliged to you for delivering or forwarding. I venture to ask this favor of you as I do not know whether, after Kinkel’s death, Mrs. Kinkel remained at Zurich or not. I have no doubt you know where she is, and where the letter will reach her.

“Believe me, dear sir,

“Very truly yours,C. Schurz.”

The sweet singer had now gone to be absorbed into the beautiful nature of which he had talked to me when his daughter died. They were to be one with the flowers and the sunshine, but without identity.

Mrs. Kinkel, a woman bright and talented, had ideas not greatly different from her husband about this mystery called death. Once, later, I sent her my poem of “Baby Helene,” and this was her answer:

“Unterstrasse, den 25, 1858.“Geehrter Herr Cunsul:--Meine Freude beim Empfang Ihres Buches war wirklich aufrichtig, und ich hatte Ihnen so gleich meinen Dank dafür gesagt, wenn ich nicht von einem und dem andern Gedicht so angezogen worden wäre, dass ich über das Lesen das Schreiben zurücksetze. Die Gedichte an das liebe Helenchen haben mich tief gerührt. Nur wer einen gleichen Verlust hatte, fühlt so ganz den wehen Schmerz, der sich darin ausspricht mit Ihnen.“Wie beneide ich Sie um die Hoffnung sie dereinst wiederzusehen. Mein Trost allein ist, einstmals ewig vergessen zu können.“‘Auf Wiedersehen’ hebe ich nur noch hervor von den vielen, die mir besonders noch gefielen. Erst durch Sie bin ich darauf aufmerksam gemacht dass das in englischer Sprache fehlt. Wie viel Gutes verdanke ich nicht schon den Dichtern.“Hoffentlich ist Ihnen die Ausfahrt mit Lawrence am Sonnabend gut bekommen. Ich erkannte Sie leider erst im letzen Augenblick, als das Schiff schon in Bewegung war.“Grüssen Sie Mrs. Byers und Lawrence sehr von mir, und seien Sie ueberzeugt, dass Sie mir mit dem Buch eine grosse Freude gemacht haben.“Mit vorzüglichster Hochachtung“ergebenstM. Kinkel.”

“Unterstrasse, den 25, 1858.

“Geehrter Herr Cunsul:--Meine Freude beim Empfang Ihres Buches war wirklich aufrichtig, und ich hatte Ihnen so gleich meinen Dank dafür gesagt, wenn ich nicht von einem und dem andern Gedicht so angezogen worden wäre, dass ich über das Lesen das Schreiben zurücksetze. Die Gedichte an das liebe Helenchen haben mich tief gerührt. Nur wer einen gleichen Verlust hatte, fühlt so ganz den wehen Schmerz, der sich darin ausspricht mit Ihnen.

“Wie beneide ich Sie um die Hoffnung sie dereinst wiederzusehen. Mein Trost allein ist, einstmals ewig vergessen zu können.

“‘Auf Wiedersehen’ hebe ich nur noch hervor von den vielen, die mir besonders noch gefielen. Erst durch Sie bin ich darauf aufmerksam gemacht dass das in englischer Sprache fehlt. Wie viel Gutes verdanke ich nicht schon den Dichtern.

“Hoffentlich ist Ihnen die Ausfahrt mit Lawrence am Sonnabend gut bekommen. Ich erkannte Sie leider erst im letzen Augenblick, als das Schiff schon in Bewegung war.

“Grüssen Sie Mrs. Byers und Lawrence sehr von mir, und seien Sie ueberzeugt, dass Sie mir mit dem Buch eine grosse Freude gemacht haben.

“Mit vorzüglichster Hochachtung

“ergebenstM. Kinkel.”

*****

November, 1882.--Have an interesting letter from General Sherman on politics and farming.

