The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 64

If that of which every German dreams, and so few are ready to take any practical steps to attain,--German unity,--ever comes, it must ride roughshod over the Romish clergy, for one thing. Of course there are other obstacles. So long as beer is cheap, and songs of the Fatherland are set to lilting strains, will these excellent people "Ho, ho, my brothers," and "Hi, hi, my brothers," and wait for fate, in the shape of some compelling Bismarck, to drive them into anything more than the brotherhood of brown mugs of beer and Wagner's mysterious music of the future. I am not sure, by the way, that the music of Richard Wagner is not highly typical of the present (1868) state of German unity,--an undefined longing which n.o.body exactly understands. There are those who think they can discern in his music the same revolutionary tendency which placed the composer on the right side of a Dresden barricade in 1848, and who go so far as to believe that the liberalism of the young King of Bavaria is not a little due to his pa.s.sion for the disorganizing operas of this transcendental writer. Indeed, I am not sure that any other people than Germans would not find in the repet.i.tion of the five hours of the "Meister-Singer von Nurnberg," which was given the other night at the Hof Theater, sufficient reason for revolution.

Well, what I set out to say was, that most Germans would like unity if they could be the unit. Each State would like to be the center of the consolidated system, and thus it happens that every practical step toward political unity meets a host of opponents at once. When Austria, or rather the house of Hapsburg, had a preponderance in the Diet, and it seemed, under it, possible to revive the past reality, or to realize the dream of a great German empire, it was clearly seen that Austria was a tyranny that would crush out all liberties. And now that Prussia, with its vital Protestantism and free schools, proposes to undertake the reconstruction of Germany, and make a nation where there are now only the fragmentary possibilities of a great power, why, Prussia is a military despot, whose subjects must be either soldiers or slaves, and the young emperor at Vienna is indeed another Joseph, filled with the most tender solicitude for the welfare of the chosen German people.

But to return to the clergy. While the monasteries and nunneries are going to the ground in superst.i.tion-saturated Spain; while eager workmen are demolis.h.i.+ng the last hiding-places of monkery, and letting the daylight into places that have well kept the frightful secrets of three hundred years, and turning the ancient cloister demesne into public parks and pleasure-grounds,--the Romish priesthood here, in free Bavaria, seem to imagine that they cannot only resist the progress of events, but that they can actually bring back the owlish twilight of the Middle Ages. The reactionary party in Bavaria has, in some of the provinces, a strong majority; and its supporters and newspapers are belligerent and aggressive. A few words about the politics of Bavaria will give you a clew to the general politics of the country.

The reader of the little newspapers here in Munich finds evidence of at least three parties. There is first the radical. Its members sincerely desire a united Germany, and, of course, are friendly to Prussia, hate Napoleon, have little confidence in the Hapsburgs, like to read of uneasiness in Paris, and hail any movement that overthrows tradition and the prescriptive right of cla.s.ses. If its members are Catholic, they are very mildly so; if they are Protestant, they are not enough so to harm them; and, in short, if their religious opinions are not as deep as a well, they are certainly broader than a church door. They are the party of free inquiry, liberal thought, and progress. Akin to them are what may be called the conservative liberals, the majority of whom may be Catholics in profession, but are most likely rationalists in fact; and with this party the king naturally affiliates, taking his music devoutly every Sunday morning in the Allerheiligenkirche, attached to the Residenz, and getting his religion out of Wagner; for, progressive as the youthful king is, he cannot be supposed to long for a unity which would wheel his throne off into the limbo of phantoms. The conservative liberals, therefore, while laboring for thorough internal reforms, look with little delight on the increasing strength of Prussia, and sympathize with the present liberal tendencies of Austria. Opposed to both these parties is the ultramontane, the head of which is the Romish hierarchy, and the body of which is the inert ma.s.s of ignorant peasantry, over whom the influence of the clergy seems little shaken by any of the modern moral earthquakes. Indeed I doubt if any new ideas will ever penetrate a cla.s.s of peasants who still adhere to styles of costume that must have been ancient when the Turks threatened Vienna, which would be highly picturesque if they were not painfully ugly, and arrayed in which their possessors walk about in the broad light of these latter days, with entire unconsciousness that they do not belong to this age, and that their appearance is as much of an anachronism as if the figures should step out of Holbein's pictures (which Heaven forbid), or the stone images come down from the portals of the cathedral and walk about. The ultramontane party, which, so far as it is an intelligent force in modern affairs, is the Romish clergy, and nothing more, hears with aversion any hint of German unity, listens with dread to the needle-guns at Sadowa, hates Prussia in proportion as it fears her, and just now does not draw either with the Austrian Government, whose liberal tendencies are exceedingly distasteful. It relies upon that great unenlightened ma.s.s of Catholic people in Southern Germany and in Austria proper, one of whose sins is certainly not skepticism. The practical fight now in Bavaria is on the question of education; the priests being resolved to keep the schools of the people in their own control, and the liberal parties seeking to widen educational facilities and admit laymen to a share in the management of inst.i.tutions of learning. Now the school visitors must all be ecclesiastics; and although their power is not to be dreaded in the cities, where teachers, like other citizens, are apt to be liberal, it gives them immense power in the rural districts. The election of the Lower House of the Bavarian parliament, whose members have a six years' tenure of office, which takes place next spring, excites uncommon interest; for the leading issue will be that of education. The little local newspapers--and every city has a small swarm of them, which are remarkable for the absence of news and an abundance of advertis.e.m.e.nts--have broken out into a style of personal controversy, which, to put it mildly, makes me, an American, feel quite at home. Both parties are very much in earnest, and both speak with a freedom that is, in itself, a very hopeful sign.

