Music-Study in Germany Part 7

Bancroft grieved over it, for he had dined there, and knew what treasures it contained. He said it was one of the most beautiful houses he had ever been in.--And then the idea of pulling down the column of the Place Vendome! Napoleon had built it from cannon which he had captured in his great battles and melted down, so that in a special manner it was a monument of their victories over other nations. There is a stupidity about them which makes them perfectly pitiable.

[In 1848 Saint Beuve wrote the following almost prophetic words: "Nothing is swifter to decline in crises like the present (the Revolution of 1848) than civilization. In three weeks the result of many centuries are lost. Civilization, life, is a thing learned and invented.

* * * * After years of tranquility men are too forgetful of this truth; they come to think that culture is innate, that it is the same thing as nature. But in truth barbarism is but a few paces off and begins again as soon as our hold is slackened."]--ED.

CHAPTER X.

A Rhine Journey. Frankfort. Mainz. Sail down the Rhine. Cologne.

Bonn. The Seven Mountains. Worms. Spire. Heidelberg. Tausig's Death.

ROLANDSECK AM RHEIN, _July 14, 1871_.

You will be surprised to get this letter, dated from a little village on the Rhine, and I shall proceed to tell you how I came here, if the vilest of vile paper and pens will permit. I wrote a letter to L. just before I left Berlin, in which I informed her that I meant to go on a little trip with a party of friends, as Berlin in summer is malarious, and I felt the need of a change.

Thursday a week ago we left Berlin and rode straight through to Frankfort. It was a long journey, and lasted from six o'clock in the morning until ten at night. I got up at four in the morning in a most halcyon frame of mind. In fact, I felt as if I were going to get married, owing to my putting on everything new from top to toe! The laundress had made such ravages upon my linen that I found myself suddenly obliged to replenish throughout, and consequently I arrayed myself with great satisfaction in new stockings, new under-clothes, new flannel, new skirts, new hat, new veil and new shoes to _boot_! I put on my black silk short suit, took my bag and shawl, and sallied to the station, where I found the others waiting for me.

It was a lovely ride from Berlin to Frankfort, and having been shut up in a city for nearly two years, the country appeared perfectly charming and new to me, and every little smiling tuft of daisies had a special significance. I don't know whether you stopped at Frankfort on your travels. I fell dead in love with it, and liked it better than any part of Germany I have seen. It is such a quiet town and has such an air of elegance, and there are such lovely walks all about. Everything looks so clean, and the streets are so handsomely laid out, and then there are no _smells_, as there are in Berlin. The river flows all along the outside of the city, and the promenade along it is delightful. I went to see the house where my adorable Goethe was born, and afterward walked over the bridge over which he used to go to school. There was a gilded c.o.c.k perched upon it, which he used to be very fond of as a child. We saw his statue, and then visited the Museum where was Danecker's great masterpiece, Ariadne sitting on the Panther. It is the most exquisite thing, and it is cut out of one solid block of Carrara marble. Through a pink curtain a rosy light is thrown on it from above, which gives the marble a delicious tinge. Strange that he should have risen to such a poetic conception, and never done anything afterwards of importance.

We went into a great room where life-size pictures of all the Emperors of Germany were. Some of them are very handsome men, and the Latin mottoes underneath are very funny. One of them was: "If you don't know how to hold your tongue, you'll never know the right place to speak." I hope P. will keep L. well at her Latin and her history, and teach her something about architecture and mythology, for these one needs to know when one travels abroad. We only stayed one day in Frankfort, for there isn't a great deal to be seen there. The afternoon we spent in walking about and in sitting on logs by the river-side. Oh, what a sweet place one of those beautiful villas by the swiftly flowing river would be to live in!

We left Frankfort at seven P. M., and rode to Mainz, which is only a ride of two hours, I believe. As we came over the railroad bridge into the town, we got our first glimpse of the Rhine, and it was a splendid sight. Our hotel was very near the river, and as our rooms were front rooms, and three stories up, we had a magnificent view of it. In the evening it was so fascinating to watch the lights on the water and the boats plying up and down, that it was long before we could make up our minds to leave the windows and go to bed. At Mainz we saw our first cathedral. It is six hundred years old, and had suffered six times by fire, but it was very fine, notwithstanding. We spent a long time studying it out. Afterwards we visited another church and ascended a tower which was built 30, B. C. It seemed almost as firm as the day it was finished. The view from it is magnificent, and the top of it is all overgrown with harebells, golden rod and gra.s.s. It was very picturesque.