“Washington, D. C., Nov. 7, 1882.“Dear Byers:--Time and distance seemingly do dull the edge of correspondence, if not of friendship. Your letter of October 22d is received, has been seen by Mrs. Sherman, and shows that too long an interval has passed since we have written you, but you may rest assured that our friendly interest in you and yours is in no way lessened, and that news from you is always most welcome to me and mine. We still remain in Washington, except Minnie at St. Louis, Elly at Philadelphia and Tom at Woodstock, but all reasonably well. Last Summer Minnie lost two of her children, both girls, one two years and eight months old, the other an infant in arms. Both came East for health and change, though all were as healthy as kittens. Mrs. Sherman had taken a furnished house at Oakland on the very top of the Alleghanies, where all the family was assembled, but the cold nights and warm days were too much for the little ones, caused congestion of the stomach, followed quickly by dysentery and death. I have recently been to St. Louis and found Minnie well, and her three remaining children, two boys and one girl, in strong vigorous health.“I am now beginning to think of my own course of action when the law compulsorily retires me at 64 years, viz.: Feb. 8, 1884. We have all agreed to return to our old home at St. Louis, and as February is a bad month for moving, I will in all probability anticipate the time by a couple of months--move the family in October and follow myself in November or December. So the probability is, if you give up the Consulate and turn your attention to your Iowa farm, I will be your neighbor and rival, for I too own a farm in Illinois nineteen miles out from St. Louis.“The present has been probably the most fruitful year ever experienced in America, all parts alike sharing the general abundance. Of all this you are probably as well informed as I am, but when I remember that the goldcrop of California at its best only equaled sixty-five millions a year, I am amazed to think of a wheat crop valued at five hundred millions, and a corn crop of eighteen hundred millions of bushels at 65 cents a bushel; other crops in like proportion, and cotton estimated at six millions of bales of 450 pounds each at 12 cents a pound. I am especially glad of this, for some years, as you well know, land was held at a discount, all persons having money preferring to buy stocks or bonds which promised an income. Now the farming class is so comfortable, with bounteous crops, and good homes, that the country will draw from the crowded cities and towns the redundant population. The farming class never give the trouble which the manufacturing and mercantile are always threatening.“To-day is the great election day of the country, more excited than usual by reasons of feuds and dissenters among the Republicans, which will enable the Democrats to elect their candidates. Apprehension is felt that the next Congress will be Democratic, but long heads say that success now, means defeat next time, when another President is to be elected. Washington goes right along improving and embellishing all the time, and I really believe we now have the cleanest, if not the handsomest city in the world, not excepting Paris. Of course we have no Alps or lakes like yours at Zurich, but the Potomac when walled in and its marshy banks converted into clean grass plots and parks will approximate in beauty even the Rhine. But the old Mississippi and Missouri, dirty and foul, will ever be the land of bounteous plenty, and will in time hold the population and political control of this continent. We will have plenty to eat and can afford to travel to see beautiful mountains and lakes.“Accept this in its length, not substance, as a measure of my love and respect, and believe me always,“Truly yours,W. T. Sherman.”

“Washington, D. C., Nov. 7, 1882.

“Dear Byers:--Time and distance seemingly do dull the edge of correspondence, if not of friendship. Your letter of October 22d is received, has been seen by Mrs. Sherman, and shows that too long an interval has passed since we have written you, but you may rest assured that our friendly interest in you and yours is in no way lessened, and that news from you is always most welcome to me and mine. We still remain in Washington, except Minnie at St. Louis, Elly at Philadelphia and Tom at Woodstock, but all reasonably well. Last Summer Minnie lost two of her children, both girls, one two years and eight months old, the other an infant in arms. Both came East for health and change, though all were as healthy as kittens. Mrs. Sherman had taken a furnished house at Oakland on the very top of the Alleghanies, where all the family was assembled, but the cold nights and warm days were too much for the little ones, caused congestion of the stomach, followed quickly by dysentery and death. I have recently been to St. Louis and found Minnie well, and her three remaining children, two boys and one girl, in strong vigorous health.

“I am now beginning to think of my own course of action when the law compulsorily retires me at 64 years, viz.: Feb. 8, 1884. We have all agreed to return to our old home at St. Louis, and as February is a bad month for moving, I will in all probability anticipate the time by a couple of months--move the family in October and follow myself in November or December. So the probability is, if you give up the Consulate and turn your attention to your Iowa farm, I will be your neighbor and rival, for I too own a farm in Illinois nineteen miles out from St. Louis.

“The present has been probably the most fruitful year ever experienced in America, all parts alike sharing the general abundance. Of all this you are probably as well informed as I am, but when I remember that the goldcrop of California at its best only equaled sixty-five millions a year, I am amazed to think of a wheat crop valued at five hundred millions, and a corn crop of eighteen hundred millions of bushels at 65 cents a bushel; other crops in like proportion, and cotton estimated at six millions of bales of 450 pounds each at 12 cents a pound. I am especially glad of this, for some years, as you well know, land was held at a discount, all persons having money preferring to buy stocks or bonds which promised an income. Now the farming class is so comfortable, with bounteous crops, and good homes, that the country will draw from the crowded cities and towns the redundant population. The farming class never give the trouble which the manufacturing and mercantile are always threatening.