The pretensions of the ultramontane clergy are, indeed, remarkable enough to attract the attention of others besides the liberals of Bavaria. They a.s.sume an influence and an importance in the ecclesiastical profession, or rather an authority, equal to that ever a.s.serted by the Church in its strongest days. Perhaps you will get an idea of the height of this pretension if I translate a pa.s.sage which the liberal journal here takes from a sermon preached in the parish church of Ebersburg, in Ober-Dorfen, by a priest, Herr Kooperator Anton Hiring, no longer ago than August 16, 1868. It reads: "With the power of absolution, Christ has endued the priesthood with a might which is terrible to h.e.l.l, and against which Lucifer himself cannot stand,-a might which, indeed, reaches over into eternity, where all other earthly powers find their limit and end,--a might, I say, which is able to break the fetters which, for an eternity, were forged through the commission of heavy sin. Yes, further, this Power of the forgiveness of sins makes the priest, in a certain measure, a second G.o.d; for G.o.d alone naturally can forgive sins. And yet this is not the highest reach of the priestly might: his power reaches still higher; he compels G.o.d himself to serve him.

How so? When the priest approaches the altar, in order to bring there the holy ma.s.s-offering, there, at that moment, lifts himself up Jesus Christ, who sits at the right hand of the Father, upon his throne, in order to be ready for the beck of his priests upon earth.

And scarcely does the priest begin the words of consecration, than there Christ already hovers, surrounded by the heavenly host, come down from heaven to earth, and to the altar of sacrifice, and changes, upon the words of the priest, the bread and wine into his holy flesh and blood, and permits himself then to be taken up and to lie in the hands of the priest, even though the priest is the most sinful and the most unworthy. Further, his power surpa.s.ses that of the highest archangels, and of the Queen of Heaven. Right did the holy Franciscus say, 'If I should meet a priest and an angel at the same time, I should salute the priest first, and then the angel; because the priest is possessed of far higher might and holiness than the angel.'"

The radical journal calls this "ultramontane blasphemy," and, the day after quoting it, adds a charge that must be still more annoying to the Herr Kooperator Hiring than that of blasphemy: it accuses him of plagiarism; and, to substantiate the charge, quotes almost the very same language from a sermon preached in 1785--In this it is boldly claimed that "in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, there is nothing mightier than a priest, except G.o.d; and, to be exact, G.o.d himself must obey the priest in the ma.s.s." And then, in words which I do not care to translate, the priest is made greater than the Virgin Mary, because Christ was only born of the Virgin once, while the priest "with five words, as often and wherever he will," can "bring forth the Saviour of the world." So to-day keeps firm hold of the traditions of a hundred years ago, and ultramontanism wisely defends the last citadel where the Middle Age superst.i.tion makes a stand,--the popular veneration for the clergy.

And the clergy take good care to keep up the pomps and shows even here in skeptical Munich. It was my inestimable privilege the other morning--it was All-Saints' Day--to see the archbishop in the old Frauenkirche, the ancient cathedral, where hang tattered banners that were captured from the Turks three centuries ago,--to see him seated in the choir, overlooked by saints and apostles carved in wood by some forgotten artist of the fifteenth century. I supposed he was at least an archbishop, from the retinue of priests who attended and served him, and also from his great size. When he sat down, it required a dignitary of considerable rank to put on his hat; and when he arose to speak a few precious words, the effect was visible a good many yards from where he stood. At the close of the service he went in great state down the center aisle, preceded by the gorgeous beadle--a character that is always awe-inspiring to me in these churches, being a cross between a magnificent drum-major and a verger and two persons in livery, and followed by a train of splendidly attired priests, six of whom bore up his long train of purple silk.

The whole cortege was resplendent in embroidery and ermine; and as the great man swept out of my sight, and was carried on a priestly wave into his s.h.i.+ning carriage, and the n.o.ble footman jumped up behind, and he rolled away to his dinner, I stood leaning against a pillar, and reflected if it could be possible that that religion could be anything but genuine which had so much genuine ermine. And the organ-notes, rolling down the arches, seemed to me to have a very ultramontane sound.

CHANGING QUARTERS

Perhaps it may not interest you to know how we moved, that is, changed our apartments. I did not see it mentioned in the cable dispatches, and it may not be generally known, even in Germany; but then, the cable is so occupied with relating how his Serenity this, and his Highness that, and her Loftiness the other one, went outdoors and came in again, owing to a slight superfluity of the liquid element in the atmosphere, that it has no time to notice the real movements of the people. And yet, so dry are some of these little German newspapers of news, that it is refres.h.i.+ng to read, now and then, that the king, on Sunday, walked out with the Duke of Hesse after dinner (one would like to know if they also had sauerkraut and sausage), and that his prospective mother-in-law, the Empress of Russia, who was here the other day, on her way home from Como, where she was nearly drowned out by the inundation, sat for an hour on Sunday night, after the opera, in the winter garden of the palace, enjoying the most easy family intercourse.