On Sunday evening we took the boat for Cologne which we reached at four o'clock in the afternoon. Oh, that sail down the Rhine was too delicious! The weather was perfect, and everything seemed to me like a fairy tale. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the Rhine, and it was too lovely to see those old castles in every degree of ruin, jutting out over the steep rocks, so high in the air, and then the vineyards sloping down the hillsides to the water's edge. The whole lay of the land was so exquisite. I didn't wonder that it is so celebrated, and that so much has been written about it. A funny old Englishman came and sat beside me, and we had a long conversation, pretty much as follows:

Englishman.--"England is no doubt the finest country in the world. You know the people there are so enormous rich, they can do as they please."

"Ah, indeed," said I, "have you travelled much in Germany?" "O yes! I've been all over Germany. I come up the Rhine every year," said he. "It's all very pretty when you've never seen it before, but it's nothing to me now." "Have you been to Berlin?" asked I. "O yes," said he. "Shouldn't want to live there. Your Prussians are so confounded arrogant. They think they're the greatest people in the world." "How did you like Dresden?" said I. "Stupid hole," said he. "Leipsic?" "Dull town."

"Stuttgardt?" "Quite pretty." "Kissingen?" "'Orrible place, nothing but fanatics; every other day a Saint's day, and the shops shut up."

"Wiesbaden?" "Very fine place." "Ems?" "Never been to Hems." "Mainz?"

"Nasty hole." "Cologne?" "Stinking place." "Munich?" "Dreadful unhealthy. They have fevers there, typhus, etc. _I_ call 'em fevers."

"How do you like the Rhine wines?" "Don't like them at all. It's very seldom a man gets to drink a decent gla.s.s of wine here. I don't drink 'em at all. I like a gla.s.s of port." "Beer?" "O, the German beer isn't fit to drink. The English beer is the best in the world. German beer is 'orrible bad stuff. Nothing but slops,--slops!" Here I burst out laughing, for his flattering descriptions were too much for me. He gave me a quizzical look and said, "Well, I'm glad I made you laugh. You're from America, aren't you?" "Yes," said I. "Very unhealthy place, I'm told." "Indeed? I never heard so," said I. "O yes, _very_!" said he.

Then he went off, and after a long while he returned. "I've been asleep," said he, "I've slept two hours and a half, all through the fine scenery." "_What!_" said I, "don't you enjoy it?" "No, I don't enjoy it at all." Then he told me he lived in Rotterdam, and that I must come to Holland. He was very complaisant over the Dutch, whom he said were "nice, decent people, like the English. There's nothing of the German in them," said he, "they're quite another people--not so en-_thu_si-_as_tic,"--with a contemptuous air. We got out at Cologne, and he went on to his dear Rotterdam. So I saw him no more.

Oh! isn't the Cologne Cathedral magnificent? It quite took my breath away as I entered it. The priests were just having vespers as we went in, and there was scarcely a person in the cathedral beside. It was so solemn and so touching to see them all by themselves intoning the prayers, their voices swelling and falling in that vast place. And when the superb organ struck up, and they began to sing a hymn, so wildly sweet, with an interlude most beautifully worked up at the end of each line by the organist--as we sat there under those great arches which soar up to such an immense height, I felt as if I were in Heaven.

ANDERNACH, _July 16, 1871_.

I believe I left off in my last with our arrival at Cologne, of which I saw very little, as I was extremely tired, and remained at the hotel.

The Cathedral was, of course, the main point of interest, and that I saw thoroughly, as I went to it twice, and spent a number of hours each time. I was entirely carried away by its beauty and grandeur, as everybody must be. The descriptions I had heard and the photographs I had seen of it didn't prepare me at all. The _height_ of the great pile is one of the most astounding things, I think. The three and four story houses about it look like huts beside it. Beside the Cathedral I only saw the church where the eleven thousand virgins are buried, but that was more curious than beautiful.--I was much taken down by the shops in Cologne, which I think much finer than the Berlin ones, and saw no end of things in the windows I should like to have bought. The cravats alone quite turned my head!