“To-day is the great election day of the country, more excited than usual by reasons of feuds and dissenters among the Republicans, which will enable the Democrats to elect their candidates. Apprehension is felt that the next Congress will be Democratic, but long heads say that success now, means defeat next time, when another President is to be elected. Washington goes right along improving and embellishing all the time, and I really believe we now have the cleanest, if not the handsomest city in the world, not excepting Paris. Of course we have no Alps or lakes like yours at Zurich, but the Potomac when walled in and its marshy banks converted into clean grass plots and parks will approximate in beauty even the Rhine. But the old Mississippi and Missouri, dirty and foul, will ever be the land of bounteous plenty, and will in time hold the population and political control of this continent. We will have plenty to eat and can afford to travel to see beautiful mountains and lakes.

“Accept this in its length, not substance, as a measure of my love and respect, and believe me always,

“Truly yours,W. T. Sherman.”

One of our interesting visitors and friends these evenings is young Dr. Kinkel, son of the great poet. He is renowned in the city for his marvelous learning and memory. All that he has ever read, and he is a high classical scholar, he seems to know by heart. He is writing a history of the Byzantine Empire, and his studies for this are enormous.

I tested his memory a little last night by questions on the Life of Washington. He answered as if the book had been open before him. Every detail and date that he has accidentally learned as to the lives of his friends, he can instantly recall. What was said of Macaulay could be said of him, “He is a book in breeches.”

December 23.--To-day I have a letter from General Sherman. He speaks of the Presidency. Mrs. Sherman, I know, is just as much opposed to his entering politics as is he himself.

“Washington, D. C., Dec. 12, 1882.“Dear Byers:--I have just received your letter enclosing your lines to your daughter Helen, composed to the same measure as ‘Sherman’s March to the Sea,’ and have sent both to Mrs. Sherman for perusal.“Congress is now in session, and the effect of the last election is manifest. Though the Democrats have gained a large majority for the next Congress, they recognize that their victory is a dangerous one, for it seems to be more a rebuke to the Republicans for the very sins of political government, which the Democrats long since inaugurated and will carry into practice the moment they gain power, than a victory to the Democrats. No single man can handle the affairs of this country without the agency of a strong well organized party, and all political parties are about the same.“As to my ever consenting to the use of my name as a Presidential candidate, that is entirely out of the question. I recall too well the personal experience of Generals Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes and Garfield to betempted by the siren voice of flattery. It is too like the case of the girl who marries a drunken lover in the hopes to reform him. It never has succeeded and never will; the same of any individual trying to reform the government, he will be carried along and involved in its scandals and unavoidable sins. No, I am going back next fall to St. Louis to spend the remainder of my days in comparative peace and comfort.“Wishing you and yours all the happiness possible in your sphere of action,“I am as always your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

“Washington, D. C., Dec. 12, 1882.

“Dear Byers:--I have just received your letter enclosing your lines to your daughter Helen, composed to the same measure as ‘Sherman’s March to the Sea,’ and have sent both to Mrs. Sherman for perusal.

“Congress is now in session, and the effect of the last election is manifest. Though the Democrats have gained a large majority for the next Congress, they recognize that their victory is a dangerous one, for it seems to be more a rebuke to the Republicans for the very sins of political government, which the Democrats long since inaugurated and will carry into practice the moment they gain power, than a victory to the Democrats. No single man can handle the affairs of this country without the agency of a strong well organized party, and all political parties are about the same.

“As to my ever consenting to the use of my name as a Presidential candidate, that is entirely out of the question. I recall too well the personal experience of Generals Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Hayes and Garfield to betempted by the siren voice of flattery. It is too like the case of the girl who marries a drunken lover in the hopes to reform him. It never has succeeded and never will; the same of any individual trying to reform the government, he will be carried along and involved in its scandals and unavoidable sins. No, I am going back next fall to St. Louis to spend the remainder of my days in comparative peace and comfort.

“Wishing you and yours all the happiness possible in your sphere of action,

“I am as always your friend,W. T. Sherman.”

Back to Index Next