But about moving. Let me tell you that to change quarters in the face of a Munich winter, which arrives here the 1st of November, is like changing front to the enemy just before a battle; and if we had perished in the attempt, it might have been put upon our monuments, as it is upon the out-of-cannon-cast obelisk in the Karolina Platz, erected to the memory of the thirty thousand Bavarian soldiers who fell in the disastrous Russian winter campaign of Napoleon, fighting against all the interests of Germany,--"they, too, died for their Fatherland." Bavaria happened also to fight on the wrong side at Sadowa and I suppose that those who fell there also died for Fatherland: it is a way the Germans have of doing, and they mean nothing serious by it. But, as I was saying, to change quarters here as late as November is a little difficult, for the wise ones seek to get housed for the winter by October: they select the sunny apartments, get on the double windows, and store up wood. The plants are tied up in the gardens, the fountains are covered over, and the inhabitants go about in furs and the heaviest winter clothing long before we should think of doing so at home. And they are wise: the snow comes early, and, besides, a cruel fog, cold as the grave and penetrating as remorse, comes down out of the near Tyrol. One morning early in November, I looked out of the window to find snow falling, and the ground covered with it. There was dampness and frost enough in the air to make it cling to all the tree-twigs, and to take fantastic shapes on all the queer roofs and the slenderest pinnacles and most delicate architectural ornamentations. The city spires had a mysterious appearance in the gray haze; and above all, the round-topped towers of the old Frauenkirche, frosted with a little snow, loomed up more grandly than ever. When I went around to the Hof Garden, where I late had sat in the sun, and heard the brown horse-chestnuts drop on the leaves, the benches were now full of snow, and the fat and friendly fruit-woman at the gate had retired behind gla.s.s windows into a little shop, which she might well warm by her own person, if she radiated heat as readily as she used to absorb it on the warm autumn days, when I have marked her knitting in the suns.h.i.+ne.

But we are not moving. The first step we took was to advertise our wants in the "Neueste Nachrichten" ("Latest News ") newspaper. We desired, if possible, admission into some respectable German family, where we should be forced to speak German, and in which our society, if I may so express it, would be some compensation for our bad grammar. We wished also to live in the central part of the city,--in short, in the immediate neighborhood of all the objects of interest (which are here very much scattered), and to have pleasant rooms. In Dresden, where the people are not so rich as in Munich, and where different customs prevail, it is customary for the best people, I mean the families of university professors, for instance, to take in foreigners, and give them tolerable food and a liberal education.

Here it is otherwise. Nearly all families occupy one floor of a building, renting just rooms enough for the family, so that their apartments are not elastic enough to take in strangers, even if they desire to do so. And generally they do not. Munich society is perhaps chargeable with being a little stiff and exclusive. Well, we advertised in the "Neueste Nachrichten." This is the liberal paper of Munich. It is a poorly printed, black-looking daily sheet, folded in octavo size, and containing anywhere from sixteen to thirty-four pages, more or less, as it happens to have advertis.e.m.e.nts. It sometimes will not have more than two or three pages of reading matter. There will be a sc.r.a.p or two of local news, the brief telegrams taken from the official paper of the day before, a bit or two of other news, and perhaps a short and slas.h.i.+ng editorial on the ultramontane party. The advantage of printing and folding it in such small leaves is, that the size can be varied according to the demands of advertis.e.m.e.nts or news (if the German papers ever find out what that is); so that the publisher is always giving, every day, just what it pays to give that day; and the reader has his regular quant.i.ty of reading matter, and does not have to pay for advertising s.p.a.ce, which in journals of unchangeable form cannot always be used profitably. This little journal was started something like twenty years ago. It probably spends little for news, has only one or, at most, two editors, is crowded with advertis.e.m.e.nts, which are inserted cheap, and costs, delivered, a little over six francs a year. It circulates in the city some thirty-five thousand. There is another little paper here of the same size, but not so many leaves, called "The Daily Advertiser," with nothing but advertis.e.m.e.nts, princ.i.p.ally of theaters, concerts, and the daily sights, and one page devoted to some prodigious yarn, generally concerning America, of which country its readers must get the most extraordinary and frightful impression.

The "Nachrichten" made the fortune of its first owner, who built himself a fine house out of it, and retired to enjoy his wealth. It was recently sold for one hundred thousand guldens; and I can see that it is piling up another fortune for its present owner. The Germans, who herein show their good sense and the high state of civilization to which they have reached, are very free advertisers, going to the newspapers with all their wants, and finding in them that aid which all interests and all sorts of people, from kaiser to kerl, are compelled, in these days, to seek in the daily journal.

Every German town of any size has three or four of these little journals of flying leaves, which are excellent papers in every respect, except that they look like badly printed handbills, and have very little news and no editorials worth speaking of. An exception to these in Bavaria is the "Allgerneine Zeitung" of Augsburg, which is old and immensely respectable, and is perhaps, for extent of correspondence and splendidly written editorials on a great variety of topics, excelled by no journal in Europe except the London "Times." It gives out two editions daily, the evening one about the size of the New York "Nation;" and it has all the telegraphic news.

It is absurdly old-grannyish, and is malevolent in its pretended conservatism and impartiality. Yet it circulates over forty thousand copies, and goes all over Germany.