We only spent two days in Cologne, and then sailed for Bonn, which is but a very short distance. Here we were in a hotel directly upon the river, and I had a sweet little room quite to myself. The view up and down the river was superb, and we could see the Seven Mountains most beautifully. Bonn is the most quiet, sleepy little town you can imagine, and just the place to study, I should think. We saw the house where Beethoven was born, a little yellow, two-story house, and then we visited the Minster, which is nine hundred years old. We saw there a tomb devoted to the memory of the first architect of the Cologne Cathedral, with his statue lying upon it. He had a severely beautiful face, and I could very well imagine him capable of such a great conception. We had great difficulty in getting a dinner at Bonn, as, being a university town, the students gobble up everything. Finally, we found a little restaurant where they got us up one, consisting of steak and potatoes. After dinner I went to walk with Mr. S. and we ate cherries all the way, and finally sat down on a bench by the river's side, where we had an enchanting view. Then we went back to the hotel, and I went directly to bed. It was delicious to lie there and hear the little waves was.h.i.+ng up outside my window. It is just the place for a honey-moon--so out of the world as it seems, and with none of the activity and bustle of other cities.

At six o'clock the next morning we took the boat, and in about half an hour we landed at a little town on the side of the river opposite to Bonn, and began our pedestrian tour through the Seven Mountains, of which we ascended and descended four. They were all very steep and difficult to climb, and it reminded me of my trip to Mount Mansfield, years ago, only _then_ we had horses. We spent the night on one of them, the Lowenberg (Lion-mountain). This was a funny experience, as all we five ladies had to sleep in one room, and in one great bed of straw made up on the floor. The fleas bit us all night, so we did not sleep _too_ much. I mentioned the little fact to the servant next day, to which she replied, "Yes, when you aren't used to fleas and bed-bugs, it _is_ hard to sleep!" I agreed with her perfectly!--Our walk was enchanting in spite of the difficulty of the ascent, and of the fact that all of us had satchels slung over our shoulders, and a shawl and umbrella to carry, which made locomotion rather difficult. We were in the sylvan shades, following delicious footpaths scented with flowers, and with the birds singing and trilling as loud as they could over our heads.

It was heavenly on the Lowenberg, for the view was glorious on every side, and it seemed as if we were on the highest peak in the universe. I sat for hours looking over the lovely country and following the meanderings of the Rhine. The atmospheric effects produced by the sunset were wonderful, and when it got to be nine o'clock we saw the lights twinkle up one by one from the distant villages below like little earth-stars--reflections of the heavenly ones above. The last mountain we ascended was the Drachenfels (Dragon-rock), and a fearful pull it was. The three others had been so easy, comparatively, that we none of us knew what we were in for. Soon found out, though! It was like trying to go up a wall, it was so steep. But when we got up we were rewarded, for the view was superb, and there was an interesting old Roman ruin up there. We wandered all about, and got an excellent dinner, and then came down late in the afternoon, took a row boat and rowed across the Rhine to Rolandseck--a fas.h.i.+onable watering place, and as charming as German towns have a way of being.

GOTHA, _July 27, 1871_.

Since I wrote you from Andernach I have been travelling steadily. The whole party except Mrs. V. N. and myself made a pedestrian tour along the Rhine from Rolandseck to Bingen, a distance of sixty miles. I started to walk, but when I had gone fifteen miles I gave out, and was glad to take the boat. Mrs. V. N. was an invalid and couldn't walk, so I took charge of her, and we would travel on together. When we got to the station where we had agreed to wait for the others, I would seat her somewhere with the bags of the party piled up around her, and then I would make a sortie, look at the hotels, and engage our rooms.

We saw the Rhine from Cologne to Worms very thoroughly--for we kept stopping all along. It is truly magnificent, and nothing can be more interesting and picturesque than those old ruined castles which look as if they had grown there. Bingen is the sweetest place, and just the spot to spend a summer. We travelled from there to Worms, which is a delightful old city. We were there only an hour or two, but the walk from the boat to the cars was through the prettiest part of it, I should judge, and was very romantic, through winding walks overshadowed with trees. We saw that great Luther monument there, which is most imposing.

The exterior of the Cathedral is splendid, and in quite another style of architecture from the Cologne Cathedral. From Worms we went to Spire, in order to see the Cathedral there, which is superb, and very celebrated. It was founded in 1030 by Conrad the Second, as a burial place for himself and his successors. It has no stained windows at all, even in the chancel, which surprised me, but the frescoes and the whole interior colouring are gorgeous in the extreme. It is in the Romanesque style of architecture, and is so entirely different from the Cologne Cathedral that it was very interesting, but there's nothing equal to the Gothic, after all.

From Spire we went to Heidelberg. I was enchanted with Heidelberg. It is the most romantic and beautiful place I was ever in. The Castle is the prince of ruins. I had made up my mind all along that I was going to enjoy myself at Heidelberg, for my friend Dr. S. was studying there, and I knew I should have him to go about with. So I had been urging the party to go there from the first. As soon as we arrived, off I went to find him, which I soon accomplished. He was very glad to see me, and put himself at once at my disposal. You know the S.'s used to live at Heidelberg, among other places, so he knows it all by heart. After dinner we all went up to the Castle, of course. I was very sorry that I had never read Hyperion. We had to ascend a long hill before we got to it, but the weather was perfect, so we didn't mind. It is so high up that the view of the town and of the Neckar winding through it, with the wooded hills on the opposite sh.o.r.e, is panoramic.

The Castle itself is an enormous ruin, and very richly ornamented. Ivy two hundred years old climbs over it in great luxuriance. We pa.s.sed through a gateway over which stand two stone knights which are said to change places with each other at midnight, and there are all sorts of charming stories like that connected with the place. We saw a beautifully carved stone archway which was put up in a single night, in honour of somebody's birthday, and a monument with an inscription over it stood in one corner of the grounds, stating that here had stood some distinguished personage (I always forget all the names, unluckily, but "the _principle_ remains the same"), when the Castle was being besieged by the French. Two b.a.l.l.s came from opposite directions, pa.s.sed close by him, and struck against each other, miraculously leaving him unharmed!

After we had walked around the outside of the Castle sufficiently we went inside. It took us a long time to go over it, it was so large. We saw the stone dungeon, which was called the "Never Empty," because somebody was always confined there--a dreadful hole, and it must have been in perfect darkness--and we saw the great Heidelberg cask which had a scaffolding on the top of it big enough to dance a quadrille on. But the finest of everything was the ascending of the tower. Just as we got to the top of it, and had begun to take in the magnificent scenery, an orchestra at a little distance below struck up Wagner's "Kaiser March."

It was the one touch which was needed to make the _ensemble_ perfect. On one side the landscape lay far below us, with the silver river winding through it; on the other the hills rose behind the Castle to an immense height, and with the greatest boldness of outline. The tops were thickly wooded, and lower down the trees were beautifully grouped, and the velvety turf rolled and swelled to the foot of the Castle. The sun was just setting in a clear sky, and cast long shadows athwart the scene, and I thought I had never seen anything more striking. Then to hear Wagner's Kaiser March by a well-trained orchestra come soaring up, made a combination such as one gets perhaps not more than once in a life-time.

The march is superb, so pompous and majestic, and with delicious melodies occasionally interwoven through it. Wagner's melodies are so heavily and intoxicatingly sweet, that they are almost narcotic. His music excites a set of emotions that no other music does, and he is a great original. It has the power of expressing longing and aspiration to a wonderful degree, and it always seems to me as if two impulses were continually trying to get the mastery. The one is the embodiment of all those vague yearnings of the soul to burst its prison house, and the other is the cradling of the body in the lap of pleasure. I always feel as if I should like to swoon away when I hear his compositions. Then his harmonies are so strangely seductive, so complicated, so "grossartig,"

as the Germans say, and so peculiar! Oh, I have an immense admiration for him! He thinks that music is not the impersonation of an idea, but that it _is_ the idea.

But to return to the Castle.--We stayed up in the tower for some time, and then we made the tour of the interior. Afterwards we walked and sat about until all the party thought it was time to go back to the hotel Dr. S. and I thought we would stay up there to supper. So we went where the orchestra was playing, which was in an enclosed s.p.a.ce near the Castle. We took our seats at a little table in the open air, and ordered a delicious little supper, also

"A bottle of wine To make us s.h.i.+ne"

in _conversation!_--and so glided by the most ideal evening, as far as surroundings go, that I ever spent.

In our hotel at Heidelberg I kept hearing a man play splendidly in the room below us, and every time we pa.s.sed his door it was open, and we could partly see the interior of a charming room with a grand piano in it, at which he was seated. A pretty woman was always lying back in the corner of the sofa listening to him, apparently. The presence of a large wax doll indicated that there must be a child about, and the perfume of flowers stole through the open doorway. My interest was at once excited in these people, and I said to myself as I heard this gentleman practice every day, "This must be some artist pa.s.sing the summer here and getting up his winter programme." Accordingly, on Sunday afternoon when he was playing beautifully, I roused myself up and enquired of a servant who he was. "Nicolai Rubinstein, from St. Petersburg," replied she. He is the brother of the great Anton Rubinstein, and is nearly as fine a pianist.