But were we not saying something about moving? The truth is, that the best German families did not respond to our appeal with that alacrity which we had no right to expect, and did not exhibit that anxiety for our society which would have been such a pleasant evidence of their appreciation of the honor done to the royal city of Munich by the selection of it as a residence during the most disagreeable months of the year by the advertising undersigned. Even the young king, whose approaching marriage to the Russian princess, one would think, might soften his heart, did nothing to win our regard, or to show that he appreciated our residence "near" his court, and, so far as I know, never read with any sort of attention our advertis.e.m.e.nt, which was composed with as much care as Goethe's "Faust," and probably with the use of more dictionaries. And this, when he has an extraordinary large Residenz, to say nothing about other outlying palaces and comfortable places to live in, in which I know there are scores of elegantly furnished apartments, which stand idle almost the year round, and might as well be let to appreciative strangers, who would accustom the rather washy and fierce frescoes on the walls to be stared at. I might have selected rooms, say on the court which looks on the exquisite bronze fountain, Perseus with the head of Medusa, a copy of the one in Florence by Benvenuto Cellini, where we could have a southern exposure. Or we might, so it would seem, have had rooms by the winter garden, where tropical plants rejoice in perennial summer, and blossom and bear fruit, while a northern winter rages without. Yet the king did not see it "by those lamps;" and I looked in vain on the gates of the Residenz for the notice so frequently seen on other houses, of apartments to let. And yet we had responses. The day after the announcement appeared, our bell ran perpetually; and we had as many letters as if we had advertised for wives innumerable. The German notes poured in upon us in a flood; each one of them containing an offer tempting enough to beguile an angel out of paradise, at least, according to our translation: they proffered us chambers that were positively overheated by the flaming sun (which, I can take my oath, only ventures a few feet above the horizon at this season), which were friendly in appearance, splendidly furnished and near to every desirable thing, and in which, usually, some American family had long resided, and experienced a content and happiness not to be felt out of Germany.

I spent some days in calling upon the worthy frauen who made these alluring offers. The visits were full of profit to the student of human nature, but profitless otherwise. I was ushered into low, dark chambers, small and dreary, looking towards the sunless north, which I was a.s.sured were delightful and even elegant. I was taken up to the top of tall houses, through a smell of cabbage that was appalling, to find empty and dreary rooms, from which I fled in fright. We were visited by so many people who had chambers to rent, that we were impressed with the idea that all Munich was to let; and yet, when we visited the places offered, we found they were only to be let alone. One of the frauen who did us the honor to call, also wrote a note, and inclosed a letter that she had just received from an American gentleman (I make no secret of it that he came from Hartford), in which were many kindly expressions for her welfare, and thanks for the aid he had received in his study of German; and yet I think her chambers are the most uninviting in the entire city. There were people who were willing to teach us German, without rooms or board; or to lodge us without giving us German or food; or to feed us, and let us starve intellectually, and lodge where we could.

But all things have an end, and so did our hunt for lodgings. I chanced one day in my walk to find, with no help from the advertis.e.m.e.nt, very nearly what we desired,--cheerful rooms in a pleasant neighborhood, where the sun comes when it comes out at all, and opposite the Gla.s.s Palace, through which the sun streams in the afternoon with a certain splendor, and almost next door to the residence and laboratory of the famous chemist, Professor Liebig; so that we can have our feelings a.n.a.lyzed whenever it is desirable.

When we had set up our household G.o.ds, and a fire was kindled in the tall white porcelain family monument, which is called here a stove, --and which, by the way, is much more agreeable than your hideous black and air-scorching cast-iron stoves,--and seen that the feather-beds under which we were expected to lie were thick enough to roast the half of the body, and short enough to let the other half freeze, we determined to try for a season the regular German cookery, our table heretofore having been served with food cooked in the English style with only a slight German flavor. A week of the experiment was quite enough. I do not mean to say that the viands served us were not good, only that we could not make up our minds to eat them. The Germans eat a great deal of meat; and we were obliged to take meat when we preferred vegetables. Now, when a deep dish is set before you wherein are chunks of pork reposing on stewed potatoes, and another wherein a fathomless depth of sauerkraut supports coils of boiled sausage, which, considering that you are a mortal and responsible being, and have a stomach, will you choose? Herein Munich, nearly all the bread is filled with anise or caraway seed; it is possible to get, however, the best wheat bread we have eaten in Europe, and we usually have it; but one must maintain a constant vigilance against the inroads of the fragrant seeds. Imagine, then, our despair, when one day the potato, the one vegetable we had always eaten with perfect confidence, appeared stewed with caraway seeds.

This was too much for American human nature, const.i.tuted as it is.

Yet the dish that finally sent us back to our ordinary and excellent way of living is one for which I have no name. It may have been compounded at different times, have been the result of many tastes or distastes: but there was, after all, a unity in it that marked it as the composition of one master artist; there was an unspeakable harmony in all its flavors and apparently ununitable substances. It looked like a terrapin soup, but it was not. Every dive of the spoon into its dark liquid brought up a different object,--a junk of unmistakable pork, meat of the color of roast hare, what seemed to be the neck of a goose, something in strings that resembled the rags of a silk dress, shreds of cabbage, and what I am quite willing to take my oath was a bit of Astrachan fur. If Professor Liebig wishes to add to his reputation, he could do so by a.n.a.lyzing this dish, and publis.h.i.+ng the result to the world.

And, while we are speaking of eating, it may be inferred that the Germans are good eaters; and although they do not begin early, seldom taking much more than a cup of coffee before noon, they make it up by very substantial dinners and suppers. To say nothing of the extraordinary dishes of meats which the restaurants serve at night, the black bread and odorous cheese and beer which the men take on board in the course of an evening would soon wear out a cast-iron stomach in America; and yet I ought to remember the deadly pie and the corroding whisky of my native land. The restaurant life of the people is, of course, different from their home life, and perhaps an evening entertainment here is no more formidable than one in America, but it is different. Let me give you the outlines of a supper to which we were invited the other night: it certainly cannot hurt you to read about it. We sat down at eight. There were first courses of three sorts of cold meat, accompanied with two sorts of salad; the one, a composite, with a potato basis, of all imaginable things that are eaten. Beer and bread were unlimited. There was then roast hare, with some supporting dish, followed by jellies of various sorts, and ornamented plates of something that seemed unable to decide whether it would be jelly or cream; and then came a.s.sorted cake and the white wine of the Rhine and the red of Hungary. We were then surprised with a dish of fried eels, with a sauce. Then came cheese; and, to crown all, enormous, triumphal-looking loaves of cake, works of art in appearance, and delicious to the taste. We sat at the table till twelve o'clock; but you must not imagine that everybody sat still all the time, or that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the princ.i.p.al object of the entertainment was eating. The songs that were sung in Hungarian as well as German, the poems that were recited, the burlesques of actors and acting, the imitations that were inimitable, the take-off of table-tipping and of prominent musicians, the wit and constant flow of fun, as constant as the good-humor and free hospitality, the unconstrained ease of the whole evening, these things made the real supper which one remembers when the grosser meal has vanished, as all substantial things do vanish.

CHRISTMAS TIME-MUSIC

For a month Munich has been preparing for Christmas. The shop windows have had a holiday look all December. I see one every day in which are displayed all the varieties of fruits, vegetables, and confectionery possible to be desired for a feast, done in wax,--a most dismal exhibition, and calculated to make the adjoining window, which has a little fountain and some green plants waving amidst enormous pendent sausages and pigs' heads and various disagreeable hashes of pressed meat, positively enticing. And yet there are some vegetables here that I should prefer to have in wax,--for instance, sauerkraut. The toy windows are worthy of study, and next to them the bakers'. A favorite toy of the season is a little crib, with the Holy Child, in sugar or wax, lying in it in the most uncomfortable att.i.tude. Babies here are strapped upon pillows, or between pillows, and so tied up and wound up that they cannot move a muscle, except, perhaps, the tongue; and so, exactly like little mummies, they are carried about the street by the nurses,--poor little things, packed away so, even in the heat of summer, their little faces looking out of the down in a most pitiful fas.h.i.+on. The popular toy is a representation, in sugar or wax, of this period of life. Generally the toy represents twins, so swathed and bound; and, not infrequently, the bold conception of the artist carries the point of the humor so far as to introduce triplets, thus sporting with the most dreadful possibilities of life.

The German bakers are very ingenious; and if they could be convinced of this great error, that because things are good separately, they must be good in combination, the produce of their ovens would be much more eatable. As it is, they make delicious cake, and of endless variety; but they also offer us conglomerate formations that may have a scientific value, but are utterly useless to a stomach not trained in Germany. Of this sort, for the most part, is the famous Lebkuchen, a sort of gingerbread manufactured in Nurnberg, and sent all over Germany: "age does not [seem to] impair, nor custom stale its infinite variety." It is very different from our simple cake of that name, although it is usually baked in flat cards. It may contain nuts or fruit, and is spoiled by a flavor of conflicting spices. I should think it might be sold by the cord, it is piled up in such quant.i.ties; and as it grows old and is much handled, it acquires that brown, not to say dirty, familiar look, which may, for aught I know, be one of its chief recommendations. The cake, however, which prevails at this season of the year comes from the Tyrol; and as the holidays approach, it is literally piled up on the fruit-stands. It is called Klatzenbrod, and is not a bread at all, but and amalgamation of fruits and spices. It is made up into small round or oblong forms; and the top is ornamented in various patterns, with split almond meats. The color is a faded black, as if it had been left for some time in a country store; and the weight is just about that of pig-iron. I had formed a strong desire, mingled with dread, to taste it, which I was not likely to gratify,--one gets so tired of such experiments after a time--when a friend sent us a ball of it. There was no occasion to call in Professor Liebig to a.n.a.lyze the substance: it is a plain case. The black ma.s.s contains, cut up and pressed together, figs, citron, oranges, raisins, dates, various kinds of nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and I know not what other spices, together with the inevitable anise and caraway seeds. It would make an excellent cannon-ball, and would be specially fatal if it hit an enemy in the stomach. These seeds invade all dishes. The cooks seem possessed of one of the rules of whist,--in case of doubt, play a trump: in case of doubt, they always put in anise seed. It is sprinkled profusely in the blackest rye bread, it gets into all the vegetables, and even into the holiday cakes.

The extensive Maximilian Platz has suddenly grown up into booths and shanties, and looks very much like a temporary Western village.

There are shops for the sale of Christmas articles, toys, cakes, and gimcracks; and there are, besides, places of amus.e.m.e.nt, if one of the sorry menageries of sick beasts with their hair half worn off can be so cla.s.sed. One portion of the platz is now a lively and picturesque forest of evergreens, an extensive thicket of large and small trees, many of them trimmed with colored and gilt strips of paper. I meet in every street persons lugging home their little trees; for it must be a very poor household that cannot have its Christmas tree, on which are hung the scanty store of candy, nuts, and fruit, and the simple toys that the needy people will pinch themselves otherwise to obtain.