I know a scholar of Tausig's who had studied with him, and Tausig had a high opinion of him.

Oh, isn't it _dreadful_? When we were at Bingen we saw the news of Tausig's DEATH in the paper! He died at Leipsic, on the 17th of July, of typhus fever, brought on by over-taxing his musical memory. It was a dreadful blow to me, as you may imagine, and when I think of his wonderful playing silenced forever, and comparatively in the beginning of his career, I cannot get reconciled to it. If you could have heard those matchlessly trained fingers of his, you would be able to sympathize with me on the subject. I had counted so on hearing him next winter, for he gave no concerts in Berlin last winter. He was only thirty-one years old!

CHAPTER XI.

Eisenach. Gotha. Erfurt. Andernach. Weimar. Tausig.

BERLIN, _August 15, 1871_.

Well, here I am back in smelly old Berlin! I really hated to leave Heidelberg, it was such a paradisiacal spot, but we saw so much that was beautiful afterwards, that my impression of it has become a little dimmed. From Heidelberg we went to Eisenach, its rival in a different way, for here we went over the Wartburg--the Castle famous for having been the dwelling of the holy St. Elizabeth, and where Luther translated the Bible and spent ten months of his life disguised as a knight. I saw his room, a bare and comfortless hole, but with a splendid view from the windows. The Castle is in good repair, and is a n.o.ble pile. I suppose the Duke of Weimar spends some time there every summer, as it looks as if it were lived in. It is endlessly interesting. There is a lovely little chapel in it where Luther used to preach, with everything left in just as it was in his time--a little gem. The Wartburg is on a very high hill, and the views from it are superb. Among other things to be seen from it is the Venusberg, which is the mountain Wagner has introduced in his famous opera of Tannhauser. He was so carried away by the Wartburg when he concealed himself near it, as he was being pursued by the government to be arrested as a revolutionary, twenty years ago, that he never rested until he had united the legends of St. Elizabeth and of the Venusberg in his opera. Liszt, also, wrote an oratorio on St. Elizabeth as _his_ tribute to the Wartburg.

From Eisenach we went to Gotha, a lovely place, all shaded with trees, and surmounted by a very imposing castle, with two immense towers. It is an enormous edifice, and is surrounded by a magnificent park, through which goes the slowly winding river. I believe that Gotha belongs to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, brother of the Queen of England, or something. At all events, in the middle of this river is an island where the ducal family is buried, and it is so thickly planted with trees whose boughs hang over the water, that their graves are quite shrouded from the vulgar eye. Pretty idea! The river laps lazily against the gra.s.sy slope which covers the princely ones, and the wind rus.h.i.+ng through the trees, sings their dirge.

From Gotha we went to Erfurt, where we only spent one night, in order to see the Cathedral. Erfurt is an Undine of a place, full of running streams and bridges and mills roaring all about you. I saw one street with a brook rippling down the very middle of it at a most rattling pace, and at every little distance two or three stepping stones by which to cross it. Just think how fascinating for children! I longed to stay and have a good play there myself. The Erfurt Cathedral is much smaller than those of Spire and Cologne, but the exterior is wonderfully beautiful. The transept is a masterpiece, and has fifteen enormous windows of rich old stained gla.s.s going round it. The nave did not please me so well, because in addition to its not being very rich, the side aisles were of equal height with the main body of the Cathedral, and were not sufficiently marked off from it to prevent the roof's looking like a ceiling. I believe the side aisles were of equal height with the main aisle in the Cologne Cathedral, but the archways and pillars cut them off more, so that it had a different effect.--I am more interested in cathedrals than anything else, and should like to travel all over Europe and see all the different ones. There is a lovely old church at Andernach, Roman Catholic, as most of the churches on the Rhine are. I went there to church one Sunday morning, and stayed through the service. They had the most powerful church music I've ever heard.

There was an excellent boy choir which sang in unison and led the congregation, _every person_ of which joined in. The organ was fine, as was also the organist, and the singing was so universal that the old church walls rang again. The priest preached an excellent sermon, too--the best I have heard in Germany.