At this season, usually, the churches get up some representations for the children, the stable at Bethlehem, with the figures of the Virgin and Child, the wise men, and the oxen standing by. At least, the churches must be put in spick-and-span order. I confess that I like to stray into these edifices, some of them gaudy enough when they are, so to speak, off duty, when the choir is deserted, and there is only here and there a solitary wors.h.i.+per at his prayers; unless, indeed, as it sometimes happens, when I fancy myself quite alone, I come by chance upon a hundred people, in some remote corner before a side chapel, where ma.s.s is going on, but so quietly that the sense of solitude in the church is not disturbed. Sometimes, when the place is left entirely to myself, and the servants who are putting it to rights and, as it were, s.h.i.+fting the scenes, I get a glimpse of the reality of all the pomp and parade of the services. At first I may be a little shocked with the familiar manner in which the images and statues and the gilded paraphernalia are treated, very different from the stately ceremony of the morning, when the priests are at the altar, the choir is in the organ-loft, and the people crowd nave and aisles. Then everything is sanctified and inviolate. Now, as I loiter here, the old woman sweeps and dusts about as if she were in an ordinary crockery store: the sacred things are handled without gloves. And, lo! an unclerical servant, in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, climbs up to the altar, and, taking down the silver-gilded cherubs, holds them, head down, by one fat foot, while he wipes them off with a damp cloth. To think of submitting a holy cherub to the indignity of a damp cloth!

One could never say too much about the music here. I do not mean that of the regimental bands, or the orchestras in every hall and beer-garden, or that in the churches on Sundays, both orchestral and vocal. Nearly every day, at half-past eleven, there is a parade by the Residenz, and another on the Marian Platz; and at each the bands play for half an hour. In the Loggie by the palace the music-stands can always be set out, and they are used in the platz when it does not storm; and the bands play choice overtures and selections from the operas in fine style. The bands are always preceded and followed by a great crowd as they march through the streets, people who seem to live only for this half hour in the day, and whom no mud or snow can deter from keeping up with the music. It is a little gleam of comfort in the day for the most wearied portion of the community: I mean those who have nothing to do.

But the music of which I speak is that of the conservatoire and opera. The Hof Theater, opera, and conservatoire are all under one royal direction. The latter has been recently reorganized with a new director, in accordance with the Wagner notions somewhat. The young king is cracked about Wagner, and appears to care little for other music: he brings out his operas at great expense, and it is the fas.h.i.+on here to like Wagner whether he is understood or not. The opera of the "Meister-Singer von Nurnberg," which was brought out last summer, occupied over five hours in the representation, which is unbearable to the Germans, who go to the opera at six o'clock or half-past, and expect to be at home before ten. His latest opera, which has not yet been produced, is founded on the Niebelungen Lied, and will take three evenings in the representation, which is almost as bad as a Chinese play. The present director of the conservatoire and opera, a Prussian, Herr von Bulow, is a friend of Wagner. There are formed here in town two parties: the Wagner and the conservative, the new and the old, the modern and cla.s.sical; only the Wagnerites do not admit that their admiration of Beethoven and the older composers is less than that of the others, and so for this reason Bulow has given us more music of Beethoven than of any other composer. One thing is certain, that the royal orchestra is trained to a high state of perfection: its rendition of the grand operas and its weekly concerts in the Odeon cannot easily be surpa.s.sed. The singers are not equal to the orchestra, for Berlin and Vienna offer greater inducements; but there are people here who regard this orchestra as superlative. They say that the best orchestras in the world are in Germany; that the best in Germany is in Munich; and, therefore, you can see the inevitable deduction. We have another parallel syllogism. The greatest pianist in the world is Liszt; but then Herr Bulow is actually a better performer than Liszt; therefore you see again to what you must come. At any rate, we are quite satisfied in this provincial capital; and, if there is anywhere better music, we don't know it. Bulow's orchestra is not very large,--there are less than eighty pieces, but it is so handled and drilled, that when we hear it give one of the symphonies of Beethoven or Mendelssohn, there is little left to be desired. Bulow is a wonderful conductor, a little man, all nerve and fire, and he seems to inspire every instrument. It is worth something to see him lead an orchestra: his baton is magical; head, arms, and the whole body are in motion; he knows every note of the compositions; and the precision with which he evokes a solitary note out of a distant instrument with a jerk of his rod, or brings a wail from the concurring violins, like the moaning of a pine forest in winter, with a sweep of his arm, is most masterly. About the platform of the Odeon are the marble busts of the great composers; and while the orchestra is giving some of Beethoven's masterpieces, I like to fix my eyes on his serious and genius-full face, which seems cognizant of all that is pa.s.sing, and believe that he has a posthumous satisfaction in the interpretation of his great thoughts.

The managers of the conservatoire also give vocal concerts, and there are, besides, quartette soiries; so that there are few evenings without some attraction. The opera alternates with the theater two or three times a week. The singers are, perhaps, not known in Paris and London, but some of them are not unworthy to be. There is the baritone, Herr Kindermann, who now, at the age of sixty-five, has a superb voice and manner, and has had few superiors in his time on the German stage. There is Frau Dietz, at forty-five, the best of actresses, and with a still fresh and lovely voice. There is Herr Nachbar, a tenor, who has a future; Fraulein Stehle, a soprano, young and with an uncommon voice, who enjoys a large salary, and was the favorite until another soprano, the Malinger, came and turned the heads of king and opera habitues. The resources of the Academy are, however, tolerably large; and the practice of pensioning for life the singers enables them to keep always a tolerable company. This habit of pensioning officials, as well as musicians and poets, is very agreeable to the Germans. A gentleman the other day, who expressed great surprise at the smallness of the salary of our President, said, that, of course, Andrew Johnson would receive a pension when he retired from office. I could not explain to him how comical the idea was to me; but when I think of the American people pensioning Andrew Johnson,--well, like the fict.i.tious Yankee in "Mugby Junction,"

"I laff, I du."

There is some fas.h.i.+on, in a fudgy, quaint way, here in Munich; but it is not exhibited in dress for the opera. People go--and it is presumed the music is the attraction in ordinary apparel. They save all their dress parade for the concerts; and the hall of the Odeon is as brilliant as provincial taste can make it in toilet. The ladies also go to operas and concerts unattended by gentlemen, and are brought, and fetched away, by their servants. There is a freedom and simplicity about this which I quite like; and, besides, it leaves their husbands and brothers at liberty to spend a congenial evening in the cafes, beer-gardens, and clubs. But there is always a heavy fringe of young officers and gallants both at opera and concert, standing in the outside pa.s.sages. It is cheaper to stand, and one can hear quite as well, and see more.

LOOKING FOR WARM WEATHER

FROM MUNICH TO NAPLES

At all events, saith the best authority, "pray that your flight be not in winter;" and it might have added, don't go south if you desire warm weather. In January, 1869, I had a little experience of hunting after genial skies; and I will give you the benefit of it in some free running notes on my journey from Munich to Naples.

It was the middle of January, at eleven o'clock at night, that we left Munich, on a mixed railway train, choosing that time, and the slowest of slow trains, that we might make the famous Brenner Pa.s.s by daylight. It was no easy matter, at last, to pull up from the dear old city in which we had become so firmly planted, and to leave the German friends who made the place like home to us. One gets to love Germany and the Germans as he does no other country and people in Europe. There has been something so simple, honest, genuine, in our Munich life, that we look back to it with longing eyes from this land of fancy, of hand-organ music, and squalid splendor. I presume the streets are yet half the day hid in a mountain fog; but I know the superb military bands are still playing at noon in the old Marian Platz and in the Loggie by the Residenz; that at half-past six in the evening our friends are quietly stepping in to hear the opera at the Hof Theater, where everybody goes to hear the music, and n.o.body for display, and that they will be at home before half-past nine, and have dispatched the servant for the mugs of foaming beer; I know that they still hear every week the choice conservatoire orchestral concerts in the Odeon; and, alas that experience should force me to think of it! I have no doubt that they sip, every morning, coffee which is as much superior to that of Paris as that of Paris is to that of London; and that they eat the delicious rolls, in comparison with which those of Paris are tasteless. I wonder, in this land of wine,--and yet it must be so,--if the beer-gardens are still filled nightly; and if it could be that I should sit at a little table there, a comely la.s.s would, before I could ask for what everybody is presumed to want, place before me a tall gla.s.s full of amber liquid, crowned with creamy foam. Are the handsome officers still sipping their coffee in the Cafe Maximilian; and, on sunny days, is the crowd of fas.h.i.+on still streaming down to the Isar, and the high, sightly walks and gardens beyond?

As I said, it was eleven o'clock of a clear and not very severe night; for Munich had had no snow on the ground since November. A deputation of our friends were at the station to see us off, and the farewells between the gentlemen were in the hearty fas.h.i.+on of the country. I know there is a prejudice with us against kissing between men; but it is only a question of taste: and the experience of anybody will tell him that the theory that this sort of salutation must necessarily be desirable between opposite s.e.xes is a delusion.

But I suppose it cannot be denied that kissing between men was invented in Germany before they wore full beards. Well, our goodbyes said, we climbed into our bare cars. There is no way of heating the German cars, except by tubes filled with hot water, which are placed under the feet, and are called foot-warmers. As we slowly moved out over the plain, we found it was cold; in an hour the foot-warmers, not hot to start with, were stone cold. You are going to sunny Italy, our friends had said: as soon as you pa.s.s the Brenner you will have suns.h.i.+ne and delightful weather. This thought consoled us, but did not warm our feet. The Germans, when they travel by rail, wrap themselves in furs and carry foot-sacks.

We creaked along, with many stoppings. At two o'clock we were at Rosenheim. Rosenheim is a windy place, with clear starlight, with a mult.i.tude of cars on a multiplicity of tracks, and a large, lighted refreshment-room, which has a glowing, jolly stove. We stay there an hour, toasting by the fire and drinking excellent coffee. Groups of Germans are seated at tables playing cards, smoking, and taking coffee. Other trains arrive; and huge men stalk in, from Vienna or Russia, you would say, enveloped in enormous fur overcoats, reaching to the heels, and with big fur boots coming above the knees, in which they move like elephants. Another start, and a cold ride with cooling foot-warmers, droning on to Kurfstein. It is five o'clock when we reach Kurfstein, which is also a restaurant, with a hot stove, and more Germans going on as if it were daytime; but by this time in the morning the coffee had got to be wretched.

After an hour's waiting, we dream on again, and, before we know it, come out of our cold doze into the cold dawn. Through the thick frost on the windows we see the faint outlines of mountains.

Sc.r.a.ping away the incrustation, we find that we are in the Tyrol, high hills on all sides, no snow in the valley, a bright morning, and the snow-peaks are soon rosy in the sunrise. It is just as we expected,--little villages under the hills, and slender church spires with brick-red tops. At nine o'clock we are in Innsbruck, at the foot of the Brenner. No snow yet. It must be charming here in the summer.

During the night we have got out of Bavaria. The waiter at the restaurant wants us to pay him ninety kreuzers for our coffee, which is only six kreuzers a cup in Munich. Remembering that it takes one hundred kreuzers to make a gulden in Austria, I launch out a Bavarian gulden, and expect ten kreuzers in change. I have heard that sixty Bavarian kreuzers are equal to one hundred Austrian; but this waiter explains to me that my gulden is only good for ninety kreuzers. I, in my turn, explain to the waiter that it is better than the coffee; but we come to no understanding, and I give up, before I begin, trying to understand the Austrian currency. During the day I get my pockets full of coppers, which are very convenient to take in change, but appear to have a very slight purchasing, power in Austria even, and none at all elsewhere, and the only use for which I have found is to give to Italian beggars. One of these pieces satisfies a beggar when it drops into his hat; and then it detains him long enough in the examination of it, so that your carriage has time to get so far away that his renewed pursuit is usually unavailing.

The Brenner Pa.s.s repaid us for the pains we had taken to see it, especially as the sun shone and took the frost from our windows, and we encountered no snow on the track; and, indeed, the fall was not deep, except on the high peaks about us. Even if the engineering of the road were not so interesting, it was something to be again amidst mountains that can boast a height of ten thousand feet. After we pa.s.sed the summit, and began the zigzag descent, we were on a sharp lookout for sunny Italy. I expected to lay aside my heavy overcoat, and sun myself at the first station among the vineyards. Instead of that, we bade good-by to bright sky, and plunged into a snowstorm, and, so greeted, drove down into the narrow gorges, whose steep slopes we could see were terraced to the top, and planted with vines.

We could distinguish enough to know that, with the old Roman ruins, the churches and convent towers perched on the crags, and all, the scenery in summer must be finer than that of the Rhine, especially as the vineyards here are picturesque,--the vines being trained so as to hide and clothe the ground with verdure.

It was four o'clock when we reached Trent, and colder than on top of the Brenner. As the Council, owing to the dead state of its members for now three centuries, was not in session, we made no long tarry.

We went into the magnificent large refreshment-room to get warm; but it was as cold as a New England barn. I asked the proprietor if we could not get at a fire; but he insisted that the room was warm, that it was heated with a furnace, and that he burned good stove-coal, and pointed to a register high up in the wall. Seeing that I looked incredulous, he insisted that I should test it. Accordingly, I climbed upon a table, and reached up my hand. A faint warmth came out; and I gave it up, and congratulated the landlord on his furnace.

But the register had no effect on the great hall. You might as well try to heat the dome of St. Peter's with a lucifer-match. At dark, Allah be praised! we reached Ala, where we went through the humbug of an Italian custom-house, and had our first glimpse of Italy in the picturesque-looking idlers in red-ta.s.seled caps, and the jabber of a strange tongue. The snow turned into a cold rain: the foot-warmers, we having reached the sunny lands, could no longer be afforded; and we s.h.i.+vered along till nine o'clock, dark and rainy, brought us to Verona. We emerged from the station to find a crowd of omnibuses, carriages, drivers, runners, and people anxious to help us, all vociferating in the highest key. Amidst the usual Italian clamor about nothing, we gained our hotel omnibus, and sat there for ten minutes watching the dispute over our luggage, and serenely listening to the angry vituperations of policemen and drivers. It sounded like a revolution, but it was only the ordinary Italian way of doing things; and we were at last rattling away over the broad pavements.

Of course, we stopped at a palace turned hotel, drove into a court with double flights of high stone and marble stairways, and were hurried up to the marble-mosaic landing by an active boy, and, almost before we could ask for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,--flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, each with a piece of baggage. Other candles were lighted. Everybody talked in chorus.

The landlady--a woman of elegant manners and great command of her native tongue--appeared with a candle, and joined in the melodious confusion. What is the price of these rooms? More jabber, more servants bearing lights. We seemed suddenly to have come into an illumination and a private lunatic asylum. The landlady and her troop grew more and more voluble and excited. Ah, then, if these rooms do not suit the signor and signoras, there are others; and we were whisked off to apartments yet grander, great suites with high, canopied beds, mirrors, and furniture that was luxurious a hundred years ago. The price? Again a torrent of Italian; servants pouring in, lights flas.h.i.+ng, our baggage arriving, until, in the tumult, hopeless of any response to our inquiry for a servant who could speak anything but Italian, and when we had decided, in despair, to hire the entire establishment, a waiter appeared who was accomplished in all languages, the row subsided, and we were left alone in our glory, and soon in welcome sleep forgot our desperate search for a warm climate.

The next day it was rainy and not warm; but the sun came out occasionally, and we drove about to see some of the sights. The first Italian town which the stranger sees he is sure to remember, the outdoor life of the people is so different from that at the North. It is the fiction in Italy that it is always summer; and the people sit in the open market-place, s.h.i.+ver in the open doorways, crowd into corners where the sun comes, and try to keep up the beautiful pretense. The picturesque groups of idlers and traffickers were more interesting to us than the palaces with sculptured fronts and old Roman busts, or tombs of the Scaligers, and old gates.